When asked why I wrote Esteban's biography, I reply that all my books are about average people who face such daunting obstacles that they seemed destined to fail. They are the underdogs that end up winning.
     As a slave to Spaniards, Esteban could not have been expected to survive, much less come to the attention of a king, in the harrowing circumstances he endured.

 The biggest problem with the Wikipedia page about Esteban is that it's posted by the name of Estevanico. That was only his slave nickname, which many writers insist on still using.
     Calling him Estevanico, which translates into English as "Little Stephen" or even as "Stevie," was how early Spanish slave owners demeaned and marginalized him as a slave. It was a dismissive reference, much like the fact that early Spanish chronicles often didn't refer to him by any name, but just called him "El Negro."

I did not post the Wikipedia page listed for "Estevanico." It was posted by someone else who keeps rejecting and writing over any attempts to correct the page.
     Although generally accurate, the page states that the 80 survivors of the trip across the Gulf of Mexico started "overland" after their home-made boats washed ashore in November 1528 on the Texas coast south of Galveston.

The first biography of a forgotten historical figure, Esteban, much maligned when he is mentioned at all in histories of early America, will be published October 15 by University of New Mexico Press.
     When Pueblo Indians say, "The first white man our people saw was a black man," they are referring to Esteban and his arrival in 1539.