Black History Month: Pioneering Explorer

Estevan Dorantes

Mr. Dorantes is the first known African man to serve as a tour guide in what is now the United States of America. Mr. Dorantes was born in the African country of Morocco, and, according to the Africana encyclopedia, he was also known as Estevanico, Esteban, Estevanico the Moor, Black Stephen, and Esteban de Dorantes. In the late 1520s, Mr. Dorantes guided a group of Spaniards across the southern and western parts of the country, well before the lands that he and the others crossed were part of the United States.
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Source:
Obregón, L. (2005). Estebanico. In Appiah, K.A. and Gates, H.L., (Eds).  Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience, 2nd. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 555.