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Title details for Crossing the Continent 1527-1540 by Robert Goodwin - Available

Crossing the Continent 1527-1540

The Story of the First African American Explorer of the American South

by Robert Goodwin
Simon Prebble
Audiobook
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Nearly two centuries before Meriwether Lewis and William Clark began their epic trek to the Pacific coast, a group of three Spanish noblemen and an African survived shipwreck, famine, Indian attack, and disease to make the first crossing of North America in recorded history. Drawing on contemporary accounts and long-lost records, Robert Goodwin tells the amazing story of their odyssey through the American South. Goodwin's groundbreaking research in original Spanish archives has led him to a radical new interpretation of American history—one in which an African slave named Esteban emerges as the nation's first great explorer and adventurer.


Esteban (1500—1539) is the first man born in Africa to die in North America about whom anything is known. The first African American with a name, he was also the first great pioneer from the Old World to explore the entirety of the American South with his three companions. In a feat of historical research, Goodwin takes us on an incredible adventure from Africa to Europe to America, filled with physical endurance, natural calamities, cannibalism, witchcraft, miraculous shamanism, and divine intervention—challenging the traditional history of the nation's discovery and placing Esteban at the heart of our historical record.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    October 28, 2008

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9781400129720
      • File size: 344154 KB
      • Duration: 11:56:59

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      The author admits that much of his story about the Spaniards crossing North America in the sixteenth century comes from apocryphal accounts. His writing includes many worthwhile lessons on how he located old sources and attempted to extract the facts from them. His flowery and wordy prose adds generous color to a story of much starvation, disease, and death. Like the author, narrator Simon Prebble is British, and employs an accent and pronunciations foreign to many American ears. His pristine English and skill at narration have won him many AUDIOFILE Earphones Awards, but his inept Spanish deserves no praise. This may matter little to most listeners, but one wonders why a reader without spanish-language skills would be selected for an audiobook all about Spain and Mexico. J.A.H. (c) AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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