What’s in a name?

Author digs into the life of Esteban, a 16th-century slave who explored the Southwest but about whom much is still unknown

History leaves a lot of question marks about the storied 16th-century man named Esteban, who was relevant to the history of New Mexico and the Southwest.

Rio Rancho author Dennis Herrick addresses many of the questions in his new, provocative and thought-provoking biography “Esteban — The African Slave Who Explored America.”

One question is about his name. Esteban was one. Historians have also called him Estevan or with the diminutives Estebanico, Estebanillo and Estevanico.

One name only. Where was he from? What was his birth name? More speculation.

Herrick writes that Esteban had been described as a “black Arab,” but he may have been a Berber from Morocco or maybe hailed from sub-Saharan Africa.

He is thought to have been born in 1503.

How did Esteban wind up the slave of Andrés Dorantes de Carranza in Spain some 19 years later?

“Spain at that time was a slave-owning society,” Herrick said. “But Esteban was the only slave I know of in the 16th century who was named in letters to the king by Antonio de Mendoza, the viceroy of New Spain.”

Mendoza appointed Esteban to the respected and important post of guide of an expedition in 1539 heading north from Mexico City to find the fabled Seven Cities of Cibola in what is today New Mexico and Arizona.

The last recorded mention of Esteban is his arrival with the Fray Marcos de Niza-led expedition at the Zuni village of Hawikku. Some believe Esteban may have been killed there or was forced to move on, Herrick said.

The earlier part of Esteban’s story in the New World began with his journey across the Atlantic as part of a gold-seeking expedition to the Caribbean island of Hispaniola.

He continued to Florida on the remnants of the hurricane-battered Spanish expedition, confronted Native American tribes, some friendly, some hostile. Survivors fled in homemade boats west along the Gulf Coast.

For six years, Esteban and three of the expedition’s Spanish survivors — Dorantes, Alonso del Castillo Maldonado and Alvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca — were held captive of Indian tribes in Texas.

Herrick credits Esteban for being an interpreter with Indians encountered in Florida and in Texas. The four men eventually escaped and fled to northwest Mexico where Spanish slave hunters escorted them to Mendoza in Mexico City.

The 75-year-old Herrick came to write Esteban’s biography — his first nonfiction book — after writing short stories about pueblo Indians. The stories led him to write “Winter of the Metal People,” a historical novel of the Coronado expedition from the pueblo viewpoint.

“Whenever I heard Esteban mentioned it seems his bad reputation was mentioned. Why was his reputation based on negative assumptions and why are there so many different understandings of his fate?” Herrick asked rhetorically.

“I am trying to repair his reputation. He’s been treated unfairly for 500 years. It really piqued my curiosity. What’s the other side of the story?”

Herrick has been a reporter, newspaper co-owner and journalism teacher for most of his life. He was a full-time lecturer in the University of New Mexico Journalism Department for 10 years.