New York: Harper Collins, (2008) dj. Hardcover first edition - In 1528-1537, "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. . . Goodwin's groundbreaking research in original Spanish archives has led him to a radical new interpretation of American historyone in which an African slave named Esteban emerges as the nation's first great explorer and adventurer" leading them from Florida along the Gulf Coast to Texas and eventually to Mexico City, and from there he was sent to establish a permanent Spanish route from Mexico into what is now New Mexico and Arizona. Illustrated. Buibliography, notes, index. xviii, 414 pp. ISBN: 978-0061140440.