The Moor's Account

The Moor’s Account (2014) is a fictionalized memoir of the first African explorer in the new world. Very little is known about him beyond the fact that he was one of only four survivors of the ill-fated Narváez expedition. In this historical novel, which cleverly employs flashbacks and first-person narration, author Laila Lalami imagines Mustafa telling his own story of endurance and survival.

Mustafa was born in North Africa in the early 16th century. Despite his father’s desire that Mustafa follow in his footsteps and become a notary, he insists on becoming a merchant. During his apprenticeship, he learns quickly and becomes wealthy. When presented with an opportunity to make a quick profit by reselling enslaved people, he gives in to temptation. He comes to regret both disappointing his father and participating in the slave trade.

A few years later, his father dies amid a terrible drought that leaves the indigenous people of his Portuguese-occupied city in famine. Mustafa sells himself into slavery to save his family from starvation. His first master is a Spanish merchant named Rodriguez. Rodriguez has Mustafa baptized as a Christian and renames him Esteban. Rodriguez is an unpredictable master who sometimes grants privileges but also administers cruel beatings.

Eventually, Rodriguez settles a gambling debt by selling Esteban to a Spanish gentleman named Dorantes. Dorantes renames him Estebanico. Tempted by tales of the riches discovered by Cortés in Mexico, Dorantes brings Mustafa across the ocean on an expedition to the new world led by Pánfilo de Narváez. Shortly after landing in La Florida, the armada notary makes an official proclamation claiming the land and all its riches for Spain.

After a series of misfortunes, including shipwrecks, storms, disease, starvation, and numerous attacks from the natives, only four members of the expedition survive: Mustafa, Captain Dorantes, the treasurer Cabeza de Vaca, and a young nobleman named Castillo.

At first, the starving men are taken in by the natives. The natives are willing to temporarily house and feed them, but they soon find themselves treated like slaves. The Castilians lose their sense that they have come to conquer the new world and its inhabitants. They learn the native language, wear native clothes, and adopt the local customs.

Eventually, the men are fully accepted by a tribe, and each man takes a native wife. Mustafa becomes a shaman and is revered by the natives. With a large band of native followers, they travel west from tribe to tribe as healers. The men are content with their lives among the natives until they meet a group of European explorers.

After this encounter, the survivors are brought to Mexico City, where they are commanded to recount the story of their expedition for the official record. Cabeza de Vaca, as the highest-ranking survivor, makes himself the hero of the story. Mustafa is not invited to tell his story. Once the story has been recorded, Mustafa is hopeful that he’ll be set free and able to return to North Africa with his native wife.

While in the Spanish settlement, the European men return to their old ways. Dorantes and Castillo abandon their native wives, marry rich widows, and establish large estates in the new world. Cabeza de Vaca returns to Spain a rich man and becomes famous for his account of the disastrous expedition.

Dorantes delays notarizing the papers that will declare Mustafa a free man. In the end, Mustafa takes his destiny into his own hands. He convinces Dorantes to sell him to the viceroy, sets off on a new expedition, and then instructs the native guides to send word back to his new master that he has been killed. After freeing himself, he lives the rest of his life among his wife’s people.

Mustafa dreams that someday his unborn child may fulfill his dream to return to his homeland. He wants his wife to tell their child the story of his adventures in the new world. Most importantly, he wants his child to “learn to never put his life in the hands of another man” (320).