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A Spanish explorer named Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca shipwrecked on what is believed to be Galveston Island in the year 1528. During an exploration mission, a portion of the Narváez expedition mistakenly landed on the west coast of Florida, thinking it was the East Coast of Mexico. After multiple conflicts with the natives along the Florida coast, the crew had no choice but to build rafts out of their surroundings and begin to float in the Gulf of Mexico and hope they drift towards new Spain. After weeks of drifting in the Gulf of Mexico,  Cabeza De Vaca, Mustafa Azemmouri, also known as Estavanico, and the rest of the tattered crew drifted onto Galveston Island.  Estávanico is the first African to be documented to have explored North America.  The Native people along the Gulf coast of New Spain assisted and eventually enslaved the crew. Estavanico and Cabeza de Vaca travelled North and Central America for years as medicine men until they stumbled upon a caravan of Spanish Explorers in the Sinaloa River Valley.

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