I’m apparently really feeling shipwrecks at the minute. I just finished THE WAGER, a total shipwreck shocker where a rich guy makes bad decisions. Today, and on dry land, those people usually get promoted. Back then and when the ocean is involved, outcomes are harsher. In this mind-bending novel, THE MOOR’S ACCOUNT, based on real events, a Spanish expedition lands in Florida in 1527. The genius running it, Nantes, decides it will be a good idea to send all the ships onward to a bay (that he assumes probably exists) while he leads 300 people to find a lost city of gold that he has tortured some native Americans into telling him exists. No surprises, everybody dies, and cannibalism absolutely plays a role. Only four people are ever heard from again. They turn up eight years later, having completed an incredible tens of thousands of miles to end up all the way at Mexico City.
This story is told from the perspective of one of the four, an enslaved man called Estebianco. The other three all wrote accounts of their journey, but he is only known from one line, which lists him as one of the four survivors. The novel is a really impressive feat of imagination, taking him from Morocco through enslavement and on to this truly wild journey.
I just want to say one thing that really made me LOL, and gives one more sympathy for this Nantes. You will recall (maybe) that Cortez conquered the Aztecs and became fabulously wealthy, finding so much gold that he crashed the value of gold in Spain. Apparently Nantes was supposed to have lead that expedition, but Cortez just basically got organized and left before they could make it official. Poor guy. I just love his bad temper and his feeling that he somehow deserved a city of gold. Don’t we all.