we now know thanks to the work of historians like john thornton and linda haywood, they are from angola. everyone starts the story there but they were not the first africans to come to what is now the united states. the first african came in 1513. he was a free black man, not a slave and his name was juan garrito and he came with pots leon,on, -- ponce de looking for the fountain of youth like a white guy. he goes with cortez all the way to baja, california, mexico, looking for the mythical black amazons and he comes back to mexico city and files a petition in 1538 to the king of spain asking for pension and he claims, this is how you know he is a brother. he claims to have invented the growing of wheat. because -- your majesty, i also invented wheat. we have his portrait. we have a picture of him. the first slave whose name we know came in 1528, his name was esther von -- estaban. peopleon a ship with 600 that was shipwrecked. he turns out to be of really linguist and becomes a translator. he wondered all the way to arizona, new mexico, and back and goes back again, 15,000 miles. this