This is an I-Heart podcast.

Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production of IHeart Radio.

Hello and happy Friday. I'm Tracy B. Wilson.

And I'm Holly Fry.

We talked this week about Esteban and by extension also talked about some very unsuccessful Spanish efforts to explore and

colonize what's now Florida and the whole coast from there into Mexico did not work out for them.

I've had him on my list for a really long time with a question mark after it,

just because I was not sure if it was ever going to happen.

And then when I was looking specifically for something related to Morocco,

that is where I wound up. He's got some similarities to Morocco. That is where I wound up.

He's got some similarities to C.D. Mbarak Bombay,

who he talked about a couple or three months ago.

Not exactly the same situation, but in both cases,

like European folks, really, depending on their skill and knowledge,

to be able to survive in an environment that they were not used to.

There are some sources that describe Estevan as the first African-American,

which I get wanting to say that.

Yeah.

But that is not an idea that existed in any way in the 16th century when he was living.

Right, right.

So one of the things that's interesting to me is how this fits in with the progression of how people thought,

how specifically European people thought about race,

...