WATCH: Unit 4 Overview

This is gumbo. If you're not from Louisiana, there's a chance you might not know what it is, how it's made, or where it came from. And you're not  alone . It's a complicated dish with a long history   and no one can seem to agree on where it  originated. In this dish swirls a complicated   legacy—along with the meat, vegetables, and  a bunch of other stuff. So where does gumbo   come from? Well, we don't really know. We think  people started making it and calling it "gumbo" at the beginning of the 18th century. As to its  origins, the answer is probably from many places,   and... from one place. So what does that mean? Well,  gumbo contains foods and techniques from all over   the world, but it's also particular to Louisiana,  and the ways that cultures intersected there a   few centuries ago. This mixing wasn't always  peaceful. The story of gumbo is also a story   of inequality and oppression, as ingredients  and methods arrived in colonial Louisiana   from Africa, Europe, and the Americas, creating  this saucy global dish. How, exactly? Well, to   prepare you for that gobsmacking answer, let's  take a look at what you'll learn in this unit. Hi, I'm John Arthur, and this is Unit 4: Transoceanic  Interconnections from 1450 to 1750 CE. In this unit,   we're turning to the seas because just as the  land-based empires of Afro-Eurasia were expanding   their frontiers, Europeans on the far western  edge of Afro-Eurasia were taking to the waves   on journeys of exploration, commerce, and conquest. Thanks to innovations in navigation and gunpowder,   Europeans were able to undertake trans-oceanic  voyages and establish far-flung overseas empires:   first the Portuguese and Spanish, and later the  Dutch, English, French, and others set sail across   the Atlantic Ocean and around the continent of  Africa, establishing new oceanic empires. When   they arrived in the Americas, these Europeans  encountered complex indigenous societies and   powerful empires that had developed into a diverse  tapestry of communities connected by long-distance   networks of exchange. These trans-oceanic voyages  kicked off a process that historians call   the Colombian Exchange—the exchange of plants,  animals, ideas, people, and diseases across the   world's oceans. Did you know that there weren't  any tomatoes in Italian food before this unit?   Potatoes, corn, and turkeys were also ones found  only in the Americas, while wheat, cattle, and   horses were found only in Afro-Eurasia. Christopher  Columbus wasn't the first person from Afro-Eurasia   to make contact with societies in the Americas,  but after his arrival the Afro-Eurasian   and American systems began a permanent  sustained relationship for the first time.   The results transformed our world— and not always for the better. The European conquests of the Americas permanently  devastated numerous American societies. Many of   these societies, including the powerful Inca and  Aztec empires, never recovered. We still don't know   a great deal about some of these societies and  the ways they were organized. At the same time, the transatlantic slave trade became a big part of  the Colombian Exchange and caused lasting damage   to many African societies. The new European-based  empires in the Americas used the resources and   people of Africa and the Americas to create  vast new systems of wealth. They forced   millions of Indigenous Americans and enslaved  Africans to work in the plantation system.   Enslaved labor and this new system of production  allowed Europeans to extract huge amounts of raw   materials from their colonies to fuel production  at home and trade abroad. The colonies in the   Americas also produced more silver than the  world had ever seen. Europeans used this silver   to buy their way into the biggest markets of them  all—the vast economies of China and South Asia. In Unit 3 you learned about the world's  most powerful empires in this period— the great land-based empires of Afro-Eurasia.  These empires—particularly in China and India—   remained the engine of the world economy. But in  Unit 4, we're going to meet some rising contenders   that would challenge the old model of empire. The  maritime empires that emerge from Western Europe   pioneered a new kind of empire and it was to  become the dominant form by the end of this period. But this story of empire, war, and trade was  also a story about how humans interacted with   and transformed the environment. Historians might  call it the Colombian Exchange, but that's a   deceptively peaceful term that suggests both sides  got something from the other. In truth, the process   was more about extraction than exchange. Crops,  livestock, and diseases flowed both ways across   the oceans, but people in Europe gained far more  from their counterparts in the Americas or Africa. Even the crops that came to the Americas from  Afro-Eurasia ended up benefiting European empires. Crops like sugar and coffee imported to the  Caribbean produced enormous wealth for Europeans. Meanwhile, American crops like maize and  potatoes provided a huge new source of   calories for people in Afro-Eurasia. At  the same time, Afro-Eurasian diseases   like smallpox combined with war and enslavement  killed as many as 25 million Indigenous Americans. It was amid this history of violence and  enslavement, exchange and innovation, that gumbo   was born. The French began their colonization of  Louisiana in the 17th century. If you've ever had   French food you know that flower is a pretty  big part of it, and many French stews call for   roux—a thickener made from wheat flour. But  wheat didn't grow well in swampy Louisiana. The   Indigenous Choctaw people came to the rescue with  a thickener called filet made from the leaves of   the sassafras tree. But there was more innovation  to come. Louisiana's first enslaved people arrived   in the early 18th century. Enslaved women—who often  did the cooking labor in West African societies—   brought with them their own culinary methods  and ingredients. The word gumbo actually comes   from the Angolan term for okra: ki ngumbo. Okra is  a vegetable native to Africa that can be ground up   and used as a thickener for stews. To this day it's  a key gumbo ingredient. As European empires grew,   they displaced more people, brought new people to  the region, and new ingredients were introduced   to Louisiana's food culture. Peppers and  tomatoes arrived from Spanish Mexico,   once cultivated by the Aztecs and their neighbors.  Rice—native to Africa and Asia—was transported to   the Carolinas and the Caribbean, along with  the expert but enslaved African rice growers   who knew how to raise it. Rice eventually  became a key ingredient in gumbo.   Later, German migrants posed as French bakers  and baked a special bread to accompany gumbo.   And as with many local innovations, later  imperialists tried to take credit for gumbo. When   19th century cookbooks introduced the dish they  made no mention of its African or Indigenous roots,  focusing instead on the ingenuity of French cooks.  Even today there's no single agreed upon recipe or   history of gumbo. It changed as different cultures  adapted to the needs and tastes of their time. In much the same way, the legacy of the Colombian  Exchange remains ambiguous. It's a history of   violence and human ingenuity. People from all over  the world arrived in new places, their cultures   beliefs, governments, economic systems, and foods  all blended, often creating something entirely new.