The History of the Americans
The History of the Americans is a podcast that explores the history of the people who live in the United States, from the beginning. Hosted by Jack Henneman, it covers the stories and events that shaped the nation. The podcast aims to provide a comprehensive look at American history.
Episodes
#216 William Penn and the Selling of Pennsylvania
It is the spring of 1681. The “exclusion crisis,” an insurgency in Parliament proposing to exclude the king’s brother, James, Duke of York, from the line of succession, was reaching its climax. Even so, on March 4 King Charles II found time to grant William Penn a vast territory extending from the west bank of the Delaware River to a longitude equal to the then western border of Maryland. It was
#215 The Founding of Pennsylvania and Some Other Stuff
With Sir William Penn’s passing in 1671, and his deathbed admonition that his son stay true to himself, young William Penn was both financially independent and liberated from worrying that his own activism on behalf of the Quakers would hurt his family. William now owned lands that generated income of around 2000 pounds a year, or roughly the wages of 100 laborers of the time.
Penn was a pious s
#214 William Penn Before Pennsylvania 2: Penn on Trial
William Penn returned from Ireland in August 1670, and soon found himself arrested, along with fellow Quaker William Mead, for preaching to a crowd in public in violation of “the common law,” an ambiguity that would play out during their momentous trial. The trial would end in their acquittal, notwithstanding egregious intimidation of the jury by the judge, the Lord Mayor Sir Samuel S
#213 Sidebar: A Reading of the Declaration of Independence and Brief Notes on the Signers
The purpose of this episode is very simple: If you find yourself driving in your car with others this weekend (or on some future Fourth of July) and you and your passengers – perhaps they are your children and now they are a captive audience at your mercy – might enjoy hearing the Declaration of Independence and knowing just a little bit about the heroic signers of it, play this epi
#212 William Penn Before Pennsylvania 1
[Announcement: From November 4 through 6, 2026, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) is hosting its inaugural Soapbox free speech conference in Philadelphia, the city where so many of America’s defining debates over liberty began. I and the wife of the pod will be there and would love to hoist one with listeners of the History of the Americans. More compellingly, there will
#211 Sidebar Conversation: Richard Bell on The American Revolution and the Fate of the World
Richard Bell, Rick to his friends and podcast hosts, is Professor of History at the University of Maryland. He is the author of the book Stolen: Five Free Boys Kidnapped into Slavery and their Astonishing Odyssey Home which was a finalist for the George Washington Prize and the Harriet Tubman Prize. He has held major research fellowships at Yale, Cambridge, and the Library of Congress and is the
#210 The Quakers Invade West New Jersey
This is the story of the division of the colony of New Jersey into East New Jersey and West New Jersey, and the bizarre legal and financial machinations that resulted ultimately in the settlement of the region by Quakers in the second half of the 1670s. Fundamentally, those machinations were between two somewhat disreputable Quakers, John Fenwick and Edward Byllynge. Their longstanding quarrel w
#209 What You Need to Know About English Politics in the 1680s 2: The Glorious Revolution
The "glorious revolution" of 1688-89 would change the terms of the English monarchy, and reverberate through American history.
#208 What You Need to Know About English Politics in the 1680s 1: The Exclusion Crisis
Heading as we are into the 1680s on the timeline of the History of the Americans, it will be useful for all of us to know a few basic things about English politics in the 1680s, including especially the “exclusion crisis” of 1679-1681 and the Glorious Revolution of 1688. Both had a big impact on our own history.
Along the way we learn more about John Locke, how the acquittal of William Penn trans
#207 How Indians of the American West Acquired Horses
Going down a rabbit hole while learning about the Pueblo Revolt of 1680, I started reading about something I have wondered about – how and when did the Indians of the American West acquire horses and learn to use them rather than eat them? The answer is not what you think, or at least not what I thought before I did this work.
The story begins with the discovery of silver in Mexico, which I did n
#206 The Pueblo Revolt of 1680 2: The Siege of Santa Fe and the Flight to El Paso
It is August, 1680 in New Mexico. The rebelling Pueblo Indians have sprung their ambush and quickly killed 400 Spaniards. About 2500 survivors have concentrated in two groups, at the government buildings in Santa Fe, and 70 miles to the south at Isleta Pueblo. Each has reason to believe that everybody else has died, and they are alone. The Indians beseige Santa Fe, but Governor Antonio de Oterm
#205 The Pueblo Revolt of 1680 1: The Kindling of War
In August 1680, an alliance of Puebloan peoples, led by a mysterious religious man named Po'pay (also spelled Popé), launched a surprise attack that forced the Spanish entirely out of New Mexico 82 years after they had first settled it. Po'pay’s rebellion would combine elements that will remind longstanding listeners of King Philip’s War in New England and Opechancanough’s surprise attack in Virgi
#204 Albemarle Arises: Culpeper’s Rebellion
In 1677, the longtime residents of the old and remote county of Albemarle in northern Carolina, a collection of cranks and dissidents who had fled from Maryland and Virginia and were used to living free of interference from the Carolina proprietors and the Crown's tax collectors, revolted against new attempts to collect duties on tobacco. Quite astonishingly, they succeeded! And not without some
#203 Sidebar: Henry Knox and the Noble Train of Artillery Part 2
Twenty-five year-old bookseller Henry Knox, his 19 year-old brother Will, and teamsters led by John Becker, Sr., move a long "noble train" of 59 pieces of salvaged artillery from Fort Ticonderoga to Cambridge. The route crossed frozen rivers and the not-dreamlike Berkshire Mountains under unbelievably arduous conditions. As word spread, crowds of Americans would turn out to cheer them on, and serv
#202 Sidebar: Henry Knox and the Noble Train of Artillery Part 1
Exactly 250 years ago, a rotund twenty-five year-old Boston bookseller named Henry Knox was riding his horse between Springfield and Worcester Massachusetts, on his way to George Washington’s headquarters in Cambridge. Washington’s ragtag, ill-equipped Continental Army had kept the British garrison under General Thomas Gage bottled up in Boston and Charlestown since the summer of 1675.
Washin
#201 Bacon’s Aftermath 2: Restless Virginia and the Rise of Black Slavery
In the last episode on the Timeline, “Bacon’s Aftermath 1: Diplomacy and Conspiracy 1677-1685,” we looked at the political and geopolitical aftermath of Bacon’s Rebellion. This time we tackle the changes inside Virginia’s society and economy in the years following Bacon’s Rebellion, some of which may have been because of the Rebellion, and others of which probably would have happened anyway.
Th
#200 Sidebar Conversation: Matthew Restall on “The Nine Lives of Christopher Columbus”
Matthew Restall is an historian and author of over forty books, focusing on the Spanish Conquest era in the Americas; on Aztec and Maya history; on the history of colonial Mesoamerica, primarily Yucatan but including Mexico, Guatemala, and Belize; on the historical African diaspora in the Americas; and on the history of popular music. Matthew is most recently the author of The Nine Lives of Christ
#199 Bacon’s Aftermath 1: Diplomacy and Conspiracy 1677-1685
This episode looks again at the causes of Bacon's Rebellion in light of what we have now learned, before turning to the region of the Chesapeake in the years after the Rebellion.
There are two big themes in the post-Bacon Chesapeake. The first, the subject of this episode, is geopolitical. After Bacon, what changed in intercolonial affairs, in the relationship between the Chesapeake colonies an
#198 Bacon’s Rebellion 6: Recriminations
It is late January 1677 in Virginia. Loyalists under the command of Governor Sir William Berkeley had suppressed Bacon's Rebellion just after New Year. Now Berkeley was prosecuting the surviving leaders of the rebellion, and loyalist units were looting the estates of wealthy Baconistas to recover losses they had suffered during the war.
Then a fleet from London materialized at the mouth of the
#197 Bacon’s Rebellion 5: Bacon’s Lousy Luck
Last episode ended with Sir William Berkeley, on the deck of a ship in the James, watching Jamestown burn to the ground in the wee hours of September 19, 1676. The rebels under Nathaniel Bacon were ascendant, and Berkeley resolved to return to his refuge on the Eastern Shore and plot the next phase of his increasingly desperate war. Little did he know that the tide of the war was about to turn ag
#196 Bacon’s Rebellion 4: The Burning of Jamestown
Virginia Governor Sir William Berkeley has fled to the Eastern Shore with a small group of loyalist planters and a detachment of perhaps only fifty armed men. Nathaniel Bacon has occupied Berkeley's estate near Jamestown, and dispatched men to capture loyalist ships anchored there. Bacon's "navy" has out in search of Berkeley, but Berkeley turned the tables in an audacious amphibious attack and
#195 Bacon’s Rebellion 3: Go Ahead, Shoot!
Nathaniel Bacon and his army of volunteers have returned from beating up on the friendly Occaneechees (Occaneechis) on the Roanoke River in southern Virginia. It is election day, and Henrico County will elect Bacon and his sidekick, James Crews, to the Virginia Assembly, which has been called into session on June 5, 1676. This episode describes the dramatic session of that Assembly, which began w
#194 Bacon’s Rebellion 2: The Susquehannocks Strike Back
The Susquehannocks, having successfully escaped from their beseiged fort on Piscataway Creek in Maryland, fled through the Virginia Piedmont to set up winter quarters on the James and Roanoke Rivers. In January 1676, they launched a measured counterattack. The settlers on the frontier panicked and evacuated. Rumors of war spread. The horrors of King Philip's War loomed large, especially in the thi
#193 Bacon’s Rebellion 1: The Case of the Repossessed Hogs
The year is 1675, and we are in Virginia. All kinds of social, demographic, fiscal, and economic pressures have been building for decades, and the common people are restive. There have been a string of small revolts and disruptions in the years since 1660, but they all failed for lack of effective leadership. The "masterless men" in the colony needed a leader, and the leader, when he arose, would
#192 Notes on Virginia 1644-1675
We are back in Virginia, finally! In my defense, offered in response to the many listeners who have asked for "more Virginia," the thirty years before the Third Anglo-Powhatan War and Bacon’s Rebellion are almost blank spaces on published timelines of Virginia history, most noting only the legalization of slavery in 1661. Well, we are now on the brink of the civil war known as Bacon’s Rebellion, w
#191 Augustine Herrman’s Map
I got the idea for this episode talking to a bartender in Prague. The place was empty, and the fellow was garrulous and quickly said he loved American history, which naturally prompted me to suggest a podcast where he could find some. The barkeep called my bluff – “did I know who Augustine Herrman was?” Uh, noooo.
It turns out he was a Bohemian – now we would say Czech – from Prague who became
#190 Sidebar Conversation: Phil Magness on The 1619 Project
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Dr. Phillip W. Magness is an economic historian and the David J. Theroux Chair in Political Economy at the Independent Institute. Magness’ research has appeared in multiple scholarly venues, including the Economic Journal, the Journal of Political Economy, the Journal of Business Ethics, the Southern Economic Journal, and Social Science Quarterly. H
#189 King Philip’s War 9: Aftermath
This is the last episode of our telling of King Philip's War. We cover the fate of the last Algonquian sachems, including the daring capture of Annawon, and the consequences of the war for the Indians who fought it and the colonies of New England. We consider the wisdom of the war, and especially the morality, or lack thereof, in the fighting of it. Finally, we explore the fates of the main chara
#188 King Philip’s War 8: The Defeat of the Algonquians
Maps of New England during King Philip’s War
In May 1676 the tide of King Philip's War had turned against the Algonquians of southern New England, but the New English settlers didn't know it yet. They would soon. Suddenly, in a matter of a few weeks, the Algonquian resistance collapsed. This episode looks at that collapse through the eyes of Benjamin Church, whose men would finally catch and k
#187 King Philip’s War 7: The Turn of the Tide
Maps of New England during King Philip’s War
March 1676 had been catastrophic for the settlers of New England. Algonquians allied with Metacom (King Philip) attacked all across the frontier, forcing the evacuation of far-flung towns in both Massachusetts and Plymouth, and destroying Providence, Rhode Island. The tide, however, was about to turn. The New English captured Canonchet, the leading
#186 King Philip’s War 6: The Awful Winter of 1676
Maps of New England during King Philip’s War
After the Great Swamp Fight, Josiah Winslow turned away overtures from the Narragansetts for a ceasefire, incorrectly believing he had the upper hand. Instead, he pursued the Narrangansetts, stumbling into the "hungry march," in which Winslow and his starving militia were lured to the north by the Narragansetts, who were moving to join the Nipmucs an
#185 King Philip’s War 5: Enter the Narragansetts
Maps of New England during King Philip’s War
It is the fall of 1675, and "King Philip's War" rages on. The English colonies of Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth, and Connecticut have been at war with the Wampanoag nation and its powerful allies, the Nipmucs, since late June. The Indians are beating the English everywhere, in part because the English cannot easily distinguish friendly and neutral Ind
#184 Sidebar: “The Soldier’s Faith,” a Memorial Day Speech (Encore Presentation)
This is an encore presentation of a Sidebar episode we originally posted on Memorial Day 2023. It seems even more relevant today, strange as that may seem, consumed as we are now about questions of war and peace, and the role of elite universities, such as Harvard, in our own national project.
On May 30 – Memorial Day — 1895, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., a Harvard man and then a justice on the
#183 Interview with Matthew J. Tuininga
Matthew J. Tuininga is Professor of Christian Ethics and the History of Christianity at Calvin Theological Seminary in Michigan. He is author or editor of several books, including most recently The Wars of the Lord: The Puritan Conquest of America’s First People, which has been an important source for this podcast's series on King Philip's War.
This episode is useful context not only for our se
#182 King Philip’s War 4: “Wheeler’s Surprise” and the Problem of Counterinsurgency
Maps of New England during King Philip’s War
At the end of July 1675 two important things were happening at once. King Philip, known as Metacom to his people, and the sunksqua Weetamoo, were in flight along with at least 250 of their people. Reports coming into the colonial militias in the Fall River area suggested that Philip and Weetamoo intended to cross the Providence River and head for Ni
#181 Sidebar: The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere 2: The Ride
This is the second of two "Sidebar" episodes in honor of the 250th anniversary of Paul Revere’s famous ride, which we will celebrate on the night of April 18 by putting two lights in a window of our house.
Last time we explored the prelude to the ride in the months before the final crisis that triggered the march of the British "Regulars" on Lexington and Concord. This episode is the story of
#180 Sidebar: The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere 1: The Prelude
April 18, 2025 is the 250th anniversary of Paul Revere's "Midnight Ride" to alarm the towns around Boston that the "Regulars" were marching out to capture artillery and ammunition at Concord, or perhaps to arrest Samuel Adams and John Hancock. This was but the last of a series of crises that rocked New England in the months before the midnight ride and the battles of Lexington and Concord the next
#179 King Philip’s War 3: The Fire Spreads
It is July 1675 in New England. On June 23, fighting men of the Wampanoag nation and of Plymouth Colony had begun killing each other and enemy civilians in earnest. The question was whether this still small conflict would remain a local and short dust-up within Plymouth Colony and the Wampanoag lands encompassed by the colony’s borders as defined by the New Englanders, or would it spread more wi
#178 King Philip’s War 2: Lighting the Match
After Massasoit's death in 1660 or 1661, his son Wamsutta became sachem of the Pokonoket community and the leading sachem of the Wampanoag confederation, and early on he followed Algonquian custom and changed his name. He asked the men of Plymouth Colony, longstanding allies of his nation, to give him an English name, and they proposed Alexander. His brother Metacom also took an English name, Ph
#177 King Philip’s War 1: The Kindling of War
This episode looks at the background causes of the brutal war between the New English colonies of Plymouth, Massachusetts Bay, and Connecticut and their indigenous allies against a tribal alliance including both the Wampanoags and the Narragansetts between 1675 and 1678.
King Philip’s War is the most widely used name of that bloody and arguably existential war. In surveys of American history, i
#176 Jolliet and Marquette: Loose Ends and Notes on Early Chicago
This episode ties up the loose ends that remained at the end of the expedition of Louis Jolliet and Jacques Marquette in 1673. Among other things, we explore the ultimate fate of Jolliet's optimistic vision that a canal could bridge the continental divide in Illinois, allowing sailing ships to travel from Lake Erie all the way to the Gulf. Along the way we learn all sorts of factoids, including th
#175 Louis Jolliet and Jacques Marquette Explore the “Mesippi”
In the summer of 1673, two now famous Frenchmen and five others who are all but nameless traveled by canoe from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan at the Straits of Mackinac to central Arkansas on the western bank of the Mississippi River, and then back again. Louis Jolliet was a new sort of Frenchman, a natural born North American, having come into this world in Quebec in 1645, now a fur trader and
#174 Raid on America 3: “All Theyr Cry was for New Yorke!”
This is the last of a three-episode series on the Dutch "raid on America" in 1673, during the Third Anglo-Dutch War. Commander Cornelis Evertsen the Youngest of the Admiralty of the Dutch province of Zeeland - "Kees the Devil" - and a privateer named Jacob Benckes had pillaged English possessions in the Indies. By late June 1673 their fleet of at least 12 ships was sailing to the Chesapeake Bay,
#173 Raid on America 2: Kees the Devil Sails
This is the second of three episodes about a daring Dutch raid on the West Indies and the English colonies of North America during the Third Anglo-Dutch War. The extended raid, led by Commander Cornelis Evertsen the Youngest of the Admiralty of the Dutch province of Zeeland and a privateer named Jacob Benckes, was a sideshow in that war, yet its consequences were far-reaching. Among other accompl
#172 Raid on America 1: Overview of the Anglo-Dutch Wars
This is the first of three episodes about a daring Dutch raid on the West Indies and the English colonies of North America during the Third Anglo-Dutch War. The extended raid, led by Commander Cornelis Evertsen the Youngest of the Admiralty of the Dutch province of Zeeland and a privateer named Jacob Benckes, was a sideshow in that war, yet its consequences were far-reaching. Among other accompli
#171 New Jersey Is Revolting!
In 1672, the settlers of the New Jersey proprietary colony arose in a bloodless rebellion against Philip Carteret, appointed by the proprietors as governor. The wannabe rebels formed an illegal legislature, and installed Captain James Carteret as "president," putting them in conflict with Lord John Berkeley and Sir George Carteret, James's father. The conflict had to do with taxes, quitrents, and
#170 The First English Settlement of South Carolina
The first English settlers in today's South Carolina departed England in August, 1669, but would not actually get to the coast of Carolina until April and May the next year. Along the way they would lose ships to hurricanes and incompetence, and get into a firefight with Spaniards and their Indian allies on an island off the coast of Georgia. An unknown number would die on an island in the Bahama
#169 Lord Ashley, John Locke, and the Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina
Notwithstanding the promising expeditions of William Hilton and Robert Sandford, by the end of 1666, with the Carolina proprietors waging war with the Netherlands and contending with plague and fire in London, the Carolina project was on the brink of failure. Then the youngest proprietor stepped forward; the venture received new vigor under the leadership of Anthony Ashley Cooper, Lord Ashley.
#168 Barbadians Explore South Carolina
Spaniards had been in South Carolina off and on since perhaps 1514, and certainly by 1521. Even in the 1660s Spaniards occasionally came up the coast to trade and visit Santa Helena on Parris Island, which had largely been abandoned to Indians. As late as 1663, however, the English had not explored even the coast of the future Palmetto State. That would change after the granting of the Carolina Pr
#167 Ohhhh! Whaddabout New Jersey?
New Jersey is something of a puzzle, especially as a matter of early colonial history. The future Garden State rates barely a mention in most surveys of American history until it becomes a primary battleground of the American Revolution. That happens, however, not because of anything in New Jersey that was particularly worth defending in and of itself, but because of its location between the two
#166 Introduction to the Columbian Exchange (Revised)
In recognition of the holiday(s),* this is a revision of one of the podcast's earliest episodes, Introduction to the Columbian Exchange. The "Columbian Exchange" refers to the interhemispheric transmission of diseases, food crops, populations, cultures, and technologies in the years after Columbus’s famous First Voyage. The term was invented in 1972 by the famous biological historian Alfred W. Cro
#165 English Colonial Governance in a Nutshell: Charters, Proprietaries, and Royal Colonies
This blessedly short episode encapsulates the types of English colonial government in the 17th and 18th centuries, which were chartered corporations, proprietary "counties palatine," and royal colonies directly ruled by the Crown through a governor and advisors. Technically abstruse as these distinctions may have been, they would become increasingly important starting in the 1670s, and will be use
#164 Sidebar Interview: David Beito on the New Deal’s War on the Bill of Rights
David T. Beito's most recent book, and the subject of this conversation, is The New Deal’s War On the Bill of Rights: The Untold Story of FDR’s Concentration Camps, Censorship, and Mass Surveillance (buy it through the link!), published by the Independent Institute in 2023.
The presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the New Deal have now largely passed from living memory. When I was in ju
#163 The Fall of New Amsterdam and the Founding of New York
In August 1664, an English fleet acting under the orders of James, Duke of York, the brother of King Charles II, materialized off Manhattan and forced the bloodless surrender of New Amsterdam and New Netherland. It is easy - too easy - to conclude that this was inevitable because New England had roughly 17 times the population of New Netherland. It was in fact a foundational move in the construc
#162 Spanish Florida and the “Republic of Indians”
While the English were consolidating their territory on most of the eastern seaboard of North America in the 1600s, Spanish Florida plugged along with its sole city at St. Augustine, with little European population growth. That simple fact obscures remarkable changes in the civil society of the future Sunshine State. From the 1570s, after the Jesuits had given up, until the 1720s, a small band o
#161 Spanish Florida in the 1600s: Indian Wars, Yellow Fever, and Pirates!
We are back to Spanish Florida after a long hiatus, with the story of St. Augustine, La Florida after the founding of the city and the slaughter of the Huguenots at Fort Caroline until the construction of the Castillo de San Marcos in the 1670s. The city would almost fail, and in 1607 the Spanish Crown ordered that it be shut down and that Spain withdraw from Florida all together. That order would
#160 The Official Founding of North Carolina
In March 1663, after 97 years of failed attempts by first the Spanish and then the English to establish settlements in North Carolina, King Charles II granted eight aristocrats a vast territory extending from the coast of today's North and South Carolina to the Pacific Ocean. These eight Lords Proprietor - George, Duke of Albemarle; Edward, Earl of Clarendon; William, Lord Craven; John, Lord Berk
#159 Sidebar: The Master of the Senate
On July 29, 2024, President Joe Biden visited The Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum in Austin, Texas to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The President referred to LBJ as "master of the Senate," which reminded me of the opening pages of Robert Caro's book of the same name. That introduction is itself a masterful description of the suppressi
#158 The Free County of Albemarle
In the early 1660s, a motley crew of free-thinkers, republican veterans of Oliver Cromwell's New Model Army, and Quakers would build the freest place in all the English world, the County of Albemarle in northeastern North Carolina. Protected from the north, and incursions by Virginia royalists, by the Great Dismal Swamp, from the east by the treacherous waters of the Outer Banks, and from Indians
#157 Carolana On My Mind
Early North Carolina, originally part of a territory called Carolana, is all but ignored in most surveys of American history. After a fast start – both the Spanish and the English had short-lived settlements there in the 16th century before anywhere north of the future Tar Heel State had been settled by Europeans – a long period of failure followed until the late 1650s, when it hosted a quirky ru
#156 War on the Hudson Part 2
Late in the morning on June 7, 1663, soldiers of the Esopus Indians attacked the fortified Dutch settlements of New Village – now Hurley, New York – and Wildwyck, now Kingston. New Village was fundamentally destroyed. Wildwyck, more populous and better defended, fought off the attack but not before suffering grievous casualties. At New Village, three Dutch men were killed, and 34 women and chil
#155 Sidebar: A Conversation with Amanda Bellows
Amanda Bellows is a U.S. historian who teaches at The New School, a university in New York City. She is the author of American Slavery and Russian Serfdom in the Post-Emancipation Imagination, and a new book that is the subject of this interview, The Explorers: A New History of America in Ten Expeditions. Amanda received her Ph.D. in History from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
#154 War on the Hudson Part 1
Just before dawn on September 15, 1655, the same day Pieter Stuyvesant would extract the surrender of New Sweden on the Delaware River, more than 500 Indians of various tribes from along the Hudson paddled more than sixty canoes to New Amsterdam in lower Manhattan. They ran through town shrieking and vandalizing, but neither Dutchman nor Indian was harmed until the Indians were about to leave aft
#153 Roger Williams Saves Rhode Island Again!
For more than twenty years, the Puritan colonies of New England - Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth, Connecticut, and New Haven - would do their utmost to gain control of Rhode Island, Roger Williams's refuge committed to "soul liberty." They hated his nest of heretics on their border, and they coveted Rhode Island's arable land. The Puritan New Englanders would try everything short of military conquest
#152 The Life and Times of Samuell Gorton
Kenneth W. Porter, writing in The New England Quarterly in 1934, said that “Samuell Gorton could probably have boasted that he caused the ruling element of the Massachusetts Bay Colony more trouble over a greater period of time than any other single colonist, not excluding those more famous heresiarchs, Anne Hutchinson and Roger Williams.” As we shall see, he was charismatic, eloquent in speech,
#151 Rogues and Dogs and Fendall’s Rebellion
This episode is about a radically democratic political movement in Maryland in the 1650s. Veterans of the New Model Army, many of whom had been swimming in political movements like the Levellers, came to Maryland and joined with other Protestants chafing under Catholic and aristocratic rule. Blood would be shed at the Battle of the Severn, and in the aftermath Lord Baltimore would install a man
#150 Regicides on the Run!
In May 1660, Oliver Cromwell now dead, Charles II was restored as King of England. The 59 judges who in 1649 had signed the death warrant of the king's father, Charles I, were declared regicides, and exempted from the general amnesty Charles II offered to most people who had opposed his father. Some of the regicides were caught immediately and most gruesomely executed. Others fled to Europe. Th
#149 The End of New Haven Colony
This is the story of the New Haven Colony from 1643 until is absorption by Connecticut in 1664. We look at the colony's economic, military, and geopolitical successes and disasters, and the famous story of the "Ghost Ship," perhaps the most widely witnessed supernatural event in early English North America. Finally, confronted with the restoration of the Stuarts in England, the Puritan colonies
#148 The Founding of New Haven Colony
Of the organized Puritan settlements in New England in the first half of the 17th century – Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth, and Connecticut being foremost – the New Haven Colony was in some respects the most peculiar. It was probably the wealthiest of the four United Colonies of New England on a per capita basis, the most insistent on religion’s role in civil governance, and the least democratic, be
#147 Interview with James Horn
Dr. James Horn is President and Chief Officer of Jamestown Rediscovery (Preservation Virginia) at Historic Jamestowne. Previously, he has served as Vice President of Research and Historical Interpretation at the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, Saunders Director of the International Center for Jefferson Studies at Monticello, and taught for twenty years at the University of Brighton, England. H
#146 Oliver’s Army: What You Need to Know About the English Civil Wars
In order to understand the history of English North America during the 1640s to the 1660s, one really needs to know at least something about the English Civil Wars, Oliver Cromwell's Commonwealth, and the restoration of the Stuarts in 1661. This episode is a high level look at that period, oriented toward the events and themes most important to the history of the Americans. But there are still so
#145 The Witches of Springfield
It is the late 1640s. More than forty years before the famous witch hunt in Salem, William Pynchon's town of Springfield, Massachusetts Bay Colony, was roiled by the strange doings of Hugh and Mary Parsons, an unhappy and anxious couple with poor social skills. In that dark, solitary place on the edge of the North American wilderness, anxiety, depression, a bad marriage, and conspiracy theories c
#144 Three Lost Voices From Early Maryland
This episode tells the story of three "lost voices" from early Maryland, surprising people who remind us of the complexity of the 17th century Atlantic world. Mathias de Sousa was of African descent, and is called "the first Black colonist" of Maryland. He would skipper a pinnace in the Chesapeake, trade with the local tribes, and sit in the Maryland Assembly. Margaret Brent was a stone-cold bus
#143 Interview with Joseph Kelly
Joe Kelly is professor of literature and the director of Irish and Irish American Studies at the College of Charleston, and the author of Marooned: Jamestown, Shipwreck, and a New History of America’s Origin. In addition to Marooned, in 2013 Joe published America’s Longest Siege: Charleston, Slavery, and the Slow March Towards Civil War, which details the evolving ideology of slavery in America.
#142 Sidebar: Oscar Hartzell and the Sir Francis Drake Estate Scam
Welcome to the first "true crime" episode of the History of the Americans Podcast, the story of Oscar Hartzell and the Sir Francis Drake estate scam, perhaps the most audacious con of the 1920s, the great golden age of the confidence man. Hartzell swindled as many as 200,000 Midwesterners, many from my own state of Iowa, out of millions of dollars posing as the rightful heir to the lost estate of
#141 The Life and Times of William Pynchon
William Pynchon, ancestor of the American novelist Thomas Pynchon, was the founder of Springfield, Massachusetts, a successful fur trader, merchant, and magistrate, and at age 60 wrote the first of many books to be banned in Boston. Pynchon had come to Massachusetts with the Winthrop Fleet in 1630, and soon became one of the wealthiest merchant/traders in the colony. He founded Springfield on th
#140 New Sweden Part 3: The Fall
It is now 1648. In this episode, two tough guys, Johan "Big Belly" Printz of New Sweden and Peter "Peg Leg" Stuyvesant of New Netherland, escalate their competition to control the critical Delaware River, now an essential artery for the fur trade coming out of Susquehannock territory in Pennsylvania and points farther west. Sweden and Netherland were at peace in Europe, so there would be no shooti
#139 New Sweden Part 2: The Tough Guys Arrive
We are back in New Sweden. In 1638, shortly after establishing Fort Christina at the site of today's Wilmington, Delaware, Peter Minuit would die in a hurricane on the way back to Sweden. The settlers left behind would go a year and half before another supply ship came, but they would survive with remarkable pluck. They were well-housed, because the Finns among them would introduce the log cabin
#138 Sidebar Editorial: Notes on the American Historical Association Annual Meeting and the Teaching of History
Your podcaster spent the weekend just passed in San Francisco at the Annual Meeting of the American Historical Association. I learned a lot, but especially how transparently politicized so many professional historians seem have become.
This episode recounts some of what I saw and heard, and concludes with my many thoughts on the greatest benefit of learning history, whether history should be
#137 An Overview of the European Settlement of the Northeast Before 1650
In podcast time, we’ve been knocking around the northeast of today’s United States for just about two years, starting with the Popham colony episodes back in December 2021. The recent high water mark, as it were, is 1647 or so, with the recovery of Maryland by the Calverts after the plundering time. We are not entirely caught up to that date, however. We need to get back to see what happened to
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