The History of the Americans

It is early spring 1644, and Europeans are fighting Indians in New Netherland and Maryland. In Virginia, though, it is quiet. It has been twelve years since the Second Anglo-Powhatan war ended after a decade of fighting that began the day the sky fell, March 22, 1622.  On that date Opechancanough sprung his colony-wide ambush of the English settlements along the James.  Indian soldiers loyal to the Powhatan confederacy killed almost four hundred English and other European settlers on that day, and many more in the years that followed. But peace had come in 1632, and despite occasional crises that might have triggered war, the old chief had kept that peace.  We covered Opechancanough and the Second Anglo-Powhatan War in three episodes more than a year ago, “Who Was Opechancanough?,” “Opechancanough’s War,” and “After the Sky Fell,” which are definitely useful background if you have not listened to them, or haven’t listened to them in some time. The peace would end on April 18, 1644, and that is the story of this episode. X (Twitter): @TheHistoryOfTh2 Facebook: The History of the Americans Podcast Selected references for this episode James Horn, A Brave and Cunning Prince: The Great Chief Opechancanough and the War for America Helen C. Rountree, Pocahontas, Powhatan, Opechancanough: Three Indian Lives Changed by Jamestown Robert Beverley, The History & Present State of Virginia

Salina Baker lives in Austin - my town - and has just published “The Line of Splendor,”  a biographical novel of the life of General Nathanael Greene, regarded by most historians as George Washington’s most important lieutenant. We talk about Greene’s life, his famous Southern Campaign in 1781 in which he and his men drove the British out of the Carolinas and Georgia while losing most of the battles they actually fought, his stint as Washington’s quartermaster general and his talent for logistics, his friendship with fellow boy-wonder Henry Knox, and what might have been had Greene not died shortly after the end of the war. Buy her novel through the link below! Also, if you are going to be in Denver on November 12, let me know if you can make the meet-up we'll do late that afternoon, probably at or new the Brown Palace Hotel. Subscribe by email X (Twitter): @TheHistoryOfTh2 Facebook: The History of the Americans Podcast Salina B. Baker, The Line of Splendor: A Novel of Nathanael Greene and the American Revolution

The goal of this "high altitude" episode is to establish a framework for forthcoming episodes covering the period between roughly 1640 and 1670. We look at the geopolitical landscape in the territories of today's northeastern United States and eastern Canada in the middle 17th century. The key players are the European settlers - English, French, Dutch, and Swedish - and the most important Indian nations - the Susquehannocks, the Five Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy, the Leni Lenapes, and the Hurons. They fiercely competed over the trade in fur, from the European point of view, and manufactured consumer products and weapons, from the Indian point of view. There would be blood. Subscribe by email X (Twitter): @TheHistoryOfTh2 Facebook: The History of the Americans Podcast Selected references for this episode Eric Jay Dolin, Fur, Fortune, and Empire: The Epic History of the Fur Trade in America Bernard Bailyn, The Barbarous Years: The Peopling of British North America--The Conflict of Civilizations, 1600-1675 Francis Jennings, "Glory, Death, and Transfiguration: The Susquehannock Indians in the Seventeenth Century," Proceedings of the American Philosophic Society, February 1968

It is the early 1640s. The Dutch, who have done their level best to foster good relations with the local Indians because war isn't good for business, have a new governor in charge at New Amsterdam. Willem Kieft is a man of extraordinary ego and bad judgment, a coward and a weasel. Kieft launches an incredibly violent war with the many tribes on and around Manhattan on a tissue-thin pretext. The bloodletting is shockingly wasteful and sad, even across the years. In the end, he turns to John Underhill, the Puritan captain who led the forces of the Massachusetts Bay against the Pequots years before. The results are every bit as ugly. The episode ends with a story about a stonemason named John Ogden, without whom you would not be listening to this podcast. Subscribe by email Twitter: @TheHistoryOfTh2 Facebook: The History of the Americans Podcast Selected references for this episode Russell Shorto, The Island at the Center of the World: The Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan and the Forgotten Colony That Shaped America J. Franklin Jameson, Narratives of New Netherland 1609-1664 Donna Merwick, The Shame and the Sorrow: Dutch-Amerindian Encounters in New Netherland Katherine A. Grandjean, "The Long Wake of the Pequot War," Early American Studies, Spring 2011. Nicholas Klaiber, "Kieft's War and Tributary Politics in Eastern Woodland Colonial Society" Walter Giersbach, "Governor Kieft's Personal War," Military History Online.

As has become our tradition around Columbus Day, we speculate on various might-have-beens - for example, what if Columbus had sailed for a different monarch? - and some of the consequences of Columbus's voyages for humanity writ large. This episode has been revised and re-recorded from those of previous years, and includes some thoughts on "Indigenous Peoples Day," offered by some jurisdictions (and this year as a Presidential proclamation) as a counterpoint. The image for this episode on the website post is of maize growing in Africa. Subscribe by email (or on any podcast app) X (Twitter): @TheHistoryOfTh2 Facebook: The History of the Americans Podcast Selected references for this episode Samuel Eliot Morison, Admiral of the Ocean Sea: A Life of Christopher Columbus Alfred W. Crosby, Jr., The Columbian Exchange: Biological and Cultural Consequences of 1492 Nathan Nunn and Nancy Qian, “The Columbian Exchange: A History of Disease, Food, and Ideas” Charles C. Mann, 1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created Noble David Cook, Born To Die: Disease and New World Conquest, 1492–1650

The main purpose of this micro-episode is to give you the details on the much ballyhooed Philadelphia area meet-up of fans of the podcast.  The date is this Friday, October 6, 2023.  The place will be Neshaminy Creek Brewing Company, 909 Ray Avenue, Croydon, Pennsylvania.  The official start-time is 5:00 pm, but if you can’t get there so early rest assured that I’ll be around until at least 7:30, and certainly as late as the conversation remains fun and interesting. I’ll aim to get there at 4:30 or so to check out the room I reserved, which I believe they call “the nook.”  I trust many of you will recognize me from my photo on the website or on Twitter or Facebook, but in case not I’ll be wearing a red “History Nerd” cap.  I also read a short excerpt from Yascha Mounk's new book The Identity Trap: A Story of Ideas and Power in Our Time, which I highly recommend. Mounk explores the philosophical roots of critical theory and the full range of ideas clumsily lumped together as "wokeism," or "the successor ideology." The book is extremely useful for understanding how we arrived at our current identity politics, and is relevant to understanding the "history wars" that have played out over the last four or five years. You can buy it through the link above.

Margaret Sanger, famous advocate for lawful birth control, joins the podcast to discuss the campaign to legalize speech about birth control in the 1920s and 1930s. Topics include the relevance of the Comstock Act, mixed motives of birth control advocates, early expansion of free expression, and organizations staying true to their mission while avoiding credibility issues.

The year is 1642. The Puritan colonies of Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth, and Connecticut are conspiring against settlements at Providence and on Aquidneck Island, then small clusters of religious dissidents living under the protection of Roger Williams and his Narragansett allies. As the pressure mounted, the Rhode Islanders asked Williams to go to England and secure legal protection for their land and self-government. Williams would sail to England in 1643, and outmaneuver all of New England's enemies of religious freedom. He would do this by writing an astonishing book about Indians. Among other things. Against daunting odds, Williams would persuade Parliament, then dominated by Puritans and engaged in a great civil war with the royalists loyal to Charles I, to grant him a patent for Narragansett Bay that explicitly authorized rule by the majority of citizens. Williams had secured English protection for the freest place in the world for non-conformists, independent thinkers, and, TBH, cranks. Oh. And he may well have persuaded John Milton to come out for freedom of the press. Subscribe by email Twitter: @TheHistoryOfTh2 Facebook: The History of the Americans Podcast Selected references for this episode John M. Barry, Roger Williams and the Creation of the American Soul Roger Williams, A Key Into the Language of America Areopagitica

Sweden's greatest king, Gustavus Adolphus, aspires for Sweden to become a maritime and commercial power in the Atlantic, and engages Dutch entrepreneurs to advise him and his councilors how to do it. The Swedes recruit Peter Minuit, the erstwhile governor of New Netherland and the man who acquired Manhattan island from the Lenne Lenape tribe in the region. Eager for a new gig in the New World, Minuit leads two Swedish ships with Dutch crews - the Kalmar Nyckel and the Gripen - to the site of today's Wilmington, Delaware. Minuit would meet with the chiefs in the region and acquire, in one fashion or another, the west bank of the Delaware River from roughly the site of Philadelphia International Airport to Cape Henlopen. New Sweden would survive and at times prosper for 17 years, but Minuit, tragically, would not live more than six months after landing again in the New World. For more on Minuit's career in New Netherland, you might listen to "The Purchase of Manhattan and Other Dutch Treats." X (Twitter): @TheHistoryOfTh2 Facebook: The History of the Americans Podcast Subscribe by email Selected references for this episode Russell Shorto, The Island at the Center of the World: The Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan and the Forgotten Colony That Shaped America C. A. Weslager, New Sweden on the Delaware 1638-1655 C. T. Odhner and G. B. Keen, "The Founding of New Sweden, 1637-42," The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, 1879. Carl K. S. Sprinchorn and G. B. Keen, "The History of the Colony of New Sweden," The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, 1883.

The Maryland Assembly convenes, and wrestles with the Lord Proprietor over the privilege of initiating legislation. Once the tussle is resolved, the Palatinate's government enacts a raft of new laws, which provide a glimpse into the concerns that preoccupied the first Marylanders. Among these new laws are the first recognition of slaves and slavery in English North America. Oh, and you may hear a little dog barking in the background. He's enjoying the Adirondacks too. X (Twitter): @TheHistoryOfTh2 Facebook: The History of the Americans Podcast Subscribe by email Selected references for this episode Matthew Page Andrews, The Founding of Maryland George Bancroft, History Of The United States Of America, Volume 1 Jonathan L. Alpert, "The Origin of Slavery in the United States - The Maryland Precedent," The American Journal of Legal History, July 1970.