Ben Franklin's World

What does history have to tell us about how we, as Americans, came to define people by their race; the visual ways we have grouped people together based on their skin color, facial features, hair texture, and ancestry?As you might imagine, history has a LOT to tell us about this question! So today, we’re going to explore one aspect of the answer to this question by focusing on some of the ways religion shaped European and early American ideas about race and racial groupings.Kathryn Gin Lum is an Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Stanford University. She’s also the author of Heathen: Religion and Race in American History.Show Notes:https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/392 Complementary Episodes🎧 Episode 047: Christian Imperialism: Converting the World in the Early American Republic🎧 Episode 109: The American Enlightenment & Cadwallader Colden🎧 Episode 139: Indian Enslavement in the Americas🎧 Episode 311: Religion and the American Revolution🎧 Episode 334: Missions and Mission Building in New Spain🎧 Episode 367: The Brafferton Indian School, Part 1🎧 Episode 376: Cotton Mather’s Spanish Lessons REQUEST A TOPIC📨  Topic Request Form 📫  liz@benfranklinsworld.com WHEN YOU'RE READY 🗞️ BFW Gazette Newsletter  👩‍💻  Join the BFW Listener Community LISTEN 🍎  Apple Podcasts  💚  Spotify  🎶  Amazon Music  🛜 Pandora CONNECT🦋  Liz on Bluesky 👩‍💻  Liz on LinkedIn 🛜  Liz’s Website SAY THANKS💜  Leave a review on Apple Podcasts 💚  Leave a rating on Spotify  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Do you ever wonder how governments met and worked in colonial British America?Williamsburg, Virginia, served as the capital of Virginia between 1699 and 1779. During its 80 years of service as capital, Williamsburg represented the center of British authority in Virginia. This meant the Royal Governor of the colony lived in Williamsburg. Indigenous, colonial, and other delegations came to Williamsburg to negotiate treaties and trade with Virginia. And, the colonial government met in Williamsburg’s capitol building to pass laws, listen to court cases, and debate ideas.Katie Schinabeck, a historian of historical memory and the American Revolution and the Digital Projects Researcher at Colonial Williamsburg’s Innovation Studios, takes us on a behind-the-scenes tour of Williamsburg’s colonial capitol building to explore how the government of colonial Virginia worked and operated.Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/391 Complementary Episodes 🎧 Episode 084: How Historians Read Historical Sources🎧 Episode 099: Pirates & Pirate Nests in the British Atlantic World🎧 Episode 153: Committees and Congresses: Governments of the American Revolution🎧 Episode 202: The Early History of the United States Congress🎧 Episode 259: American Legal History & the Bill of Rights🎧 Episode 315: History and American Democracy🎧 Episode 328: Warren Milteer, Free People of Color in Early America🎧 Episode 389: Nicole Eustace, Indigenous Justice in Early America REQUEST A TOPIC📨  Topic Request Form 📫  liz@benfranklinsworld.com WHEN YOU'RE READY 🗞️ BFW Gazette Newsletter  👩‍💻  Join the BFW Listener Community LISTEN 🍎  Apple Podcasts  💚  Spotify  🎶  Amazon Music  🛜 Pandora CONNECT🦋  Liz on Bluesky 👩‍💻  Liz on LinkedIn 🛜  Liz’s Website SAY THANKS💜  Leave a review on Apple Podcasts 💚  Leave a rating on Spotify  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When we think about the American Revolution, the French Revolution, or the Haitian Revolution, we think about the ideals of freedom and equality. These ideals were embedded and discussed in all of these revolutions.What we don’t always think about when we think about these revolutions are the objects that inspired, came out of, and were circulated as they took place. Ashli White, an Associate Professor of History at the University of Miami in Florida, joins us to investigate the “revolutionary things” that were created and circulated during the American, French, and Haitian Revolutions with details from her book Revolutionary Things: Material Culture and Politics in the Late Eighteenth-Century Atlantic World.Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/390 Complementary Episodes🎧 Episode 124: James Alexander Dun, Making the Haitian Revolution in Early America🎧 Episode 136: Jennifer Van Horn, Material Culture and the Making of America🎧 Episode 164: The American Revolution in the Age of Revolutions🎧 Episode 165: The Age of Revolutions🎧 Episode 177, Martin Brückner, The Social Life of Maps in America🎧 Episode 306: The Horse’s Tail: Revolution & Memory in Early New York City🎧 Episode 319: Cuba: An Early American History   REQUEST A TOPIC📨  Topic Request Form 📫  liz@benfranklinsworld.com WHEN YOU'RE READY 🗞️ BFW Gazette Newsletter  👩‍💻  Join the BFW Listener Community LISTEN 🍎  Apple Podcasts  💚  Spotify  🎶  Amazon Music  🛜 Pandora CONNECT🦋  Liz on Bluesky 👩‍💻  Liz on LinkedIn 🛜  Liz’s Website SAY THANKS💜  Leave a review on Apple Podcasts 💚  Leave a rating on Spotify Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Explore cross-cultural encounters in early America through a murder case in 1722 involving Haudenosaunee, Susquehannock, and English colonists. Delve into the dynamics of justice, diplomatic relationships, and negotiations between different ethnic groups. Learn about the contrasting views on justice, Governor William Keith's actions, and the significance of the Treaty of 1722.

Happy Fourth of July! We’ve created special episodes to commemorate, celebrate, and remember the Fourth of July for years. Many of our episodes have focused on the Declaration of Independence, how and why it was created, the ideas behind it, and its sacred words: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”This year, we examine a different aspect of the Declaration of Independence: the man behind the boldest signature on the document: John Hancock.Brooke Barbier is a public historian and holds a Ph.D. in American History from Boston College. She’s also the author of the first biography in many years about John Hancock, it’s called King Hancock: The Radical Influence of a Moderate Founding Father.Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/388 Complementary Episodes🎧 Episode 018: Our Declaration🎧 Episode 129: John Bell, The Road to Concord, 1775🎧 Episode 141: A Declaration in Draft🎧 Episode 245: Celebrating the Fourth🎧 Episode 277: Whose Fourth of July?🎧 Episode 306: The Horse’s Tail: Revolution & Memory in Early New York City🎧 Episode 309: Merchant Ships of the Eighteenth Century🎧 Episode 360: Kyera Singleton, Slavery & Freedom in Massachusetts REQUEST A TOPIC📨  Topic Request Form 📫  liz@benfranklinsworld.com WHEN YOU'RE READY 🗞️ BFW Gazette Newsletter  👩‍💻  Join the BFW Listener Community LISTEN 🍎  Apple Podcasts  💚  Spotify  🎶  Amazon Music  🛜 Pandora CONNECT🦋  Liz on Bluesky 👩‍💻  Liz on LinkedIn 🛜  Liz’s Website SAY THANKS💜  Leave a review on Apple Podcasts 💚  Leave a rating on Spotify  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jean Pfaelzer, Professor Emerita, reveals California's hidden slavery history spanning 250 years, highlighting Spanish atrocities in missions, indigenous resistance, Russian exploitation, and impacts of the Gold Rush on enslaved populations. The discussion uncovers narratives challenging the perception of California as a 'free' state, emphasizing the need to acknowledge its overlooked history of slavery.

In this special Juneteenth episode, as we honor the emancipation of enslaved African Americans, we delve into the work of those working to preserve slave dwellings across the United States, safeguarding the essential stories these structures embody.In our conversation, Joseph McGill, the Executive Director and Founder of the Slave Dwelling Project, joins us to share why former slave dwellings are vital to our nation's history and what they reveal about the lives of those who once lived in them.Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/386 Complementary Episodes🎧 Episode 075: How Archives Work🎧 Episode 079: What is a Historic Source?🎧 Episode 089: Slavery & Freedom in Early Maryland🎧 Episode 312: The Domestic Slave Trade🎧 Episode 331: Discovery of the Williamsburg Bray School🎧 Episode 360: Kyera Singleton, Slavery & Freedom in Massachusetts🎧 Episode 378: Everyday Black Living in Early America REQUEST A TOPIC📨  Topic Request Form 📫  liz@benfranklinsworld.com WHEN YOU'RE READY 🗞️ BFW Gazette Newsletter  👩‍💻  Join the BFW Listener Community LISTEN 🍎  Apple Podcasts  💚  Spotify  🎶  Amazon Music  🛜 Pandora CONNECT🦋  Liz on Bluesky 👩‍💻  Liz on LinkedIn 🛜  Liz’s Website SAY THANKS💜  Leave a review on Apple Podcasts 💚  Leave a rating on Spotify  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The United States Constitution of 1787 gave many Americans pause about the powers the new federal government could exercise and how the government's leadership would rest with one person, the president.The fact that George Washington would likely serve as the new nation’s first president calmed many Americans’ fears that the new nation was creating an opportunity for a hereditary monarch. Washington had proven his commitment to a democratic form of government when he gave up his army command peacefully and voluntarily. He had proven he was someone Americans could trust. Plus, George Washington had no biological heirs–no sons–to whom he might pass on the presidency.But while George Washington had no biological heirs, he did have heirs.Cassandra A. Good, an Associate Professor of History at Marymount University and author of First Family: George Washington’s Heirs and the Making of America, joins us to explore Washington’s heirs and the lives they lived.Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/385 Complementary Episodes🎧 Episode 027: A History of Stepfamilies in Early America🎧 Episode 033: George Washington and His Library 🎧 Episode 061: George Washinton in Retirement 🎧 Episode 074: Martha Washington 🎧 Episode 137: The Washingtons’ Runaway Slave🎧 Episode 183: George Washinton’s Mount Vernon 🎧 Episode 222: The Early History of Washington, D.C. 🎧 Episode 265: An Early History of the White House   REQUEST A TOPIC📨 Topic Request Form📫 liz@benfranklinsworld.comWHEN YOU'RE READY🗞️ BFW Gazette Newsletter 👩‍💻 Join the BFW Listener CommunityLISTEN 🍎 Apple Podcasts 💚 Spotify 🎶 Amazon Music🛜 PandoraCONNECT🦋 Liz on Bluesky👩‍💻 Liz on LinkedIn🛜 Liz’s WebsiteSAY THANKS💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts💚 Leave a rating on Spotify Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Article IV, Section 3 of the United States Constitution establishes guidelines by which the United States Congress can admit new states to the American Union. It clearly states that “no new State shall be formed or erected within the Jurisdiction of any other State…without the Consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned as well as of the Congress.”Five states have been formed from pre-existing states: Vermont, Kentucky, Tennessee, West Virginia, and Maine. How did the process of forming a state from a pre-existing state work? Why would territories within a state want to declare their independence from their home state?Joshua Smith, the interim director of the American Merchant Marine Museum in Kings Point, New York, and author of the book Making Maine: Statehood and the War of 1812, leads us on an exploration of Maine’s journey to statehood.Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/384 Complementary Episodes 🎧 Episode 030: Northern New England’s Religious Geography 🎧 Episode 057: Money and the American State 🎧 Episode 098: Birth of the American Tax Man 🎧 Episode 103, James Monroe and & His Estate Highland 🎧 Episode 134: Pulpit and Nation 🎧 Episode 309: Merchant Ships of the Eighteenth CenturyREQUEST A TOPIC📨 Topic Request Form📫 liz@benfranklinsworld.comWHEN YOU'RE READY🗞️ BFW Gazette Newsletter 👩‍💻 Join the BFW Listener CommunityLISTEN🍎 Apple Podcasts 💚 Spotify 🎶 Amazon Music🛜 PandoraCONNECT🦋 Liz on Bluesky👩‍💻 Liz on LinkedIn🛜 Liz’s WebsiteSAY THANKS💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts💚 Leave a rating on Spotify Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you will recall from Episode 331, the Williamsburg Bray School is the oldest existing structure in the United States that we know was used to educate African and African American children.As the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation prepares the Bray School for you to visit and see, we’re having many conversations about the history of the school, its scholars, and early Black American History in general.During one of these conversations, the work of Kevin Dawson came up. Kevin is an Associate Professor of History at the University of California, Merced and author of the book, Undercurrents of Power: Aquatic Culture in the African Diaspora.Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/383 Complementary Episodes🎧 Episode 104: The Saltwater Frontier: Europeans & Native Americans on the Northeastern Coast🎧 Episode 241: Pearls and the Nature of the Spanish Empire🎧 Episode 250: Virginia, 1619🎧 Episode 277: Who's Fourth of July?🎧 Episode 331: Discovery of the Williamsburg Bray School🎧 Episode 347: African and African American Music🎧 Episode 352: James Forten and the Making of the United States REQUEST A TOPIC📨 Topic Request Form📫 liz@benfranklinsworld.comWHEN YOU'RE READY🗞️ BFW Gazette Newsletter 👩‍💻 Join the BFW Listener CommunityLISTEN 🍎 Apple Podcasts 💚 Spotify 🎶 Amazon Music🛜 PandoraCONNECT🦋 Liz on Bluesky👩‍💻 Liz on LinkedIn🛜 Liz’s WebsiteSAY THANKS💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts💚 Leave a rating on Spotify Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices