The History of the Americans

[Announcement: The Austin/Central Texas meetup will be 5:30-8 (or so) on June 1, 2023 at Better Half Coffee and Cocktails, 406 Walsh St., Austin, Texas. Email or DM if you can make it so I know how many tables to grab!] On May 30 – Memorial Day -- 1895, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., a Harvard man and then a justice on the Supreme Court of Massachusetts, delivered an address to the graduating class of 1895 in Cambridge.  The speech, known as “The Soldier’s Faith,” is in and of itself fascinating substantively and also for its indirect effects. Regarding those, Theodore Roosevelt, another Harvard man, read the speech some seven years later and determined to appoint Holmes to the Supreme Court on account of it.  Beyond that, the speech is incredibly prescient, in certain respects, and eloquent, even poetic, on the question of personal courage and purpose to a degree that will seem alien to most Americans today, at least those of us who have never served. In this special episode for Memorial Day, we read (almost all of) "The Soldier's Faith" with annotations and digressions, which we hope you find fun and interesting! Twitter: @TheHistoryOfTh2 Facebook: The History of the Americans Podcast Selected references for this episode Stephen Budiansky, Oliver Wendell Holmes: A Life in War, Law, and Ideas "The Soldier's Faith" John Pettegrew, "'The Soldier's Faith': Turn-of-the-Century Memory of the Civil War and the Emergence of Modern American Nationalism," Journal of Contemporary History, January 1996. George Root, "Just Before the Battle Mother" (YouTube)

In the spring and summer of 1637, the Puritans of Massachusetts Bay, the English settlers on the Connecticut River, and their Indian allies, the Narragansetts and the eastern Niantics, would wage a war of annihilation against the Pequot tribe of southern Connecticut. It would be the most brutal fighting between Europeans and the Indians of North America since at least 1599 (when the Spanish massacred the Pueblo Indians of the Acoma mesa). It would also be the first time that Europeans set out to extinguish an Indian nation. As such, it would be, arguably, the greatest stain on the legacy of the Puritans of Massachusetts. This is the military history of that war, the causes and run-up having been covered in the last two episodes. [Errata (5/21/2023): A very longstanding and attentive listener from New Mexico corrected my pronunciation of "Acoma" - the emphasis on the first syllable rather than the second. This is especially embarrassing because I believe he has had to correct me twice, the first time a year and a half ago. The same correspondent also points out the historical debate over the number of Indians who actually died at the Acoma massacre, and what the Spanish actually did to the feet of the captives. Perhaps the Spanish merely cut off their toes, rather than cutting the foot in half.] Twitter: @TheHistoryOfTh2 Facebook: The History of the Americans Podcast Selected references for this episode Alfred A. Cave, The Pequot War Charles Orr, History of the Pequot War: The Contemporary Accounts of Mason, Underhill, Vincent and Gardener Timeline of the Pequot War

After the killing of John Oldham and his crew at Block Island, the Puritans of the Massachusetts Bay Colony mobilized an expedition of 90 men under the command of John Endicott. The goal was to deter Pequot aggression, but Endicott would prove, yet again, to be a stern and inflexible man who would fundamentally blunder into full-scale war with the Pequots. In this episode we look at Endicott's raid, the attempt by the Pequots to seduce the Narragansetts into an alliance, the skillful diplomacy of Roger Williams, and the attack by the Pequots on Fort Saybrook in retaliation. We end the episode with one last missed opportunity for peace. There's a map on the website in the episode notes that is useful for sorting out the geography, if you don't know southern New England like the back of your hand. Also, if you live in Austin or within a reasonable drive, please let me know if you will join our meet-up of listeners on June 1, 2023 at 6 pm, at a venue still to be arranged. Please send me a note by email or direct message on Twitter or Facebook to let me know if you can make it, so I can estimate attendance and pick the right place. See Jack's interview with Jon Gabriel 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 Francis J. Bremer, John Winthrop: America’s Forgotten Founding Father Alfred A. Cave, The Pequot War Charles Orr, History of the Pequot War: The Contemporary Accounts of Mason, Underhill, Vincent and Gardener Timeline of the Pequot War

The Pequot War of 1636-1638 was the first time that Europeans in the lands of today’s United States launched a fundamentally offensive war to reduce an American Indian tribe to ruin. Pious as they were, concerned as they were with God’s favor, the moral athletes of the Massachusetts Bay in the mid-1630s were the first Europeans who pretty much made it their business to wipe out an American Indian tribe.  The question is, why? In this episode and the next, we look at the Pequot War, and the paranoiac misunderstandings that led to the most brutal fighting between Europeans and Indians in North America since Hernando de Soto had raged across Alabama in 1540. [See the episode notes on the website, The History of the Americans, for a map of the Indians tribes in southern New England in 1630 or so, which might be useful for following the action in this episode and the next.] 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 Francis J. Bremer, John Winthrop: America’s Forgotten Founding Father Alfred A. Cave, The Pequot War Charles Orr, History of the Pequot War: The Contemporary Accounts of Mason, Underhill, Vincent and Gardener Timeline of the Pequot War

This is a fun one, especially for fans of Sir Francis Drake! Longstanding and attentive listeners will remember Melissa Darby as the author of the 2019 book, Thunder Go North: The Hunt for Sir Francis Drake’s Fair & Good Bay, which was the primary source for our episode “Novo Albion and Drake’s Legacy,” which goes back to early December, 2021.  It wouldn’t hurt to listen or (re)listen to that episode before this one, but I don’t think it is essential.  Another way might be to go back and listen to it after you have heard this interview.  In the interview Melissa and I talk about the documents discovered by two women scholars, Zelia Nuttell and Eva Taylor, around a century ago, that upended the evidence for Francis Drake having claimed Novo Albion in the area of San Francisco; the ethnographic and linguistic evidence in support of the Golden Hind landing on the coast of Oregon or Washington instead of California; the plot by a famous University of California historian to manufacture Drake's "plate of brass" to refute Nuttell’s claims and obstruct the publication of her paper; the remarkable point that the crew of the Golden Hind spent between five and ten weeks on the Northwest coast, interacting with Indians routinely, without ever having fought with them; and Drake’s legacy more generally.  Twitter: @TheHistoryOfTh2 Books referred to in this episode Melissa Darby, Thunder Go North: The Hunt for Sir Francis Drake’s Fair & Good Bay Samuel Bawlf, The Secret Voyage of Sir Francis Drake: 1577-1580

The founding of Maryland was contentious, because its territory falls within the original mandate of the Virginia Company.  Longstanding and attentive listeners may recall that the patent from James I in 1606 conferred the right to settle along the Atlantic coast between 34 and 40 degrees, or from roughly Wilmington, North Carolina to Seaside Heights, New Jersey.  The Crown revoked the Virginia Company’s charter in 1624, after the catastrophe of Opechancanough’s war, and thereafter it was a Crown Colony with a royal governor. On the one hand, that changed the legal rights of the colonists, as they would eventually find out. On the other, it seemed like a mere governance change, because in the revocation of the charter and the establishment of the Crown Colony, James wasn’t very clear about the borders changing. That would become a problem when his son, Charles I, granted Cecil Calvert, the Second Lord Baltimore, the right to settle around the middle and northern Chesapeake for the annual rent of "two Indian arrows." Virginians, who were already there, were more than a little grumpy about that. Lawsuits would be filed, shots would be fired, and men would be hung. Twitter: @TheHistoryOfTh2 Facebook: The History of the Americans Podcast Selected references for this episode George Bancroft, History Of The United States Of America, Volume 1 Timothy B. Riordan, The Plundering Time: Maryland and the English Civil War, 1645–1646 Manfred Jonas, "The Claiborne-Calvert Controversy: An Episode in the Colonization of North America," Jahrbuch für Amerikastudien, 1966. J. Herbert Claiborne, "William Claiborne of Kent Island," The William and Mary Quarterly, April 1921.

This is a micro-episode to talk about our forthcoming meet-up in Washington and some other stuff. Our Washington, DC meetup for fans of the podcast will be on Tuesday, April 11 at Aslin Beer Company, 1740 14th St NW. 5:30-7:30. I'll probably arrive earlier than that to grab a table. Send me a note if you're coming! The other stuff is mostly my reflections on the podcast, how much I appreciate you guys, telling the ugly parts, objectivity or not in history, and why I don't provide transcripts. Twitter: @TheHistoryOfTh2 Facebook: The History of the Americans Podcast Other podcasts mentioned in this episode (Apple links) The Rest is History The Other States of America History Podcast [Abridged] Presidential Histories The Fifth Column

In this episode we tell the story of Jean Nicolet, one of Samuel de Champlain's embedded interpreters. In the summer of 1634, Champlain sent Nicolet to negotiate a treaty with a tribe known to eat their enemies on the shores of Green Bay, Wisconsin. Along the way we consider the first European encounters with cities that today have National Football League franchises, and the fraught question of Nicolet's legendary "Chinese robe," which was depicted on a United States postage stamp in 1934. But the serious question remains: Was Champlain still looking for a northwest passage, or playing geopolitical 3-D chess? [Errata: No sooner did I publish this episode than I realized that John Smith and other Virginians exploring the Chesapeake had certainly reached the site of Baltimore. The latest possible date is Thomas Claiborne in 1631. All such possible visits are obviously earlier than Jean Nicolet reaching Green Bay.] Twitter: @TheHistoryOfTh2 Facebook: The History of the Americans Podcast Selected references for this episode Patrick J. Jung, The Misunderstood Mission of Jean Nicolet: Uncovering the Story of the 1634 Journey Norman K. Risjord, "Jean Nicolet's Search for the South Sea," The Wisconsin Magazine of History, Spring 2001. David Hackett Fischer, Champlain's Dream Virtual Museum of New France (Cool site, btw)

Roger Williams has fled into the freezing New England winter of 1636, steps ahead of the law. He makes his way from Salem to Narragansett Bay, spending fourteen weeks schlepping from one Indian village to another, always just beyond the reach of the Massachusetts Bay authorities. Eventually, he cuts a deal with the Narragansett sachem Canonicus, who grants him land at the site of today's Providence, Rhode Island. There, Williams establishes the first civil society anywhere in the Christian world devoted to the complete separation of church and state. It would serve as a refuge of last resort for fugitives of conscience, and establish Williams as one of the great "benefactors of mankind," in the words of the 19th century American historian George Bancroft. 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 Edmund S. Morgan, Roger Williams: The Church and State Edmund S. Morgan, The Puritan Dilemma: The Story of John Winthrop New England Historical Society - Slate Rock

It is the summer of 1634. When last we were with Roger Williams – helpfully, just the last episode – he was living in Salem, keeping his head down, and paddling around Massachusetts learning the local indigenous language and culture. But then Salem's minister, Samuel Skelton, would die, and Williams would become the de facto leader of the Salem church. At the same time, politics in England were turning against the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Word was, Sir Ferdinando Gorges was sending an armed ship to confiscate the colony's charter and impose a governor. The colony prepared for war, and considered it essential that God look favorably on the settlers. Roger Williams would speak up, pointing out that if He did not, it would be because of sins against Him from the government and church in Boston. This would lead to a year-long standoff between Williams and his followers over crucial matters of principle. This is the story of that confrontation, which would be the first moment in the history of the Americans when the separation, or not, of church and state would emerge as an existential question. 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 Edmund Morgan, Roger Williams: The Church and State Edmund S. Morgan, The Puritan Dilemma: The Story of John Winthrop

First off, a brief item of business for those of you listening in close to real time – on April 11, 2023, I’ll be in Washington with some free time in the evening.  If Washington area listeners want to do a meet up, send me a note at thehistoryoftheamericans@gmail.com, through the website, or by DM on Twitter.  If we get a few takers I’ll find some place that is reasonably convenient to DuPont Circle where I will be staying, and get it organized.  I hope we can do it! In this episode we recount Roger Williams' first few years in Massachusetts, following his refusal of the post of "teacher" at the church in Boston on the ground that it was insufficiently "separated." In the years until 1624, Williams would begin to develop his idea that church and state must be separate. With the goal of saving Indian souls, he also deepened his understanding of the local tribes and Algonquian language and culture. He would live in Salem, then Plymouth, and back to Salem, but he spent most of his time abroad in the land, paddling his canoe from one Indian village to another. Also during these years, religious zeal in both Massachusetts and back in England, although in different form, would become even more extreme. Zealotry, it would turn out, was not all it was cracked up to be. 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 Edmund Morgan, Roger Williams: The Church and State Edmund S. Morgan, The Puritan Dilemma: The Story of John Winthrop

Our guest today is Kenny Ryan, host of another great history pod, Abridged Presidential Histories with Kenny Ryan. Abridged Presidential Histories Podcast with Kenny Ryan launched its first episode at the end of March, 2020, and has progressed through the American presidencies chronologically. If you have listened to Abridged Presidential Histories, you already know that it includes narrative episodes with a lot of amusing factoids told with humor in solo narrative form – I think you all know I like that sort of thing – and some very interesting interviews with historians who are expert in the relevant presidencies.  We had a wide-ranging conversation, and covered a lot of interesting stuff, including: The changing reputations of Jackson, Grant, JFK, and LBJ. Presidential histories take about 50 years to settle down, because they need to be written by people who were not politically aware as they happened. Should Martin Van Buren get more credit for "Jacksonian Democracy?" Jackson should get more credit for his handling of the Nullification Crisis. What president would Kenny like to have as a friend? Surprising answer! Who was the biggest party animal among the presidents? Should our politicians spend more time drinking and playing cards? Who were the greatest First Ladies? The influence of Dolly Madison and Lady Bird Johnson. Did young Kenny meet Lady Bird on a field trip? Austin's moontowers. Who was the most overrated president? The revival of Calvin Coolidge's reputation on the political right. What presidents would you invite on a pub crawl? Will Nixon be rehabilitated? Is journalism really the "first draft of history"? And much more! Jack on Twitter: @TheHistoryOfTh2 Kenny on Twitter: @APHpodcast [Abridged] Presidential Histories with Kenny Ryan (website) ...and on Apple.

This is the first of several non-consecutive episodes about Roger Williams, whom we have teased a few times already.  Williams was one of early New England’s immensely consequential figures, perhaps in the long run more so than either William Bradford or John Winthrop.  While the intellectual and civic contributions of Williams were legion, there are four startlingly modern things that he essentially invented.  First, Williams argued that requiring people to attend church and worship in a particular way – a practice the English called “conformity” and essentially a universal obligation in Christian Europe for centuries – was an offense unto God. Williams thought that people must be free to find their own faith and follow their own beliefs. In a universally religious time, this amounted to a wholesale reconsideration of the “proper relation between a free individual and the state.”  Second, Williams challenged the settled relationship between the church, man’s manifestation of God on this earth, and the state.  He concluded they should be entirely separate, an idea that most Americans today take as a given. Third, Williams founded the new colony of Rhode Island, the first political entity anywhere in the world dedicated to the proposition of religious freedom and liberty of conscience.  Finally, Williams learned the local Algonquian language and studied the indigenous peoples of New England with a compassion and intellectual honesty that was, for its time, very unusual and arguably unprecedented. In order to understand Williams, however, we need to know something about Puritan theology, an introduction to which is the main topic of this episode! More exciting that it sounds! And, anyway, it will be useful background for many of the episodes to come. Twitter: @TheHistoryOfTh2 Facebook: The History of the Americans Podcast Selected references for this episode Apple Computer, "The Crazy Ones" John M. Barry, Roger Williams and the Creation of the American Soul David Hackett Fischer, Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America Edmund Morgan, Roger Williams: The Church and State Prenanthes serpentaria

The Winthrop Fleet has arrived, but Salem is not what they had expected. John Winthrop leads an expedition to explore Massachusetts Bay, meets Samuel Maverick - whose descendants would be consequential in the world of sports - and William Blackstone (Blaxton), and decides to move the new immigrants to Charlestown, Boston, and other future towns in the region. The winter is brutal, but it makes the Puritan settlers resilient, and their hunger is relieved when the Lyon arrives on February 5, 1631, with new supplies and a minister named Roger Williams. All that and the origin of the Boston Common and a botanical puzzle concerning "snakeweed"! 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 Francis J. Bremer, John Winthrop: America’s Forgotten Founding Father George Bancroft, History Of The United States Of America Volume 1 Thomas Hutchinson, The History of Massachusetts, from the First Settlement Thereof in 1628, Until the Year 1750 Edmund S. Morgan, The Puritan Dilemma: The Story of John Winthrop David Hackett Fischer, African Founders: How Enslaved People Expanded American Ideals Gutierrezia sarothrae William Blaxton (Blackstone) Map of Boston in 1630, superimposed on today's Boston

This episode is a backgrounder, an overview of the Puritan society, culture, and economy in New England during the seventeenth century. The objective is to set all y'all listeners up for more traditional and detailed "timeline" episodes over the coming weeks. Sort of a mega-prerequisite. We therefore discuss Puritan religious "conformity" within the context of the early 1600s, families, religion, property rights, the structure of the New England economy, and its relationship with the outside world. Oh. And the importance of beer and cake when Puritan mothers gave birth to cute little Puritan babies. Twitter: @TheHistoryOfTh2 Facebook: The History of the Americans Podcast Primary reference for this episode Alan Taylor, American Colonies: The Settling of North America

We have arrived at the Great Migration of the Puritans to Massachusetts, which effectively began in 1628 and would continue until 1640 or so, and then abruptly end. The result would be that for almost two hundred years the non-indigenous population of New England would consist almost entirely of the descendants of a group of religious refugees shaped by a particularly tumultuous moment in English political and religious life. The "Winthrop Fleet" of 1630 led by - no surprises here - John Winthrop, would define the geography of Puritan Massachusetts. Winthrop's leadership, which will unfold over two decades, began with one of history's most famous sermons, "A Modell of Christian Charity," which would in turn define the aspirations for the Puritan settlement of Massachusetts Bay. It would also be the first great expression of one aspect of "American exceptionalism," the idea that Americans - meaning specifically Puritan English settlers in New England - would serve as an example for all the world. 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 Francis J. Bremer, John Winthrop: America's Forgotten Founding Father George Bancroft, History Of The United States Of America Volume 1 Thomas Hutchinson, The History of Massachusetts, from the First Settlement Thereof in 1628, Until the Year 1750 John Endecott (Wikipedia) John Winthrop, A Modell of Christian Charity David Crowther, The History of England Podcast

This episode looks at the collapse of trust between Charles I and anti-Puritan royalists and clerics, on the one hand, and Parliament, Puritans, anti-Catholic Anglicans, and lawyers and others concerned with resisting the expansion of royal power on the other, in the second half of the 1620s. The collision would end in a final and very dramatic session of the House of Commons, and would ultimately persuade tens of thousands of Puritans that they had no choice but to leave England. It would be the catalyst for the Puritan Great Migration to New England. Before we get to any of that, however, we briefly address the Twitter kerfuffle I unwittingly set off with a tweet about a BBC story on Sir Francis Drake, and the circumstances under which I do, and do not, support the renaming of things named after people who have fallen out of favor. The Twitter thread regarding Sir Francis Drake's famous change of heart 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 George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham Michael B. Young, "Charles I and the Erosion of Trust, 1625-1628," Albion: A Quarterly Journal Concerned with British Studies, Summer 1990.

Between 1628 and 1640 perhaps 20,000 Puritans would leave England and settle in Boston and environs. Then English immigration to Massachusetts would stop as abruptly as it started. The Puritans of Massachusetts would thrive with only trivial incremental immigration for the next 200 years, creating a uniquely American society in New England, a homogeneous world with its own culture and polity that would eventually become the beating heart of the American Revolution. In this episode and the next, we talk about the theological and political forces that set the stage for the Puritan Great Migration, and the new articulation of English political liberty during the crucial second and third decades of the 17th century that arose from conflict over the scope of royal power between Sir Edward Coke and King James I. Errata: A listener pointed out that Luther posted 95 theses, rather than the 99 I somehow said and sadly missed in post-production. Must have been thinking of red balloons. 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 Alan Taylor, American Colonies: The Settling of North America English Reformation (Wikipedia)

This is our one hundredth episode, at least by some counts, and also our first interview. Eric Yanis, the creator and host of The Other States of America History Podcast, agreed to be our first interviewee. We chatted about a wide range of subjects, including: How the pandemic motivated both of us to start our podcasts; Eric on teaching middle schoolers in New York during the pandmic; The different ways in which we put together our episodes; The rapidly declining interest in history among college undergraduates and some of its causes, including the de-emphasis of history in primary and middle schools; Middle schoolers today have almost no exposure to history before the sixth grade -- "kids today" have not even heard of "teepees"; How interest in history rises as we age - "People become more interested in history the more history they have"; Should history podcasters be intimated by academic historians, and should academics be more supportive of popular history, even if it offends their professional sensibilities? "The zone where lives can live"; A digression on the historiography of the Popham/Sagadahoc Colony and the reasons for its failure; Our fantasy pub crawl with figures from sixteenth and seventeenth century America, assuming a universal translator; Things we hear from listeners; The competing claims for the inspiration of Shakespeare's "The Tempest"; Eric discusses the legacy of New Netherland in our language, our celebration of Christmas, and in our national self-image as a "melting pot"; So maybe I should publish the podcast on YouTube. This was fun, and I hope you all enjoyed it. For those of you listening along in real time, may the season be filled with happiness, and may you give and receive excellent history books! Jack on Twitter: @TheHistoryOfTh2 Eric on Twitter: @OtherStatesPod The Other States of America Podcast (Apple podcast link)

This episode is about the trading between the Dutch of New Netherland, the English first of Plymouth and then of Massachusetts Bay Colony, and the Algonquian and Iroquoian tribes in the region during the 1620s and 1630s.  These relationships were important, both to the profitability of settlement for the Dutch and the English, and because they so destabilized the balance of power among the tribes and the Europeans that they would eventually lead to the very ugly Pequot War of 1636-38. The indigenous ceremonial currency, wampum, sat at the center of this trade, and we take a first look at its monetization by the Dutch and then the English. Twitter: @TheHistoryOfTh2 Facebook: The History of the Americans Podcast Selected references for this episode Mark Meuwese, "The Dutch Connection: New Netherland, the Pequots, and the Puritans in Southern New England, 1620—1638," Early American Studies, Spring 2011. Paul Otto, "Henry Hudson, the Munsees, and the Wampum Revolution," published in The Worlds of the Seventeenth-Century Hudson Valley, ed. Jaap Jacobs and Lou Roper. Albany: SUNY Press, 2014 D. I. Bushnell, Jr., "The Origin of Wampum," The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, Jan - Jun 1906. Wampum (Wikipedia)