King Philip’s War 1: The Kindling Of War The History Of The Americans podcast

40:27

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, Philip. Alexander would soon die under circumstances that deeply concerned the Wampanoags, and his brother Metacom, now known to the English as King Philip, assumed the paramount sachemship. During the 1660s and 1670s, a series of crises would degrade the now fifty year alliance between Plymouth Colony and the Wampanoag confederation, with war narrowly averted in 1671. Then, in early 1675, the Harvard-educated Christian Indian John Sassamon would be found dead, murdered by someone. Plymouth prosecuted and executed three Wampanoag men on scanty evidence, a violation of Philip’s sovereignty. Misunderstandings piled on top of outrage, and pressure built on both Philip and the Plymouth authorities to mobilize. The deputy governor of Rhode Island tried to broker peace, but events moved too fast. On June 23, 1673, the war began. X/Twitter – @TheHistoryOfTh2 – https://x.com/TheHistoryOfTh2 Facebook – The History of the Americans Podcast – https://www.facebook.com/HistoryOfTheAmericans Selected references for this episode (Commission earned for Amazon purchases through the episode notes on our website) Lisa Brooks, Our Beloved Kin: A New History of King Philip’s War Jill LePore, The Name of War: King Philip’s War and the Origins of American Identity Matthew J. Tuininga, The Wars of the Lord: The Puritan Conquest of America’s First People John Easton, A Relation of the Indian War (pdf) Philip Ranlet, “Another Look at the Causes of King Philip’s War,” The New England Quarterly , March 1988.…

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King Philip’s War 1: The Kindling of War 39:05

17 days ago39:05

39:05

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, it is often the only event between the founding of Jamestown, Plymouth, and Massachusetts Bay and the end of the 17 th century that rates more than a sentence or two. This is for good reason, insofar as King Philip’s War changed the trajectory of New England’s history. It is thought to be the bloodiest war in American history as a proportion of the affected population. As many as 1000 colonists died, including perhaps 10 percent of the English men of military age. Three thousand Indians were killed, and as many as a thousand were sold into slavery abroad. The war altered the relationship between the European colonists and the Indians of the region to a far greater degree than the Pequot War or any of the other conflicts that had preceded it, shattered the military and cultural power of New England’s most powerful indigenous nations, and so devastated the English that by some estimates per capita wealth in the region did not return to the level of 1675 until the eve of the American Revolution a century later. The New England frontier, for better or worse, did not advance for forty years after King Philip’s War. Suffice it to say, we should understand the issues that broke the long peace in the summer of 1675, almost exactly 350 years ago. X/Twitter – @TheHistoryOfTh2 – https://x.com/TheHistoryOfTh2 Facebook – The History of the Americans Podcast – https://www.facebook.com/HistoryOfTheAmericans Selected references for this episode (Commission earned for Amazon purchases through the episode notes on our website) Lisa Brooks, Our Beloved Kin: A New History of King Philip’s War Jill LePore, The Name of War: King Philip’s War and the Origins of American Identity Matthew J. Tuininga, The Wars of the Lord: The Puritan Conquest of America’s First People Pekka Hämäläinen, Indigenous Continent: The Epic Contest for North America Philip Ranlet, “Another Look at the Causes of King Philip’s War,” The New England Quarterly , March 1988.…

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Jolliet and Marquette: Loose Ends and Notes on Early Chicago 32:12

6 weeks ago32:12

32:12

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 the fate of the Carolina Parakeet, snippits from the earliest history of Chicago, including the origin of the name of that city, its first non-indigenous resident, and the resolution of Marquette’s pervasive gastrointestinal issues. [ Errata : About five minutes along I saw that Jolliet arrived at Quebec about July 29, 1673. Should have been 1674 . Oops.] X/Twitter – @TheHistoryOfTh2 – https://x.com/TheHistoryOfTh2 Facebook – The History of the Americans Podcast – https://www.facebook.com/HistoryOfTheAmericans Selected references for this episode (Commission earned for Amazon purchases through the episode notes on our website) Mark Walczynski, Jolliet and Marquette: A New History of the 1673 Expedition John William Nelson, Muddy Ground: Native Peoples, Chicago’s Portage, and the Transformation of a Continent Francis Borgia Steck, The Jolliet-Marquette Expedition, 1673 ( pdf ) Jean Baptiste Point du Sable…

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Louis Jolliet and Jacques Marquette Explore the “Mesippi” 41:53

8 weeks ago41:53

41:53

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 voyageur . Jacques Marquette was the more usual sort, having been born in France in 1637. By the time of the expedition Marquette was a Jesuit priest, long known to the nations of North America as a “Black Robe.” The episode begins with an overview of New France in the years between Samuel de Champlain’s death in 1635 and 1661, when it languished because the Five Nations of the Iroquois had it entirely bottled up. The expedition was a marker of New France’s rapid expansion after King Louis XIV began to rule in his own right that year. Along the way, our heroes become the first Europeans to visit Iowa (Go Hawks!), see some extraordinary painted monsters, learn the importance of the calumet, and find a short portage in the eastern continental divide at a place soon to be called Chicago. Map of the route (visible in the shownotes for the episode on the website), credit Illinois State Museum X/Twitter – @TheHistoryOfTh2 – https://x.com/TheHistoryOfTh2 Facebook – The History of the Americans Podcast – https://www.facebook.com/HistoryOfTheAmericans Selected references for this episode (Commission earned for Amazon purchases through the episode notes on our website) Mark Walczynski, Jolliet and Marquette: A New History of the 1673 Expedition Francis Borgia Steck, The Jolliet-Marquette Expedition, 1673 ( pdf ) Piasa “monsters” (Wikipedia) Carignan-Salières Regiment (Wikipedia) Beaver Wars (Wikipedia)…

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Raid on America 3: “All Theyr Cry was for New Yorke!” 44:01

10 weeks ago44:01

44:01

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, where the year’s crop of tobacco from Virginia and Maryland had been loaded on merchant ships to sail by convoy to England. Arriving there on July 10, Evertsen and Benckes fought two English warships in the second Battle of the James River, and captured or destroyed thousands of hogsheads of tobacco. As they left with their haul, they grabbed a ketch with, among other people, a couple of the New Jersey rebels on board. They gave Evertsen important intelligence about the shoddy defenses of New York. By the end of July, only three weeks after arriving at the Chesapeake, Kees the Devil would reconquer New Netherland. But not before a brave English soldier got decapitated by a cannon ball. X/Twitter – @TheHistoryOfTh2 – https://x.com/TheHistoryOfTh2 Facebook – The History of the Americans Podcast – https://www.facebook.com/HistoryOfTheAmericans Selected references for this episode (Commission earned for Amazon purchases through the episode notes on our website) Donald G. Shomette and Robert D. Haslach, Raid on America: The Dutch Naval Campaign of 1672-1674 John E. Pomfret, Province of East New Jersey, 1609-1702: The Rebellious Proprietary Robert C. Ritchie, The Duke’s Province: A Study of New York Politics and Society, 1664-1691 Battle of the James River (1667) (Wikipedia)…

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Raid on America 2: Kees the Devil Sails 38:30

11 weeks ago38:30

38:30

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 accomplishments, Evertsen, known to his fans as Kees the Devil, and Benckes, “subdued three English colonies, depopulated a fourth, captured or destroyed nearly 200 enemy vessels, inflicted a serious injury upon the Virginia tobacco trade, wiped out the English Newfoundland fisheries, and caused unending panic in the New England colonies.” This episode covers the first phase of the “raid on America,” in which Evertsen’s squadron sails from Zeeland for the South Atlantic, aiming to capture the English East India fleet at St. Helena. Failing that, the squadron sailed for South America and the Indies, eventually meeting up with Benckes at Martinique. After capturing prizes and burning down St. Eustatius, the episode ends with Evertsen and Benckes headed toward the rich tobacco fleet then gathering in the Chesapeake. X/Twitter – @TheHistoryOfTh2 – https://x.com/TheHistoryOfTh2 Facebook – The History of the Americans Podcast – https://www.facebook.com/HistoryOfTheAmericans Selected references for this episode (Commission earned for Amazon purchases through the episode notes on our website) Donald G. Shomette and Robert D. Haslach, Raid on America: The Dutch Naval Campaign of 1672-1674 Map of the land campaign against the United Provinces in the Third Anglo Dutch War: Third Anglo-Dutch War (Wikipedia) Cornelis Evertsen The Youngest (Wikipedia) The Fifth Column Podcast…

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Raid on America 1: Overview of the Anglo-Dutch Wars 41:10

13 weeks ago41:10

41:10

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 accomplishments, Evertsen, known to his fans as Kees the Devil, and Benckes, “subdued three English colonies, depopulated a fourth, captured or destroyed nearly 200 enemy vessels, inflicted a serious injury upon the Virginia tobacco trade, wiped out the English Newfoundland fisheries, and caused unending panic in the New England colonies.” They recovered New York for the Dutch to the great if fleeting joy of much of its citizenry, and so demoralized the English that Parliament turned against the war and forced Charles II to sue for peace. The story is best understood in the context of the Anglo-Dutch Wars, which have been in the background of many of our episodes. This episode, therefore, is a primer on the first two Anglo-Dutch wars, and the run-up to the third, which will feature in the next episode. Map of the Low Countries at the relevant time (note the corrider denoted the “Bishopbric of Leige” connecting the Dutch Republic to France): X/Twitter – @TheHistoryOfTh2 – https://x.com/TheHistoryOfTh2 Facebook – The History of the Americans Podcast – https://www.facebook.com/HistoryOfTheAmericans Useful background episode: https://thehistoryoftheamericans.com/the-fall-of-new-amsterdam-and-the-founding-of-new-york/ Selected references for this episode (Commission earned for Amazon purchases through the episode notes on our website) Donald G. Shomette and Robert D. Haslach, Raid on America: The Dutch Naval Campaign of 1672-1674 C. R. Boxer, “Some Second Thoughts on the Third Anglo-Dutch War, 1672-1674,” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society , 1969. Third Anglo-Dutch War (Wikipedia) Four Days Battle (Wikipedia) Raid on the Medway (Wikipedia)…

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New Jersey Is Revolting! 33:22

15 weeks ago33:22

33:22

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 title to land. John Ogden, ancestor of your podcaster, emerged as a key player in the “popular party.” By the summer of 1673, the proprietors, with the help of the Duke of York and King Charles II, had put down the rebellion. James, now virtually disowned by his father, fled to Carolina, but along the way would be captured by the Dutch captain Cornelis Evertsen the Youngest, known to his many fans as “Kees the Devil.” James, or one of his resentful allies, would describe the defenses of New York to Evertsen, setting up the Dutch reconquest of New York. X/Twitter – @TheHistoryOfTh2 – https://x.com/TheHistoryOfTh2 Facebook – The History of the Americans Podcast – https://www.facebook.com/HistoryOfTheAmericans Useful background: https://thehistoryoftheamericans.com/ohhhh-whaddabout-new-jersey/ Selected references for this episode (Commission earned for Amazon purchases through the episode notes on our website) John E. Pomfret, Province of East New Jersey, 1609-1702: The Rebellious Proprietary James Carteret: The Black Sheep (Interesting blog post on James Carteret)…

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The First English Settlement of South Carolina 40:41

18 weeks ago40:41

40:41

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 Bahamas. And, yet, once on the banks of the Ashley River, the first English South Carolinians would lose only 12% of their population in their first 18 months, a record of survival in the first “seasoning” year matched only by Maryland in the 17th century. X/Twitter – @TheHistoryOfTh2 – https://x.com/TheHistoryOfTh2 Facebook – The History of the Americans Podcast – https://www.facebook.com/HistoryOfTheAmericans Selected references for this episode (Commission earned for Amazon purchases through the episode notes on our website – https://thehistoryoftheamericans.com/the-first-english-settlement-of-south-carolina/ ) Edward McCrady, The History of South Carolina Under the Proprietary Government 1670-1719 L. H. Roper, Conceiving Carolina: Proprietors, Planters, and Plots 1662-1729 George Bancroft, History of the United States of America: From the Discovery of the Continent Alexander S. Salley, Jr., Narratives of Early Carolina 1650-1708 (Includes narrative of Maurice Mathews) Letter from Henry Woodward to Sir John Yeamans , September 10, 1670 J. Leitch Wright, Jr., “Spanish Reaction to Carolina,” The North Carolina Historical Review , October 1964.…

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Lord Ashley, John Locke, and the Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina 43:13

20 weeks ago43:13

43:13

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. With his friend and confidant John Locke, Lord Ashley would develop a fantastically – some would say hilariously – detailed plan of government for Carolina that would never be put into effect, but which would inspire and confound historians and even be cited by courts into our own time, the Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina. This episode is about Ashley, Locke, and those strange Fundamental Constitutions. X/Twitter: @TheHistoryOfTh2 Facebook: The History of the Americans Podcast Selected references for this episode (Commission earned for Amazon purchases through the website) George Bancroft, History of the United States of America: From the Discovery of the Continent Edward McCrady, The History of South Carolina Under the Proprietary Government 1670-1719 L. H. Roper, Conceiving Carolina: Proprietors, Planters, and Plots 1662-1729 Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina, March 1, 1669 Jennifer Welchman, “Locke on Slavery and Inalienable Rights,” Canadian Journal of Philosophy , March 1995. John Locke…

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Barbadians Explore South Carolina 44:54

22 weeks ago44:54

44:54

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 Proprietary in March 1663. In 1663 and 1666, two expeditions from Barbados, then perhaps the wealthiest corner of the nascent English empire, would explore coastal South Carolina, and set the stage for the first surviving English settlement on that coast, the town of Charleston in 1670. This is the story of those two expeditions, the first by William Hilton, after whom Hilton Head was quickly named, and the second by Robert Sandford, who named the Ashley River. X/Twitter: @TheHistoryOfTh2 Facebook: The History of the Americans Podcast Selected references for this episode (Commission earned for Amazon purchases through the website) Edward McCrady, The History of South Carolina Under the Proprietary Government 1670-1719 L. H. Roper, Conceiving Carolina: Proprietors, Planters, and Plots 1662-1729 Alexander S. Salley, Jr., Narratives of Early Carolina 1650-1708 (Includes narratives of William Heaton and Robert Sandford) Charles Towne John Vassall John Yeamans Cape Fear Settlements William Hilton Bermuda Sloop Henry Woodward…

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Ohhhh! Whaddabout New Jersey? 35:56

24 weeks ago35:56

35:56

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 most important cities in English North America in 1776, New York and Philadelphia. But even that is puzzling. One look at the map tells us that New Jersey is fundamentally a big fat peninsula between the two most commercially important rivers of mid-17th century North America – the lower Hudson and the Delaware. It certainly seems strategic. It is therefore a little surprising that it was not settled in any meaningful way until after most of lower New England, Long Island, New York, Maryland, and Virginia. With few exceptions, the Dutch settled on the east bank of the Hudson, and the Swedes on the west bank of the Delaware. New Jersey did not come in for meaningful European settlement until after the Duke of York took over New Netherland, and even then took ages to really get off the ground. Why was that? This episode answers that question! Selected references for this episode John E. Pomfret, Province of East New Jersey, 1609-1702: The Rebellious Proprietary The Concession and Agreement of the Lords Proprietors of the Province of New Caesarea, or New Jersey, to and With All and Every the Adventurers and All Such as Shall Settle or Plant There George Carteret Ohhhhh! The New Jersey Game Show (SNL)…

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Introduction to the Columbian Exchange (Revised) 39:42

25 weeks ago39:42

39:42

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. Crosby Jr. of the University of Texas at Austin. The original episode focuses on the impact of diseases and crops that moved from one hemisphere to the other following 1492. It is replete with interesting factoids! The revisions include thoughts on the human consequences, including to the indigenous peoples of the Americans and Africans swept up in the trans-Atlantic slave trade, and how we might think about it now. *I think you know what I'm saying here. To each his own. Selected references for this episode (Commission earned for Amazon purchases through the website) Alfred W. Crosby, Jr., The Columbian Exchange: Biological and Cultural Consequences of 1492, 30th Anniversary Edition Noble David Cook, Born to Die: Disease and New World Conquest, 1492-1650 Charles C. Mann, 1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created Nathan Nunn and Nancy Qian, “The Columbian Exchange: A History of Disease, Food, and Ideas” University of Zurich, “Syphilis May Have Spread Through Europe Before Columbus”…

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English Colonial Governance in a Nutshell: Charters, Proprietaries, and Royal Colonies 15:46

25 weeks ago15:46

15:46

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 useful background for much of what comes next. X/Twitter: @TheHistoryOfTh2 Facebook: The History of the Americans Podcast Links to selected English-American charter documents Charter of Massachusetts Bay, March 4, 1629 Charter of the Colony of New Plymouth Granted to William Bradford and His Associates, 1629 Sir Robert Heath's Patent for Carolana, October 30, 1629 The Charter of Maryland, June 20, 1632 Charter of Carolina, March 24, 1663 Charter of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, July 15, 1663 Charter for the Province of Pennsylvania, February 20, 1681 Avalon Project 17th Century Documents…

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Sidebar Interview: David Beito on the New Deal’s War on the Bill of Rights 1:21:20

27 weeks ago1:21:20