The History of the Americans  By  cover art

The History of the Americans

By: Jack Henneman
  • Summary

  • The history of the people who live in the United States, from the beginning.
    Copyright 2021 Jack Henneman
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Episodes
  • Roger Williams Saves Rhode Island Again!
    Jun 6 2024
    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, from subversion, to legal and military attacks on the Narragansetts, Rhode Island's closest indigenous allies, to political maneuvering in London. At every turn, Williams would outfox them, finally obtaining a charter from Charles II that definitively established absolute religious liberty in Rhode Island, and mandated a "democratical" form of government. Rhode Island under Williams would become the freest place in the English world, and Rhode Islanders would defend their freedoms even after Williams was no longer in their government. This is that story. 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 (Commission earned) James A. Warren, God, War, and Providence: The Epic Struggle of Roger Williams and the Narragansett Indians against the Puritans of New England (Commission earned) Joshua J. Monk, "Roger Williams' A Letter to the Town of Providence" Jean-Pierre Cavaillé, "'Naked as a sign'. How the Quakers invented nudity as a protest," Clio. Women, Gender, History, June 2021.
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    41 mins
  • The Life and Times of Samuell Gorton
    May 28 2024
    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, and often very funny in the doing of it, although nobody much considered him a laugh riot at the time. Gorton would, for example, address the General Court of Massachusetts, men not known for their happy-go-lucky ways, as "a generation of vipers, companions of Judas Iscariot." And yet Gorton (who spelled his first name "Samuell") would be second only to Roger Williams in shaping the civic freedom of Providence and Rhode Island. X/Twitter: @TheHistoryOfTh2 Facebook: The History of the Americans Podcast Useful background: "Roger Williams Saves Rhode Island," The History of the Americans Podcast Selected references for this episode Kenneth W. Porter, "Samuell Gorton: New England Firebrand," The New England Quarterly, September 1934. John M. Barry, Roger Williams and the Creation of the American Soul: Church, State, and the Birth of Liberty (Commission earned) Michelle Burnham, "Samuel Gorton's Leveller Aesthetics and the Economics of Colonial Dissent," The William and Mary Quarterly, July 2010. Philip F. Gura, "The Radical Ideology of Samuel Gorton: New Light on the Relation of English to American Puritanism," The William and Mary Quarterly, January 1979. Samuel Gorton (Wikipedia)
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    37 mins
  • Rogues and Dogs and Fendall’s Rebellion
    May 11 2024
    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 named Josias Fendall as the fourth governor of his proprietary colony. Fendall, it would turn out, decided he agreed with the populists, and led a legislative revolution that, for a time, would make Maryland the most politically radical government, other than in Rhode Island, anywhere in the English world. X (Twitter): @TheHistoryOfTh2 Facebook: The History of the Americans Podcast Primary reference for this episode Noeleen McIlvenna, Early American Rebels: Pursuing Democracy from Maryland to Carolina, 1640-1700 (Commission earned)
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    40 mins

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forgotten history?

there are so many people, places and events that I have never heard about all told in a well documented and entertaining fashion. my favorite podcast.

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