173 Colonial Port Cities and Slavery
The histories of early North America and the Caribbean are intimately intertwined. The same European empires we encounter in our study of early America also appear in the Caribbean. The colonies of th...
13 Feb 201855min
172 Spies, Patriots, and Traitors: American Intelligence in the Revolutionary War
Intelligence gathering plays an important role in the foreign policies of many modern-day nation states, including the United States. Which raises the questions: How and when did the United States est...
6 Feb 201851min
171 Native Americans, British Colonists, and Trade in North America
History books like to tell us that Native Americans did not fully understand British methods and ideas of trade. Is this really true? Did Native Americans only understand trade as a form of simplisti...
30 Jan 20181h 1min
170 New England Bound: Slavery in Early New England
New England was a place with no cash crops. It was a place where many of its earliest settlers came to live just so they could worship their Puritan faith freely. New England was also a place that bec...
23 Jan 201844min
169 The Religious Life of Benjamin Franklin
We remember Benjamin Franklin as an accomplished printer, scientist, and statesman. Someone who came from humble beginnings and made his own way in the world. Rarely do we remember Franklin as a man o...
16 Jan 201852min
168 Wild By Nature: Colonists and Animals in North America
When we study the history of colonial North America, we tend to focus on European colonists and their rivalries with each other and with Native Americans. But humans weren’t the only living beings occ...
9 Jan 201852min
167 The Early History of New Orleans
The French established New Orleans and the greater colony of Louisiana in 1717. By 1840, New Orleans had become the 3rd largest city in the United States. How did that happen? How did New Orleans tra...
2 Jan 201854min
166 Freedom and the American Revolution
The Declaration of Independence described “all men” as “created equal” when its authors knew they were not. So was the revolutionary idea of freedom dependent on slavery? In this last episode of the ...
26 Dec 201758min
