Ben Franklin's World: A Podcast About Early American History

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 Sponsor Links Colonial Williamsburg Foundation Juneteenth at Colonial Williamsburg Complementary Episodes

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 Sponsor Links Colonial Williamsburg Foundation 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 Willi

Within the Declaration of Independence, the founders of the United States present twenty-seven grievances against King George III as they declare their reasons for why the thirteen British North American colonies sought their independence from Great Britain. Their twenty-fifth grievance declares that King George III “is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat [sic] the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun.” What do we know about the “Armies of foreign Mercenaries” King George III sent to his rebellious American colonies?  Friederike Baer, an Associate Professor of History at Penn State Abbington College, joins us to explore the lives and wartime experiences of the 30,000 German soldiers the British Crown hired and dispatched to North America during the American War for Independence. Frederike is the author of the award-winning book Hessians: German Soldiers in the American Revolutionary War. Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/382 Sponsor Links

The vast and varied landscapes of Texas loom large in our American imaginations. As does Texas culture with its BBQ, cowboys, and larger-than-life personality. But before Texas was a place that embraced ranching, space flight, and country music, Texas was a place with rich and vibrant Indigenous cultures and traditions and with Spanish and Mexican cultures and traditions. Martha Menchaca, a Professor of Anthropology at the University of Texas, Austin, is a scholar of Texas history and United States-Mexican culture. She joins us to explore the Spanish and Mexican origins of Texas with details from her book, The Mexican American Experience in Texas: Citizenship, Segregation, and the Struggle for Equality. Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/381 Sponsor Links Colonial Williamsburg Foundation Complementary Episodes Episode 037: Kathleen DuVal, Independence Lost: Lives on the Edge of the American Revolution Episode 115: Andrew Torget, The Early American History of Texas Episode 178, Karoline Cook,

The American Revolution was a movement that divided British Americans. Americans did not universally agree on the Revolution’s ideas about governance and independence. And the movement’s War for Independence was a bloody civil war that not only pitted brother against brother and fathers against sons; it also pitted wives against husbands. Cynthia A. Kierner is a professor of history at George Mason University and the author of the book The Tory’s Wife: A Woman and Her Family in Revolutionary America. Cindy joins us to lead us through the story of Jane and William Spurgin, an everyday couple who lived in the North Carolina Backcountry during the American Revolution and who found themselves supporting different sides of the Revolution. Show Notes:https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/380 Sponsor Links Colonial Williamsburg Foundation John D. Rockefeller Jr., Library The Virginia Gazette Complementary Episodes Episode 085: Bonnie Huskins, American Loyalists in Canada Episode 126: Rebecca Brannon, The Reintegr

Women make up eight out of every ten healthcare workers in the United States. Yet they lag behind men when it comes to working in the roles of medical doctors and surgeons. Why has healthcare become a professional field dominated by women, and yet women represent a minority of physicians and doctors who serve at the top of the healthcare field? Susan H. Brandt, a historian and lecturer at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, seeks to find answers to these questions. In doing so, she takes us into the rich history of women healers with details from her book, Women Healers: Gender, Authority, and Medicine in Early Philadelphia. Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/379 Sponsor Links Colonial Williamsburg Foundation Complementary Episodes Episode 003: Director of the Library Company of Philadelphia Episode 005: Revolutionary Medicine: The Founding Fathers and Mothers in Sickness and Health Episode 116: Disease & the Seven Years’ War Episode 174: Yellow Fever in the Early American Repu

When we study the history of Black Americans, especially in the early American period, we tend to focus on slavery and the slave trades. But focusing solely on slavery can hinder our ability to see that, like all early Americans, Black Americans were multi-dimensional people who led complicated lives and lived a full range of experiences that were worth living and talking about. Tara Bynum, an Assistant Professor of English and African American Studies at the University of Iowa and the author of Reading Pleasures: Everyday Black Living in Early America, joins us to explore the lives of four early Black American writers: Phillis Wheatley, John Marrant, James Albert Unkawsaw Groniosaw, and David Walker. Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/378 Sponsor Links Colonial Williamsburg Foundation BFW Listener Survey  Complementary Episodes Episode 025: Inventing George Whitefield  Episode 083: Unfreedom: Slavery in Colonial Boston Episode 118: The Business of Slavery in Rhode Island Episode 123: Revolu

2023 marked the 250th anniversary of the arrival of Phillis Wheatley's published book of poetry in the British American colonies. Phillis Wheatley was an enslaved African woman who, as a teenager, became the first published African author of a book of poetry written in English.  Ade Solanke, an award-winning playwright and screenwriter, has written two plays about Phillis Wheatley’s life to commemorate the semiquincentennial of Wheatley’s literary accomplishments. She joins us to not only explore the life of Phillis Wheatley, but also how playwrights use and research history to help them create dramatic works of art. Works of art that can help us forge an emotional connection with the past. Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/377 Sponsor Links Colonial Williamsburg Foundation Exclusive BFW Listener Discount NordVPN BFW Listener Survey  Complementary Episodes Episode 008: The Intercolonial Slave Trade of British America Episode 086: Ben Franklin in London Episode 123: Revolutionary Allegiances

Colonial America was born in a world of religious alliances and rivalries. Missionary efforts in the colonial Americas allow us to see how some of these religious alliances and rivalries played out. Spain, and later France, sent Catholic priests and friars to North and South America, and the Caribbean, purportedly to save the souls of Indigenous Americans by converting them to Catholicism. We also know that Protestants did similar work to help counteract this Catholic work in the Americas. Kirsten Silva Gruesz, a Professor of Literature at the University of California, Santa Cruz, joins us to explore the life and work of Cotton Mather, a Boston Puritan minister who actively sought to counteract the work of Catholic conversion, with details from her book Cotton Mather’s Spanish Lessons: A Story of Language, Race, and Belonging in the Early Americas. Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/376 Sponsor Links Colonial Williamsburg Foundation Exclusive Listener Deal NordVPN Ben Franklin's World Survey

Over the past decade, we’ve heard a lot about “fake news” and “misinformation.” And as 2024 is an election year, it’s likely we’re going to hear even more about these terms. So what is the origin of misinformation in the American press? When did Americans decide that they needed to be concerned with figuring out whether the information they heard or read was truthful or fake? Jordan E. Taylor joins us to find answers to these questions. Jordan is a historian who studies the history of media and the ways early Americans created, spread, and circulated news. He is also the author of the book Misinformation Nation: Foreign News and the Politics of Truth in Revolutionary America. Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/375 Sponsor Links Colonial Williamsburg Foundation 26th Annual Wood in the Eighteenth Century Conference Complementary Episodes Episode 144: The Common Cause of the American Revolution Episode 156: The Power of the Press in the American Revolution Episode 207: Young Benjamin Franklin E

The American Revolution and its War for Independence comprised the United States’ founding movement. The War for Independence also served as the fifth major war for European empire in North America. The fourth war for European empire, the Seven Years’ War, reshaped and redefined Europe’s worldwide colonial landscape in Great Britain’s favor. The American Revolutionary War presented Britain’s European rivals with an opportunity to regain some of the territory they had lost. An opportunity we can see those rivals seizing in the Revolutionary War’s Western Theater. Stephen Kling, Jr., is the author and co-author of several books and articles about the American Revolution in the West. His latest book, The American Revolutionary War in the West, has served as the basis for a museum exhibit at the St. Charles County Heritage Museum in St. Peters, Missouri. Stephen joins us as our expert guide on our expedition through the Revolution’s Western Theater. Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/374 Sponsor Lin

The so-called “March to the American Revolution” comprised many more events than just the Stamp Act Riots, the Boston Massacre, and the Tea Crisis. One event we often overlook played an essential and direct role in the events needed to draw the thirteen rebellious British North American colonies into a union of coordinated response. That event was the Gaspee Affair in 1772. Adrian Weimer, a professor of history at Providence College, has been researching the Gaspee Affair and what it can tell us about the constitutional balance between the British Empire and its colonies. She leads us on an investigation of the Gaspee Affair. Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/373 Sponsor Links Colonial Williamsburg Foundation The Power of Place: The Centennial Campaign for Colonial Williamsburg Complementary Episodes Episode 112: The Tea Crisis of 1773 Episode 118: The Business of Slavery in Rhode Island Episode 144: The Common Cause of the American Revolution Episode 153: Committees and Congresses: Governm

Early America was a diverse place. A significant part of this diversity came from the fact that there were at least 1,000 different Indigenous tribes and nations living in different areas of North America before the Spanish and other European empires arrived on the continent’s shores.  Diane Hunter and John Bickers join us to investigate the history and culture of one of these distinct Indigenous tribes: the Myaamia. At the time of this recording, Diane Hunter was the Tribal Historic Preservation Officer for the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma. She has since retired from that position. John Bickers is an Assistant Professor of History at Case Western Reserve University in Ohio. Both Diane and John are citizens of the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma and experts in Myaamia history and culture. Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/372 Sponsor Links Colonial Williamsburg Foundation Colonial Williamsburg Email Lists The Power of Place: The Centennial Campaign for Colonial Williamsburg Complementary Episodes Episod

Long before European arrival in the Americas, Indigenous people and nations practiced enslavement. Their version of enslavement looked different from the version Christopher Columbus and his fellow Europeans practiced, but Indigenous slavery also shared many similarities with the Euro-American practice of African Chattel Slavery. While there is no way to measure the exact impact of slavery upon the Indigenous peoples of the Americas, we do know the practice involved many millions of Indigenous people who were captured, bound, and sold as enslaved people. Estevan Rael-Gálvez, Executive Director of Native Bound-Unbound: Archive of Indigenous Slavery, joins us to discuss the digital project Native Bound-Unbound: Archive of Indigenous Slavery. Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/371 Sponsor Links Colonial Williamsburg Foundation Colonial Williamsburg Email Lists  The Power of Place: The Centennial Campaign for Colonial Williamsburg   Complementary Episodes Episode 008: Greg O'Malley, Final Passag

Happy Halloween! In honor of the 31st of October and All Hallows Eve, we investigate a historical incident of witches and witchcraft in Springfield, Massachusetts in 1651. Malcolm Gaskill, Emeritus Professor of Early Modern History at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, England, and one of the leading experts in the history of witchcraft, joins us to discuss details from his new book, The Ruin of All Witches: Life and Death in the New World. Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/370 Sponsor Links Colonial Williamsburg Foundation Colonial WIlliamsburg Email Lists "I made this": Black Artists & Artisans Conference, November 10-11, 2023 Complementary Episodes Episode 049: Malcolm Gaskill, How the English Became American Episode 053: Emerson W. Baker, A Storm of Witchcraft Episode 192: Brian Regal, The Secret History of the New Jersey Devil Episode 225: Elaine Forman Crane, The Poison Plot: Adultery & Murder in Colonial Newport Episode 341: Mairi Cowan, Possession and Exorcism in New

Establishing colonies in North America took an astonishing amount of work. Colonists had to clear trees, eventually remove stumps from newly cleared fields, plant crops to eat and sell, weed and tend those crops, and then they had to harvest crops, and get the crops they intended to sell to the nearest market town, and that was just some of the work involved to establish colonial farms. Colonists did not often perform this work on their own. They enlisted the help of children and neighbors, purchased enslaved people, and used animals. Undra Jeter is the Bill and Jean Lane Director of Coach and Livestock at the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. He joins us to explore the animals English and British colonists brought with them to North America and used to build, run, and sustain their colonial farms and cities. Animals provided many benefits to early Americans, so Undra also shares information about the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation’s efforts to bring back the population numbers of some of these historic ani

The Brafferton Indian School has a long and complicated legacy. Chartered with the College of William & Mary in 1693, the Brafferton Indian School’s purpose was to educate young Indigenous boys in the ways of English religion, language, and culture. The Brafferton performed this work for more than 70 years, between the arrival of its first students in 1702 and when the last documented student left the school in 1778.  This second episode in our 2-episode series about the Brafferton Indian School will focus on the legacy of the Brafferton Indian School and how it and other colonial-era Indian Schools established models for the schools the United States government and religious institutions established during the Indian Boarding School Era.  As one of the architects of these later Boarding Schools, Richard Henry Pratt, stated, the purpose of these boarding schools was to “kill the Indian and save the man.” Pratt meant that the United States government desired to assimilate and fully Americanize Indigenous c

In 1693, King William III and Queen Mary II of England granted a royal charter for two institutions of higher education in the Colony of Virginia. The first institution was the College of William & Mary. The second institution was the Indian School at William & Mary, known from 1723 to the present as the Brafferton Indian School. The history of the Brafferton Indian School is a story of power, trade, land, and culture. It’s an Indigenous story. It’s also a story of English, later British, colonialism. Over the next two episodes, we will investigate the Brafferton Indian School and the stories it tells about power, trade, land, culture, and colonialism in early America. We’ll also explore the legacy of the Brafferton and other colonial Indian schools by examining the connections between these schools and the creation of the Indian Boarding Schools that operated within the United States between the mid-nineteenth and mid-twentieth centuries. In this episode, we focus on the history and origins of the Br

On September 17, 1787, the members of the Constitutional Convention concluded their work by signing the final draft of their new proposed government. The document they signed was the United States Constitution, which is why the United States marks Constitution Day each year on September 17. In honor of Constitution Day, we explore the life of a Founder who played a large role in the creation and shaping of the United States Constitution: James Wilson. Michael H. Taylor, Professor of United States History and Political Science at Northeast Community College and author of James Wilson: The Anxious Founder, joins us to investigate the life of James Wilson, who stands as one of the United States’ overlooked founders.  Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/366 Sponsor Links Colonial Williamsburg Foundation Factor Meals Save 50 percent by using code benfranklin50   Complementary Episodes Episode 055: Robb Haberman, John Jay: Forgotten Founder Episode 094: Cassandra Good, Founding Friendships Episode

2020 commemorated the 300th anniversary of French presence on Prince Edward Island. Like much of North America, the Canadian Maritime provinces of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Cape Breton Island, and Prince Edward Island were highly contested regions. In fact, the way France and Great Britain fought for presence and control of this region places the Canadian Maritimes among the most contested regions in eighteenth-century North America. Anne Marie Lane Jonah, a historian with the Parks Canada Agency, joins us to explore the history of Prince Edward Island and why Great Britain and France fought over the Canadian Maritime region. This episode originally posted as Episode 283.  Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/365 Sponsor Links Colonial Williamsburg Foundation Complementary Episodes Episode 064: Brett Rushforth, Native American Slavery in New France Episode 104: Andrew Lipman, Europeans & Native Americans on the Northeastern Coast Episode 108: Ann Little, The Many Captivities of Esther