The History of the Americans

Jack Henneman

The history of the people who live in the United States, from the beginning.

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20 episodes
Updated July 26

Episodes20

Newest first

July 26 · 31 min
#215 The Founding of Pennsylvania and Some Other Stuff
With Sir William Penn’s passing in 1671, and his deathbed admonition that his son stay true to himself, young William Penn was both financially independent and liberated from worrying that his own activism on behalf of the Quakers would hurt his family. William now owned lands that generated income of around 2000 pounds a year, or roughly the wages of 100 laborers of the time. Penn was a pious son of privilege who used his social, material, and intellectual advantages to advance his family’s business interests and the interests of Quakers, both as individuals and as a religious community. He would get tossed in jail at least once more for his religion, and he would use that time writing defenses of the Quakers and their theology that irritated the established church and its supporters to no end. By the second half of the 1670s he had written more than fifty books and pamphlets on religion and political theory, most of which would vex the English elites in general and local authorities in specific cases. And, yet, by 1681 Penn would persuade King Charles II and his brother, James, Duke of York, to give him, as sole proprietor, an area of 34 million acres, the last land on the eastern seaboard of North America controlled by England. How the heck did that happen? Subscribe to my Substack! Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/HistoryOfTheAmericans #212 William Penn Before Pennsylvania 1 #214 William Penn Before Pennsylvania 2: Penn on Trial #210 The Quakers Invade West New Jersey Primary references for this episode (Commission earned for Amazon purchases through the episode notes on our website) Andrew R. Murphy, William Penn: A Life Jean R. Soderlund (Editor), William Penn and the Founding of Pennsylvania: A Documentary History Joseph E. Illick, Colonial Pennsylvania: A History
July 10 · 29 min
#214 William Penn Before Pennsylvania 2: Penn on Trial
William Penn returned from Ireland in August 1670, and soon found himself arrested, along with fellow Quaker William Mead, for preaching to a crowd in public in violation of “the common law,” an ambiguity that would play out during their momentous trial. The trial would end in their acquittal, notwithstanding egregious intimidation of the jury by the judge, the Lord Mayor Sir Samuel Starling. Among other exciting moments, Starling threw the principled foreman of the jury, Edward Bushel, in jail. Bushel’s suit for a writ of habeas corpus would lead to a verdict that established an inviolate principle in Anglo-American law, that judges may not intimidate juries. Penn and Mead were acquitted under the glare of remarkable publicity for the day, and the case would establish Penn as a nationally famous advocate for Dissenting religion. After his acquittal, Penn finally made it home to visit his dying father, Sir William Penn, with whom he reconciled in a poignant father-son moment. Subscribe to my Substack! X – @TheHistoryOfTh2 – https://x.com/TheHistoryOfTh2 Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/HistoryOfTheAmericans #212 William Penn Before Pennsylvania 1 #208 What You Need to Know About English Politics in the 1680s 1: The Exclusion Crisis Primary references for this episode (Commission earned for Amazon purchases through the episode notes on our website) Andrew R. Murphy, William Penn: A Life Julius J. Marke, “The Trial of William Penn,” Litigation, Fall 1979. Robert and Marilyn Aitken, “Bushell’s Case,” Litigation, Winter 2010.
July 2 · 41 min
#213 Sidebar: A Reading of the Declaration of Independence and Brief Notes on the Signers
The purpose of this episode is very simple: If you find yourself driving in your car with others this weekend (or on some future Fourth of July) and you and your passengers – perhaps they are your children and now they are a captive audience at your mercy – might enjoy hearing the Declaration of Independence and knowing just a little bit about the heroic signers of it, play this episode! For those of you too down-to-earth to say “semiquincentennial,” happy 250th Fourth everybody, and please pass this around to anybody who you think might be interested in it. Subscribe to my Substack! X – @TheHistoryOfTh2 – https://x.com/TheHistoryOfTh2 Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/HistoryOfTheAmericans The Declaration of Independence (National Archives transcription)
June 30 · 33 min
#212 William Penn Before Pennsylvania 1
[Announcement: From November 4 through 6, 2026, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) is hosting its inaugural Soapbox free speech conference in Philadelphia, the city where so many of America’s defining debates over liberty began. I and the wife of the pod will be there and would love to hoist one with listeners of the History of the Americans. More compellingly, there will be several far more famous podcasters for whom free speech is an important value. Were he able to attend, William Penn would be there too, probably as a keynote speaker. Soapbox will bring together leading writers, comedians, scholars, and others for three days of lively debate and thought-provoking conversations about free expression, history, law, culture, and current events. Learn more and grab early-bird tickets before July 4 at soapbox.fire.org, link in the episode notes. Listeners of The History of the Americans Podcast can use promo code HISTORY in all caps to save an additional $50 on their tickets. I hope to see you there.] This episode is about William Penn, founder of three American colonies, before he founded them. The best way to describe the story to be told here is with a quotation from David Hackett Fischer, in his book Albion’s Seed: [The] “Delaware culture area” developed not by some random process of social selection, but from the conscious will and purpose of its Quaker founders. The leading role was played by one founder in particular, William Penn, who served Pennsylvania, Delaware, and also West Jersey as lawgiver, social planner, organizer, tireless promoter, and regulator of the immigration process. The cultural history of this region cannot be understood without knowing something about the mind and character of this extraordinary man. William Penn was a bundle of paradoxes – an admiral’s son who became a pacifist, an undergraduate at Oxford’s Christ Church who became a pious Quaker, a member of Lincoln’s Inn who became an advocate of arbitration, a Fellow of the Royal Society who despised pedantry, a man of property who devoted himself to the welfare of the poor, a polished courtier who preferred the plain style, a friend of kings who became a radical Whig, and an English gentlemen who became one of Christianity’s great spiritual leaders. This episode and the next will explore the mind and character “of this extraordinary man.” Subscribe to my Substack! X – @TheHistoryOfTh2 – https://x.com/TheHistoryOfTh2 Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/HistoryOfTheAmericans Primary references for this episode David Hackett Fischer, Albion’s Seed: Four British Folkways in America Andrew R. Murphy, William Penn: A Life
June 22 · 1 hr 4 min
#211 Sidebar Conversation: Richard Bell on The American Revolution and the Fate of the World
Richard Bell, Rick to his friends and podcast hosts, is Professor of History at the University of Maryland. He is the author of the book Stolen: Five Free Boys Kidnapped into Slavery and their Astonishing Odyssey Home which was a finalist for the George Washington Prize and the Harriet Tubman Prize. He has held major research fellowships at Yale, Cambridge, and the Library of Congress and is the recipient of the National Endowment of the Humanities Public Scholar award and the Andrew Carnegie Fellowship. His new book, The American Revolution and the Fate of the World, published by Penguin, recently won the Journal of the American Revolution Book of the Year Award. The wife of the pod and I saw Rick speak to a small group in Austin in the beginning of April, and his talk stimulated me to buy and read his new and very timely book on the global history of the American Revolution. I enjoyed it very much, insofar as it is packed with the sort of interesting stories that are the stock-in-trade of the History of the Americans Podcast, and of course recommend that you run out and buy it! In our conversation we discuss two of the fourteen chapters in the book, one on the grassroots antiwar movement that emerged in Great Britain early in the war, and the other on Spain’s remarkable contribution to the ultimate patriot victory. I hope you enjoy listening as much as I had fun doing it. Subscribe to my Substack! X – @TheHistoryOfTh2 – https://x.com/TheHistoryOfTh2 Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/HistoryOfTheAmericans
June 1
#210 The Quakers Invade West New Jersey
This is the story of the division of the colony of New Jersey into East New Jersey and West New Jersey, and the bizarre legal and financial machinations that resulted ultimately in the settlement of the region by Quakers in the second half of the 1670s. Fundamentally, those machinations were between two somewhat disreputable Quakers, John Fenwick and Edward Byllynge. Their longstanding quarrel would threaten to spill out into non-Quaker circles, so William Penn intervened to arbitrate between them and save the Friends from embarrassment. It was this intervention that would first involve Penn in North American colonization, and just a few years down the road would result in the founding of Pennsylvania. Subscribe to my Substack! X – @TheHistoryOfTh2 – https://x.com/TheHistoryOfTh2 Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/HistoryOfTheAmericans Useful prerequisite episodes: #167 Ohhhh! Whaddabout New Jersey? #171 New Jersey Is Revolting! Primary references for this episode John E. Pomfret, The Province Of West New Jersey 1609-1702 (Out of print – best found in libraries) The concessions and agreements of the proprietors, freeholders and inhabitants of the province of West New-Jersey, in America Introduction to and summary of the West Jersey Concessions Quintipartite Deed
May 21 · 44 min
#209 What You Need to Know About English Politics in the 1680s 2: The Glorious Revolution
The "glorious revolution" of 1688-89 would change the terms of the English monarchy, and reverberate through American history.
May 2 · 46 min
#208 What You Need to Know About English Politics in the 1680s 1: The Exclusion Crisis
Heading as we are into the 1680s on the timeline of the History of the Americans, it will be useful for all of us to know a few basic things about English politics in the 1680s, including especially the “exclusion crisis” of 1679-1681 and the Glorious Revolution of 1688. Both had a big impact on our own history. Along the way we learn more about John Locke, how the acquittal of William Penn transformed the law in England and ultimately the United States, the actual conspiracy between the English King Charles II and Louis XIV of France, the origin of the words “Tory” and “Whig” at the moment that the English invented political parties, the role of infant mortality in the politics of a monarchy, and the awful, but hilarious, “Popish Plot” conspiracy theory that shaped English politics in 1679-81. Subscribe to my Substack! X – @TheHistoryOfTh2 – https://x.com/TheHistoryOfTh2 Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/HistoryOfTheAmericans Primary references for this episode (Commission earned for Amazon purchases through the episode notes on our website) Jonathan Healey, The Blazing World: A New History of Revolutionary England 1603-1689 The Popish Plot (Wikipedia entry, which goes much deeper than the podcast) Optional prerequisite episode: #146 Oliver’s Army: What You Need to Know About the English Civil Wars
April 20 · 20 min
#207 How Indians of the American West Acquired Horses
Going down a rabbit hole while learning about the Pueblo Revolt of 1680, I started reading about something I have wondered about – how and when did the Indians of the American West acquire horses and learn to use them rather than eat them? The answer is not what you think, or at least not what I thought before I did this work. The story begins with the discovery of silver in Mexico, which I did not see coming. Subscribe to my Substack! X – @TheHistoryOfTh2 – https://x.com/TheHistoryOfTh2 Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/HistoryOfTheAmericans Primary references for this episode William Taylor, et. al., “Early dispersal of domestic horses into the Great Plains and northern Rockies,” Science, 30 March 2023. Jack D. Forbes, “The Appearance of the Mounted Indian in Northern Mexico and the Southwest, to 1680,” Southwestern Journal of Anthropology, Summer, 1959.
April 6 · 40 min
#206 The Pueblo Revolt of 1680 2: The Siege of Santa Fe and the Flight to El Paso
It is August, 1680 in New Mexico. The rebelling Pueblo Indians have sprung their ambush and quickly killed 400 Spaniards. About 2500 survivors have concentrated in two groups, at the government buildings in Santa Fe, and 70 miles to the south at Isleta Pueblo. Each has reason to believe that everybody else has died, and they are alone. The Indians beseige Santa Fe, but Governor Antonio de Otermín leads a successful defense. Still, they are isolated and out of food, and determine to retreat to the recently established mission at El Paso. The southern group, under Lieutenant Garcia at Isleta, make the same decision. This is the history of that harrowing retreat, another amazing story of survival in the European settlement of today’s United States. It is also the only time in American history that rebelling indigenous peoples entirely expelled an established European settlement from their territory. The Spaniards would, of course, eventually reconquer New Mexico, but not until 1692. The settlement of the New Mexican refugees at El Paso would make it – for the moment – the third most populous settlement of Europeans in North America, and the functional beginning of the eventual New Spanish territory, Mexican state, Republic, and American State of Texas. Maps of the Pueblo Revolt Subscribe to my Substack! X – @TheHistoryOfTh2 – https://x.com/TheHistoryOfTh2 Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/HistoryOfTheAmericans Primary references for this episode (Commission earned for Amazon purchases through the episode notes on our website) John L. Kessell, Pueblos, Spaniards, and the Kingdom of New Mexico Charles Wilson Hackett, “The Revolt of the Pueblo Indians of New Mexico in 1680,” The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, October 1911. Charles Wilson Hackett, “The Retreat of the Spaniards from New Mexico in 1680, and the Beginnings of El Paso, I,” The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, October 1912. Charles Wilson Hackett, “The Retreat of the Spaniards from New Mexico in 1680, and the Beginnings of El Paso, II,” The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, January 1913.
March 19 · 37 min
#205 The Pueblo Revolt of 1680 1: The Kindling of War
In August 1680, an alliance of Puebloan peoples, led by a mysterious religious man named Po’pay (also spelled Popé), launched a surprise attack that forced the Spanish entirely out of New Mexico 82 years after they had first settled it. Po’pay’s rebellion would combine elements that will remind longstanding listeners of King Philip’s War in New England and Opechancanough’s surprise attack in Virginia in March 1622. Unlike the Wampanoags and the Pamunkeys, however, Po’pay would achieve his war aims. Along the way we examine the causes of the revolt, the preparations for the ambush, and the terrible first days setting up the siege of Santa Fe, which will be taken up next time. Maps of the Pueblo Revolt Subscribe to my Substack! X – @TheHistoryOfTh2 – https://x.com/TheHistoryOfTh2 Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/HistoryOfTheAmericans #98 A Kingdom of God on the Rio Grande Primary references for this episode (Commission earned for Amazon purchases through the episode notes on our website) John L. Kessell, Pueblos, Spaniards, and the Kingdom of New Mexico Charles Wilson Hackett, “The Revolt of the Pueblo Indians of New Mexico in 1680,” The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, October 1911. Herbert E. Bolton, The Spanish Borderlands: A Chronicle of Old Florida and the Southwest Andrew L. Knaut, The Pueblo Revolt of 1680 David Roberts, The Pueblo Revolt: The Secret Rebellion that Drove the Spaniards
March 2
#204 Albemarle Arises: Culpeper’s Rebellion
In 1677, the longtime residents of the old and remote county of Albemarle in northern Carolina, a collection of cranks and dissidents who had fled from Maryland and Virginia and were used to living free of interference from the Carolina proprietors and the Crown’s tax collectors, revolted against new attempts to collect duties on tobacco. Quite astonishingly, they succeeded! And not without some history comedy along the way. In the long history of the Americans, it is easy to ignore Culpeper’s Rebellion. Virtually all surveys of American history do. Albemarle was small, a literal backwater, and not even the most important part of Carolina. Historians of North Carolina, however, see it as a truer reflection of the American Revolution, a century later, than the other colonial upheavals of the 1670s. The Albemarle rebels were an early example, in their democratic tax-avoiding free-trading don’t-tread-on-me resistance, of ideas that would later be taken up throughout English North America. Subscribe to my Substack! X – @TheHistoryOfTh2 – https://x.com/TheHistoryOfTh2 Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/HistoryOfTheAmericans #158 The Free County of Albemarle #160 The Official Founding of North Carolina Primary references for this episode (Commission earned for Amazon purchases through the episode notes on our website) Lindley S. Butler, A History of North Carolina in the Proprietary Era 1629-1729 Noeleen McIlvenna, A Very Mutinous People: The Struggle for North Carolina, 1660-1713 Hugh F. Rankin, Upheaval in Albemarle: the Story of Culpeper’s Rebellion, 1675-1689
February 13 · 47 min
#203 Sidebar: Henry Knox and the Noble Train of Artillery Part 2
Twenty-five year-old bookseller Henry Knox, his 19 year-old brother Will, and teamsters led by John Becker, Sr., move a long “noble train” of 59 pieces of salvaged artillery from Fort Ticonderoga to Cambridge. The route crossed frozen rivers and the not-dreamlike Berkshire Mountains under unbelievably arduous conditions. As word spread, crowds of Americans would turn out to cheer them on, and serve them cider and whiskey. The artillery, when hoisted to the commanding heights of Dorchester above Boston, would drive the British from their long occupation of that city, and they would never return. It is a story of initiative, ingenuity, tenacity, survival, and charismatic leadership, and was perhaps the first miracle of many that would bless the American Revolution. Map of the Noble Train’s route (not reflecting all the river crossings discussed in the episode): Subscribe to my Substack! X – @TheHistoryOfTh2 – https://x.com/TheHistoryOfTh2 Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/HistoryOfTheAmericans Primary references for this episode (Commission earned for Amazon purchases through the episode notes on our website) William Hazelgrove, Henry Knox’s Noble Train: The Story of a Boston Bookseller’s Heroic Expedition That Saved the American Revolution Thomas M. Campeau, Major, U.S. Army, “The Noble Train of Artillery: A Study Comparison of Current Doctrinal Concepts of the Mission Command Philosophy in History.” (Master’s thesis, pdf)
January 20 · 34 min
#202 Sidebar: Henry Knox and the Noble Train of Artillery Part 1
Exactly 250 years ago, a rotund twenty-five year-old Boston bookseller named Henry Knox was riding his horse between Springfield and Worcester Massachusetts, on his way to George Washington’s headquarters in Cambridge. Washington’s ragtag, ill-equipped Continental Army had kept the British garrison under General Thomas Gage bottled up in Boston and Charlestown since the summer of 1675. Washington had a whole load of problems, including insufficient arms for his men, many with expiring enlistments that threatened to shrink his force by half or more. He also had almost no artillery, just 12 small cannon that Henry Knox, among others, had learned to operate while training with the local militia. Geographically, the Boston of that era was essentially a bubble of land connected to the mainland by an incredibly narrow neck at Roxbury. Two hills loomed over the city from across the water – Breed’s Hill in Charlestown to Boston’s north, which the British had captured at great cost in the summer, and Dorchester Heights, to Boston’s south, which the British had not captured. This is why it was very important – world historically important – that Henry Knox, on that day exactly 250 years ago, was commanding a convoy of artillery comprising 58 pieces and weighing more than 60 tons, pulled on purpose-built sleds by teams of oxen and horses all the way from Fort Ticonderoga, 300 miles away, over rivers and the Berkshires, during the coldest winter in memory. Within just a few days those guns would be in Cambridge, and not long after that, on the sixth anniversary of the Boston Massacre, would be entrenched on Dorchester Heights and open fire on the city and ships below. Henry Knox’s big guns would drive the British from Boston, for good. The tale of that “noble train” of artillery, as Knox famously referred to it, is one of the more astonishing stories of military innovation, indefatigable perseverance, and inspired leadership in a war that had more than its share of such moments. It was also among the most important, because it came at a desperate period when the Americans needed a victory or the entire project of the Revolution might have fallen apart. Map of Boston in 1775: Subscribe to my Substack! X – @TheHistoryOfTh2 – https://x.com/TheHistoryOfTh2 Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/HistoryOfTheAmericans Primary references for this episode (Commission earned for Amazon purchases through the episode notes on our website) William Hazelgrove, Henry Knox’s Noble Train: The Story of a Boston Bookseller’s Heroic Expedition That Saved the American Revolution Thomas M. Campeau, Major, U.S. Army, “The Noble Train of Artillery: A Study Comparison of Current Doctrinal Concepts of the Mission Command Philosophy in History.” (Master’s thesis, pdf) Alexander C. Flick, “General Henry Knox’s Ticonderoga Expedition,” The Quarterly Journal of the New York State Historical Association, April 1928.
January 6 · 37 min
#201 Bacon’s Aftermath 2: Restless Virginia and the Rise of Black Slavery
In the last episode on the Timeline, “Bacon’s Aftermath 1: Diplomacy and Conspiracy 1677-1685,” we looked at the political and geopolitical aftermath of Bacon’s Rebellion. This time we tackle the changes inside Virginia’s society and economy in the years following Bacon’s Rebellion, some of which may have been because of the Rebellion, and others of which probably would have happened anyway. The first half of the episode looks at the governorship of Thomas, Lord Culpeper, and his deft efforts to give effect to the Crown’s desire “to substitute the benevolent despotism of the king for the rapacious local despotism that had brought on one rebellion and threatened to bring on another.” In the second half, we consider the rise of Black slavery in Virginia and the decline of indentured servitude in the quarter century following Bacon’s Rebellion, the economic foundations of the shift, and the untended and somewhat surprising social consequence that by the early 18th century Virginia was a much more stable society than it had been when it had depended on English indentured servants. My Substack X – @TheHistoryOfTh2 – https://x.com/TheHistoryOfTh2 Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/HistoryOfTheAmericans Primary references for this episode (Commission earned for Amazon purchases through the episode notes on our website) Edmund S. Morgan, American Slavery, American Freedom John C. Coombs, “The Phases of Conversion: A New Chronology for the Rise of Slavery in Early Virginia,” The William and Mary Quarterly, July 2011. “An Act Concerning Servants and Slaves” (Virginia, 1705)
Dec 21, 2025 · 1 hr 27 min
#200 Sidebar Conversation: Matthew Restall on “The Nine Lives of Christopher Columbus”
Matthew Restall is an historian and author of over forty books, focusing on the Spanish Conquest era in the Americas; on Aztec and Maya history; on the history of colonial Mesoamerica, primarily Yucatan but including Mexico, Guatemala, and Belize; on the historical African diaspora in the Americas; and on the history of popular music. Matthew is most recently the author of The Nine Lives of Christopher Columbus, the topic of and inspiration for this conversation. Finally, he is Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of History and Anthropology, and Director of Latin American Studies, at Pennsylvania State University. We discussed the phenomenon of “Columbiana,” the vast mythology that has befogged the history and biography of Christopher Columbus, the man, almost entirely for purposes that he himself would not have understood. His book, which I quite recommend, addresses nine such “lives” and the historical mysteries around them. We touch on the four of those that I thought would most appeal to longstanding and attentive listeners – his early life and his pitching for the funding for the “Enterprise of the Indies” – which are the first two lives, and the curious resurrection of Columbus in the 19th century as the founding “grandfather” of the United States, followed by his last “life” – so far – as the great hero of Italian-Americans. This last leads to a discussion of the perception of Columbus today. Along the way we go down numerous rabbit holes, including that there is, even today, a direct descendant of Columbus who bears the title “Admiral of the Ocean Sea.” Other relevant links Matthew Restall, The Nine Lives of Christopher Columbus History Impossible Podcast, “War for the Frontiers of History and America (w/ Jack Henneman of The History of the Americans)”: Apple and Spotify Samuel Eliot Morison, Admiral of the Ocean Sea: A Life of Christopher Columbus X – @TheHistoryOfTh2 – https://x.com/TheHistoryOfTh2 Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/HistoryOfTheAmericans
Dec 5, 2025 · 37 min
#199 Bacon’s Aftermath 1: Diplomacy and Conspiracy 1677-1685
This episode looks again at the causes of Bacon’s Rebellion in light of what we have now learned, before turning to the region of the Chesapeake in the years after the Rebellion. There are two big themes in the post-Bacon Chesapeake. The first, the subject of this episode, is geopolitical. After Bacon, what changed in intercolonial affairs, in the relationship between the Chesapeake colonies and England, and between those colonies and the indigenous nations? The second theme, for part 2, is essentially domestic. How did Virginia itself change politically, economically, and socially, with a special emphasis on the terms of labor and the types of people performing it? Along the way we look at the crazed conspiracy theories that roiled not only Virginia and Maryland, but England, how they affected the various protagonists, led to the negotiation of the “Covenant Chain” between the Iroquois and New York and the other English colonies of North America, and how the end of Bacon’s Rebellion unleashed explosive growth of the trade in enslaved Indians from the Carolinas and points south. My Substack Check out the new merch store! X – @TheHistoryOfTh2 – https://x.com/TheHistoryOfTh2 Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/HistoryOfTheAmericans Selected references for this episode (Commission earned for Amazon purchases through the episode notes on our website) James D. Rice, Tales from a Revolution: Bacon’s Rebellion and the Transformation of Early America Wilcomb E. Washburn, The Governor and the Rebel: A History of Bacon’s Rebellion in Virginia Edmund S. Morgan, American Slavery, American Freedom Josias (Josiah) Fendall Other episodes mentioned Notes on Virginia 1644-1675 The Free County of Albemarle Rogues and Dogs and Fendall’s Rebellion
Nov 19, 2025 · 40 min
#198 Bacon’s Rebellion 6: Recriminations
It is late January 1677 in Virginia. Loyalists under the command of Governor Sir William Berkeley had suppressed Bacon’s Rebellion just after New Year. Now Berkeley was prosecuting the surviving leaders of the rebellion, and loyalist units were looting the estates of wealthy Baconistas to recover losses they had suffered during the war. Then a fleet from London materialized at the mouth of the James, carrying three royal commissioners and a thousand “red coats,” English regular infantry. Their mission, per Charles II, was to suppress the rebellion – which Berkeley and his supporters had already done – and to discover the root causes of the rebellion. They were not prepared to intervene in a peace they had not fought for, which peace Berkeley was determined to shape to the advantage of his faction. Berkeley’s first interest was in justice for himself and his allies, the loyalists who had defended the government of the Crown; the commissioners were focused on the fiscal priorities of the Crown, and were therefore intent on moving beyond the war – bygones – and getting Virginia back to the important work of growing tobacco. There would be consequences. My Substack Check out the new merch store! X – @TheHistoryOfTh2 – https://x.com/TheHistoryOfTh2 Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/HistoryOfTheAmericans Selected references for this episode (Commission earned for Amazon purchases through the episode notes on our website) James D. Rice, Tales from a Revolution: Bacon’s Rebellion and the Transformation of Early America Wilcomb E. Washburn, The Governor and the Rebel: A History of Bacon’s Rebellion in Virginia Charles McLean Andrews, Narratives of the Insurrections, 1675-1690 Edmund S. Morgan, American Slavery, American Freedom Stephen Saunders Webb, 1676: The End of American Independence Wilcomb E. Washburn, Review of Webb, 1676: The End of American Independence, Pacific Historical Review, May 1985. John M. Murrin, Review of Webb, 1676: The End of American Independence, The William and Mary Quarterly, January 1986.
Oct 24, 2025 · 33 min
#197 Bacon’s Rebellion 5: Bacon’s Lousy Luck
Last episode ended with Sir William Berkeley, on the deck of a ship in the James, watching Jamestown burn to the ground in the wee hours of September 19, 1676. The rebels under Nathaniel Bacon were ascendant, and Berkeley resolved to return to his refuge on the Eastern Shore and plot the next phase of his increasingly desperate war. Little did he know that the tide of the war was about to turn again in his favor. This episode begins in London in the summer of 1676, where Crown officials were just beginning to figure out what to do about the turmoil in Virginia, over which they had incomplete and very emotional news. Charles II made some decisions with long-term consequences for Virginia. At about the same time, in a stroke of luck – good or bad, depending on one’s point of view – Bacon died rather horribly. He had done a good job building an organization with an orderly succession plan, but the rebellion had lost its most charismatic leader. A few weeks before Bacon died, at the end of September, the first of several armed merchant ships arrived in the Chesapeake, and after learning about the revolt their captains pledged their service to Berkeley. They would provide crucial support in an amphibious war against rebels along the James and York rivers. One of the captains, Thomas Grantham of the powerful 500-ton Concord, emerged as a courageous and wise diplomat, and would do more than anyone to end the rebellion in early January, 1677. At the end of the war, Berkeley mopped up, and prosecuted and executed most of the leaders of the rebellion. Richard Lawrence, however, disappeared, and was never seen again. The episode ends with the arrival of royal commissioners and a thousand English regular infantry at the end of January, which would be more bad news for Sir William Berkeley. My Substack Check out the new merch store! X – @TheHistoryOfTh2 – https://x.com/TheHistoryOfTh2 Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/HistoryOfTheAmericans Selected references for this episode (Commission earned for Amazon purchases through the episode notes on our website) James D. Rice, Tales from a Revolution: Bacon’s Rebellion and the Transformation of Early America Wilcomb E. Washburn, The Governor and the Rebel: A History of Bacon’s Rebellion in Virginia Charles McLean Andrews, Narratives of the Insurrections, 1675-1690 Robert Beverley, The History and Present State of Virginia
Oct 17, 2025 · 31 min
#196 Bacon’s Rebellion 4: The Burning of Jamestown
Virginia Governor Sir William Berkeley has fled to the Eastern Shore with a small group of loyalist planters and a detachment of perhaps only fifty armed men. Nathaniel Bacon has occupied Berkeley’s estate near Jamestown, and dispatched men to capture loyalist ships anchored there. Bacon’s “navy” has out in search of Berkeley, but Berkeley turned the tables in an audacious amphibious attack and grabbed control of the Bay and the rivers. While Bacon was mucking around in the Dragon Swamp hunting notionally allied Pamunkeys, Berkeley recaptured Jamestown. Loyalist victory seemed at hand, but Bacon forced Berkeley to retreat from Jamestown a second time in part by grabbing the wives of loyalist planters and using them as human shields, and this time the rebels burn it to the ground. At the end of the episode, it appears that the rebels had the upper hand. Little did they understand that the loyalist cause was far from lost, and the rebellion was, unbeknownst to anybody, on the brink of disaster. My Substack Check out the new merch store! X – @TheHistoryOfTh2 – https://x.com/TheHistoryOfTh2 Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/HistoryOfTheAmericans Selected references for this episode (Commission earned for Amazon purchases through the episode notes on our website) James D. Rice, Tales from a Revolution: Bacon’s Rebellion and the Transformation of Early America Wilcomb E. Washburn, The Governor and the Rebel: A History of Bacon’s Rebellion in Virginia Various authors, for the National Park Service, “Mapping the Dragon: AN INDIGENOUS HISTORY OF BACON’S REBELLION” (pdf) Charles McLean Andrews, Narratives of the Insurrections, 1675-1690

The History of the Americans

#215 The Founding of Pennsylvania and Some Other Stuff

#214 William Penn Before Pennsylvania 2: Penn on Trial

#213 Sidebar: A Reading of the Declaration of Independence and Brief Notes on the Signers

#212 William Penn Before Pennsylvania 1

#211 Sidebar Conversation: Richard Bell on The American Revolution and the Fate of the World

#210 The Quakers Invade West New Jersey

#209 What You Need to Know About English Politics in the 1680s 2: The Glorious Revolution

#208 What You Need to Know About English Politics in the 1680s 1: The Exclusion Crisis

#207 How Indians of the American West Acquired Horses

#206 The Pueblo Revolt of 1680 2: The Siege of Santa Fe and the Flight to El Paso

#205 The Pueblo Revolt of 1680 1: The Kindling of War

#204 Albemarle Arises: Culpeper’s Rebellion

#203 Sidebar: Henry Knox and the Noble Train of Artillery Part 2

#202 Sidebar: Henry Knox and the Noble Train of Artillery Part 1

#201 Bacon’s Aftermath 2: Restless Virginia and the Rise of Black Slavery

#200 Sidebar Conversation: Matthew Restall on “The Nine Lives of Christopher Columbus”

#199 Bacon’s Aftermath 1: Diplomacy and Conspiracy 1677-1685

#198 Bacon’s Rebellion 6: Recriminations

#197 Bacon’s Rebellion 5: Bacon’s Lousy Luck

#196 Bacon’s Rebellion 4: The Burning of Jamestown