The History of the Americans

The year is 1642. The Puritan colonies of Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth, and Connecticut are conspiring against settlements at Providence and on Aquidneck Island, then small clusters of religious dissidents living under the protection of Roger Williams and his Narragansett allies. As the pressure mounted, the Rhode Islanders asked Williams to go to England and secure legal protection for their land and self-government. Williams would sail to England in 1643, and outmaneuver all of New England’s enemies of religious freedom. He would do this by writing an astonishing book about Indians. Among other things. Against daunting odds, Williams would persuade Parliament, then dominated by Puritans and engaged in a great civil war with the royalists loyal to Charles I, to grant him a patent for Narragansett Bay that explicitly authorized rule by the majority of citizens. Williams had secured English protection for the freest place in the world for non-conformists, independent thinkers, and, TBH, cranks. Oh. And he may well have persuaded John Milton to come out for freedom of the press. Subscribe by email 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 Roger Williams, A Key Into the Language of America Areopagitica

Sweden’s greatest king, Gustavus Adolphus, aspires for Sweden to become a maritime and commercial power in the Atlantic, and engages Dutch entrepreneurs to advise him and his councilors how to do it. The Swedes recruit Peter Minuit, the erstwhile governor of New Netherland and the man who acquired Manhattan island from the Lenne Lenape tribe in the region. Eager for a new gig in the New World, Minuit leads two Swedish ships with Dutch crews – the Kalmar Nyckel and the Gripen – to the site of today’s Wilmington, Delaware. Minuit would meet with the chiefs in the region and acquire, in one fashion or another, the west bank of the Delaware River from roughly the site of Philadelphia International Airport to Cape Henlopen. New Sweden would survive and at times prosper for 17 years, but Minuit, tragically, would not live more than six months after landing again in the New World. For more on Minuit’s career in New Netherland, you might listen to “The Purchase of Manhattan and Other Dutch Treats.” X (Twitter): @TheHistoryOfTh2 Facebook: The History of the Americans Podcast Subscribe by email Selected references for this episode Russell Shorto, The Island at the Center of the World: The Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan and the Forgotten Colony That Shaped America C. A. Weslager, New Sweden on the Delaware 1638-1655 C. T. Odhner and G. B. Keen, “The Founding of New Sweden, 1637-42,” The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, 1879. Carl K. S. Sprinchorn and G. B. Keen, “The History of the Colony of New Sweden,” The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, 1883.

The Maryland Assembly convenes, and wrestles with the Lord Proprietor over the privilege of initiating legislation. Once the tussle is resolved, the Palatinate’s government enacts a raft of new laws, which provide a glimpse into the concerns that preoccupied the first Marylanders. Among these new laws are the first recognition of slaves and slavery in English North America. Oh, and you may hear a little dog barking in the background. He’s enjoying the Adirondacks too. X (Twitter): @TheHistoryOfTh2 Facebook: The History of the Americans Podcast Subscribe by email Selected references for this episode Matthew Page Andrews, The Founding of Maryland George Bancroft, History Of The United States Of America, Volume 1 Jonathan L. Alpert, “The Origin of Slavery in the United States – The Maryland Precedent,” The American Journal of Legal History, July 1970.

Inspired by an email from a longstanding and attentive listener, this Sidebar episode examines an essay by Gordon Wood introducing his book The Purpose of the Past. We consider what it means to have a “historical sense,” and the humility that comes with it. We also look at the history of the debate over the purpose of history, and briefly at the difference between critical theory, on the one hand, and teaching the “ugly parts,” on the other. X (Twitter): @TheHistoryOfTh2 Facebook: The History of the Americans Podcast Subscribe by email Selected references for this episode Gordon Wood, The Purpose of the Past: Reflections on the Uses of History David Motadel, “The Political Role of the Historian,” Contemporary European History, 2023.

The Charter of Maryland having passed seals, Cecil Calvert, the Second Lord Baltimore, stayed in England to fend off political attacks against his Proprietary Colony. He asked his younger brother Leonard to lead the first settlers in the Ark and the Dove to the banks of the Potomac River. When they get there in the early spring of 1634, they meet Henry Fleet, an English trader who had been in the area since 1621, four of those years as the captive of one of the tribes in the northern Chesapeake. Fleet would turn out to be instrumental in the very successful first year of the Maryland settlement, at St. Mary’s City. Twitter: @TheHistoryOfTh2 Facebook: The History of the Americans Podcast Subscribe by email Selected references for this episode Matthew Page Andrews, The Founding of Maryland George Bancroft, History Of The United States Of America, Volume 1 Wesley Frank Craven, The Southern Colonies in the Seventeenth Century 1607-1689 A. J. Morrison, “The Virginia Indian Trade to 1673,” The William and Mary Quarterly, October 1921

George Calvert had a dream. He had grown up during the most exciting moments of Elizabeth I’s reign, a time when England was transforming from a backwater to a legitimate Atlantic power. He wanted to found a colony in North America. After a catastrophic attempt in southern Newfoundland, Calvert negotiated a charter from Charles I for a new form of colony – a “proprietary colony,” for which Calvert would be the “Lord Proprietor,” in the northern reaches of the Chesapeake. It would be known as “Mary Land,” and was the largest individual land grant in English North America. The most important provision in the charter, which conferred vast and personal powers on Calvert, was known as the “Bishop of Durham clause,” and dated from English legal precedent of more than 600 years. The roots of American legal traditions are very old. Sadly for George, he would die even before his charter “passed through seal.” Fortunately for us, his son Cecil would pick up the project and execute it wisely and effectively. Twitter: @TheHistoryOfTh2 Facebook: The History of the Americans Podcast Subscribe by email Selected references for this episode Matthew Page Andrews, The Founding of Maryland Wesley Frank Craven, The Southern Colonies in the Seventeenth Century 1607-1689 Bernard C. Steiner, “The Maryland Charter and Early Explorations of That Province,” The Sewanee Review, April 1908. The Charter of Maryland Bishop of Durham Clause County of Avalon Dig Site George Calvert, 1st Baron Baltimore (Wikipedia)

Longstanding listeners know that we have a tradition of talking about great speeches in American history on Memorial Day and July 4, when many such great speeches have been delivered.  If you search in your engine of choice, you will find various listicles of great Independence Day speeches. They always include Ronald Reagan’s in 1984, FDR’s in 1942 – the first 4th of July of our participation in World War II – and Frederick Douglass’s famous speech in 1852.  The pantheon of such speeches also includes the Independence Day speech of 29-year-old John F. Kennedy in 1946, the first 4th after World War II.  That speech, which was very much about one understanding of American history, is the subject of this episode. The setting for the speech was Boston’s Faneuil Hall.  The occasion was Boston’s Independence Day celebration. The context was Jack Kennedy’s first campaign for public office, for the Democratic nomination for the Massachusetts 11th Congressional District. Twitter: @TheHistoryOfTh2 Facebook: The History of the Americans Podcast Subscribe by email Selected references for this episode Robert Dallek, An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy, 1917 – 1963 John F. Kennedy, “SOME ELEMENTS OF THE AMERICAN CHARACTER” INDEPENDENCE DAY ORATION BY JOHN FITZGERALD KENNEDY, CANDIDATE FOR CONGRESS FROM THE 11TH CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT, JULY 4, 1946

Anne Hutchinson, having defeated every argument against her in the civil trial, cannot resist having the last word and in so doing condemns herself. She is banished, and after a long winter under house arrest and a second trial to excommunicate her, she joins her family and followers on Aquidneck Island, soon to be Rhode Island. So how was it that she died on the future site of a golf course in The Bronx? Twitter: @TheHistoryOfTh2 Facebook: The History of the Americans Podcast Subscribe by email Selected references for this episode Eve LaPlante, American Jezebel: The Uncommon Life of Anne Hutchinson, the Woman Who Defied the Puritans Edmund S. Morgan, The Puritan Dilemma: The Story of John Winthrop Edmund S. Morgan, “The Case Against Anne Hutchinson,” The New England Quarterly, December 1937

The Antinomian crisis in the Massachusetts Bay Colony is escalating, threatening to tear it apart just as its leaders perceive a military threat from the Pequots. Anne Hutchinson has been teaching an extreme version of the “covenant of grace” in her after-church discussion group, which has swelled to eighty people or more, including some of the leading men of Boston. Her ideas attack the authority of the conventional Puritan clergy of the Bay. She accuses all but two of them, John Cotton and her brother-in-law, John Wheelwright, of preaching a “covenant of works,” fighting words in those days. Needing to end the division, John Winthrop tries diplomacy and reconciliation, but neither Hutchinson nor her opponents show any inclination to compromise. After more than a year of theological debate, the General Court of Massachusetts banishes Wheelwright and brings Hutchinson to trial. She runs rings around them. Twitter: @TheHistoryOfTh2 Facebook: The History of the Americans Podcast Selected references for this episode Francis J. Bremer, John Winthrop: America’s Forgotten Founding Father Eve LaPlante, American Jezebel: The Uncommon Life of Anne Hutchinson, the Woman Who Defied the Puritans Edmund S. Morgan, The Puritan Dilemma: The Story of John Winthrop Edmund S. Morgan, “The Case Against Anne Hutchinson,” The New England Quarterly, December 1937.

Anne Hutchinson was the first famous European-American woman, and after Matoaka/Pocahontas, only the second still-famous woman in the lands now encompassed by the United States. She appears in most histories of the United States and its first colonies, including George Brancroft’s History of the United States of America, first published in the 1830s. Mrs. Hutchinson is famous because she disrupted the community of the Puritan church in Boston in the mid-1630s by attracting most of its congregation to an extreme interpretation of Calvinist theology, for which she was tried, convicted, excommunicated, and expelled, just as Roger Williams had been. An enormous amount of ink has been spilled over Anne Hutchinson over hundreds of years. Older interpretations regard Hutchinson as an extremist and deeply disruptive to the Puritan project in Massachusetts. In more recent years, there has been a lot of sympathetic writing about Hutchinson as the study of women in early America has become more popular, and the Puritans of early Massachusetts decidedly less so. In some circles she is seen as a victim of oppression. Her monument at the Massachusetts State House upholds Hutchinson as a “courageous exponent of civil liberty and religious toleration.” My own take is that her story is interesting in part because it is something of a Rorschach test – each of these interpretations are defendable to some degree, and the emphasis one or another historian puts on a given interpretation in lieu of others says as much about the author as it does about Mrs. Hutchinson. This makes the complex story of Anne Hutchinson very much a story about ourselves. Twitter: @TheHistoryOfTh2 Facebook: The History of the Americans Podcast Selected references for this episode Francis J. Bremer, John Winthrop: America’s Forgotten Founding Father Eve LaPlante, American Jezebel: The Uncommon Life of Anne Hutchinson, the Woman Who Defied the Puritans Edmund S. Morgan, Roger Williams: The Church and State Edmund S. Morgan, The Puritan Dilemma: The Story of John Winthrop