Ben Franklin's World

In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue. He also played a central role in the European adoption of Indian or Native American slavery.

When we think of slavery in early America, we often think of the practice of African and African-American chattel slavery. However, that system of slavery wasn’t the only system of slavery that existed in North America. Systems of Indian slavery existed too. In fact, Indians remained enslaved long after the 13th Amendment abolished African-American slavery in 1865.

In this episode, Andrés Reséndez, a professor of history at the University of California, Davis and author of The Other Slavery: The Uncovered Story of Indian Enslavement in Americas, leads us on an investigation of this “other" form of American slavery.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/139

Sponsor Links

• Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture
• Georgian Papers Programme

Complementary Episodes

• Episode 008: Greg O'Malley, Final Passages: The Intercolonial Slave Trade of British America
• Episode 064: Brett Rushforth, Native American Slavery in New France
• Episode 067: John Ryan Fischer, An Environmental History of Early California & Hawaii
• Episode 082: Alejandra Dubcovsky, Information and Communication in the Early American South
• Episode 115: Andrew Torget, The Early American History of Texas

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Did you know that Connecticut and Virginia once invaded Pennsylvania?

During the 1760s, Connecticut invaded and captured the northeastern corner of Pennsylvania just as Virginia invaded and captured parts of western Pennsylvania. And Pennsylvania stood powerless to stop them.

In this episode, Patrick Spero, the Librarian of the American Philosophical Society and author of Frontier Country: The Politics of War in Early Pennsylvania, takes us through these invasions and reveals why Pennsylvania proved unable to defend its territory.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/048

Sponsor Links

• Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture
• Georgian Papers Programme

Complementary Episodes

• Episode 029: Colin Calloway, The Victory With No Name: The Native American Defeat of the First American Army
• Episode 048: Ken Miller, Dangerous Guests: Enemy Captives During the War for Independence
• Episode 056: Daniel J. Tortora, The Anglo-Cherokee War, 1759-1761
• Episode 079: Jim Horn, What is a Historical Source? (Colonial Jamestown)
• Episode 104: Andrew Lipman, The Saltwater Frontier: Europeans & Native American on the Northeastern Coast

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George Washington was an accomplished man. He served as a delegate to the First and Second Continental Congresses, Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army, first President of the United States, and on top of all that he was also a savvy businessman who ran a successful plantation.

George Washington was also a slaveholder. In 1789, he and his wife Martha took 7 slaves to New York City to serve them in their new role as First Family. A 16 year-old girl named Ona Judge was one of the enslaved women who accompanied and served the Washingtons.

Erica Dunbar, a Professor of Black American Studies and History at the University of Delaware and author of Never Caught: The Washington’s Relentless Pursuit of Their Runaway Slave Ona Judge, leads us through the early American life of Ona Judge. 


Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/137

Sponsor Links

• Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture
• William and Mary Quarterly
• Episode 105: Joshua Piker, How Historians Publish History (Behind-the-scenes of the William and Mary Quarterly)

Complementary Episodes

• Episode 026: George Washington’s Revolution
• Episode 033: George Washington and His Library
• Episode 061: George Washington in Retirement
• Episode 074: Mary Wigge, Martha Washington
• Episode 083: Jared Hardesty, Unfreedom: Slavery in Colonial Boston
• Episode 089: Jessica Millward, Slavery and Freedom in Early Maryland

Helpful Show Links

• Ben Franklin's World Facebook Page
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What do the objects we purchase and use say about us?

If we take the time to think about the material objects and clothing in our lives, we’ll find that we can actually learn a lot about ourselves and other people. The same holds true when we take the time to study the objects and clothing left behind by people from the past.

Jennifer Van Horn, an Assistant Professor of History and Art History at the University of Delaware and author of The Power of Objects in Eighteenth-Century British America, leads us on an exploration of the 18th-century British material world and how objects from that world can help us think about and explore the lives of 18th-century British Americans.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/136

Sponsor Links

• Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture
• William and Mary Quarterly
• OI Reader app

Complementary Episodes

• Episode 024: Kimberly Alexander, 18th-Century Fashion & Material Culture
• Episode 079: Jim Horn, What is a Historical Source
• Episode 084: Zara Anishanslin, How Historians Read Historical Sources
• Episode 107: Mary Sarah Bilder, Madison’s Hand: Revising the Constitutional Convention

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If early Americans desired slaves mostly to produce sugarcane, cotton, rice, indigo, and tobacco, what would happen if Europeans and early Americans stopped purchasing those products?


Would boycotting slave-produced goods and starving slavery of its economic sustenance be enough to end the practice of slavery in North America?

Julie Holcomb, an Associate Professor of Museum Studies at Baylor University and author of Moral Commerce: The Transatlantic Boycott of the Slave Labor Economy, helps us explore answers to these questions by leading us through the transatlantic boycott of slave produced goods.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/135

Sponsor Links

• Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture
• William and Mary Quarterly
• Karin Wulf, “The Art and Craft of Review” 

Complementary Episodes

• Episode 020: Kyle Bulthuis, Four Steeples Over the City Streets
• Episode 030: Shelby Balik, Rally the Scattered Believers: Northern New England’s Religious Geography
• Episode 045: Spencer McBride, Joseph Smith and the Founding of Mormonism
• Episode 073: Mark Noll, The Bible in Early America
• Episode 077: Rinker Buck, The Oregon Trail
• Episode 118: Christy Clark-Pujara, The Business of Slavery in Rhode Island

Helpful Show Links

• Ben Franklin's World Facebook Page
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*Books purchased through this link will help support the production of Ben Franklin's World.

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In Colonial America, clergymen stood as thought leaders in their local communities. They stood at the head of their congregations and many community members looked to them for knowledge and insight about the world around them.

So what happened to these trusted, educated men during the American Revolution? How did they choose their political allegiances? And what work did they undertake to aid or hinder the revolutionary cause?

Spencer McBride, an editor at the Joseph Smith Papers documentary editing project, joins us to explore some of the ways politics and religion intersected during the American Revolution with details from his book, Pulpit and Nation: Clergymen and the Politics of Revolutionary America.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/134

Sponsor Links

• Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture
• William and Mary Quarterly
• Episode 105: Josh Piker, How Historians Publish History (Behind-the-Scenes of the WMQ)

Complementary Episodes

• Episode 045: Spencer McBride, Joseph Smith and the Founding of Mormonism
• Episode 112: Mary Beth Norton, The Tea Crisis of 1773
• Episode 117: Annette Gordon-Reed, The Life & Ideas of Thomas Jefferson
• Episode 123: Revolutionary Allegiances
• Episode 129: John Bell, The Road to Concord
• Episode 130: Paul Revere’s Ride Through History

Helpful Show Links

• Ben Franklin's World Facebook Page
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The institution of African slavery in North America began in late August 1619 and persisted until the ratification of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States in December 1865.

Over those 246 years, many slaves plotted and conspired to start rebellions, but most of the plotted rebellions never took place. Slaveholders and whites discovered them before they could begin. Therefore, North America witnessed only a handful of slave revolts between 1614 and 1865. Nat Turner’s Rebellion in August 1831 stands as the most deadly.

Patrick Breen, an Associate Professor of History at Providence College and author of The Land Shall Be Deluged in Blood: A New History of the Nat Turner Revolt joins us to investigate the ins and outs of this bloodiest of North American slave revolts.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/133

Sponsor Links

• Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture
• William and Mary Quarterly
• WMQ Editor Josh Piker, “The Five-Reader Problem”
• WMQ Editor Josh Piker, “Getting Lost”
• Susanah Shaw Romney, “5,000 More Words”

Complementary Episodes

• Episode 016: Alan Taylor, The Internal Enemy
• Episode 020: Kyle Bulthuis, Four Steeples Over the City Streets
• Episode 083: Jared Hardesty, Unfreedom: Slavery in Colonial Boston
• Episode 091: Gregory Dowd, Rumors, Legends, and Hoaxes in Early America
• Episode 125: Teri Snyder, Death, Suicide, and  Slavery in British North America

Helpful Show Links

• Ben Franklin's World Facebook Page
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*Books purchased through this link will help support the production of Ben Franklin's World.

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When we explore the history of early America, we often look at people who lived and the events that took place in North America. But what about the people who lived and worked in European metropoles?

What about Native Americans?

Today, we explore early American history through a slightly different lens, a lens that allows us to see interactions that occurred between Native American peoples and English men and women who lived in London. Our guide for this exploration is Coll Thrush, an Associate Professor of History at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver and author of Indigenous London: Native Travelers at the Heart of the Empire.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/132

Sponsor Links

• Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture
• William and Mary Quarterly
• Episode 105: Josh Piker, How Historians Publish History (Behind-the-Scenes of the William and Mary Quarterly)

Complementary Episodes

• Episode 079: Jim Horn, What is a Historic Source? (Jamestown and Pocahontas)
• Episode 104: Andrew Lipman, The Saltwater Frontier
• Episode 109: John Dixon, The American Enlightenment & Cadwallader Colden
• Episode 127: Caroline Winterer, American Enlightenments

Helpful Show Links

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The United States has a complicated history when it comes to ideas of empire and imperialism. Since it’s earliest days, the United States has wanted the power that came with being an empire even while declaring its distaste for them.

Therefore, it should not be surprising that the man who drafted the Declaration of Independence, which severed the 13 American colonies’ ties to the most powerful empire in the mid-to-late 18th-century world, also had strong views about empire: Thomas Jefferson wanted the United States to become a great and vast “Empire of Liberty.”

Frank Cogliano, a Professor of American History at the University of Edinburgh and author of Emperor of Liberty: Thomas Jefferson’s Foreign Policy, joins us to explore how Thomas Jefferson came to be a supporter and promoter of empires.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/131

Sponsor Links

• Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture
• William and Mary Quarterly, the leading journal of early American history since 1943
• Episode 105: Joshua Piker, How Historians Publish History (Behind-the-Scenes of the William and Mary Quarterly)

Complementary Episodes

• Episode 042: Heather Richardson, The History of the Republican Party
• Episode 052: Ronald A. Johnson, Early United States-Haitian Diplomacy
• Episode 090: Caitlin Fitz: Age of American Revolutions
• Episode 117: Annette Gordon-Reed: The Life & Ideas of Thomas Jefferson
• Episode 124: James Alexander Dun, Making the Haitian Revolution in Early America

Helpful Show Links

• Ben Franklin's World Facebook Page
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*Books purchased through this link will help support the production of Ben Franklin's World.

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On April 18, 1775, Paul Revere rode to Lexington, Massachusetts to spread the alarm that the Regulars were marching. Revere made several important rides between 1774 and 1775, including one in September 1774 that brought the Suffolk Resolves to the First Continental Congress in Philadelphia.

So why is it that we remember Paul Revere’s ride to Lexington and not any of his other rides?

Why is it that we remember Paul Revere on the night of April 18, 1775 and nothing about his life either before or after that famous ride?

Why is it that Paul Revere seems to ride quickly into history and then just as quickly out of it?

In this episode we speak with four scholars to explore Paul Revere’s ride through history.

Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/130

About the Series

The mission of episodes in the Doing History: To the Revolution series is to ask not just “what is the history of the American Revolution?” but “what are the histories of the American Revolution?”

Episodes in this series will air beginning in Fall 2017.

The Doing History series is part of a partnership between Ben Franklin’s World and the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture.

Be sure to check out Doing History season 1: Doing History: How Historians Work.

Bonus Content

• Episode Bibliography
• Doing History: To the Revolution!
• OI Reader

Complementary Episodes

• Episode 059: Eric Foner, The Hidden History of the Underground Railroad
• Episode 075: Peter Drummey, How Archives Work (History of Paul Revere’s Accounts of his Ride)
• Episode 106: Jane Kamensky, The World of John Singleton Copley
• Episode 112: Mary Beth Norton, The Tea Crisis of 1773
• Episode 123: Revolutionary Allegiances
• Episode 128: Alan Taylor, American Revolutions: A Continental History
• Episode 129: John Bell, The Road to Concord, 1775

Helpful Show Links

• Ben Franklin's World Facebook Page
• Join the Ben Franklin's World Community
• Sign-up for the Franklin Gazette Newsletter
• Ben Franklin's World iOS App
• Ben Franklin's World Android App

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