Ben Franklin's World

We often learn about slavery in early America through broad economic or political terms—cotton, sugar, markets, revolutions. But what happens when we turn our focus to the lived experiences of enslaved people themselves?

What did slavery feel and look like on the ground? What did survival look like day to day? And what do we make of the enslaved people who were forced into positions of authority over others, like the plantation drivers who were tasked with extracting labor from their fellow enslaved workers?

Randy Browne, an award-winning historian and Professor of History at Xavier University, joins us to investigate plantation slavery and its driving system with details from his book The Driver’s Story: Labor and Power in the World of Atlantic Slavery.

Randy’s Website | Book

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/418
 
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 281: The Business of Slavery
🎧 Episode 282: Tacky's Revolt
🎧 Episode 289: Maroonage & the Great Dismal Swamp
🎧 Episode 295: The Whitney Plantation & Museum
🎧 Episode 312: The Domestic Slave Trade
🎧 Episode 324: New Netherland & Slavery

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When we think about slavery in early America, we often rightfully focus on the human toll–the violence, the exploitation, the dehumanization that defined the institution. But slavery wasn’t just a system of forced labor; it was also a business.

Next week, in Episode 418, we’ll be investigating a different facet of the business of slavery: the story of slave drivers–enslaved people who were forced or took up positions of authority over others. To better understand the system slave drivers operated within, I thought we should revisit Episode 281 with historian Caitlin Rosenthal.

Caitlin is an Associate Professor of History at the University of California, Berkeley. Her book, Accounting for Slavery: Masters and Management, won the Simkins Award from the Southern Historical Association and the Economic Historical Society’s First Book Prize.

Caitlin’s Website | Book 
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/403
 
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 173: Colonial Port Cities & Slavery
🎧 Episode 176: The Value of the Enslaved from Womb to Grave
🎧 Episode 312: The Domestic Slave Trade
🎧 Episode 324: New Netherland and Slavery
🎧 Episode 386: Sleeping with the Ancestors
🎧 Episode 387: California and Slavery
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When we think of early American champions of religious liberty, one name often rises above the rest: Roger Williams.

Best known as the founder of Rhode Island and a fierce advocate for the separation of church and state, Williams was a man who defied convention at every turn. He turned down a prestigious post in Boston, challenged Puritan orthodoxy, and was ultimately banished—only to build a new colony rooted in his radical ideas of liberty of conscience and religious toleration.

In this episode, we explore the life and legacy of this “nonconformist among nonconformists” with the co-editors of Reading Roger Williams: Rogue Puritans, Indigenous Nations, and the Founding of America: 

Together, they help us uncover:

Guests' Book

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/417
 
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 118: The Business of Slavery in Rhode Island
🎧 Episode 290: The World of the Wampanoag, Pt. 1
🎧 Episode 291: The World of the Wampanoag, Pt. 2
🎧 Episode 356: The Moravian Church in North America
🎧 Episode 373: The Gaspee Affair
🎧 Episode 392: Religion and Race in Early America

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Why do we trace our family histories? What drives our desire to know who our ancestors were and how we’re connected to past people and events?

Genealogy is often seen as a modern pursuit, spurred by DNA tests and online records–but in reality, early Americans were deeply invested in understanding and documenting their familial ties. Their desire to understand these ties, however, extended far beyond sheer curiosity.

Last week, in Episode 416, we were joined by Karin Wulf, who shared with us her now-finished project on genealogy and family history in Lineage: Genealogy and the Politics of Connection in the British Atlantic World. Karin’s book is built on the research she shared with us in 2016, so I thought it would be fun to return to her first conversation with us about her research so we can see how her thoughts, ideas, and her book project changed over time as she did more research and thinking on the subject.

Karin’s Website | Book | Instagram

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/114
 
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 231: The Religious Lives of the Adams Family
🎧 Episode 236: Mixed-Race Britons & the Atlantic Family
🎧 Episode 278: Polygamy: An Early American History
🎧 Episode 354: The Sewing Girl's Tale
🎧 Episode 416: Lineage: Genealogy in Early America

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Have you ever wondered why genealogy captivates so many people?

Whether it’s tracing a family tree back generations or holding on to stories told around the dinner table, genealogy offers a powerful sense of connection—a connection that can shape identities, claims of property, and even arguments for freedom.

But genealogy isn’t just a modern-day hobby. In early America, genealogy was a deeply consequential practice with social, political, and legal implications.

Karin Wulf, a Professor of History and the Eighth Director and Librarian of the John Carter Brown Library at Brown University, joins us to explore the ways early Americans were interested in their family histories with details from her book, Lineage: Genealogy and the Power of Connection in Early America.

Karin’s Website | Book | Instagram

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/403
 
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 114: The History of Genealogy
🎧 Episode 231: The Religious Lives of the Adams Family
🎧 Episode 236: Mixed-Race Britons & the Atlantic Family
🎧 Episode 278: Polygamy: An Early American History
🎧 Episode 296: The Boston Massacre: A Family History
🎧 Episode 354: The Sewing Girl's Tale

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🎁  Make a Donation to Ben Franklin’s World 

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WHEN YOU'RE READY
🗞️ ⁠BFW Gazette Newsletter⁠

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The Declaration of Independence is one of the most iconic documents in United States history. But what do we really know about how it came to be?

In our most recent episode, historian Emily Sneff helped us explore the Declaration through your questions–questions that revealed just how complex, living, and contested this document still is.

So in today’s Revisited episode, we take a listen to the podcast that Emily helped to produce back in 2017: Episode 141: A Declaration in Draft.

Originally part of the Omohundro Institute’s Doing History: To the Revolution! Series, this episode features three distinguished scholars: Danielle Allen, Patrick Spero, and Peter Onuf, Together, these scholars reveal that many hands and minds shaped the Declaration of Independence. They also help us dive into some of the document’s contradictions around slavery and equality.

Emily’s Website 

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/415
 
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 018: Our Declaration
🎧 Episode 245: Celebrating the Fourth
🎧 Episode 277: Whose Fourth of July?
🎧 Episode 388: John Hancock
🎧 Episode 394: The Pursuit of Happiness
🎧 Episode 415: The Many Declarations of Independence

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Preview of Karin Wulf’s book, Lineage: Genealogy and the Power of Connection in Early America.

In eighteenth-century America, genealogy was more than a simple record of family ties--it was a powerful force that shaped society. Lineage delves into an era where individuals, families, and institutions meticulously documented their connections. Whether driven by personal passion or mandated by churches, local governments, and courts, these records appeared in diverse forms-from handwritten notes and account books to intricate silk threads and enduring stone carvings.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When you picture the Declaration of Independence, what comes to mind?

Most people envision a single, iconic document–parchment, signatures, maybe even a scene from National Treasure. But what if I told you, the Declaration of Independence isn’t just one document, but many documents? And that each version of the Declaration tells a different story–a story not just about American independence, but about the people who printed, read, preserved, and even re-wrote the Declaration?

Emily Sneff is one of the leading experts on the Declaration of Independence. She has spent more than a decade researching the Declaration’s origins, and its different copies. She’s the former research manager of the Declaration Resources Project at Harvard, a consulting curator for Revolution 250 exhibits at the Museum of the American Revolution and the American Philosophical Society, and I’m proud to say, she’s is one of our former interns here at Ben Franklin’s World.

Emily’s Website 

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/415
 
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 018: Our Declaration
🎧 Episode 141: A Declaration in Draft 
🎧 Episode 245: Celebrating the Fourth of July
🎧 Episode 277: Whose Fourth of July?
🎧 Episode 388: John Hancock
🎧 Episode 394: The Pursuit of Happiness

REQUEST A TOPIC
📨 Topic Request Form
📫 [email protected]

WHEN YOU'RE READY

🗞️ BFW Gazette Newsletter
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🌍 The History Explorers Club

 
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How do we uncover queer lives from the distant past, especially in an era when language and records often erased or obscured them?

What did queerness look like in early America, and how might it have intersected with power, religion, and empire on the eve of the American Revolution? 

John McCurdy, a Professor of History and Philosophy at Eastern Michigan University and the author of Vicious and Immoral: Homosexuality, the American Revolution, and the Trials of Robert Newburgh, joins us to explore these questions through the remarkable story of British Army Chaplain Robert Newburgh.

John's EMU Webpage | Book 

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/414

 
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 002: "That's So Gay" Exhibit, Library Company
🎧 Episode 004: Sex and the Founding Fathers
🎧 Episode 013: Charity & Sylvia: A Same-Sex Marriage in Early America
🎧 Episode 278: Polygamy: An Early American History
🎧 Episode 354: The Sewing Girl's Tale
🎧 Episode 359: Transing Gender in Early America

REQUEST A TOPIC
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WHEN YOU'RE READY

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June 17, 2025, marks the 250th anniversary of the Battle of Bunker Hill, the first full-scale battle of what would become the American War for Independence.

Although technically a British victory, Bunker Hill proved that colonial soldiers could hold their own against the might of the British Empire. New England militiamen inflicted 1,054 casualties on the British, 50 percent of the British force. The New Englanders sustained 411 casualties that day, including the man who stood at the heart of this battle: Dr. Joseph Warren.

Who was Dr. Joseph Warren, and why did he risk his life in the first major battle of the Revolutionary War? What drove this physician, political thinker, and revolutionary leader to become the face of the American Revolution in Boston?

Christian Di Spigna, Executive Director of the Dr. Joseph Warren Foundation, joins us to explore these questions and commemorate this important anniversary with details from his book, Founding Martyr: The Life and Death of Dr. Joseph Warren, the American Revolution’s Lost Hero.

Christian’s Foundation | Book 

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/413
 
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 130: Paul Revere's Ride Through History
🎧 Episode 301: From Innoculation to Vaccination, Part 1
🎧 Episode 350: The Revolutionary Samuel Adams
🎧 Episode 388: John Hancock
🎧 Episode 409: The Battles of Lexington & Concord

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Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices