The Western Design was supposed to be England's plan to conquer Spanish America, starting with Hispaniola, Puerto Rico, Cuba and Cartagena (Colombia).  Instead, after a disastrous expedition, England had ended up with Jamaica.  For a while, owning Jamaica was disastrous in and of itself.  Tens of thousands of people died, a huge percent of them Irish victims of transportation.    

ECW 29: The Western Design

A history of the people who became Americans.  Formerly The American History Podcast.

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An audio-only version of my presentation at the 2022 Intelligent Speech Conference.  For video, click here!   In this presentation, I took a step back to explore the process of settling a new colony, a big-picture discussion of the colonies we've discussed through the lens of 20th Century research on settlement requirements and dynamics.  It should surprise no one that a huge factor in success vs. failure deals with psychology and settler mental health, but it is an angle that's been oft overlooked in those early histories.  

Intelligent Speech 2022

The story of Carolina's second settlement attempt was the type of failure we've frequently discussed, but it was also a failure for a new era.  English proprietors got distracted, severe supply shortages emerged, and conflict with indigenous tribes ultimately caused the colony to collapse.  But, colonists knew what to do, they forcefully made their feelings known, and they were led by people sympathetic to their plight.  This meant that a story which, 20 years before, would have left the colonists either dead or destitute, ended with most able to move on with their lives.   Website (transcripts)   Patreon   BMAC  

Carolina 2: A rude rabble

Carolina was a colony for a new era.  The Jacobean settlements of Virginia, Bermuda and Plymouth had been tiny, struggling outposts in a very New World.  The colonies formed under Charles I (the rest of New England, Barbados, Maryland and others) had been defined by the political and religious turbulence of his reign.  Now, a revolution had come and gone, an empire had been born, and it was time for the next era of English colonial expansion.  Because of all of this, settling Carolina would look dramatically different than colonial history that had come before.  As we start discussing Carolina, we take a quick look at what some of those differences were.   Website (transcripts)   Patreon   BMAC  

Carolina 1: Cape Fear

Henry Morgan's privateering exploits had turned to full on piracy by the time he attacked Maracaibo and, especially, Panama City.  Still, he enjoyed the support of the island's population and leadership, and the money he brought to the colony facilitated its transformation into one of England's wealthiest colonies.   Website (transcripts)   Patreon   Buy Me a Coffee Twitter    

Restoration 12: The fall of Panama and rise of Jamaica

After the Willoughby brothers, the king imposed governors in Barbados who he expected to be loyal to him instead of the colony.  The first two backfired in dramatically different ways, one siding with the colonists, and the other descending into embarrasing levels of tyranny and corruption.   Website (transcripts)  

ECW 29: The Western Design

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