Rejects & Revolutionaries (American History Podcast)

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.

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Neither the king nor Barbados was willing to budge over the financial issues surrounding the Second Anglo-Dutch War, and what ensued was the biggest showdown between king and colony in American history.

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Henry Morgan's piratical exploits during the Second Anglo-Dutch War took him into combat not with England's allies, but rather against the Spanish of Cuba and Panama.

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Barbados would never really recover from the Second Anglo-Dutch War. Compared to islands like St. Kitts, it had gotten through the conflict without too much damage, but it had still funded and fought a full theater of war almost alone, and when the war was over, the demands and impositions (not least, the Navigation Acts finally being fully enforced) just kept coming.

This pushed the colony to the point of irreconcilable hostility to England, its king, and its governor. Colonists united and demanded self rule and free trade.

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INTELLIGENT SPEECH CONFERENCE!

Information about this year's Intelligent Speech Conference! 35 presentations in four virtual rooms bringing together the independent educational podcast community.

This year's theme: Crossings

Date: June 25, 2022

Place: Your home, via Zoom

Tickets: $20 before June 1. 10% off with promo code RnR. Standard price $30.

Learn more: https://intelligentspeechconference.com

The First Anglo-Dutch War hit Barbados hard. After a 10 hour battle expended all their ammunition, colonists and king bickered over who should be responsible for buying more. Ultimately, the compromise was to put off the issue by loaning the king the money, and for two years, Barbados defended England's Caribbean holdings, spending 100,000 pounds, recruiting thousands of soldiers, facing severe food shortages, and ultimately losing its governor in a hurricane. It would never recover. Find transcripts and more at my website

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