History, Natural History & the Arts
How and where did the colonies of North America and the Caribbean fit within the British Empire?
The answer to this question depends on whether you explore the views of a British imperial officer, such as the King of England, or a colonist who lived in one of the North American or Caribbean colonies.
[Read more…] about Competing Visions of Empire in North America, Caribbean
How do empires come to be? How are empires made and who makes them?
What role do maps play in making empires?
Christian Koot is a Professor of History at Towson University and the author of A Biography of a Map in Motion: Augustine Herrman’s Chesapeake (NYU Press, 2017). Christian has researched and written two books about the seventeenth-century Anglo-Dutch World go better understand empires and how they are made. He joins us in this episode of Ben Franklin’s World to take us through his research and to share what one specific map, Augustine Herrman’s 1673 map Virginia and Maryland, reveals about empire and empire making. [Read more…] about Mapping Empire in the Chesapeake
Much of early American history comprises stories of empire and how different Native, European, and Euro-American nations vied for control of North American territory, resources, and people. [Read more…] about The Highland Soldier in North America
Have you ever had one of those really interesting conversations where the person was so fascinating that you wished the conversation didn’t have to end?
In this episode of Ben Franklin’s World, Flora Fraser joins us for one of those conversations. We’ll talk about biography, and in doing so, she’ll tell us what it was like to grow up as the daughter and granddaughter of two famed, British biographers and about the genre of biography and how it developed in the United Kingdom. [Read more…] about Biography And A Biographer’s Work
How did the postal system work in Early America? How did people send mail across the North American colonies and the British Empire?
You sent these questions for Episode 200: Everyday Life in Early America. You also said you wanted to know more about transportation in early America. [Read more…] about Post and Travel in Early America
Benedict Arnold is an intriguing figure. He was both a military hero who greatly impacted and furthered the American War for Independence with his bravery on the battlefield and someone who did something unthinkable: he betrayed his country.
In this episode of Ben Franklin’s World, Stephen Brumwell, an award-winning historian and the author of Turncoat: Benedict Arnold and the Crisis of American Liberty (Yale University Press, 2018), joins us to explore the life and deeds of Benedict Arnold and Arnold’s stunning metamorphosis from hero to traitor. [Read more…] about Benedict Arnold and the Crisis of American Liberty
Who do we count as family? It a relative was born in a foreign place and one of their parents was of a different race? Would they count as family?
Eighteenth-century Britons asked themselves these questions. As we might suspect, their answers varied by time and whether they lived in Great Britain, North America, or the Caribbean. [Read more…] about Mixed-Race Britons & the Atlantic Family
What does early America look like if we view it through Native American eyes?
Jenny Hale Pulsipher, author of Swindler Sachem: The American Indian Who Sold His Birthright, Dropped Out of Harvard, and Conned the King of England (Yale University Press, 2018) and Associate Professor of History at Brigham Young University, is a scholar who enjoys investigating the many answers to this question. In this episode of Ben Franklin’s World: A Podcast About Early American History, she introduces us to a Nipmuc Indian named John Wompas and how he experienced a critical time in early American history, the period between the 1650s and 1680s. [Read more…] about A 17th-Century Native American Life
Within days of the Boston Massacre, Bostonians politicized the event. They circulated a pamphlet about “the Horrid Massacre” and published images portraying soldiers firing into a well-assembled and peaceful crowd.
But why did the Boston Massacre happen? Why did the British government feel it had little choice but to station as many 2,000 soldiers in Boston during peacetime? And what was going on within the larger British Empire that drove colonists to the point where they provoked armed soldiers to fire upon them? [Read more…] about Boston Massacre: The Townshend Moment