New York Almanack

History, Natural History & the Arts

Early American History

Colonial Conflict, Native People, Anti-Catholicism & The Burning of Schenectady

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In 1652, New Netherland Director General Peter Stuyvesant declared that Fort Orange and everything around it, including the village outside the fort, often called Oranje after the fort, was independent of the ownership of the Van Rensselaer family. He named the small mostly Dutch village “Beverwyck.”

Possibly at the urging of the Van Rensselaers, their earlier manager Arendt Van Curler (Corlear) began planning the construction of a new village. [Read more…] about Colonial Conflict, Native People, Anti-Catholicism & The Burning of Schenectady

Cuba: An Early American History

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ben_franklins_worldOne of the places that Christopher Columbus stopped at during his 1492 voyage was an alligator-shaped island at the mouth of the Gulf of Mexico, between the Yucatán and Florida peninsulas – the is the island of Cuba.

What do we know about early Cuba, the island the Spanish described as the “Key to the Indies?” What kind of relationship and exchange did early Cuba have with British North America and the early United States? [Read more…] about Cuba: An Early American History

Vast Early America: The 300th Episode of Ben Franklin’s World

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ben_franklins_worldWhat do historians wish more people better understood about early American history and why do they wish people had that better understanding?

In celebration of the 300th episode of Ben Franklin’s World, a podcast about early American history, we posed these questions to more than 30 scholars.

What do they think? Join the celebration to learn more about Early America and take a behind-the-scenes tour of the podcast. [Read more…] about Vast Early America: The 300th Episode of Ben Franklin’s World

One Woman, Three Colonial American Worlds

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ben_franklins_worldColonial America comprised many different cultural and political worlds. Most colonial Americans inhabited just one world, but today, we’re going to explore the life of a woman who lived in three colonial American worlds: Frontier New England, Northeastern Wabanaki, and Catholic New France.

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Creating the Fourth Amendment

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ben_franklins_worldThe Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution doesn’t always make headlines, but it’s an amendment that undergirds foundational rights. It’s also an amendment that can show us a lot about the intertwined nature between history and American law.

In this episode of Ben Franklin’s World, the third in our 4th Doing History series, we explore the early American origins of the Fourth Amendment with Thomas Clancy, a Professor Emeritus at the University of Mississippi School of Law and an expert on the Fourth Amendment.
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Bill of Rights: Creating the First Ten Amendments

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ben_franklins_worldHow and why did Congress draft the First Ten Amendments to the Constitution?

In the United States, we use the Constitution and Bill of Rights to understand and define ourselves culturally. Americans are a people with laws and rights that are protected by the Constitution because they are defined in the Constitution. And the place where the Constitution defines and outlines our rights is within its First Ten Amendments, the Bill of Rights. [Read more…] about Bill of Rights: Creating the First Ten Amendments

How The Bill of Rights Developed

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ben_franklins_worldLaw is all around us. And the basis of American Law comes not only from our early American past, but from our founding documents.

This episode begins our 4th Doing History series. Over the next four episodes, we’ll explore the early American origins of the Bill of Rights as well as the history of the Fourth Amendment. The Fourth Amendment will serve as our case study so we can see where our rights come from and how they developed from the early American past. [Read more…] about How The Bill of Rights Developed

John Dickinson, Life, Religion, & Politics

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ben_franklins_worldThe Second Continental Congress voted for independence on July 2, 1776 with 12 colonies and one abstention. The delegation from New York abstained from the vote. And Pennsylvania voted in favor of independence because two of its delegates were persuaded not to attend the vote given their opposition. [Read more…] about John Dickinson, Life, Religion, & Politics

Elizabeth Seton, An Early American Life

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ben_franklins_worldWhat was it like to live as a woman of faith in early republic America? What was it like to live as a Catholic in the early United States?

In this episode of Ben Franklin’s World, Catherine O’Donnell, an Associate Professor of History at Arizona State University and author of Elizabeth Seton: American Saint (Cornell University Press, 2018), helps us investigate answers to these questions by taking us through the life of the United States’ first saint: Elizabeth Ann Seton [Read more…] about Elizabeth Seton, An Early American Life

Mapping Empire in the Chesapeake

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ben_franklins_worldHow 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