The History of the Americans

It is the summer of 1609. Samuel de Champlain has founded Quebec and spent the winter there. During that very difficult time, with its Jamestown-like death rate, he had built strong alliances with the...

After a brief digression into current events and a visit to a Ukrainian speakeasy, we accompany Samuel de Champlain to the first settlement of New France, which was in today’s Maine, just 1700 feet f...

In this episode we learn the political and geopolitical foundations of New France and the importance of the beloved King Henri IV to French expansion in North America. We follow Champlain in his yout...

In this episode we introduce Samuel de Champlain, without whom there might never have been a meaningful French presence in northern North America, largely through the work of the great historian David...

In this episode we conclude John Smith’s run at Jamestown — he will depart on October 4, 1609 after a severe injury and, more relevantly, having been demoted after having lost corporate political batt...

This is the 57th episode of the podcast, so we take a very brief digression to discuss that milestone. Mostly, this episode looks at the first nine months of 1608, which saw the rise of John Smith to ...

It is late May, 1607, and Jamestown has survived the first organized attack against the settlement, this time from an alliance of five tribes from the Powhatan Confederacy. Captain Christopher Newpor...

This episode looks at the prophecy that animated Powhatan’s consolidation of power in the region, the violent first encounters between the Virginia Company expedition and the indigenous peoples at the...

In late December, 1606, in London’s River Thames, three small ships were anchored awaiting a voyage across the Atlantic. Those three ships were the Susan Constant, the Godspeed, and the Discovery, an...

This week we continue and complete our story of the English adventures along the coast of New England in the first decade of the 17th century, including the fate, and the historical debate over the fa...