The Age of the American Frontier: Recent Episodes
Thomas Goodwin
The encounter between the New and Old Worlds and the subsuquent conquest of the New by the Old is one of the most dramatic events in human history. The Age of the American Frontier is a narrative history podcast that aims to tell this story - from the establishment of the Jamestown colony to the 20th century. It is a tale of how the world we know today came to be and also of how ordinary people from every continent navigated some of the most transformative centuries in human history.
In May 1493, Pope Alexander VI gave the Catholic monarchs of Castile and Aragon permission to conquer the world...
Date: 1493-94
The text of Inter Caetra: https://www.papalencyclicals.net/Alex06/alex06inter.htm
One thing I wanted to mention but was unable to find a good place to do so is that, for obvious reasons, many Native Americans have called upon on the Catholic Church to rescind Inter Caetra but have not thus far been succesful.
http://natcath.org/NCR_Online/archives2/2000d/102700/102700f.htm
Bibliography Hugh, Thomas, Rivers of Gold: The Rise of the Spanish Empire (2003)
Karmen, Henry, Spain’s Road To Empire: The Making of a World Power (2003)
Maltby, William, The Rise and Fall of the Spanish Empire (2008)
Scott, William Henry, 'Demythologizing the Papal Bull "Inter Caetra"', Philippine Studies,35, iii (1987), 348-356.
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In crossing the Atlantic, Christopher Columbus upended the political settlement which had ended the War of the Castilian Succession. After Pope Alexander VI further alienated the Portuguese by gifting half the world to Isabella and Ferdinand, Portuguese and Castilian diplomats sat down at Tordesillas to sort out the mess.
Date: 1493-94
Bibliography:Bergreen Laurence, Columbus: The Four Voyages, 1492-1504 (2011)
Hugh, Thomas, Rivers of Gold: The Rise of the Spanish Empire (2003)
Karmen, Henry, Spain’s Road To Empire: The Making of a World Power (2003)
Maltby, William, The Rise and Fall of the Spanish Empire (2008)
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While returning from the Caribbean in early 1493, Columbus wrote a letter to one of his patrons, Luis de Santangel. This letter would shape European views of the Americas for many decades to come...
Date: 1493
The text of the Letter of Discovery: https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/amerbegin/contact/text1/columbusletter.pdf---
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Despite his humiliation at the hands of Bobadilla, Columbus was determined to return to the Indies for further exploration. However time was now running against the admiral and his next voyage would also be his last...
Date: 1500-1506
Bibliography:
Bergreen Laurence, Columbus: The Four Voyages, 1492-1504 (2011)
Cook, Noble David, 'Sickness, Starvation, and Death in Early Hispaniola', The Journal of Interdisciplinary History, XXXII, iii (2002), 349-386.
Guerra, Francisco, 'The Earliest American Epidemic: The Influenza of 1493', Social Science History, XII, iii (1988), 305-325.
Hugh, Thomas, Rivers of Gold: The Rise of the Spanish Empire (2003)
Karmen, Henry, Spain’s Road To Empire: The Making of a World Power (2003)
Larner, John P., 'North American Hero? Christopher Columbus 1702-2002', Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 137, i (1993), 46-63.
Maltby, William, The Rise and Fall of the Spanish Empire (2008)
Tinker, George E., and Freeland, Mark, 'Thief, Slave Trader, Murderer: Christopher Columbus and Caribbean Population Decline', Wicazo SA Review, XXIII, i (2008), 25-50.
Wyman, Patrick, 'Christopher Columbus and the Replacement-Level Historical Figure', https://defector.com/christopher-columbus-and-the-replacement-level-historical-figure/---
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In May 1498, Columbus departed on his third voyage to the Caribbean. Things didn't go particularly well.
Date: 1496-1500
Bibliography:
Bergreen Laurence, Columbus: The Four Voyages, 1492-1504 (2011)
Cook, Noble David, 'Sickness, Starvation, and Death in Early Hispaniola', The Journal of Interdisciplinary History, XXXII, iii (2002), 349-386.
Guerra, Francisco, 'The Earliest American Epidemic: The Influenza of 1493', Social Science History, XII, iii (1988), 305-325.
Hugh, Thomas, Rivers of Gold: The Rise of the Spanish Empire (2003)
Karmen, Henry, Spain’s Road To Empire: The Making of a World Power (2003)
Maltby, William, The Rise and Fall of the Spanish Empire (2008)
Tinker, George E., and Freeland, Mark, 'Thief, Slave Trader, Murderer: Christopher Columbus and Caribbean Population Decline', Wicazo SA Review, XXIII, i (2008), 25-50.
Wyman, Patrick, 'Christopher Columbus and the Replacement-Level Historical Figure', https://defector.com/christopher-columbus-and-the-replacement-level-historical-figure/---
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- Way Out West by Jack Pierce, licensed by Premium Beat
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After Columbus departed for Castille in 1496, it didn't take long for the regime he had established on the island to descend into chaos...
Date: 1496-1498
Bibliography:
Bergreen Laurence, Columbus: The Four Voyages, 1492-1504 (2011)
Cook, Noble David, 'Sickness, Starvation, and Death in Early Hispaniola', The Journal of Interdisciplinary History, XXXII, iii (2002), 349-386.
Guerra, Francisco, 'The Earliest American Epidemic: The Influenza of 1493', Social Science History, XII, iii (1988), 305-325.
Hugh, Thomas, Rivers of Gold: The Rise of the Spanish Empire (2003)
Karmen, Henry, Spain’s Road To Empire: The Making of a World Power (2003)
Maltby, William, The Rise and Fall of the Spanish Empire (2008)
Tinker, George E., and Freeland, Mark, 'Thief, Slave Trader, Murderer: Christopher Columbus and Caribbean Population Decline', Wicazo SA Review, XXIII, i (2008), 25-50.
Wyman, Patrick, 'Christopher Columbus and the Replacement-Level Historical Figure', https://defector.com/christopher-columbus-and-the-replacement-level-historical-figure/
The Age of the American Frontier now has a website: https://theageoftheamericanfrontier.squarespace.com/home-1?p---
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The story of North America did not begin with the arrival of humans but in fact stretches back into the deep past, all the way to the age of dinosaurs.
Date: 100,000,000 to 13,000 years ago
Bibliography:
Brannen, Peter, The Ends of the World
Brusatte, Stephen L., The Rise and Reign of the Mammals
Flannery, Timothy, The Eternal Frontier: An Ecological History of North America
---If you have any comments, questions, or concerns, then I can be reached at theageoftheamericanfrontier@gmail.com.---
The Age of the American Frontier now has a website: https://theageoftheamericanfrontier.squarespace.com/home-1?p
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- Way Out West by Jack Pierce, licensed by Premium Beat
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In October 1493, Columbus invaded Hispaniola with a fleet of seventeen ships and more a thousand men. The first European attempt to establish colonies in the Americas would not go well but it also would bring disaster to the indigineous Taino population.
Date: October 1493 - June 1496
Bibliography:
Bergreen Laurence, Columbus: The Four Voyages, 1492-1504 (2011)
Cook, Noble David, 'Sickness, Starvation, and Death in Early Hispaniola', The Journal of Interdisciplinary History, XXXII, iii (2002), 349-386.
Guerra, Francisco, 'The Earliest American Epidemic: The Influenza of 1493', Social Science History, XII, iii (1988), 305-325.
Hugh, Thomas, Rivers of Gold: The Rise of the Spanish Empire (2003)
Karmen, Henry, Spain’s Road To Empire: The Making of a World Power (2003)
Maltby, William, The Rise and Fall of the Spanish Empire (2008)
Tinker, George E., and Freeland, Mark, 'Thief, Slave Trader, Murderer: Christopher Columbus and Caribbean Population Decline', Wicazo SA Review, XXIII, i (2008), 25-50.
Wyman, Patrick, 'Christopher Columbus and the Replacement-Level Historical Figure', https://defector.com/christopher-columbus-and-the-replacement-level-historical-figure/---
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- Way Out West by Jack Pierce, licensed by Premium Beat
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In crossing the Atlantic, Columbus had made history but to really cement his achievement, he needed to return home to Europe. He left a significant number of his men behind in what he hoped was a defensible fortress at La Navidad, all but gurranteeing he would return to the Caribbean with a much larger expedition in the near future.
Date: January - October 1493
Bibliography:
Bergreen Laurence, Columbus: The Four Voyages, 1492-1504 (2011)
Hugh, Thomas, Rivers of Gold: The Rise of the Spanish Empire (2003)
Karmen, Henry, Spain’s Road To Empire: The Making of a World Power (2003)
Maltby, William, The Rise and Fall of the Spanish Empire (2008)
Tinker, George E., and Freeland, Mark, 'Thief, Slave Trader, Murderer: Christopher Columbus and Caribbean Population Decline', Wicazo SA Review, XXIII, i (2008), 25-50.
Wyman, Patrick, 'Christopher Columbus and the Replacement-Level Historical Figure', https://defector.com/christopher-columbus-and-the-replacement-level-historical-figure/
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- Way Out West by Jack Pierce, licensed by Premium Beat
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On October 12th 1492, the inhabitants of a small island in the Caribbean saw a very strange sight as a group of lost Castilian sailors blundered onto their island.
The world would never be the same again...
Date: October 12th 1492 - January 2nd 1493
Bibliography:---
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In the fifty years after 1492, the Spanish Empire would conquer a large part of the most densely populated parts of the Americas, principally Mesoamerica and the Andes. These conquests would transform Spain into a world power but they brought disaster for the indigineous population including population collapse, ethnic cleaning, brutal explotation, and cultural genocide.
Spanish influence however was not just felt in the lands under their direct rule. In the lands that would one day become the United States, the 16th century was a time of enormous change as the consequences of the Spanish invasion reverberated across the continent and collided with indigineous societies that were far more complex than has usually been appreciated.
Bibliography
Fiedel, Stuart J., Prehistory of the Americas (1987)
Graeber, David and Wengrow, David, The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity (2021)
Mann, Charles C., Ancient Americans: Rewriting the History of the New World (2005)
Plog, Stephen, ‘Towns, Mounds, and Kachinas’ in Hurtado, Albert L. and Iverson, Peter (eds.), Major Problems in American Indian History: Second Edition (2001), pp.44-54.
White, Richard, ‘Indian Peoples and the Natural World’ in Milner II, Clyde A. (ed.), Major Problems in the History of the American West (1989), pp.8-17.
Period: 1492-1597 AD
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In the century after Columbus landed in the Caribbean, the Iberian kingdoms of Castille and Aragon would construct the first empire upon which the sun never set - the Spanish Empire. In competition with the Portuguese, the Spanish would construct a truly global trade network that extended all the way to China and linked the economies of four continents. In Europe, through a combination of shrewd dynastic marriages and military prowess, the Iberian kingdoms would become the core of the largest political unit on the continent since the empire of Charlemagne.
Nowhere would the influence of the Spanish Empire be as dramatic as in the Americas. In a single lifetime, conquistadors would conquer the two greatest indigineous empires and the most densely populated parts of the Americas. In the process, the Spanish would embark on the most ambitious urban building programme before the 20th century and one of the most far reaching campaigns of cultural vandalism ever. For the indigineous peoples of the Americas, the consequences would be dire as the Spanish reshaped their societies and the landscape to suit their needs.
Yet despite its great size and wealth, the Spanish Empire would be defined even in its golden age as much by its weakness as its strengths...
The Age of the American Frontier now has a website: https://theageoftheamericanfrontier.squarespace.com/home-1?p
Bibliography
Cervantes, Fernando, Conquistadores: A New History (2020)
Elliott, J.H., Spain and its World 1500-1700 (1989)
Elliott, J.H., Empires of the Atlantic World: Britain and Spain in America: 1492-1830 (2006)
Hugh, Thomas, Rivers of Gold: The Rise of the Spanish Empire (2003)
Hugh, Thomas, The Golden Age: The Spanish Empire of Charles V (2009)
Hugh, Thomas, World Without End: The Global Empire of Philip II (2014)
Karmen, Henry, Spain’s Road To Empire: The Making of a World Power (2003)
Kennedy, Paul, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500 to 2000 (1988)
Maltby, William, The Rise and Fall of the Spanish Empire (2008)
Period: 1492-1597 AD
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Welcome back to the Age of the American Frontier. This episode is a revised introductory episode that I hope will help old and new listeners get back into the podcast.
The American Frontier is America both at its most charismatic but also elusive. Despite its status as a cornerstone of American culture and identity, defining the frontier has proven challenging for historians. What common themes united the Pilgrim Fathers and Theodore Roosevelt, the Alamo and the plantation of Virginia? In this episode, I will explore that question and try to refine my conclusions from episode 1.1.
Bibliography
Brands, H.W., Dreams of El Dorado: A History of the American West (2019)
Hine, Robert V. and Faragher, John Mack, Frontiers: A Short History of the American West (2007)
Hine, Robert V., Faragher, John Mack, and Coleman, Jon T., ‘Introduction: Dreams and Homelands’ in The American West: A New Interpretative History Second Edition (2017)
Limerick, Patricia Nelson, Legacy of Conquest: The Unbroken Past of the American West (1987)
Milner II, Clyde A., O’Connor, Carol A., and Sandweiss, Marth A., ‘Introduction’ in The Oxford History of the American West (1994), pp.1-8.
Pierson, George Wilson, ‘The Frontier and American Institutions: A Criticism of the Turner Theory’, The New England Quarterly, XV, ii (1942), 224-255.
Reynolds, David, America: Empire of Liberty (2009)
Taylor, Alan, American Colonies: The Settling of North America (2001)
Turner, Frederick Jackson, The Significance of the Frontier in American History (1893)
Worster, Donald, ‘New West, True West’ in Milner II, Clyde A., Major Problems in the History of the American West (1989), pp.21-34
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- Way Out West by Jack Pierce, licensed by Premium Beat
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A brief catch-up and review of the year ahead.
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If at first you don't suceed, try and try again.
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Further Reading:Thomas Benjamin, The Atlantic World: Europeans, Africans, Indians and Their Shared History: 1400-1900Laurence Bergreen, Columbus: The Four Voyages, 1492-1504
Fernando Cervantes, Conquistadores: A New HistoryLilian Handlin, 'Discovering Columbus', The American Scholar, CXII, i (1993)J. H. Parry, The Age of ReconnaissanceCarla Ahn Phillips and William D. Phillips, 'Christopher Columbus in United States Historiography: Biography as Projection', The History Teacher, XXV, ii (1992)Hugh Thomas, Rivers of Gold: The Rise of the Spanish Empire
Patrick Wyman, 'Christopher Columbus and the Replacement-Level Historical Figure', https://defector.com/christopher-columbus-and-the-replacement-level-historical-figure/
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- Way Out West by Jack Pierce, licensed by Premium Beat
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Date: 1485-1492 AD
Between 1476 and 1485, Columbus based in the Kingdom of Portugal. During those years, he was a very busy man and his experiences would serve as the foundation for his latter, more impressive exploits.
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Further Reading:Thomas Benjamin, The Atlantic World: Europeans, Africans, Indians and Their Shared History: 1400-1900Laurence Bergreen, Columbus: The Four Voyages, 1492-1504
Fernando Cervantes, Conquistadores: A New HistoryHair, P. E. H., 'Was Columbus' First Very Long Voyage a Voyage from Guinea', History in Africa, XXII, (1995)Lilian Handlin, 'Discovering Columbus', The American Scholar, CXII, i (1993)J. H. Parry, The Age of ReconnaissanceCarla Ahn Phillips and William D. Phillips, 'Christopher Columbus in United States Historiography: Biography as Projection', The History Teacher, XXV, ii (1992)
Quinn, David B., 'Columbus and the North: England, Iceland, and Ireland', The William and Mary Quarterly, XXXXIX, ii (1992)
Ruddock, Alwyn W., 'Columbus and Iceland: New Light on an Old Problem', The Geographical Journal, CXXXVI, (1970)Hugh Thomas, Rivers of Gold: The Rise of the Spanish Empire
Patrick Wyman, 'Christopher Columbus and the Replacement-Level Historical Figure', https://defector.com/christopher-columbus-and-the-replacement-level-historical-figure/
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- Way Out West by Jack Pierce, licensed by Premium Beat
- Sound effects obtained from https://www.zapsplat.com
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Date: 1476-1485 AD
Christopher Columbus would change history when he set foot in the Americas in 1492, reuniting the long separated western and eastern hemispheres. However for much of his life, as he sailed the waters of the Mediterranean and the Atlantic, Columbus was far from exceptional.
Content Warning: Slavery
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Further Reading:Thomas Benjamin, The Atlantic World: Europeans, Africans, Indians and Their Shared History: 1400-1900Laurence Bergreen, Columbus: The Four Voyages, 1492-1504
Fernando Cervantes, Conquistadores: A New HistoryLilian Handlin, 'Discovering Columbus', The American Scholar, CXII, i (1993)J. H. Parry, The Age of ReconnaissanceCarla Ahn Phillips and William D. Phillips, 'Christopher Columbus in United States Historiography: Biography as Projection', The History Teacher, XXV, ii (1992)Hugh Thomas, Rivers of Gold: The Rise of the Spanish EmpireGeorge E. Tinker and Mark Freeland, 'Thief, Slave Trader, Murderer: Christopher Columbus and Caribbean Population Decline', Wicazo SA Review, XXIII, i (2008)
Patrick Wyman, 'Christopher Columbus and the Replacement-Level Historical Figure', https://defector.com/christopher-columbus-and-the-replacement-level-historical-figure/
Music:
- Way Out West by Jack Pierce, licensed by Premium Beat
- Sound effects obtained from https://www.zapsplat.com
Artwork: Created using Canva
Date: 1451 to 1476 AD
Ferdinand and Isabella's first decade on the Castilian and Aragonese thrones was productive. Domestically, the couple consolidated royal power within Castile and engaged in vital reconstruction work, laying the foundations for the Spanish golden age in the next century.
It would be their actions in the international sphere that would have the greatest impact on history, however. Beginning in the late 1470s, the couple would embark on a programme of expansion with the aim of reducing to subjugation two long standing opponents of Castile - the emirate of Granada and the Guanche chiefdoms of the Canary Islands. The resulting wars would further extend the couple's reach but also be a grim prelude to latter Spanish expansion in the Americas.
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Additional ReadingThomas Benjamin, The Atlantic World: Europeans, Africans, Indians and Their Shared History, 1400-1900Nicholas Canny and Philip Morgan (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of the Atlantic World 1450-1850Brian A. Catlos, Kingdoms of Faith: A New History of Islamic SpainAlfred W. Crosby, Ecological Imperialism: The Biological Expansion of Europe, 900-1900Alfred W. Crosby, 'An Ecohistory of the Canary Islands: A Precursor of European Colonization in the New World and Australasia' in Environmental Review, 8.3, (1984) John E. Kicza, 'Patterns in Early Spanish Overseas Expansion' in The William and Mary Quarterly, 49.2 (1992) Anthony Pagden, Worlds at War: The 2,500 Year Struggle Between East And WestTimothy H. Parsons, The Rule of Empires: Those Who Built Them, Those Who Endured Them, and Why They Always Fall
Hugh Thomas, Rivers of Gold: The Rise of the Spanish Empire
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Date: 1479 to 1496 AD
King Ferdinand of Aragon and Queen Isabella of Castile are best known to us as the conquerors of the last Muslim state in Iberia, Granada, and the backers of Christopher Columbus. Before this though, the pair had to fight a bitter war to place Isabella on the Castilian throne, facing down rebels within Castile, the Kingdom of Portugal and the Kingdom of France. Although the war would be a victory for Ferdinand and Isabella personally, the outcome was much more mixed for Castile's wider interests, due to a series of defeats against the Portuguese in the Atlantic.
Far from being a side at the beginning of the illustrious reigns of the dual monarchs, the War of the Castilian Succession reveals much about the character of the pair and their motivations for supporting Columbus...
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Additional ReadingA.R. Disney, A History of the Portuguese Empire: Volume 2 (2009)J. H. Elliott, Imperial Spain: 1469-1716 (1963)J. N. Hillgarth, Spanish Kingdoms: Volume 2 (1976)Malyn Newitt, A History of Portuguese Overseas Expansion: 1400-1668 (2004) ---
Music:
- Way Out West by Jack Pierce, licensed by Premium Beat
- Sound effects obtained from https://www.zapsplat.com
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Date: 1474-1479 AD
From 1400 onwards, European sailors would dramatically expand their operations into the Atlantic. Their efforts would transform Europe's place in the world and the European understanding of the world.
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Additional ReadingThomas Benjamin, The Atlantic World: Europeans, Africans, Indians and Their Shared History, 1400-1900Nicholas Canny and Philip Morgan (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of the Atlantic World 1450-1850J. H. Parry, The Age of Reconnaissance ---
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Date: 1400 to 1600 AD
To reach the Americas, European sailors would have to cross the world's second largest ocean - the Atlantic. Achieving this feat would require mastering powerful ocean currents and winds and developing a new set of technologies to allow extended voyages away from Europe.
These new developments, including better ships and navigation tools, would set the stage for one of the most dramatic periods in European, American, and African history.
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Additional ReadingThomas Benjamin, The Atlantic World: Europeans, Africans, Indians and Their Shared History, 1400-1900Fernand Braudel, The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip IINicholas Canny and Philip Morgan (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of the Atlantic World 1450-1850Some Examples of Atlantic HistoryDavid Armitage and Michael J. Braddick (eds.), The British Atlantic World, 1500-1800J. H. Elliott, Spain and Its World: 1500-1700David Harris Sacks, The Widening Gate: Bristol and the Atlantic Economy 1450-1700Thornton, John, Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World, 1400-1800 ---
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Date: 200,000,000 BC to 1500 AD
After Bethencourt's death in 1425, a succession of Castilian nobles attempted to continue the conquest of the Canary Islands. They were undermined, however, by a poor economic situation in the islands and fierce Guanche resistance to the invaders.
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Additional ReadingThomas Benjamin, The Atlantic World: Europeans, Africans, Indians and Their Shared History, 1400-1900
Alfred W. Cosby, 'An Ecohistory of the Canary Islands: A Precursor of European Colonization in the New World and Australasia' in Environmental Review, 8.3, (1984)
Alfred W. Cosby, Ecological Imperialism: The Biological Expansion of Europe, 900-1900
Felipe Fernandez-Armesto, Before Columbus: Exploration and Colonisation from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic, 1229-1492John E. Kicza, 'Patterns in Early Spanish Overseas Expansion' in The William and Mary Quarterly, 49.2 (1992)
John Parry, The Age of Reconaissance
Stuart B. Schwartz, Tropical Babylons: Sugar and the Making of the Atlantic World, 1450-1680 ---
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Date: 1425 to 1475 AD
In 1402, two French adventurers launched an invasion of the Canary Islands, with the goal of seizing the islands' riches and converting their people to Christianity. The first true European colonial conquest of the early modern period would set the pattern for the centuries ahead - crass ambition and brutality was mixed with missionary pretension and bitter feuding amongst the conquerors. Not to mention heroic indigineous resistance that would frequently frustrate the invaders.
By 1425, the European invaders had conquered three of the Canary Islands but the Guanche remained defiant in their larger strongholds and continuing the conquest would be a daunting challenge.
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Primary SourcesThe Canarian: Or Book of the Conquest and Conversion of the Canarians in the Year 1402 by Messire Jean de Bethencourt, Kt.
Additional ReadingThomas Benjamin, The Atlantic World: Europeans, Africans, Indians and Their Shared History, 1400-1900
Alfred W. Cosby, 'An Ecohistory of the Canary Islands: A Precursor of European Colonization in the New World and Australasia' in Environmental Review, 8.3, (1984)
Alfred W. Cosby, Ecological Imperialism: The Biological Expansion of Europe, 900-1900
Felipe Fernandez-Armesto, Before Columbus: Exploration and Colonisation from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic, 1229-1492John E. Kicza, 'Patterns in Early Spanish Overseas Expansion' in The William and Mary Quarterly, 49.2 (1992)
John Parry, The Age of Reconaissance
Stuart B. Schwartz, Tropical Babylons: Sugar and the Making of the Atlantic World, 1450-1680 ---
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Date: 1402 to 1425 AD
In the 14th century, Europeans began sailing further out into the Atlantic and down the coast of Africa. While most of these voyages would end in failure, they did result in Europeans encountering the Canary Islands and their indigineous inhabitants - the Guanche.
Since they had migrated to the islands thousands of years ago, the Guanche had built a unique neo-stone age society on the islands, perfectly adapted to its environment. The collision between the European and Guanche worlds would transform the Canary Islands into an outpost of Europe and would be a portent of what was to come in the Americas.
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Additional ReadingThomas Benjamin, The Atlantic World: Europeans, Africans, Indians and Their Shared History, 1400-1900
Alfred W. Cosby, 'An Ecohistory of the Canary Islands: A Precursor of European Colonization in the New World and Australasia' in Environmental Review, 8.3, (1984)
Alfred W. Cosby, Ecological Imperialism: The Biological Expansion of Europe, 900-1900
Felipe Fernandez-Armesto, Before Columbus: Exploration and Colonisation from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic, 1229-1492John E. Kicza, 'Patterns in Early Spanish Overseas Expansion' in The William and Mary Quarterly, 49.2 (1992)
John Parry, The Age of Reconaissance
Stuart B. Schwartz, Tropical Babylons: Sugar and the Making of the Atlantic World, 1450-1680 ---
Music: Way Out West by Jack Pierce, licensed by Premium Beat
Artwork: Created using Canva
Date: 1336 to 1402 AD
After the collapse of the Caliphate of Cordoba in 1031, Iberia became a battle ground between the Christian kingdoms of the north and the surviving Muslim states of the south. Although never as constant or black and white as latter nationalist histories would present it as, the centuries of the Reconquista would be among the most dramatic in Iberian history. As time went on, the conflict would become an international one, drawing in the Islamic states of north Africa as well as the Papacy and crusaders from across Europe. By the time the last major Muslim power on the peninsula was defeated in the early 13th century, the stage had been set for the emergence of the kingdoms of Castille and Aragon as major powers.
The Mediterranean, the Atlantic, and eventually the Americas, would never be the same again.
If you woud like to listen to a more detailed history of Muslim Spain and the Reconquista, then I would reccomend the History of the Crusades Podcast Presents Reconquista.
Further Reading:
Catlos, Brian A., Kingdoms of Faith: A New History of Islamic Spain (2018)
Parsons, Timothy H., The Rule of Empires: Those Who Built Them, Those Who Endured Them, and Why They Always Fall (2010)
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Date: 1038 to 1262 AD
In 711 AD, an army of Arab and Berber Muslims landed in the Iberian peninsula and rapidly conquered it from its Visigothic rulers. For the next seven hundred years, the peninsula would exist on the frontier of the Christian and the Islamic worlds, both a place of religious conflict and of cultural synthesis.
The results would continue to be felt after 1492 as the Kingdom of Spain built the first truly global empire.
If you woud like to listen to a more detailed history of Muslim Spain and the Reconquista, then I would reccomend the History of the Crusades Podcast Presents Reconquista.
Further Reading:
Catlos, Brian A., Kingdoms of Faith: A New History of Islamic Spain (2018)
Parsons, Timothy H., The Rule of Empires: Those Who Built Them, Those Who Endured Them, and Why They Always Fall (2010)
Music: Way Out West by Jack Pierce, licensed by Premium Beat
Artwork: Created using Canva
Date: 711 to 1031 AD
Content Warning: Slavery and Racism
Slavery is one of the most significant themes in American history. Since its foundation, American politics have often been dominated by questions about the nature, extent, spread, and legacy of slavery as an institution, just as slave labour strongly influenced the American economy.
American slavery was a uniquely terrible institution but it did spring fully formed from nothing. Influences from Europe, the early American colonies, and Africa would all shape it as an economic, political, social, and religious force.
In the first of what will be many episodes on the history of slavery in the Atlantic World and America, we are going to look at the internal African slave trade. Both because it is helpful in understanding the latter development of the Atlantic trade but also to defuse the harmful myths which have been propogated with the aim of minimizing or excusing slavery in America.
Link to the Bristol City Archives Early Black Presence List: https://archives.bristol.gov.uk/indexes
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Towards the end of the 18th century, incredible rumours reached Wales of a tribe of Welsh Indians living somewhere in the American West. Allegedly the descendants of a Welsh prince who had fled the country in the 12th century, these Welsh Indians presented an opportunity for Christian proselytizing and the rediscovery of primordial Welsh culture by their supposed contemporary countrymen.
One young man, the son of a Methodist minister, called John T. Evans, was brave enough to offer to travel to America in search of them. It was an adventure that would not end in the way Evans hoped but it would be an adventure.
Additional Reading: Brands, H.W., Dreams of El Dorado: A History of the American West (2019) Morgan, Prys, 'From a Death to a View: The Hunt for the Welsh Past in the Romantic Period' in Hobsbawn, Eric, The Invention of Tradition (1983), pp.43-100.*
Robert, W. Arvon, 150 Famous Welsh Americans (2008)
Williams, David, 'John Evans' Strange Journey: Part I: The Welsh Indians', The American Historical Review, 54, ii (1949), 277-295.
Williams, David, 'John Evans' Strange Journey: Part II: Following the Trail', The American Historical Review, 54, iii (1949), 508-529.Witte, Kevin C., 'In the Footsteps of the Third Spanish Expedition: James Mackay and John T. Evans' Impact on the Lewis and Clark Expedition', Great Plains Quarterly (2006)
*I realized while compiling this bibliography that I had misattributed one of the quotations in this chapter to Eric Hobsbawn, when it was in fact written by Prys Morgan. I apologise for this oversight.
Period: 1770-1799 AD
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Beyond the west and central African forests, the Kingdom of the Kongo, Great Zimbabwe, and the Swahili city states of the east African coast were doing well in the 15th century. All would be drastically affected by the expansion of European power in the centuries ahead, although in markedly different ways.
Period: 1400-1500 AD
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In the year 1324, the great Malian King stopped in the city of Cairo while on pilgrimage to Mecca. While there, he told his host a strange tale about his predecessor, who had suppousedly sailed off the edge of the world....
Period: 1324-1492 AD
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Stories such as Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad have heavily influenced perceptions of Africa for decades. In the European imagination, Africa has frequently been cast as the 'dark continent' - a place of primordial savagery, darkness and the antithesis of (white) civilization.
Yet more than five hundred years before Heart of Darkness was published, Africa had a very different image in Europe. For milleania, rumours of a land of gold south of the Sahara Desert had fascinated merchants and travellers in Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. In this episode, we will journey south of the Great Desert to explore 15th century west Africa and the mighty empires that called it home.
Change was coming to all the shores of the Atlantic however and in the coming centuries, the opening up of America and the trans-Atlantic slave trade would have tragic consequences for the peoples and cultures of Africa.
Content Warning: This episode will be discussing slavery and racism
The Catalan Atlas
Period: 1375 to 1492 AD
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Centuries before the creation of the United States, the north-east of North America was the home of another democratic federation. The Haudenosaunee Confederacy, otherwise known as the League of the Five Nations or the League of Peace, united five previously warring nations, establishing a system of collective security whilst also empowering women and allowing leaders to be removed democratically. The League, although frequently embattled by European incursions, would survive into the 18th century and play a major role in the wars of the colonial period.
But how and when did this remarkable society come into being?
The text of the Great Law of Peace
Haudenosaunee Guide for Educators from the National Museum of the American Indian
Period: 900 to 1450 AD
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The Mississippi River and its tributaries saw the rise of many cultures in the millenia before the European invasion. Between 925 and 1350 AD, the heart of this area was home to something unique in the lands north of the Rio Grande before Columbus - a true city. Dominated by magnificent and often enigmatic earthen mounds, the city of Cahokia would dominate life in the region for centuries and play host to a flourishing society and material culture.
However Cahokia was not a paradise and by the time the Europeans began to enter the region in the 16th century, the city had been virtually deserted for centuries.
Period: 900 to 1350 AD
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The monumental architecture of Mesoamerica is one of the hallmarks of pre-Columbian America. These were not the only complex societies that built such impressive structures however. Thousands of miles to the north in the lands that would one day become New Mexico and Colorado, among the canyons and mountains of the Colorado plateau, the Ancestral Pueblan people built great houses and roads that defined and became part of the landscape. Not least Chaco Canyon and the enigmatic Pueblo Bonito.
However when the world's climate changed, the Ancestral Pueblans were forced to abandon their ancient homeland to more hospitable lands in the south. As they did so, their culture and society was reconfigured into something that would be recognizable to the first Europeans to arrive in the region...
Period: 500 AD to 1200 AD
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While the 'Three Sisters' trio of maize, beans, and squash was transforming life in Mesoamerica, another form of agriculture was developing in the eastern woodlands. While little of it survives today, the Eastern Agricultural Complex is one of the most fascinating and well researched centres of plant domestication. In these millenia, the 'artifical wilderness' that would capture the imagination of the first European colonists, would be forged and the foundations laid for the Native American peoples, such as the Haudenosaunee (sometimes known as the Iroquois), who would confront the European invaders.
Edit:
There was originally a map showing the distribution of Eastern Agricultural Complex sites attached to this episode but unfortunately it wasn't showing up how I wanted it to. The map was originally printed in Charles C. Mann's Ancient Americans: Rewriting the History of the New World (2005), p.257 if you would like to take a look at it.
Period: 3000 BC to 1100 AD
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From 10,000 years ago, people all around the world, including in the Americas, radically changed their way of life by becoming farmers.
It might not have been the best idea...
Period: 8000 BC to 1100 AD
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Today the western United States is a land of abundant natural riches as well as some of the driest and harshest conditions on the planet, just as it was during the Archaic Period. In this episode, we will look at how three different civilizations developed in the region and made the most of their circumstances.
Period: 8000 BC to 1000 BC
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With the retreat of the ice sheets, the North American landscape was transformed. The remaining wildlife had to rapidly adapt to this new, warmer and human dominated world. So too, as it would turn out, would the humans.
Period: 12,900 to 10,000 years ago/10,900 BC to 8000 BC
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Before the arrival of humans, during the Last Ice Age, the Americas were home to a menagerie of weird and wonderful creatures from the wolly mammoth and sabre-toothed cat to ground sloths and giant armadillos. But by the time our current era, the Holocene, began virtually all of them had vanished. What happened?
Period: 20,000 to 12,900 years ago
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The Americas were the last continent except Antarctica to be settled by humans. In this episode, we will found out about why that is the case and about the latest developments in our understanding of the first Americans.
Period: Up to 12,900 years ago
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The world changed a lot between 1607 and 1893, nowhere moreso than America. How did a handful of struggling European colonies in the New World grow into the mighty United States of America, a nation whose century was about to dawn?
In this episode, I will talk about the aims of the podcast and my plans for the first few episodes.
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Artwork:Created by myself using Canva.