The History of the Americans

DEC 21, 2025

Sidebar Conversation: Matthew Restall on “The Nine Lives of Christopher Columbus”

Matthew Restall is an historian and author of over forty books, focusing on the Spanish Conquest era in the Americas; on Aztec and Maya history; on the history of colonial Mesoamerica, primarily Yucatan but including Mexico, Guatemala, and Belize; on the historical African diaspora in the Americas; and on the history of popular music. Matthew is most recently the author of <a href="https://amzn.to/4p5mVbA">The Nine Lives of Christopher Columbus</a>, the topic of and inspiration for this conversation. Finally, he is Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of History and Anthropology, and Director of Latin American Studies, at Pennsylvania State University. We discussed the phenomenon of “Columbiana,” the vast mythology that has befogged the history and biography of Christopher Columbus, the man, almost entirely for purposes that he himself would not have understood. His book, <a href="https://amzn.to/4p5mVbA">which I quite recommend</a>, addresses nine such “lives” and the historical mysteries around them. We touch on the four of those that I thought would most appeal to longstanding and attentive listeners – his early life and his pitching for the funding for the “Enterprise of the Indies” – which are the first two lives, and the curious resurrection of Columbus in the 19th century as the founding “grandfather” of the United States, followed by his last “life” – so far – as the great hero of Italian-Americans. This last leads to a discussion of the perception of Columbus today. Along the way we go down numerous rabbit holes, including that there is, even today, a direct descendant of Columbus who bears the title “Admiral of the Ocean Sea.” Other relevant links Matthew Restall, <a href="https://amzn.to/45ceSmh">The Nine Lives of Christopher Columbus</a> History Impossible Podcast, “War for the Frontiers of History and America (w/ Jack Henneman of The History of the Americans)”: <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/war-for-the-frontiers-of-history-and-america-w/id1450885141?i=1000739109230">Apple</a> and <a href="https://open.spotify.com/episode/7qFkyTt6IhkqzSYql5G1L5?si=7ltwAfdMTzuj5t7ST6qWUw">Spotify</a> Samuel Eliot Morison, <a href="https://amzn.to/4qo63Ot">Admiral of the Ocean Sea: A Life of Christopher Columbus</a> X – @TheHistoryOfTh2 – <a href="https://x.com/TheHistoryOfTh2">https://x.com/TheHistoryOfTh2</a> Facebook – <a href="https://www.facebook.com/HistoryOfTheAmericans">https://www.facebook.com/HistoryOfTheAmericans</a>

87 MIN

DEC 5, 2025

Bacon’s Aftermath 1: Diplomacy and Conspiracy 1677-1685

This episode looks again at the causes of Bacon’s Rebellion in light of what we have now learned, before turning to the region of the Chesapeake in the years after the Rebellion. There are two big themes in the post-Bacon Chesapeake. The first, the subject of this episode, is geopolitical. After Bacon, what changed in intercolonial affairs, in the relationship between the Chesapeake colonies and England, and between those colonies and the indigenous nations? The second theme, for part 2, is essentially domestic. How did Virginia itself change politically, economically, and socially, with a special emphasis on the terms of labor and the types of people performing it? Along the way we look at the crazed conspiracy theories that roiled not only Virginia and Maryland, but England, how they affected the various protagonists, led to the negotiation of the “Covenant Chain” between the Iroquois and New York and the other English colonies of North America, and how the end of Bacon’s Rebellion unleashed explosive growth of the trade in enslaved Indians from the Carolinas and points south. <a href="https://jackhenneman.substack.com/">My Substack</a> <a href="https://www.zazzle.com/store/thota_podcast">Check out the new merch store!</a> X – @TheHistoryOfTh2 – <a href="https://x.com/TheHistoryOfTh2">https://x.com/TheHistoryOfTh2</a> Facebook – <a href="https://www.facebook.com/HistoryOfTheAmericans">https://www.facebook.com/HistoryOfTheAmericans</a> Selected references for this episode (Commission earned for Amazon purchases through the episode notes on our website) James D. Rice, <a href="https://amzn.to/4n5KqkO">Tales from a Revolution: Bacon’s Rebellion and the Transformation of Early America</a> Wilcomb E. Washburn, <a href="https://amzn.to/4mlMdkx">The Governor and the Rebel: A History of Bacon’s Rebellion in Virginia</a> Edmund S. Morgan, <a href="https://amzn.to/4pkhOpF">American Slavery, American Freedom</a> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josias_Fendall">Josias (Josiah) Fendall</a> Other episodes mentioned <a href="https://thehistoryoftheamericans.com/notes-on-virginia-1644-1675/">Notes on Virginia 1644-1675</a> <a href="https://thehistoryoftheamericans.com/the-free-county-of-albemarle/">The Free County of Albemarle</a> <a href="https://thehistoryoftheamericans.com/rogues-and-dogs-and-fendalls-rebellion/">Rogues and Dogs and Fendall’s Rebellion</a>

37 MIN

NOV 19, 2025

Bacon’s Rebellion 6: Recriminations

It is late January 1677 in Virginia. Loyalists under the command of Governor Sir William Berkeley had suppressed Bacon’s Rebellion just after New Year. Now Berkeley was prosecuting the surviving leaders of the rebellion, and loyalist units were looting the estates of wealthy Baconistas to recover losses they had suffered during the war. Then a fleet from London materialized at the mouth of the James, carrying three royal commissioners and a thousand “red coats,” English regular infantry. Their mission, per Charles II, was to suppress the rebellion – which Berkeley and his supporters had already done – and to discover the root causes of the rebellion. They were not prepared to intervene in a peace they had not fought for, which peace Berkeley was determined to shape to the advantage of his faction. Berkeley’s first interest was in justice for himself and his allies, the loyalists who had defended the government of the Crown; the commissioners were focused on the fiscal priorities of the Crown, and were therefore intent on moving beyond the war – bygones – and getting Virginia back to the important work of growing tobacco. There would be consequences. <a href="https://jackhenneman.substack.com/">My Substack</a> <a href="https://www.zazzle.com/store/thota_podcast">Check out the new merch store!</a> X – @TheHistoryOfTh2 – <a href="https://x.com/TheHistoryOfTh2">https://x.com/TheHistoryOfTh2</a> Facebook – <a href="https://www.facebook.com/HistoryOfTheAmericans">https://www.facebook.com/HistoryOfTheAmericans</a> Selected references for this episode (Commission earned for Amazon purchases through the episode notes on our website) James D. Rice, <a href="https://amzn.to/4n5KqkO">Tales from a Revolution: Bacon’s Rebellion and the Transformation of Early America</a> Wilcomb E. Washburn, <a href="https://amzn.to/4mlMdkx">The Governor and the Rebel: A History of Bacon’s Rebellion in Virginia</a> Charles McLean Andrews, <a href="https://amzn.to/4nusVdC">Narratives of the Insurrections, 1675-1690</a> Edmund S. Morgan, <a href="https://amzn.to/4pkhOpF">American Slavery, American Freedom</a> Stephen Saunders Webb, <a href="https://amzn.to/43BOSjF">1676: The End of American Independence</a> Wilcomb E. Washburn, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3639046?seq=1">Review</a> of Webb, 1676: The End of American Independence, Pacific Historical Review, May 1985. John M. Murrin, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/1919361">Review</a> of Webb, 1676: The End of American Independence, The William and Mary Quarterly, January 1986.

40 MIN

OCT 24, 2025

Bacon’s Rebellion 5: Bacon’s Lousy Luck

Last episode ended with Sir William Berkeley, on the deck of a ship in the James, watching Jamestown burn to the ground in the wee hours of September 19, 1676. The rebels under Nathaniel Bacon were ascendant, and Berkeley resolved to return to his refuge on the Eastern Shore and plot the next phase of his increasingly desperate war. Little did he know that the tide of the war was about to turn again in his favor. This episode begins in London in the summer of 1676, where Crown officials were just beginning to figure out what to do about the turmoil in Virginia, over which they had incomplete and very emotional news. Charles II made some decisions with long-term consequences for Virginia. At about the same time, in a stroke of luck – good or bad, depending on one’s point of view – Bacon died rather horribly. He had done a good job building an organization with an orderly succession plan, but the rebellion had lost its most charismatic leader. A few weeks before Bacon died, at the end of September, the first of several armed merchant ships arrived in the Chesapeake, and after learning about the revolt their captains pledged their service to Berkeley. They would provide crucial support in an amphibious war against rebels along the James and York rivers. One of the captains, Thomas Grantham of the powerful 500-ton Concord, emerged as a courageous and wise diplomat, and would do more than anyone to end the rebellion in early January, 1677. At the end of the war, Berkeley mopped up, and prosecuted and executed most of the leaders of the rebellion. Richard Lawrence, however, disappeared, and was never seen again. The episode ends with the arrival of royal commissioners and a thousand English regular infantry at the end of January, which would be more bad news for Sir William Berkeley. <a href="https://jackhenneman.substack.com/">My Substack</a> <a href="https://www.zazzle.com/store/thota_podcast">Check out the new merch store!</a> X – @TheHistoryOfTh2 – <a href="https://x.com/TheHistoryOfTh2">https://x.com/TheHistoryOfTh2</a> Facebook – <a href="https://www.facebook.com/HistoryOfTheAmericans">https://www.facebook.com/HistoryOfTheAmericans</a> Selected references for this episode (Commission earned for Amazon purchases through the episode notes on our website) James D. Rice, <a href="https://amzn.to/4n5KqkO">Tales from a Revolution: Bacon’s Rebellion and the Transformation of Early America</a> Wilcomb E. Washburn, <a href="https://amzn.to/4mlMdkx">The Governor and the Rebel: A History of Bacon’s Rebellion in Virginia</a> Charles McLean Andrews, <a href="https://amzn.to/4nusVdC">Narratives of the Insurrections, 1675-1690</a> Robert Beverley, <a href="https://amzn.to/3LrvEqr">The History and Present State of Virginia</a>

33 MIN

OCT 17, 2025

Bacon’s Rebellion 4: The Burning of Jamestown

Virginia Governor Sir William Berkeley has fled to the Eastern Shore with a small group of loyalist planters and a detachment of perhaps only fifty armed men. Nathaniel Bacon has occupied Berkeley’s estate near Jamestown, and dispatched men to capture loyalist ships anchored there. Bacon’s “navy” has out in search of Berkeley, but Berkeley turned the tables in an audacious amphibious attack and grabbed control of the Bay and the rivers. While Bacon was mucking around in the Dragon Swamp hunting notionally allied Pamunkeys, Berkeley recaptured Jamestown. Loyalist victory seemed at hand, but Bacon forced Berkeley to retreat from Jamestown a second time in part by grabbing the wives of loyalist planters and using them as human shields, and this time the rebels burn it to the ground. At the end of the episode, it appears that the rebels had the upper hand. Little did they understand that the loyalist cause was far from lost, and the rebellion was, unbeknownst to anybody, on the brink of disaster. <a href="https://jackhenneman.substack.com/">My Substack</a> <a href="https://www.zazzle.com/store/thota_podcast">Check out the new merch store!</a> X – @TheHistoryOfTh2 – <a href="https://x.com/TheHistoryOfTh2">https://x.com/TheHistoryOfTh2</a> Facebook – <a href="https://www.facebook.com/HistoryOfTheAmericans">https://www.facebook.com/HistoryOfTheAmericans</a> Selected references for this episode (Commission earned for Amazon purchases through the episode notes on our website) James D. Rice, <a href="https://amzn.to/4n5KqkO">Tales from a Revolution: Bacon’s Rebellion and the Transformation of Early America</a> Wilcomb E. Washburn, <a href="https://amzn.to/4mlMdkx">The Governor and the Rebel: A History of Bacon’s Rebellion in Virginia</a> Various authors, for the National Park Service, <a href="https://www.dragonrun.org/uploads/1/4/0/9/140904387/mapping_the_dragon_final_report_2025.pdf">“Mapping the Dragon: AN INDIGENOUS HISTORY OF BACON’S REBELLION”</a> (pdf) Charles McLean Andrews, <a href="https://amzn.to/4nusVdC">Narratives of the Insurrections, 1675-1690</a>

31 MIN

The History of the Americans

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