Colonial America Episodes

June 10, 2021

203. Planting the World of Plymouth Plantation with Dr. Carla Gardina Pestana

Plymouth Plantation occupies a powerful place in American national memory. Think of the First Thanksgiving in 1621; Englishmen escaping religious persecution; the rock marking the alleged spot where settlers first landed; an…
March 18, 2021

197. Stumbling Upon the Journal of Johann Peter Oettinger with Craig Koslofsky and Roberto Zaugg

Two weeks ago, we brought you the story of Johann Peter Oettinger, a seventeenth-century German-speaking barber-surgeon who in 1693 journeyed to Africa and the West Indies on behalf of the Brandenburg African Company. His jo…
March 4, 2021

196. Reconstructing the Life of a German Barber-Surgeon in the Atlantic Slave Trade with Craig Koslofsky and Roberto Zaugg

In 1693, the young German barber-surgeon Johann Peter Oettinger joined a slave trading venture for the second time. In the employ of the Brandenburg African Company, Oettinger sailed with his shipmates from Europe to the Afr…
Dec. 24, 2020

189. Confronting an Absolutist Monarch with Dr. Karie Schultz

In this season of religious renewal, we bring you a story of religious dissent. In 1638, many of King Charles I’s Presbyterian subjects gathered at Greyfriars Kirkyard in Edinburgh to sign the National Covenant . By renewing…
Nov. 5, 2020

183. Trading Spaces in the Colonial Marketplace with Emma Hart

With another American presidential election behind us, talk will inevitably turn to the economy and how the president will handle it. That begs a series of questions as we turn our thoughts back to the eighteenth century: Ho…
Sept. 17, 2020

176. Hunting Satan in Scotland and the Atlantic World with Michelle D. Brock

The Prince of Darkness wrought havoc on the souls of seventeenth-century Christians living throughout the Atlantic world. Whether they called him Satan, the Devil, Beelzebub, or by any other name, Lucifer tempted men and wom…
April 23, 2020

155. Painting Portraits of Colonial Virginia with Janine Yorimoto Boldt

In 1757, Martha Dandridge Custis paid the artist John Wollaston the handsome sum of 56 pistoles for portraits of her, her husband Daniel Parke Custis , and their children , John and Martha. A pistole was a Spanish gold coin …
March 26, 2020

151. Going Timbering and Turtling in the Caribbean with Mary Draper

Three hundred years ago, timber and turtles were key commodities for English settlers on Barbados and Jamaica . Barbadians sailed northwest to the island of St. Lucia where they harvested timber while Jamaicans headed to the…
March 5, 2020

148. Inventing Disaster with Cindy Kierner

On the morning of November 1, 1755, a devastating earthquake struck the Portuguese capital of Lisbon. The quake leveled buildings, triggered fires, and caused a tsunami that laid waste to the urban landscape. When it was all…
Dec. 5, 2019

135. Editing Early America with Nadine Zimmerli

Dr. Nadine Zimmerli recently joined The University of Virginia Press as its editor of History and Social Sciences books. A former editor at the Omohundro Institute of Early American History & Culture , Zimmerli is a historia…