The Other States of America: History Podcast

Baron Poutrincourt returns to Acadia to find the great Mi'kmaq Chief Membertou, true to his word, preserved Port Royal for the French. Now he and his son Biencourt, without Champlain, de Mons, or Pont-Grave seek to rebuild Acadia all on their own. However, funded by a headstrong Noblewoman, the Jesuits mean to take Acadia for themselves and a rival settlement on Mount Desert Island (in present day...

After 30 years of hard work in the New World Champlain finds himself a prisoner, his colony destroyed, his friends turned to enemies and his family torn apart. For most, this would be the end of the story, but Champlain had one more chapter left to be written.  Photo Credit: By Cephas - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6984208

Samuel de Champlain's days of exploration were over, he had built up New France along the St. Lawrence into a profitable enterprise requiring constant management. Helene, his reluctant wife, joins him in Quebec and the colony begins to take on the character of French society, rather than a frontier outpost. Champlain's successes make New France a lucrative target to his personal enemies and the ad...

Founding Quebec will be easier than keeping it. Champlain spends the decade crossing the Atlantic over and over again, in an effort to keep the financing of New France afloat. Champlain enters into an unsavory marriage, chases rumors of the lost Henry Hudson and invades Onondaga the center of the Haudenosaunee, or Iroquois Confederacy. 

In our continuing story of Samuel de Champlain, Quebec is finally settled, but keeping control of the trade along the St. Lawrence will require overcoming constant obstacles. The Natives convince Champlain to war with the Iroquois and a conspiracy in Quebec requires Champlain to lay down the law. 

Champlain participates in founding Saint Croix, located in the modern day State of Maine, visits Patuxet the Wampanoag Village and future site of Plymouth and maps the coast of Southern Acadia a decade before it became know as New England. At Port Royal the 100 year old Mi'kmaq Chief Membertou meets the French in his own sail boat and claims to have known Jacques Cartier some seven decades ago.

Champlain sailed the seas, fought in wars, befriended a king, worked as a spy, visited New Spain, envisioned a canal across Panama and became ridiculously wealthy, before ever setting foot in New France. 

After the failed colony of Roberval the sailors of St. Malo and elsewhere continued a clandestine trade with the Natives. The St. Lawrence Iroquois mysteriously disappeared and the Innu at Tadoussac create a monopoly on the furs coming from the interior of the continent. France, enveloped in civil wars has few resources to settle their claim to the region, but when the price of fur skyrockets a fe...

The famished colonists of Fort Caroline were preparing to abandon the colony and return to France, when ships were spotted...  War is coming, but in the end from whom? Will the Civil Wars of France spill over into French Florida? Will a Timucuan Chiefdom turn on the French? Will the Spanish or English invade? The Huguenots of Fort Caroline are about to play their part in shaping American Hist...

After the 1st expedition to Florida ended in mutiny, murder and cannibalism, the Huguenots suffer through the first French Civil War of Religion. The prospects of Florida proved tempting to both the religious refugee and the opportunist alike. However, their settlement, Fort Caroline is built in the Land of the Timucua a people divided into dozens of warring chiefdoms, and the seas crawling with S...

1562, The Huguenots sensing the coming wave of violence against their sect, look for opportunities on the fringes of the Empire. Spanish Florida, boarding the French claim to parts north remained Native and had not one loyal Spanish subject, perhaps it could become part of New France? What's the worse that could happen... 

After five years of war and waiting Cartier is given a commission to plant a colony in the New World, only to be usurped by nobleman named Roberval; a dreaded Huguenot. Both men would search for the mystical Kingdom of Saguenay, The Natives finally attack, a woman is abandoned on an island full of polar bears. The French build their first settlement in North America decades before St. Augustine, J...

In a time when Spain and Portugal laid claim to the entire non-Christian world, Jacques Cartier plunged himself into the realm of the St. Lawrence Iroquois. Searching for a westward passage he meets the mighty Chief Donnacona, and lies from both men spur a tale of abduction, scurvy, a winter spent frozen in ice, river going monsters, and the rumor of a Golden Kingdom.   I know i pronounce eve...

 At the turn of the 16th Century, there existed no indication that France would come to dominate North America. The Portuguese, due to an error in mapping Newfoundland, seemed destined to master the North Atlantic, the Spanish dominated all points south until Brazil. The English staked their claim early and yet New France came to label much of North America. Where did this begin, and between...

New France only ever functioned because of the Native population. France designed New France to accommodate the Natives in order to obtain furs and keep out other colonial powers. In this episode we learn about the natives of the Saint Lawrence as they can be best represented before European contact. Focusing on the St. Lawrence Iroquois, The Innu, the Mi'kmaq and the lonely Beothuk located on New...

In this very short introduction to Season Two the case is made for New France to be our next Other State of America. 

In this episode we hear form those you who left reviews and messages to be read on the podcast. Then we move into an informal discussion of the sources that went into making this season, many of the Iroquois sources will be discussed in the endnotes of future seasons. Many thanks to everyone who listened to season one!

The Beaver Wars continue to rage on, punctuated by pandemics and waves of assimilated captives. The tribes around the Iroquois acquire guns and cannons, and the French now aim to annihilate the Five Nations. Internal conflicts arise over trade and religion, and a time will come when two nations of the Confederacy will face one another in battle.

What is left of New Netherland today? A more important question to ask is how did New Netherland help create today. In this episode we look at the immediate aftermath of the English take over, the birth of the middle colonies and then go down a couple existential rabbit holes. Santa Claus, cookies, Yankee Doodle; New Netherland is the secret ingredient in the American Melting Pot. 

In the past rival claims to New Netherland were laughable, the Dutch had control over the Hudson (North), the Delaware (South) and and the Connecticut (Fresh) river. Then New Sweden stole the Delaware, and the English took the Connecticut. Peter Stuyvesant destroyed New Sweden with the largest professional army ever assembled in that part of the world up until that point. Stuyvesant also negotiate...

Swaanendael (or Zwaanendael) The Beautiful "Valley of the Swans" in modern day Lewes Delaware is the setting of many past horrors and one attempt at Utopia.

The last rant in our Culture Series. In this episode we cover the official policies regarding religion in the colony, level of religiosity, feeble attempt to convert natives, Anarchist Punk Quakers, the Jewish People, Mennonites, Calvinists, Lutherans, and ransomed Catholic Priests. 

This episode is a rambling potpourri of details, filling in the cultural landscape of New Netherland that might otherwise go unnoticed in other story driven installments of this podcast. Only for the diehard listener, we cover: languages, gender roles, everyday life, native relations, childhood and education, slavery and the African American experience.

Why is it only now that we are doing an overview of culture in New Netherland? The evolution of government, local government, and courts in New Netherland. It's not as dry as it sounds... there is genital mutilation, shot gun weddings and spies contained within. The Culture Series episodes are intended to fill in the small details that some may find interesting, you may skip the culture serie...

Where is the line between Upstate and Downstate NY? Did the Dutch already determine the divide centuries ago? As the Northern part of New Netherland expands out of Rensselaerswyck and Beverwyck, the settlers who went south encountered an isolated tribe and xenophobia on both sides led to the Esopus Wars, a four year long series of blood feuds. The Settlers who went North-West and found Schenectady...