Welcome. This episode originally dropped on January 3, 2021. But it didn't sound very good because I had a lame microphone and hadn't really learned how to read stuff or use the editing software.

I worry that some people who listen to the early episodes give up because of the sound quality. I'm therefore re-recording this episode on October 20, 2022, in Austin, Texas,

with a very small number of edits to smooth out the cadence, adopt some of the style that I use in the later episodes and all that stuff.

So here you go.

Welcome to the History of the Americans podcast.

I'm your host, Jack Heneman.

And this episode is The Americans Before Columbus Part 1, the first substantive episode of this podcast series.

Please listen to the short episode Zero, introductions and such to get a sense of what we're doing here.

On Wednesday, October 12, 1492, Christopher Columbus and his three famous ships made landfall in the chain of islands we now call

the Bahamas. The Admiral of the Ocean Sea and his crew became the first people with the

knowledge of writing and therefore the capacity to record history to see and describe American

Indians for the benefit of people in the eastern hemisphere.

We will spend some time with Columbus in the nearer future. For now, suffice it to say that the

first Columbus Day set off a cascade that included by some measures the greatest demographic

disaster in human history

and a massive explosion of human population,

biological and cultural exchange, and wealth.

In order to understand the impact of the Colombian exchange on the history of the Americans,

we need to spend some time with the foundational peoples of the Americas, the Indians of the Western Hemisphere as they lived

before the Europeans arrived to stay for good. Don't miss the qualifying Dodge in that sentence.

To stay for good distinguishes the expeditions of Columbus and subsequent explorers

from predecessors, Vikings and such, who might otherwise have acclaim on the discovery from their

...