Welcome to the History of the Americans podcast episode 71.

I'm your host, Jack Hunnaman, and I'm recording this on May 10th, 2022, on a hot afternoon in Austin, Texas.

In case you are new to the podcast, we're telling the history

of the lands now encompassed by the United States from the beginning without presentism,

while doing our best to keep the politics out of it. Before I get to the history fun after my week

off, there are a few things that bear mentioning. The first is that about 10 days ago, we pushed past 200,000 aggregate downloads since we

began the podcast at the beginning of 2021.

Pretty awesome.

Thank you all very much, especially those if you have put the word on the street.

We've been pretty lucky in that, having received some very nice mentions on Twitter from heavy hitters like David Burge,

aka Iowa Hawk, writer Nancy Romerman, former editor of Reason Magazine Nick Gillespie, and author

Walter Kern, among other luminaries.

The second is a reminder that if you hear about a book on this podcast and decide you want to buy it,

you can do so through the Amazon links on the episode pages on the website.

Not only will I get a teeny-weeney commission,

but I'll be able to claim credit for moving some books,

which would be helpful if I ever need to talk to the authors

or explain why I had long quotations from their work and that kind of thing.

As foretold, I was on vacation and taking a nice break for my usual affairs, including both the chase for the legal tender and scribbling up the weekly episode.

The vacation was my favorite kind, a sea America road trip.

My wife and I flew to Nashville, and after a couple of evenings in Music City got into a

ridiculously huge Jeep wagon here and drove a good part of the Natchez Trace Parkway with a side

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