#73 The Road to Plymouth Part 1: The First Pilgrims
The History of the Americans
Jack Henneman
4.9 • 632 Ratings
🗓️ 27 May 2022
⏱️ 37 minutes
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Summary
We are on the road to Plymouth. There are several strands that weave together in 1620, when the Pilgrims on the Mayflower land at an abandoned Indian village known as Patuxet, at a site John Smith had named Plymouth. One of those strands is the rise of dissident Protestantism in England, and the idea that it might best be dealt with by transplanting early Separatists to the New World. The first such project, an attempt in 1597 to make a Separatist colony on islands at the mouth of the St. Lawrence River, would fail spectacularly. But it would also be an important precursor of the settlement that many — not all, but many — Americans identify as the national origin story.
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References for this episode
David B. Quinn, “The First Pilgrims,” The William and Mary Quarterly, July 1966.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the History of the Americans podcast episode 73. I'm your host, Jack Heneman, |
| 0:12.8 | and I'm recording this on Friday morning, May 27, 2022, in Austin, Texas. If you are new to the podcast, |
| 0:20.2 | we are telling the history of the lands |
| 0:22.3 | now encompassed by the United States |
| 0:24.3 | from the beginning without presentism. |
| 0:27.8 | I'm recording this actually in a different |
| 0:30.4 | ersatz studio than I usually do. |
| 0:33.5 | So if it sounds a little bit different |
| 0:34.9 | or you hear a little more traffic in the background, |
| 0:37.8 | trust me when I say it's better than the alternative lawnblower and dude with a power sander |
| 0:43.3 | just outside the window of my office at home. |
| 0:48.3 | Historically minded Americans, happy if beleaguered band band have many different historical identities. |
| 0:57.1 | People who identify as indigenous peoples or as descended from them have national origin stories |
| 1:03.5 | that sadly most Americans, including me, know very little about. |
| 1:09.5 | Virginians, by which I mean people who think of themselves as Virginians, you know what I'm saying, |
| 1:16.7 | are keen on Jamestown as the founding of today's United States. |
| 1:21.9 | North Carolinians love the story of the lost colony of Rona. |
| 1:26.4 | As we have seen patriotic Californians, an obscure subculture, if ever there was one, |
| 1:33.3 | just kidding, cool your jets, are devoted to Sir Francis Drake's Novo Albion, even if the basis for their devotion is suspect. |
| 1:43.3 | I'm sure there are Floridians who look at Tristan de Luna's failed settlement at Pensacola in 1559 |
| 1:50.4 | or the lasting town of St. Augustine to make their own national origin claim. |
| 1:57.9 | There was a strange moment when American Southerners developed a weird attachment to Hernando de Soto, |
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