#81 The Mayflower Sails
The History of the Americans
Jack Henneman
4.9 • 632 Ratings
🗓️ 22 July 2022
⏱️ 35 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Who were the Pilgrims, and how was it that they settled in the Netherlands, only to sail on the Mayflower for the lower Hudson River? And having done that, what was it like on board, and how was it they ended up in New England?
All will be revealed, including the story of John Howland, who narrowly escaped death on the crossing and who is today ancestor to more than two million Americans, roughly 0.6% of all of us.
Errata: I obviously misspoke when I said the Mayflower II sailed in the 1590s. It was the 1950s, doh!
Twitter: @TheHistoryOfTh2
Facebook: The History of the Americans Podcast
Selected references for this episode
Nathaniel Philbrick, Mayflower: Voyage, Community, War
William Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation
John G. Turner, They Knew They Were Pilgrims: Plymouth Colony and the Contest for American Liberty
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the History of the Americans podcast, episode 81. |
| 0:10.2 | I'm your host, Jack Heneman, and I'm recording this on July 22nd, 2022, |
| 0:16.2 | in a secure, undisclosed location in Princeton, New Jersey. |
| 0:22.1 | If you are new to the podcast, |
| 0:27.9 | we are telling the history of the lands now encompassed by the United States from the beginning without presentism. Okay, as Sam Harris would say, time for a bit of housekeeping, |
| 0:36.1 | mostly relevant for those of you following along and close |
| 0:39.1 | to real time. As previously announced, I've got a lot of commitments and fun travel and other stuff |
| 0:46.0 | this summer. So I'll get out episodes as I can write them and record them and edit them. This week, |
| 0:52.4 | that'll happen to be on Friday, but that's only happenstance. |
| 0:56.0 | My wife's flying out east later today, and tomorrow we begin a week-long New England drive-about, |
| 1:02.0 | which will include some historical stuff from Plymouth, Boston, and the coast of Maine, |
| 1:07.5 | and then a couple of cool weeks, literally cool weeks in the Adirondacks. |
| 1:13.2 | I'm sure I'll share pictures and such on Twitter and maybe the Facebook page, and as usual, |
| 1:18.2 | I'll tell you where I'm recording this or that episode. |
| 1:22.8 | Things should return to more regular cadence toward the end of August. |
| 1:29.0 | So before we jump in, let's talk a little bit about this day in history. 435 years ago today, John White and the 1587 Roanoke |
| 1:40.1 | expedition arrived off the coast of North Carolina's Outer Banks. If you listen to our series |
| 1:48.7 | set fair for Roanoke, you know that it did not turn out well. The last couple of episodes |
| 1:57.2 | have been a little cerebral, heavier on the intellectual history than the fun and ugly |
| 2:02.8 | parts. Never fear there will be a legitimate body count in the next few, although nothing like |
| 2:09.1 | the horrors of Jamestown in its early years. The pilgrims probably weren't much fun at parties, |
| 2:15.6 | but at 1620, they were legitimately the most |
... |
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