Welcome to the History of the Americans podcast, episode 98.

I'm your host, Jack Heneman, and I'm recording this episode on December 3rd, 2022, in my bedroom closet in New Orleans.

We are telling the history of the lands now encompassed by the United States

from the beginning without presentism.

Until last week's episode, we had last encountered the Spanish project in North America

almost a year ago in episode 51, the rediscovery of New Mexico and the last conquistadors

1580 to 1610, in which we discuss the various Spanish expeditions north of the Rio Grande after Coronado

up to the founding of Santa Fe. That episode is indeed the best prerequisite for this one,

but it clocks in at 54 minutes,

I believe the longest that I've ever done.

And I'm not taskmaster enough to put you through all of that a second time,

so I'll summarize it in this episode.

Before I get to that, though, I'm a bit taken aback by the realization that on the order

of 47 episodes have transpired since we last looked at the American Southwest. That 51st episode

ended with the founding of Santa Fe in New Mexico in 1610. At the end of the 12-year Entrada, led by Don Juan

to a Nyatee-Salazar, then a high watermark on the timeline in the history of the Americans.

For the last 47 or so episodes, apart from a few sidebars, we've been mucking around in the crowded

and complicated first third of the 1600s, almost entirely on the eastern seaboard of today's

United States. We looked at the exploration of the coast of Maine, the Popham-Saggot colony,

and Samuel de Champlain's various excursions in New England and

into New York. We did 16 episodes on or related to Jamestown and its satellite colonies,

another dozen on the background of the pilgrims in their first years in Massachusetts,

...