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Replica of the original Plimoth Plantation.

The Complicated Legacy of the Pilgrims is Finally Coming to Light After 400 Years

Descendants of the Pilgrims have highlighted their ancestors’ role in the country’s founding. But their sanitized version of events is only now starting to be told in full.
Fort Mose Historic State Park entrance sign.

Fort Mose: The First All-Black Settlement in the U.S.

Be Woke presents Black history in two minutes (or so).
Map of Boston from 1722.

This "Miserable African": Race, Crime, and Disease in Colonial Boston

The murder that challenged Cotton Mather’s complex views about race, slavery, and Christianity.
An illustration of a pilgrim looking toward the sky with a group of others gathered around kneeling.

What Liberty Meant to the Pilgrims

Most adult men could aspire to participation in the religious and political government of the colony. But this communal liberty did not imply personal liberty.
Portrait-style painting of woman in brown dress, with a modern COVID-19 protective mask digitally imposed on her face

Early American Women Unmasked

The masks owned by early American women and even children were no less symbolic than modern masks in terms of practical use, commodification, or controversy.
Sketch of colonial fur traders and Indigenous people in a canoe.

The Untold Story of the Hudson’s Bay Company

A look back at the early years of the 350-year-old institution that once claimed a vast portion of the globe.

Disease Has Never Been Just Disease for Native Americans

Native communities’ vulnerability to epidemics is not a historical accident, but a direct result of oppressive policies and ongoing colonialism.
Engraving of Reverend Cotton Mather, 1721, surrounded by a crowd.

The Slave Who Helped Boston Battle Smallpox

Like so many black scientists past, the African who brought inoculation to the American colonies never got his due.

Slave Hounds and Abolition in the Americas

How dogs permeated slave societies and bolstered European ambitions for colonial expansion and social domination.

The 1619 Project and the Work of the Historian

Sean Wilentz wrote a piece opposing the New York Times Magazine's 1619 Project, but his use of Revolutionary-era newspapers as sources is flawed.
Skeletons in situ at Avery's rest.

DNA Analysis From Colonial Delaware Skeletons Reveals Beginning Of American Slave Trade

A new DNA study of skeletons from a farmstead on the Delaware frontier has revealed key information about the early transatlantic slave trade.

How Christians of Color in Colonial Virginia Became 'Black'

Although the British settlers imported Africans from the first as slaves, the earliest Virginians had yet to establish many basic rules regarding slavery.
Cover of "Speaking with the Dead in Early America" by Erik R. Seeman

Speaking with the Dead in Early America

A new book recovers the many ways Protestant Americans, especially women, communicated with the dead from the 17th century to the rise of séance Spiritualism.
Travels through Virginia. From Theodor de Bry's 'America', Vol. I, 1590, after a drawing of John White. Depicting American Indians dancing.
partner

The Construction of America, in the Eyes of the English

In Theodor de Bry’s illustrations for "True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia," the Algonquin are made to look like the Irish. Surprise.
A drawing of a moose skeleton
partner

America, Where the Dogs Don't Bark and the Birds Don't Sing

The Comte de Buffon's thirty-six volume Natural History claimed that America was a land of degeneracy. That enraged Thomas Jefferson.
Colonial men holding a copy of the 1649 Maryland Toleration Act.

Five Ways We Misunderstand American Religious History

From religious liberty to religious violence, it helps to get our facts straight.
Drawing of Puritans.

How Should We Remember the Puritans?

In his new book, Daniel Rodgers not only offers a close reading of Puritan history but also seeks to rescue their early critique of market economy.

Colonial Williamsburg Begins Researching LGBTQ History

Colonial Williamsburg has acknowledged to the LGBTQ community that people like them “have always existed.”
Illustration of white Quakers with enslaved Africans in the background.

Slavery in the Quaker World

Christian slavery and white supremacy.
Bucket of indigo dye.
partner

Colonialism Created Navy Blue

The indigo dye that created the Royal Navy's signature uniform color was only possible because of imperialism and slavery.
Gold coins and jewelry spilling out of a chest.

The Pirate as Conquistador: Plunder and Politics in the Making of the British Empire

As the British Empire's power expanded, piracy became criminalized.
Statue memorializing Irish immigrants.

No, the Irish Were Not Slaves Too

The myth of Irish slavery has found fertile ground in Internet memes as a way to derail conversation about the need for affirmative action today.
Pope Gregory with his hand on the globe.

On New Year’s, Our Calendar’s Crazy History, and the Switch That Changed Washington’s Birthday

In 1752, the Brits and Americans lopped 11 days off the calendar in one fell swoop.
Lithograph book illustration of pirates of America.

A Treasure Trove of Trials

This collection of piracy trials comprises documents that were published before 1923 and that are part of the holdings of the Law Library of Congress.
Civil War rifles mounted on wall

A World of Weapons: Historians Shape Scholarship on Arms Trading

The early history of American arms trading is missing from most of the scholarship on guns.
Drawing of Swedish colonists landing on the Atlantic shores of Delaware during the 1600s.

America’s Forgotten Swedish Colony

For nearly 20 years in the 17th century, Sweden had a little-known colony that spanned parts of Delaware, Pennsylvania and New Jersey.
Drawing of lightning breaking the chains of a woman on trial for witchcraft in Salem.

The Actual 'Single Greatest Witch Hunt of a Politician' in American History

It happened long before a special prosecutor was appointed to investigate the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia. 
Portrait of justice Samuel Sewall

Affable, He Convicted Salem Innocents

In a novelized biography of Samuel Sewell, a greater mystery than what bedeviled the girls is what motivated a righteous man to condemn them for witchcraft.
Drawing of Native Americans on a boat

Masters of Empire: Great Lakes Indians and the Making of America

Michael A. McDonnell’s book is a wonderfully researched microhistory of the Michilimackinac area from the mid-17th to the early 19th century.
1675 map of New England

Cross-Cultural Colonial Conflicts

A primary source set and teaching guide created by educators.

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