Ben Franklin's World

Liz Covart

This is a multiple award-winning podcast about early American history. It’s a show for people who love history and who want to know more about the historical people and events that have impacted and shaped our present-day world. Each episode features conversations with professional historians who help shed light on important people and events in early American history.

  1. 10 hr ago

    450 Whose Revolution? The Delaware and the War for Independence

    In December 1776, a Delaware Chief named White Eyes stood before the Second Continental Congress. He had not come to declare himself a revolutionary, nor had he come to pledge his loyalty to King George III. White Eyes came to test a promise. What does the American Revolution look like to people for whom independence was never a question? For the Delaware, also known as the Lenape, the War for Independence raised older and harder questions: Whose word could be trusted? What choices can we make about whether to fight, stay neutral, or flee that might let our community remain itself on the land we know? Jeremy Johnson, Cultural Education Director for the Delaware Tribe of Indians, traces Lenape and Delaware history from long before European contact through the American Revolution. He also introduces us to the September 1778 Treaty of Fort Pitt, the first treaty the United States made with a Native Nation and which promised a 14th Native state. Delaware Tribe of Indians’ Website Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/450 EPISODE OUTLINE 00:00:00 Introduction 00:02:35 The Lenape Experience of the American Revolution 00:07:56 Lenape History and Indigenous Origin Stories 00:10:52 Diplomacy in Lenape Traditions 00:15:32 Evolution of Lenape Diplomacy Through European Contact 00:20:00 The Walking Purchase of 1737 00:24:55 Lenape Experiences of the Seven Years' War 00:32:13 Lenape Participation in Pontiac's Rebellion 00:37:17 The Delaware and the American Revolution 00:46:32 Negotiating the Treaty of Fort Pitt 00:50:16 The Hope for Delaware Sovereignty 00:52:53 The Delaware People & America's 250th 01:00:02 Time Warp 01:02:41 Resources RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES 🎧 Episode 163: The American Revolution in North America 🎧 Episode 264: The Treaty of Canandaigua 🎧 Episode 286: Elections in Early America: Native Sovereignty 🎧 Episode 323: American Expansion and the Political Economy of Plunder 🎧 Episode 397: Native Nations: A Millennium in North America 🎧 Episode 449: Stealing America: Indigenous Enslavement & the American Revolution SUPPORT OUR WORK 🎁 Make a Donation to Ben Franklin’s World REQUEST A TOPIC 📨 Topic Request Form 📫 liz@benfranklinsworld.com WHEN YOU'RE READY 🗞️ BFW Gazette Newsletter 👩‍💻 Join the BFW Listener Community 🌍 Join the History Explorers Club TAKE THE QUIZ 🧭 Discover How You Explore History (under 2 minutes) 👉 https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/quiz LISTEN 🎧 🍎 Apple Podcasts 💚 Spotify 🎶 Amazon Music 🛜 Pandora CONNECT 🦋 Liz on Bluesky 👩‍💻 Liz on LinkedIn 🛜 Liz’s Website SAY THANKS 💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts 💚 Leave a rating on Spotify *Book links are affiliate links. Every purchase supports the podcast.

  2. 25 Aug

    BFW Revisited: The Brafferton Indian School, Part 1

    In 1723, the College of William & Mary opened the Brafferton building, a permanent home for an Indian School the college had been chartered to run and struggled to fill for its first 30 years. The premise of the Brafferton: take Native boys and strategically teach them in ways that would make them more useful to the British Empire. So what actually happened inside the Brafferton Indian School? In this revisited episode, the first of a two-part series, our three guests investigate why the Brafferton School existed, how the English filled Brafferton with students even as Native families refused to send their children, and what the Indigenous students did with the knowledge the English taught them. We’ll also explore how a school built on a colonial college campus during the reign of King George I connected to schools like the Carlisle School, which were still separating Indigenous children from their families in the 1950s. Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/367 RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES: 🎧 Episode 158: The Revolutionaries' Army 🎧 Episode 290: The World of the Wampanoag, Pt. 1 🎧 Episode 291: The World of the Wampanoag, Pt. 2 🎧 Episode 353: Women and the Making of Catawba Identity 🎧 Episode 368: The Brafferton Indian School, Part 2: Legacies 🎧 Episode 449: Stealing America SUPPORT OUR WORK 🎁 Make a Donation to Ben Franklin’s World REQUEST A TOPIC 📨 Topic Request Form 📫 liz@benfranklinsworld.com WHEN YOU'RE READY 🗞️ BFW Gazette Newsletter 👩‍💻 BFW Listener Community 🌍 The History Explorers Club LISTEN 🎧 🍎 Apple Podcasts 💚 Spotify 🎶 Amazon Music 🛜 Pandora CONNECT 🦋 Liz on Bluesky 👩‍💻 Liz on LinkedIn 🛜 Liz’s Website SAY THANKS 💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts 💚 Leave a rating on Spotify *Book links are affiliate links. Every purchase supports the podcast.

  3. 18 Aug

    449 Stealing America: Indigenous Slavery and the American Revolution

    More than half a million Indigenous people were enslaved within the present-day borders of the United States. Historian Linford Fisher spent fifteen years in archives across North America, the Caribbean, and Britain to investigate this forgotten history. What he found was not a second story running alongside African slavery. It was something different in kind. Europeans and early Americans enslaved people who lived on land they intended to possess. This practice made slavery a tool of dispossession. The American Revolution is where this process accelerated. Lin and Lorén Spears, a Narragansett tribal citizen and the executive director of the Tomaquag Museum, trace how the Revolution opened space for captive raiding on the western frontier, how Native nations weighed which side to take during the war, and how their Stolen Relations digital project is recovering the names of the Natives early Americans enslaved. Lin’s Website | Book | Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/449 EPISODE OUTLINE 00:00:00 Introduction 00:01:23 The Declaration's Overlooked Grievance Against Indigenous People 00:02:29 The Other Revolutionary War 00:03:20 Investigating the Hidden History of Indigenous Enslavement 00:07:07 Uncovering the Scale of Indigenous Enslavement 00:13:43 Building Stolen Relations Through Archival and Tribal Collaboration 00:20:51 Decolonizing Archival Records 00:30:40 Connection Between Indigenous Enslavement & Land Dispossession 00:33:53 How Native Nations Navigated the American Revolution 00:37:16 From Colonial Experimentation to Revolutionary Expansion 00:41:15 How the American Revolution Expanded Indigenous Slavery 00:45:20 How Indigenous Nations Weighed Neutrality, Alliance, & Survival 00:52:51 The Declaration of Independence's Impact on Indigenous Communities 01:01:10 The Treaty of Paris, 1783 and the Continuation of Indigenous Dispossession 01:03:51 The Uncertain End of Indigenous Enslavement 01:11:59 Commemorating the American Revolution Through Indigenous History 01:24:36 Revolution to Freedom Through Indigenous Sovereignty RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES 🎧 Episode 163: The American Revolution in North America 🎧 Episode 264: The Treaty of Canadaigua 🎧 Episode 323: American Expansion & the Political Economy of Plunder 🎧 Episode 367: The Brafferton Indian School, Part 1 🎧 Episode 368: The Brafferton Indian School, Part 2 🎧 Episode 406: Threads of Power SUPPORT OUR WORK 🎁 Make a Donation to Ben Franklin’s World REQUEST A TOPIC 📨 Topic Request Form 📫 liz@benfranklinsworld.com WHEN YOU'RE READY 🗞️ BFW Gazette Newsletter 👩‍💻 Join the BFW Listener Community 🌍 Join the History Explorers Club TAKE THE QUIZ 🧭 Discover How You Explore History (under 2 minutes) 👉 https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/quiz LISTEN 🎧 🍎 Apple Podcasts 💚 Spotify 🎶 Amazon Music 🛜 Pandora CONNECT 🦋 Liz on Bluesky 👩‍💻 Liz on LinkedIn 🛜 Liz’s Website SAY THANKS 💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts 💚 Leave a rating on Spotify *Book links are affiliate links. Every purchase supports the podcast.

  4. 11 Aug

    BFW Revisited: American Expansion & the Political Economy of Plunder

    The Declaration of Independence proclaimed that all men are endowed with the unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. But what did liberty and equality mean for the peoples the Declaration never named—the Ojibwe, Odawa, and Potawatomi nations who had governed the vast Great Lakes homeland they called Anishinaabewake for generations before a single European sailed its waters? In this revisited conversation, historian Michael Witgen, Professor of History at Columbia University and a citizen of the Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Ojibwe, takes us inside the Anishinaabe world and reveals how the new United States set about transforming it. The answer, Witgen shows us, wasn't simple conquest. It was something more elaborate, more profitable, and in some ways more insidious: what he calls the political economy of plunder—a system engineered to strip Indigenous peoples of their homelands while funneling the wealth of that dispossession directly into the settler colonial economy. Michael's Website | Book Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/323 RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES 🎧 Episode 051: A History of Early Detroit 🎧 Episode 064: Native American Slavery in New France 🎧 Episode 163: The American Revolution in North America 🎧 Episode 223: A Native American History of the Ohio River Valley & Great Lakes Region 🎧 Episode 286: Native Sovereignty 🎧 Episode 310: History of the Blackfeet SUPPORT OUR WORK 🎁 Make a Donation to Ben Franklin’s World REQUEST A TOPIC 📨 Topic Request Form 📫 liz@benfranklinsworld.com WHEN YOU'RE READY 🗞️ BFW Gazette Newsletter 👩‍💻 Join the BFW Listener Community 🌍 Join the History Explorers Club TAKE THE QUIZ 🧭 Discover How You Explore History (under 2 minutes) 👉 https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/quiz LISTEN 🎧 🍎 Apple Podcasts 💚 Spotify 🎶 Amazon Music 🛜 Pandora CONNECT 🦋 Liz on Bluesky 👩‍💻 Liz on LinkedIn 🛜 Liz’s Website SAY THANKS 💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts 💚 Leave a rating on Spotify *Book links are affiliate links. Every purchase supports the podcast.

  5. 4 Aug

    448 The Declaration of Independence as American Scripture

    The engrossed copy of the Declaration of Independence is on display at the National Archives building in Washington, DC. Millions of visitors flock to see it and the other Charters of Freedom. But how did it end up there and why do people approach it with religious reverence? In this episode, we explore how the Declaration took on its symbolic role as the founding text of the United States. Pauline's Book Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/403 EPISODE OUTLINE 00:00:00 Introduction 00:06:30 Introducing Mary Beth Norton 00:07:17 American Scripture: Pauline Maier 00:10:00 Graduate School with Pauline Maier 00:13:36 The State of Historians' Thinking in the 1990s 00:15:23 Other Declarations of Independence 00:21:08 Thomas Jefferson's Drafting of the Declaration 00:23:44 Why Create a Parchment Copy of the Declaration? 00:28:24 How the Declaration Became American Scripture 00:30:32 The Impact of American Scripture 00:32:10 Situating the Declaration in the American Revolution 00:35:39 The Role of the Parchment Copy Today 00:40:12 Closing Thoughts on Pauline Maier RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES 🎧 Episode 141: A Declaration in Draft 🎧 Episode 155: Pauline Maier's American Revolution 🎧 Episode 294: 1774: The Long Year of Revolution 🎧 Episode 325: Everyday People of the American Revolution 🎧 Episode 415: The Many Declarations of Independence SUPPORT OUR WORK 🎁 Make a Donation to Ben Franklin’s World REQUEST A TOPIC 📨 Topic Request Form 📫 liz@benfranklinsworld.com WHEN YOU'RE READY 🗞️ BFW Gazette Newsletter 👩‍💻 Join the BFW Listener Community 🌍 Join the History Explorers Club TAKE THE QUIZ 🧭 Discover How You Explore History (under 2 minutes) 👉 https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/quiz LISTEN 🎧 🍎 Apple Podcasts 💚 Spotify 🎶 Amazon Music 🛜 Pandora CONNECT 🦋 Liz on Bluesky 👩‍💻 Liz on LinkedIn 🛜 Liz’s Website SAY THANKS 💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts 💚 Leave a rating on Spotify *Book links are affiliate links. Every purchase supports the podcast.

  6. 28 Jul ·  Bonus

    BFW Revisited Threads of Power

    For the Haudenosaunee, the Six Nations People, the American Revolution brought not liberty, but land loss, displacement, and the dismantling of their world. The new United States seized land from Haudenosaunee nations regardless of which side they supported during the Revolution. And yet the Haudenosaunee survived, and Haudenosaunee women are central to this story. In this revisited episode, Maeve Kane, Associate Professor of History at the University at Albany and author of Shirts Powdered Red, reveals how Haudenosaunee women used cloth, trade, and cultural creativity as tools of sovereignty and survival across three centuries of colonial pressure. Maeve's Website | Book | Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/406 RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES 🎧 Episode 021: Smuggling in Colonial America & Living History 🎧 Episode 163: The American Revolution in North America 🎧 Episode 223: A native American History of the Ohio River Valley & Great Lakes Region 🎧 Episode 264: The Treaty of Canandaigua 🎧 Episode 353: Women and the Making of Catawba Identity SUPPORT OUR WORK 🎁 Make a Donation to Ben Franklin’s World REQUEST A TOPIC 📨 Topic Request Form 📫 liz@benfranklinsworld.com WHEN YOU'RE READY 🗞️ BFW Gazette Newsletter 👩‍💻 Join the BFW Listener Community 🌍 Join the History Explorers Club TAKE THE QUIZ 🧭 Discover How You Explore History (under 2 minutes) 👉 https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/quiz LISTEN 🎧 🍎 Apple Podcasts 💚 Spotify 🎶 Amazon Music 🛜 Pandora CONNECT 🦋 Liz on Bluesky 👩‍💻 Liz on LinkedIn 🛜 Liz’s Website SAY THANKS 💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts 💚 Leave a rating on Spotify *Book links are affiliate links. Every purchase supports the podcast.

  7. 21 Jul

    447 The Other Committee Members: Robert R. Livingston, Roger Sherman, and the Declaration of Independence

    Five men served on the Continental Congress’s Declaration Committee. We know three of them well: Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Benjamin Franklin. But who were the other two? In this episode, we explore the lives and contributions of Robert R. Livingston of New York and Roger Sherman of Connecticut. Historians Geoff Benton and Michael Morand join us as we uncover the stories of the other Committee members. Clermont State Historic Site: Website Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/447 EPISODE OUTLINE 00:00:00 Introduction 00:04:46 The Lee Resolution and the Committee of Five 00:05:26 Robert R. Livingston's Early Life 00:06:56 Colonial New York Politics 00:11:02 Livingston's Appointment to the Second Continental Congress 00:15:20 Why Livingston Chosen for Declaration Committee 00:18:44 Livingston's feud with John Adams 00:19:18 Livingston Misses the Vote for Independence 00:20:50 Livingston Becomes Chancellor of New York State 00:24:06 Livingston's Role in Steam Navigation 00:26:15 Clermont State Historic Site 00:32:35 Roger Sherman's Early Life 00:36:47 Sherman's Family and Life in New Haven 00:37:43 Sherman's Involvement in the Imperial Crisis 00:40:38 Sherman's Role in the Second Continental Congress 00:42:28 Why Sherman Chosen For Declaration Committee 00:43:42 Sherman's Role in Drafting the Declaration 00:46:16 The Connecticut Compromise, 1787 00:50:28 What Made Sherman Effective in Legislatures 00:53:47 1776 in Context 00:58:10 Conclusion RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES 🎧 Episode 141: A Declaration in Draft 🎧 Episode 193: Partisans: The Friendship and Rivalry of Adams & Jefferson 🎧 Episode 245: Celebrating the Fourth of July 🎧 Episode 277: Whose Fourth of July? 🎧 Episode 415: The Many Declarations of Independence 🎧 Episode 439: When the Declaration of Independence Was News SUPPORT OUR WORK 🎁 Make a Donation to Ben Franklin’s World REQUEST A TOPIC 📨 Topic Request Form 📫 liz@benfranklinsworld.com WHEN YOU'RE READY 🗞️ BFW Gazette Newsletter 👩‍💻 Join the BFW Listener Community 🌍 Join the History Explorers Club TAKE THE QUIZ 🧭 Discover How You Explore History (under 2 minutes) 👉 https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/quiz LISTEN 🎧 🍎 Apple Podcasts 💚 Spotify 🎶 Amazon Music 🛜 Pandora CONNECT 🦋 Liz on Bluesky 👩‍💻 Liz on LinkedIn 🛜 Liz’s Website SAY THANKS 💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts 💚 Leave a rating on Spotify *Book links are affiliate links. Every purchase supports the podcast.

  8. 14 Jul ·  Bonus

    BFW Revisited: A Declaration in Draft, 2026

    Every American knows Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence, but was he really its sole architect? In this revisited episode, we sit down with three scholars to pull back the curtain on how the Declaration came to be written. Danielle Allen of Harvard University, Patrick Spero of the American Philosophical Society, and Peter Onuf of the University of Virginia reveal that the Declaration was never one man's work. Together, they show how John Adams — not Jefferson — was the intellectual architect behind "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." How Benjamin Franklin changed the Declaration with just four or five surgical edits. And what the Second Continental Congress cut from Jefferson's original draft, including his striking grievance blaming King George III for the international slave trade. Originally recorded in 2017 as part of Ben Franklin's World's Doing History to the Revolution series, this episode pairs with Episode 446 and Episode 447 to mark the Declaration's 250th anniversary. Danielle’s Website | Book Patrick's Website | Book Peter's Website | Book Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/141 RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES 🎧 Episode 018: Our Declaration 🎧 Episode 440: Jefferson's Cut Grievance 🎧 Episode 443: How Independence Happend, Pt 1: The Lee Resolution, 1776 🎧 Episode 444: How Independence Happened, Pt 2: The Model Treaty 🎧 Episode 445: How Independence Happened, Pt 3: Articles of Confederation 🎧 Episode 446: The Declaration of Independence at 250 SUPPORT OUR WORK 🎁 Make a Donation to Ben Franklin’s World REQUEST A TOPIC 📨 Topic Request Form 📫 liz@benfranklinsworld.com WHEN YOU'RE READY 🗞️ BFW Gazette Newsletter 👩‍💻 Join the BFW Listener Community 🌍 Join the History Explorers Club TAKE THE QUIZ 🧭 Discover How You Explore History (under 2 minutes) 👉 https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/quiz LISTEN 🎧 🍎 Apple Podcasts 💚 Spotify 🎶 Amazon Music 🛜 Pandora CONNECT 🦋 Liz on Bluesky 👩‍💻 Liz on LinkedIn 🛜 Liz’s Website SAY THANKS 💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts 💚 Leave a rating on Spotify *Book links are affiliate links. Every purchase supports the podcast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    BFW Revisited: A Declaration in Draft, 2026
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About

This is a multiple award-winning podcast about early American history. It’s a show for people who love history and who want to know more about the historical people and events that have impacted and shaped our present-day world. Each episode features conversations with professional historians who help shed light on important people and events in early American history.

Information

  • Creator
    Liz Covart
  • Years Active
    2014 - 2026
  • Episodes
    515
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Liz Covart 2026
  • Show Website
    Ben Franklin's World

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