The Old World with Will Tanner

Will Tanner
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Life Before Liberalism

  1. 2D AGO

    The Life of John Smith: Virginia's First Hero

    In this episode, Will tells the tale of the life of John Smith, the mercenary-turned-explorer who was the first great Virginia hero. This is the tale of how Smith won his knighthood by defeating three Ottoman Turks in single combat, how he ended up as a leader in the original settlement of Virginia, and how his lasting legacy was the map he made out of his own explorations. Will also discusses why Pocahontas saved John Smith, how Smith saved Jamestown, and his legacy in mapping New England, along with why he died in relative obscurity. Listen ad-free and access the transcript here: ⁠https://www.theamericantribune.news/p/the-life-of-john-smith-virginias⁠ Sources Referenced in this Episode: I am an Amazon Affiliate. If you would like to support the show at no added cost to yourself, you can do so by using the links below to order and read the sources I used to create this episode. Thanks! Smith, Captain John: The Generall Historie of Virginia, New-England, and the Summer Isles., https://amzn.to/49H3hxR Willison, George F.: Behold Virginia: The Fifth Crown, https://amzn.to/4do9YG4 Dabney, Virginius: Virginia: The New Dominion, https://amzn.to/4dtAE8l Andrews, Matthew Page: Virginia: The Old Dominion, Vol. I, https://amzn.to/4uZBW2h Bruce, Philip Alexander: The Virginia Plutarch, Vol I, https://amzn.to/437cAU0 Morton, Richard L.: Colonial Virginia, https://amzn.to/4ua3bqY Andrews, Matthew Page: The Soul of a Nation: The Founding Of Virginia and the Projection of New England, https://amzn.to/4d9Ut60 Timestamps 0:00 John Smith Saves Virginia: He Who Does Not Work, Neither Shall He Eat at Jamestown 4:36 The Humble Origins of John Smith 5:55 John Smith Becomes a European Mercenary 7:33 How John Smith Became a Legend 10:02 John Smith Becomes a Slave of the Ottoman Turks 14:04 How John Smith Joined the Virginia Company, and the Virginia Expedition 15:40 Smith and Bartholomew Gosnold 18:05 John Smith Feuds With Everyone 20:09 Smith Is Saved 21:33 Jamestown Is Founded, and Disaster Begins 22:40 Smith is Saved by Pocahontas 25:29 John Smith Maps Virginia 29:41 John Smith and Indian Diplomacy 34:07 John Smith Saves Jamestown 36:11 Smith's Style of Negotiating with the Indians 38:11 Smith's Enemies Return, and He Must Leave 43:40 Smith Maps New England 45:11 The Pilgrims Don't Like John Smith 46:14 The End of John Smith's Life Image credit: Public Domain unless otherwise stated John Smith Coat of Arms: Glasshouse using elements by Heralder, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons Richard Croft / St.Helena's church

    50 min

  2. 6D AGO

    John Rolfe: How the Hero Twice Saved Virginia

    Listen ad-free and access the transcript here: ⁠https://www.theamericantribune.news/p/john-rolfe-the-hero-who-twice-saved⁠   This is the tale of the heroic John Rolfe, the English farmer and gentleman who saved the fledgling colony of Virginia not once, but twice. In this episode, we describe how Rolfe smuggled Orinoco tobacco into Virginia, and used his unique skills to learn how to cultivate it and save the broke colony from financial collapse. We then tell the true story of Rolfe's fairy tale-like marriage to Pocahontas, focusing on how the marriage created the colony-saving "Peace of Pocahontas" and how London Society in the Court of King James I viewed her with immense interest and respect.   We then turn to how John Rolfe died, discussing the 1622 Indian Massacre that he tried and failed to stop, but why his previous work to save the colony ensured the 1622 disaster wasn't enough to totally destroy it. In this episode, we also describe Rolfe's family background, the immense tragedy he suffered when the Sea Venture wrecked in Bermuda, Captain Argall's capture of Pocahontas at the cost of a kettle, Rolfe's Christian faith, and how Rolfe helped develop representative government in Virginia.   0:00 How John Rolfe Saved Virginia with Tobacco 3:41 Reviewing the Golden Age 3:57 Who Was John Rolfe? 8:10 Tragedy Strikes Rolfe 9:39 John Rolfe Saves Virginia by Cultivating Tobacco 15:21 How Tobacco Built Virginia 15:39 Rolfe Saves Virginia Again: The Peace of Pocahontas 17:22 The Capture of Pocahontas and the Anglo-Powhatan War 18:39 Pocahontas Meets John Rolfe 21:26 Pocahontas Becomes Beloved in England, and Dies 23:30 Rolfe Returns to Virginia, and Helps Create Representative Government 25:06 Rolfe Dies in the 1622 Indian Massacre 26:48 The Legacy of John Rolfe Sources Referenced in this Episode: I am an Amazon Affiliate. If you would like to support my work at no cost to yourself, you can do so by ordering the sources I used for this episode using the links below Bruce, Philip Alexander: Economic History of Virginia in the Seventeenth Century, https://amzn.to/437bho4  Dowdey, Clifford: The Great Plantation, https://amzn.to/434EBeS  Willison, George F.: Behold Virginia: The Fifth Crown, https://amzn.to/4do9YG4  Bruce, Philip Alexander: Social Life of Virginia in the Seventeenth Century,  https://amzn.to/4tDRsQd  Wertenbaker, Thomas Jefferson: Virginia Under the Stuarts, 1607-1688, https://amzn.to/431VN4O  Wertenbaker, Thomas Jefferson: Planters of Colonial Virginia, https://amzn.to/4tyVARt  Wertenbaker, Thomas Jefferson: Patrician and Plebeian in Virginia, https://amzn.to/48ZgIcl  Morton, Richard L.: Colonial Virginia, https://amzn.to/4ua3bqY  Andrews, Matthew Page: The Soul of a Nation: The Founding Of Virginia and the Projection of New England, https://amzn.to/4d9Ut60  Bruce, Philip Alexander: The Virginia Plutarch, Vol I, https://amzn.to/437cAU0

    30 min

  3. MAY 10

    The Golden Age: How the Virginia Gentry Cultivated the Founding Generation

    This is the story of Colonial Virginia in its fullest flowering. From its unique culture to its excellent people, from the glorious Georgian mansions for which it is still remembered to the political leaders its tobacco plantations produced, this is how the special society that grew out of the Virginia Tidewater turned into the cradle of the American Revolution. Particularly, we discuss why the Virginia gentry produced such excellent leaders as it did, and how the culture of leadership and command, when paired with the sense of dignity and refinement for which the classic Virginia Gentlemen were known, created most of America's greatest heroes and most important leaders. In this episode, we dive into both those leaders and what enabled them to be such. We uncover the importance of architecture to the Virginia gentry's social dominance, how leadership was built at the local level and cultivated from the ground up, how the political culture of Virginia's Golden Age produced the Founders, and how their reliance on depleted soil, London merchants, and British debt became a budding economic crisis for colonial Virginia. But, most of all, we discuss how the civil society of the Golden Age was refined and cultivated, and how that produced the men who led the Revolution and created the Early American Republic. Sources for the Episode I am an Amazon Affiliate. If you would like to support the show at no added cost to yourself, you can do so by using the links below to order and read the sources I used to create this episode. Thanks!  Sydnor, Charles S.: Gentlemen Freeholders: Political Practices in Washington's Virginia: https://amzn.to/3R0ujKf  Isaac, Rhys: The Transformation of Virginia, 1740-1790: https://amzn.to/4dEcMiL  Evans, Emory G.: The "Topping People": The Rise and Decline of Virginia's Old Political Elite, 1680-1790: https://amzn.to/430Fmpi   Bruce, Philip Alexander: Economic History of Virginia in the Seventeenth Century: https://amzn.to/4eEocVF   Wertenbaker, Thomas J.: The Planters of Colonial Virginia, https://amzn.to/4uDFJ4Y  Morton, Richard L.: Colonial Virginia, https://amzn.to/4ua3bqY  Dowdey, Clifford: The Golden Age: A Climate for Greatness, https://amzn.to/4wkvVi7  Stanard, Mary Newton: Colonial Virginia: Its People And Customs, https://amzn.to/4u5X2Mm  Wright, Louis B.: The First Gentlemen of Virginia, https://amzn.to/3PgaHRM  Bridenbaugh, Carl: Seat of Empire, https://amzn.to/42WMhQn  0:00 The Virginia Golden Age 2:51 The Refinement of Virginia and Creation of the Virginia Gentleman 4:39 How Architecture Supported the Gentry's Pre-Eminence 6:54 The Inheritors: How Merchants Became Gentlemen 10:20 Virginia Hospitality 11:49 How Plantations and Local Leadership Built the Great Virginia Statesmen 19:02 The House of Burgesses, The Training Ground of the Founders 23:48 The Dire Economic Reality In Colonial Virginia 28:43 How Virginia's Culture Was Refined 29:45 Liberty and Duty: Why the Founding Grew Out of Virginia 34:34 The Golden Age Fractures 38:26 The Sun Sets on Colonial Virginia, and Rises on a Republic They Built

    39 min

  4. MAY 6

    The Knights of the Golden Horseshoe: The Birth of Virginian Chivalry

    The Knights of the Golden Horseshoe: 12 Virginia Gentlemen who embarked upon the Transmontane Expedition with Governor Alexander Spotswood as he sought to open new lands to settlement, defeat the attempt of the French to box Virginia in, and bend the Topping People to his will. A romantic adventure story populated by frontier guides, swaggering Cavaliers, and a frolicking tavern of an expedition through primeval forests!   It is a riotous tale of high living on the frontier, from the travelling tavern that the expedition became known as with its many toasts and bottles of everything from claret to rum, to the great work these beknighted Virginians did in opening frontier lands for new settlement. It's a story of adventure and high living that explains why America became a continental empire.   Further, this is also the tale of Gov. Alexander Spotswood, the most influential Royal Governor of Virginia in the 18th century. This is the story of how a veteran of Marlborough's campaigns who was wounded at Blenheim, a consummate Cavalier dedicated to High Tory principles, bent the "haughty" ruling classes of Virginia to his will, and did so in such a way that they loved him for it and became all the wealthier and more powerful for it. So, listen in to hear how 12 gentlemen, 14 rangers, 4 Indian guides, a governor, and a bevy of dozens of servants and porters pierced the rocky veil of the Blue Ridge for the first time ever, and did so with goblets of rum in hand, one of the most romantic adventure stories of American history. I am an Amazon Affiliate. If you would like to support my work at no cost to yourself, you can do so by ordering the sources I used for this episode using the links below Sources Referenced in this Episode: Fontaine, John: The Journal of John Fontaine, 1710-1718 (Edited by Edward P. Alexander). Evans, Emory G.: The Topping People: The Rise and Decline of Virginia's Old Provincial Elite. Bruce, Philip Alexander: Economic History of Virginia in the Seventeenth Century. Isaac, Rhys: The Transformation of Virginia, 1740-1790. Morton, Richard L.: Colonial Virginia. Bruce, Philip Alexander: The Virginia Plutarch, Vol. I Dabney, Virginius: Virginia: The New Dominion

    31 min

  5. MAY 2

    1622: The Indian Massacre that Almost Destroyed Virginia

    The Great Massacre of 1622 almost destroyed Virginia. Understanding that the ever-larger numbers of settlers and their accumulation of land would destroy his people and their way of life, Great Chief Opechancanough, the brother of Powhatan and uncle of Pocahontas, bands the Powhatan people together and launches a surprise attack on the English on the morning of March 22, 1622. A third of the colony is wiped out in the blink of an eye, its precarious prosperity is wiped away, and the outlying plantations are ravaged by treacherous natives who pose as friends of the unsuspecting settlers before striking down them and their families. Jamestown is saved by the bravery of an Indian boy named Chanco and a settler named Richard Pace who had taken him in, but only just, and the settlers respond with fury, launching the Third Anglo-Powhatan War. This is the full tale, and the story of how Virginia survived such treachery!   Timestamps: 0:00 The Indian Massacre of 1622 3:49 The Great Peace after John Rolfe Married Pocahontas 5:47 Opechancanough Plots the Destruction of the English 6:35 The Powhatan Launch the Great Good Friday Massacre of 1622 10:07 How Jamestown Survived the 1622 Massacre 10:54 The Aftermath of the 1622 Good Friday Massacre 12:44 The English Settlers Respond to the Powhatan with Total War 15:14 The Virginia Company Dies 17:04 Virginia is Born   Farmer at Colonial Williamsburg, Sarah Stierch, CC BY 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons   Jamestown House, Hudson, CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0, via Wikimedia Commons   Berkeley Hundred First Thanksgiving, By Joe Orbin - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=51846533   George Thorpe Coat of Arms, By Glasshouse - Crozier, William Armstrong. Virginia Heraldica. 1908; rpt. Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co, 1965, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=137116635   Thomas Gates Reaches Jamestown, Jna. P. Davis Sc (via Edward Eggleston) via Internet Archive Book Images, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons   Bennett's Plantation, Steveprutz, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons   Arrival at Jamestown, Drake, Francis S. (Francis Samuel), 1828-1885, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons   Henricus, Morgan Riley, CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0, via Wikimedia Commons   An Indian Warrior, W.H. Drake via via M.E. Thalheimer (Internet Archive Book Images), CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

    18 min

  6. APR 29

    Virginia's Military Culture, and How It Created the American Military Culture with Paul Fahrenheidt

    In this episode, Will and Paul Fahrenheidt discuss Virginia's unique military culture. They begin with its origins in the British militia system and Indian fighting, then discuss how the mercantile backgrounds of the first families impacted it, and then discuss how it became a tremendous force that drove American military culture starting in the early 1800s. They further discuss how it can be glimpsed in the Mexican-American War and War Between the States, and how it lives on today. They also discuss the Cavaliers, the Scots-irish and Anglo-Normans, and in what capacities Virginians excelled as military men. Follow Paul on X here: https://x.com/cavkingpaul Find the Old Glory Club Substack here: https://oldgloryclub.substack.com/

    59 min

  7. APR 25

    Bacon's Rebellion and the Birth of Virginia's Golden Age

    This is the tale of Nathaniel Bacon's Rebellion against Governor Sir William Berkeley, the long-ruling governor of Virginia who went from beloved Cavalier to despised despot. It is the story of how the engrossment of Virginia's lands by the Virginia gentry, the sub-penny trap in tobacco prices that drove the yeomen of the Old Dominion under, and the Indian attacks along the frontier that finally led to Bacon's Rebellion. Bacon's private campaign against the Susquehannock and the Occaneechi, the story of how Bacon got his commission, and why Bacon's Men burned Jamestown, is all covered, as is the story of Berkeley's revenge after Bacon died and his men were defeated. Finally, we describe how the Virginia of the Golden Age was born from the ashes of Bacon's rebellion, and how rising tobacco prices and the switch from indentured servants to an enslaved workforce stopped revolution from happening again.

    28 min

  8. APR 18

    The Virginia Cavaliers: Myth or Reality?

    Were the famed Virginia Cavaliers truly the architects of the Old Dominion, or are they merely a phantom of Southern chivalry's imagination? Did those proud and defiant Royalists, the "Distressed Cavaliers" of legend, ever actually flee to the Tidewater to escape the dreary tyranny of Oliver Cromwell's Protectorate, or is the "Cavalier" just a convenient myth—a mask worn by a merchant class in search of a noble pedigree? This episode resolves that perennial question.  We discuss the reality of the Cavalier-Puritan split in America—a conflict of visions rooted in an irreconcilable divide between the Tobacco Plantations of the Virginia Gentry and the Gospel of Labor. We explore the offer of Cavalier sanctuary provided by Governor Sir William Berkeley, and how Virginia culture became Cavalier culture. Most of all, we discuss the reality of the Second Sons myth of the First Families of Virginia, and if there really were nobles in America's Old Dominion, or at least their second sons. This is the foundational story of the Tidewater Gentry and the rise of the First Families of Virginia. It is the tale of how a tobacco plantation economy was transfigured into a colonial aristocracy, how the fires of the English Civil War were reignited in the New World, and how Virginia became the land of the Cavaliers. 0:00 The Cavalier of Virginia: Man or Myth? 3:47 The English Civil War Comes to Virginia 5:59 Why Virginia Remained Cavalier 7:10: What the Conflict Between Puritan and Cavalier was All About 10:50 Were There Puritans in the Tidewater? 11:23 Puritan Levellers and Diggers Chase the Cavaliers Out of England 12:27 The Three Stages of Cavalier Migration to Virginia 17:21 The Cavaliers Define the Virginia Gentry 19:07 Governor Berkeley Invites the Cavaliers and Creates a Ruling Class 23:09 The Importance of the Anglican Church of Virginia 25:47 Virginia's Cavalier Ruling Class Has Formed 26:46 Was the Virginia Cavalier Real? Richard of Jamestown, Internet Archive Book Images, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons Astley Bernard, Unknown artistUnknown artist, CC BY 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons Rev. Hunt Reads, Internet Archive Book Images, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons Pilgrim Fairmount, Internet Archive Book Images, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons Westover Plantation, Internet Archive Book Images, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons Berkeley, D.H. Maury (via Internet Archive Book Images), CC0, via Wikimedia Commons Church of All Saints, Lewis Hulbert, CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0, via Wikimedia Commons Berkely, John Philip Davis via Frank X. Sadlier (via Internet Archive Book Images), CC0, via Wikimedia Commons Jamestonwn Church, Ken Lund from Reno, Nevada, USA, CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons Colonial Williamsburg, Harvey Barrison from Massapequa, NY, USA, CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons Colonial Williamsburg Parish Church, Carolyn from Pemberton Township, NJ, USA, CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons Colonial Williamsburg, Mobilus In Mobili, CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons Settlers, Frank X. Sadlier (via Internet Archive Book Images), CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

    30 min
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