Ben Franklin's World Liz Covart

Who is American democracy for and who could participate in early American democracy?

Women and African Americans were often barred from voting in colonial and early republic elections. But what about Native Americans? Could Native Americans participate in early American democracy?

Julie Reed and Kathleen DuVal join us to investigate how the sovereignty of native nations fits within the sovereignty of the United States and its democracy.

Independence provided the former British American colonists the opportunity to create a new, more democratic government than they had lived under before the American Revolution.

What did this new American government look like? Who could participate in this new American democracy? And what was it like to participate in this new democracy?

Scholars Terrance Rucker and Marcela Miccuci join us to investigate the first federal elections in the United States and who could vote in early U.S. elections.

The British North American colonies formed some of the most democratic governments in the world. But that doesn't mean that all early Americans were treated equally or allowed to participate in representative government.
So who could vote in Early America? Who could participate in representative government?
Historians James Kloppenberg, the Charles Warren Professor of History at Harvard University, and Amy Watson, an Assistant Professor of History at the University of Alabama, Birmingham, help us explore who democracy was meant for and how those who lived in colonial British America understood and practiced representative government. 
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/284


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Episode 038: Carolyn Harris, Magna Carta Episode 143: Michael Klarman, The Making of the United States Constitution Episode 243: Joseph Adelman, Revolutionary Print Networks Episode 250: Virginia, 1619 Episode 255: Martha Jones, Birthright Citizens  

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The death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has caused debate about whether the President should appoint a new justice to fill her seat and, if he does appoint someone, whether the Senate should vote on the President’s nomination before the election.

This short bonus episode offers a brief history of the Supreme Court and how it functions within the United States government. Our guest for this episode is Mary Sarah Bilder, the Founders Professor of Law at Boston College.

2020 commemorates the 300th anniversary of French presence on Prince Edward Island. Like much of North America, the Canadian Maritime provinces were highly contested regions.

Anne Marie Lane Jonah, a historian with the Parks Canada Agency, joins us to explore the history of Prince Edward Island and why Great Britain and France fought over the Canadian Maritime region.

Between 1760 and 1761, Great Britain witnessed one of its largest slave insurrections in the history of its empire. Although the revolt took place on the island of Jamaica, the reverberations of this revolt stretched across the Atlantic Ocean and into the British North American colonies.

Vincent Brown, author of Tacky’s Revolt: The Story of an Atlantic Slave War, joins us to investigate Tacky’s Revolt and how that revolt served as an eddy within the larger current of Atlantic warfare.