Ben Franklin's World

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

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*Book links are affiliate links. Every purchase supports the podcast.

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

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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
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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
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WHEN YOU'RE READY
🗞️ BFW Gazette Newsletter
👩‍💻 Join the BFW Listener Community
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*Book links are affiliate links. Every purchase supports the podcast.

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 WebsiteShow Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/447 EPISODE OUTLINE00:00:00 Introduction00:04:46 The Lee Resolution and the Committee of Five00:05:26 Robert R. Livingston's Early Life00:06:56 Colonial New York Politics 00:11:02 Livingston's Appointment to the Second Continental Congress00:15:20 Why Livingston Chosen for Declaration Committee00:18:44 Livingston's feud with John Adams00:19:18 Livingston Misses the Vote for Independence00:20:50 Livingston Becomes Chancellor of New York State00:24:06 Livingston's Role in Steam Navigation00:26:15 Clermont State Historic Site00:32:35 Roger Sherman's Early Life 00:36:47 Sherman's Family and Life in New Haven00:37:43 Sherman's Involvement in the Imperial Crisis00:40:38 Sherman's Role in the Second Continental Congress00:42:28 Why Sherman Chosen For Declaration Committee00:43:42 Sherman's Role in Drafting the Declaration00:46:16 The Connecticut Compromise, 178700:50:28 What Made Sherman Effective in Legislatures00:53:47 1776 in Context 00:58:10 ConclusionRECOMMENDED 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 NewsSUPPORT OUR WORK🎁 Make a Donation to Ben Franklin’s WorldREQUEST A TOPIC📨 Topic Request Form📫 liz@benfranklinsworld.comWHEN YOU'RE READY🗞️ BFW Gazette Newsletter 👩‍💻 Join the BFW Listener Community🌍 Join the History Explorers ClubTAKE THE QUIZ🧭 Discover How You Explore History (under 2 minutes)👉 https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/quizLISTEN 🎧🍎 Apple Podcasts 💚 Spotify 🎶 Amazon Music🛜 PandoraCONNECT🦋 Liz on Bluesky👩‍💻 Liz on LinkedIn🛜 Liz’s WebsiteSAY THANKS💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts💚 Leave a rating on Spotify*Book links are affiliate links. Every purchase supports the podcast.
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