American Political History

In 1670 a London jury was locked up without food, water, or heat and ordered to convict a young Quaker named William Penn. They refused — and the ruling that followed made the independence of juries a...

1 Touko 202223min

In 1659 a woman stood on the gallows on Boston Common with a rope around her neck — and was cut down alive at the last moment, by a reprieve her son had ridden to win. She was Mary Dyer, condemned for...

1 Touko 202224min

In 1683, in a colony that had never held an election, under an Irish Catholic governor appointed by a Catholic duke, New York — of all colonies — wrote down a sweeping charter of English liberty: a Ch...

1 Touko 202218min

For six years Edward Randolph tried to collect the king's customs in Boston, and for six years the city beat him — every ship he seized returned by a colonial court, every smuggler acquitted by a jury...

1 Touko 202221min

There was a man in London who knew more about America than almost anyone alive, and who never crossed the ocean to see it. William Blathwayt sat in the Plantation Office at Whitehall, where the Englis...

30 Huhti 202220min

In 1681, the king's own customs collector stood trial for treason in New York — charged by the colony's merchants with levying war on free Englishmen, for the crime of collecting the duties his sealed...

30 Huhti 202215min

England planted the colonies. The Dutch carried the goods — and kept the profit. By 1640 Dutch trade was double England's, run on three inventions no one could match: the first public bank, the first ...

30 Huhti 202220min

In 1690 a man stepped off a ship in Charles Town and made himself governor of Carolina by overthrowing the governor — and the strangest part was that he was one of the colony’s own proprietors. This i...

20 Huhti 202217min