History That Doesn't Suck - Q&A with The HTDS Team

Episode Date: April 12, 2018

"I'd say you know more than 90 percent of the American population about the American Revolution at this point." This is the story... of your questions! Rather than telling you a story this week, Greg sits down with the rest of the History That Doesn't Suck team (Joshua Beatty and Cielle Salazar) and talks through questions submitted by you, the listeners! ____ Connect with us on HTDSpodcast.com and go deep into episode bibliographies and book recommendations join discussions in our Facebook community get news and discounts from The HTDS Gazette  come see a live show get HTDS merch or become an HTDS premium member for bonus episodes and other perks. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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We're Jen. And Jenny. From Ancient History Fangirl. Join us to explore ancient history and mythology from a fun, sometimes tipsy perspective. Find us at ancienthistoryfangirl.com or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to History That Doesn't Suck. I'm your professor, Greg Jackson. And today I'd like to answer your questions. And joining me in doing this is the rest of the History That Doesn't Suck team that you don't usually get to hear from.

So we have Joshua Beatty. Josh, want to say what's up? What's up, everybody? And we have Ciel Salazar. Ciel. Hey, guys. There you go. But we're going to go ahead and meet them a little bit more here. You probably know something about me if you listened to the preamble. If you didn't, go back and listen to the preamble. I won't bore you with my background again.

So let's just go ahead and jump over to Josh. We decided you would go first. Is that right? Yeah. As you're doing so, we decided to help the people bond with you. We'll go ahead and answer whether or not we think we'd have been a patriot or a loyalist had we lived during the revolution. So just remember to get that in there.

Perfect. What's up, everybody? My name is Joshua Beatty, and I'm a 26-year-old who loves podcasting. And we're going to talk about that story a little bit of how Greg and I met. But I have a bachelor's degree from Utah Valley University in integrated studies, which is an interdisciplinary degree. So both of my emphasis are religious studies and history. And that's kind of how I met Greg. Greg was one of my professors.

And if I was a patriot or loyalist, it's pretty clear as we've been going through this podcast, I'm a patriot for sure. Although I don't think I would have thrown my chips in until later during the revolution. I would have been a little bit hesitant, waited to see how things went. So you'd have played it like Governor Morris.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. We didn't talk about that, I think, explicitly in an episode, did we? No? No. Anyhow, so yeah, he's kind of wealthy, kind of wants to stick with the establishment initially, but then it becomes pretty clear it's hop on the patriot train not that there are trains yet uh but hop on that train or things are gonna fall apart get dicey smart guy gets on board and then of course ends

up writing we the people and all that jazz yeah so i'm fine being compared to governor morris in all the ways uh except i think you're a fan of having two legs. That's kind of nice, right? Sure. Yeah. Yeah, I'm definitely a fan of that. Although I'm fine of being a fan of the other prolific things that he was known for too.

So. And on that note, we'll take it to CL. CL. Hi, guys. I'm CL Salazar. I have a degree in history from Brigham Young University, a bachelor's degree in history from Brigham Young University. I have four kids. They are fantastic. But in my spare time, I'm passionate about history, and I help with background research here on history that doesn't suck. And I love it and all of its nerdy goodness. And I hope that you guys are loving listening to all of the fun facts that we're coming up with for you. Josh talked about whether he'd be a patriot or loyalist. And I've thought about this too. I think I'd be a patriot. I like the rules and I'm a law-abiding citizen, but I only keep rules with which I agree.

So I'm pretty sure that when the british started throwing down a bunch of taxes on things that my husband made a living on i would be buying petitions and signing petitions and joining all kinds of societies and i see you as a pamphleteer yeah definitely i'm not sure i would be writing the pamphlets oh come, come on. Like Mercy Otis. There you go. Yeah. I think I'd be buying 10 copies of Mercy Otis's pamphlets and taking them to my quilting circle. Nice.

Definitely. Yes. And telling all of my friends. I like that you've thought this through to the point that you have a quilting circle. Oh, I'd have a quilting circle. Good. Yeah. circle oh i'd have a quilting circle good yeah i uh as for me i think not to not to bandwagon here i think i'd end up being a patriot uh i'll base that partly on family history uh

the buntings back in pennsylvania are somewhere in my family tree. And I mentioned I am distantly related to Deborah Sampson as well. You know, so as I just think about where would I be situated socioeconomically, I'm thinking I'm, well, I know I come from not money northerners. And I think I probably would have gone along with the fam is my guess. and kind of like what you're saying cl like i don't i'm not a rebel without a cause but rules have to make sense or of course yes or i do not uh i'm not happy so just thinking that if i lived in the colonies i would have the same understanding of what's constitutional what what isn't, as my neighbors most likely, right? I'm sure I'd be like, what the hell?

Screw this, parliament. You can't tax. Step off. Right? Yeah. I'm pretty sure that's what I'd be saying to all of my neighbors and convincing them to please join the cause. Come with us.

We'll throw some tea in the harbor. So you'd be jumping right in what where josh would be hanging back like i don't know well let's see who's gonna win first yeah i guess i'm just more skeptical that it's hard to place yourself back in history oh dude of course especially for where you stand in like class right everyone likes to think you know when they romanticize and think about the past oh i totally would have been a patriot i would have been the first one to pick up a musket and head out there. Exactly.

But you really don't know. No, you don't. And that's the real truth of the matter. I'd say, honestly, a pretty good gauge is, are you willing to do scary things that break rules? Now? I am not encouraging people to go break laws, by the way. But yeah, do you push limits in your life currently

because if you don't you're probably a loyalist you know yeah i think that that's probably fair if you're not willing to put yourself out on the line in any kind of debate you probably wouldn't have joined this debate either about taxation or anything else and with that as we just broad swath a bunch of people listening right now am. Everyone's thinking right now, am I a patriot? Am I a loyalist? Yeah, yeah. I broke this one rule in third grade. I'm totally a patriot.

I run red lights every once in a while. I'm totally a patriot. Josh is not admitting to running red lights. They're pink. It's like yellow to red. Right. They're called orange, and it's totally when you're supposed to step on the gas. Right.

Especially in Utah. Especially in Utah. Yeah. Anyway, sorry. we digress. Yeah, we do. Okay, so let's go ahead and jump into question one. We did not think to ask people if they were cool with us using their name and where they're from, which we'd kind of like to do. So we're not going to do that we'll just mention that we have gotten questions from southern california to utah

to of course utah because that's where we're coming from all the way out to london england so it's a wide swath and maybe next time we'll have the foresight to say by the way can we use your name and city but we'll respect privacy and not mention that this time around yeah so let's just jump in with this first question which comes from all the way across my house. All the way to the other room. That's right. Thanks to my daughter for sending this in. Kind of cute to think my little eight-year-old went to the website and submitted a question.

She would like to know, and you're welcome, sweetheart. Uh, she'd like to know why we decided to launch this podcast, which I take as her basically saying, daddy, how come you have no free time anymore? So I'm just going to go ahead and answer this very bluntly. And, uh, I apologize if this comes across as somehow negative on higher ed. That's not my goal. I love my job. I cannot emphasize that enough. I love what I do at the university.

It's fulfilling. It's great. What higher ed actually does, though, and what people seem to think higher ed does are different things. What I see is that at the university, I'm encouraged to stay in the ivory tower. I'm encouraged to write research articles that are on very niche topics that are meant to be read by other people like me who have a PhD in history, have a specialty that aligns with mine. And then I teach classes to people who, sure, maybe they're middle class,

you know, so it's not, we're talking about the 1%, but nonetheless, they are in good enough of a position in life that they can take four to five prime years out of their life and study full time. That's not a luxury that a lot of people have. And even if you have the luxury of going to college, I'd imagine, in fact, most listeners, just as I'm thinking about the demographic that would probably be drawn to this sort of podcast, I imagine a lot of you have bachelor's degrees. Not all of you, but a lot of you probably do. All the same, you have to go to your day job now. You don't have the luxury of sitting around reading philosophical books, history. You have bills to pay. So I think it's really important that we as experts with PhDs,

we can't sit back and complain that society isn't better informed on various issues. If we're not coming to you after your busy, hard day and engaging you in a medium that you have the time and the ability to access, I'm not going to expect the average person to go get a dense history textbook and read something that's semi-jargon filled and try and make sense of how that might better inform decisions they make at, say, when they go to vote or as they try and make sense of different versions of what they're hearing about different views in society. So frankly, that's why I've launched this podcast. And it's a lot of work. It's after hours because this really isn't what I'm supposed to do during my day job, so I don't. I write the articles that are meant to be read by other experts, and I teach the classes that I'm

supposed to. And again, I love and enjoy that, but this is me wanting to up historical literacy and historical knowledge throughout society. People who don't have the luxury of buying expensive books or taking the time to read and try and digest on their own difficult terms. And I'm coming to a medium that people in the 21st century use. So I think that pretty much does it. Yeah. That's why we created the podcast. We want somebody to be able to get in their car on their morning commute, plug the podcast in, and basically listen and gain the knowledge. No, go ahead. Oh, no, no. And basically gain the knowledge that they would want to gain if they had the time or means or whatever to attend a class. class and with that said i wish we had a camera and could show you the amount of hours research

fact checking geez that goes into each episode not to mention the hours we analyze the script afterwards well because the script doesn't just have to be as accurate as a textbook and i swear to you this podcast is as accurate as a textbook it has I swear to you, this podcast is as accurate as a textbook. It has to be entertaining because that's genuinely a high goal. That's a major goal for me. I want you, the listener, to be so entertained that you're not sitting here going, oh, it's a chore. It's something that I'm trying to do to better myself. But I'm exhausted. I worked all day and I don't have it in me to do that. No, I want you to, I'm exhausted. I worked all day and I don't have it in me to do that. No, I want you to think I'm going to relax. How am I going to do that? Oh,

I'm going to listen to history that doesn't suck. And I'm going to freaking learn about the stamp, you know, the stamp act inadvertently almost because you're just having such a damn good time. That's the way that I think we can really move things along. I want to go in the opposite direction of making things sound super intelligent or difficult. I want to make everything as easy and fun as possible. And that's why I make this a narrative-driven, story-driven podcast. And I labor labor over telling stories that I can weave in with the big main picture of, you know, of historical events so that you can more or less accidentally learn the important stuff while you're just having a good time. And while being entertained.

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That means caring for every cow. Proaction sets standards of excellence. That's what's behind the blue cow logo. Dairy farmers of Canada. All right. This next question is really, really good. We're really glad that this question got asked. The question is, who are the top most influential women of the revolution?

And how has history remembered or slash painted them? And I think we're going to toss this over to Ciel to kind of take the brunt of this question to start off with. Sure, sure. There are a lot of women that helped with the revolutionary cause that had a lot to do with moving the patriot cause forward. They don't get written about very much. And when they do get written about, they're often sidelined. But I think the first place to start is with Mary Ball Washington, George Washington's mom. Sometimes, and some people have implied that she wasn't very supportive of the Patriot cause. I'm going to go ahead and say, I don't think that's as true as people think it is. She was known for being stubborn. So she probably didn't like the time that went into the revolutionary cause that her sons, multiple sons and son-in-law put in.

Although, I'm going to go out on a limb again and say I think she was stubborn because she was orphaned at 12 and widowed before she was 40 with five living children to take care of, the oldest of whom was 11 at the time. Is that right, Greg? So George was 11 at the time. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because George is the oldest. Sorry, my brain was thinking, well, what about Lawrence?

Lawrence is from Augustine's first wife because Mary's the second wife. Right, right. But as I said, three of her sons and one of her sons-in-law served in the virginia militia and george served as the everything the general of the army the president of the united states she was supportive of that um and i think that it's important to honor her contribution well and so on her death, right?

Right as George is going into the presidency. I mean, they've had a rough relationship, these two. Right. But despite that rough relationship, it's interesting to see that one, George is heartbroken. So there's clearly a deep love on his side, despite the, and come on, if you're being honest, right? Can't we all kind of relate to that? Someone that maybe is a family relation or a friend, someone who's been in your life that you don't quite jive with

all the time, or maybe even most of the time you don't, but it doesn't mean you don't love deeply. And I get the impression that was the case because on Mary's side, George doesn't need things, right? I mean, Mount Vernon is this massive freaking multi-plantation by this point. He's the freaking president of the new United States, the rock star of the era, hands down. She leaves him the majority of her estate right i mean she's playing favorites so yeah for all the complaining sorry i don't want to hijack you're totally fine keep keep going but i i just think that's such a fascinating example of there's a bond there i mean george clearly wasn't pissed at her for how things went down right and she's clearly proud of who he is and

what he's become what he's done with his life. So I think she's a really interesting woman. And if you are more interested in her and have more questions about her, I'd recommend looking her up. The next person I think we should definitely talk about would be Martha Custis Washington, George Washington's wife.

She is a fascinating, fascinating woman. She took on, I don't think she knew what she was taking on when she married George. I really don't think she knew what she was getting into. She loved her family, and let's be clear about that. She loved being a mother. She loved being a grandmother. She raised her four children, none of whom lived, well, three of whom didn't live to adulthood, and one who lived to adulthood and then died leaving a widow and four children.

She then went on to raise two, his two youngest, Jackie's two youngest kids, lived with her and George when they lived in New York and Philadelphia when he was president. Martha visited George every winter, and then every spring went back home and took care of her family, and then every winter wintered with George all through the war. It's pretty amazing. I was going to say, take that in. Yeah. Take that in. It's pretty amazing how supportive she was of him and how supportive she was of the cause.

She was really good friends with Lucy Knox, who's Henry Knox's wife. She became really good friends with Abigail Adams as her husband served as president. Which is super useful, and that bromance never happened well she no she really paved the way with a lot of those cabinet members that did not get along she really paved the way and smoothed things over for them to work together because she kept the family friendships alive exactly she set up a great example of what it was to be the first lady um she didn't come to new york right away so george comes to new york and starts being the president. She's still taking care of stuff at home.

And when she gets to New York, the house is a mess. There's no time for him to get his work done. There's no decent schedule. There's no decent family life. There's no time for people to come and visit. She sets up state dinners that they hold weekly in addition to tea parties that she holds for important ladies in town that George is invited to in order to help him have a better public persona. You know what's fun about that?

George liked the tea parties. So he also had what he called a levee with men once a week. He way preferred the tea parties than hanging out with the guys. He did. And I think it went a long way to helping people think he was more human, to humanizing him. Because they saw how he was with his wife and how he was with his wife's friends and

got to know him a little bit better. Whereas at the state dinners and at the afternoon visits that they would do once a week for men, he was very formal. Almost never talked. So anyway, I, I like Martha. I like her a lot.

She's a pretty great example of what it is to support a cause in the background and, and never ask for any credit. Well, and you know, she, she takes a little bit of grief from some people in terms of comparing her to other first ladies, which I think is kind of BS.

It's unfair. She's charting an uncharted path. Exactly. I mean, we talk about how George Washington, I mean, we've emphasized that in the episode, in all the episodes. He's constantly in positions where he's cutting, you know, he's the trailblazer. Well, so is his wife. I mean, there's no precedent for what it means to be first lady. So, you know, to compare her to, geez, Jackie or whomever, it's really unfair.

It's really unfair. And she set up quite a few things. She set herself up rather than as a queen, as a hostess. And no one knew what they were walking into. And to set herself up as a hostess of a public house where people were welcome was a huge task, especially she was not young when they became president, when George became president. She was not a young woman. president, when George became president. She was not a young woman, and she was raising two of her grandkids.

She could have easily sidelined and said, I don't want to do this. I'll just go home, thanks. Call me in four years. You got this, George. Which, honestly, I might have done. I'll write you every week, darling. Right? Hey, I mean, Mount Vernon, I can think of worse places to set up shop.

Oh, right. Yeah, for sure. But no, move to some, you know, move on up to New York, some place that Congress is willing to pay for. Right. Find a rental. Good luck. Have everyone over all the time. It'll be great.

You'll love it. So Martha is a very interesting woman. And I really loved getting to know her. So we don't have time to mention all of my favorite Patriot women. So I'll just mention a few that you can look up. Mercy Otis Warren. She was fantastic. Sybil Ludington.

She's known as the female Paul Revere. And she's amazing. Yeah, she's awesome. Nancy Morgan Hart is fantastic. The stories on her are absolutely amazing. But my favorite patriot would be Esther Reed. She's actually English, but she marries an American, moves to the colonies pretty soon after the revolution starts. And when she gets to Philadelphia, she sees the need that the soldiers are in.

She sees that they need supplies and clothes and food. And she starts a group called the Ladies Association of Philadelphia. They go door to door, raising about $300,000 in colonial dollars, which today would be about $7,500. And they use the money to buy supplies and sew over 2,000 shirts for soldiers. She also wrote an awesome propaganda essay called The Sentiments of the American Woman, in which she encouraged women to step up and be patriotic and encouraged them that they were equal to men in patriotism and that they could contribute to the cause.

So she's kind of fantastic. She actually died in the middle of the war in 1780 of a fever. But other women followed her example, set up similar associations in their states and sarah franklin bach the daughter of ben franklin took over esther's movement after she died and made sure that it moved on way better than that illegitimate son of ben's freaking loyalist yeah yeah no offense to our british listeners yeah those women were they were kind of amazing they saw a need and they filled it right away and then i mean kind of to put like a geez just attribute something to the faceless women of the revolution just like we have thousands of of uh broke colonial men who fought and died and weren't taken care of

after they'd sacrificed to create this country you You have women who did the same thing, camp followers, these women who are, I don't know how many people remember this, but back when George first takes over the, the continental army, if you can call it that in, you know,

1775 in Cambridge, these guys won't wash their clothes. They're getting sick because they won't do freaking chores because that's women's work. Well, I know if you imagine you're you're basically gonna die because you're such a man um anyhow you know if it weren't for women being the camp followers who did those sorts of tasks then uh geez that the army would have fallen apart and let's not forget women were camp followers in the British army as well, and they were spies for George.

Right. Come on. That's. That's awesome. That's freaking awesome. You know, you can always count on the, I don't know, I guess the wealthy, the hooked up to kind of forget that the help are listening.

Right. That's like the premise of every upstairs, downstairs. Yes. Thing, right? Okay. Next question. Yeah. Yeah. the help are listening right that's like the premise of every upstairs downstairs yes thing right okay next question yeah yeah cool so if von steuben was one of the unsung heroes who else do you find noteworthy of the same descriptor and why who wants to start so i think we could all take a just a brief moment to maybe tell ours. Yeah, I'll start because freaking let me tell you, gentlemen and ladies, about Samuel Whitmore. This dude is the biggest badass of all time.

I won't go into super details because of time. But imagine an 80-year-old man, okay, battle Lexington and Concord. He hears this is going down, okay okay he is a veteran of many wars definitely the seven years war can we say that war more in this podcast my gosh like so many people are probably thinking i didn't even know that was a war before this podcast now they're like oh seven years war sure anyway so he grabs all his old gear, okay, for this battle, Lexington Concord. Grabs his rifle. He's got dual-wielding pistols and his sword. He runs.

He's like a pirate. He's like a pirate. He's 80. I want to. He's 80 freaking years old. He's 80 years old. He's running, okay, from his house, runs to the battle, and he gets in this position on but kind of by the road and all the other patriots are like what the hell are you doing get back

into cover he's like no no i got this he's flying solo lone wolf k he's hiding behind a rock i'm totally taking this story and exaggerating it but it's awesome and uh so the the column of british come up the hill or come up the road he jumps up from behind the rock, shoots his rifle, kills a British instantly, throws his rifle down, pulls both his dual-wheeling pistols out, runs down the hill, shoots both his pistols, kills two more British. And then when he realizes, I'm not going to have time to reload any of my guns, he whips his sword out and just starts going to town. Oh, my gosh. Takes a mus musket blunt force to the face so he gets shot in the face um rips through kind of his

his mouth falls to the ground and then he's stabbed 13 times he's bayoneted 13 times and the british move on the battle ends and all his patriots come to get his body because they're like the dude's dead he's freaking alive he's freaking alive he's behind the rock he's trying to load his musket okay um they end up taking him into town the doctor he's like this guy's a dead cause there's no reason right his family they say please we just bandage him up we'll take him home so he can die at home they bandage him up they take him home the dude lives he lives he's a rock star bayoneted 13 times shot in the face he lives not just like one more year he lives sorry 18 more years what yeah he dies at 98 anyway samuel whitmoremore, everybody. Unsung hero. I mean, he didn't turn a big tie to the battle or anything,

but it just goes to show you the dude's a patriot through and through. Shoot. Ciel? I hate to say it, but I really do like all of the big rock stars that we talk about in every episode. Ain't nothing wrong with that. And I don't think i have an unsung hero that i love although i do love henry knox yeah he is amazing but to me he's

kind of a big name am i wrong well i think by this point he feels like a big name for people who've been listening to the podcast but honestly i'd say in the average common knowledge yeah common knowledge i mean if you're not george washington ben franklin or thomas jefferson well and since lynn manuel came around alexander hamilton right right um no you're you're forgotten you're you're an unknown henry knox is kind of amazing he's a patriot right from the beginning and general gage actually says to him, well, threatens publicly that if he tries to leave Boston after Boston has been occupied, he'll be arrested. So he and his wife, Lucy, decide to flee in the night. She sews his sword into her cape so that if he's arrested, he's still armed.

Yeah, they were kind of amazing people. He goes on to do some pretty crazy stuff learned a lot of his military uh tactics and stuff from books and george saw that and put him in a leadership role anyway man well okay i'm gonna sort of give two answers if uh if you will um so there is a little bit of uh question as to as to who it was but whichever african-american it was at because it it probably was one of two um at the battle of bunker hill that shot uh major pickeran killed him. Come on, you know? Yeah. And I mean, I also think of Prince Easterbrooks, who was the African-American that was shot or injured. I shouldn't say shot. I'm not quite sure what his injury was,

but who was a casualty at Lexington. I mean, these guys are often overlooked, but to kind of swing around to another bigger person, as you're saying, Ciel, Nathaniel Green. Oh, he's amazing. Come on, he crushed it in the South after back-to-back armies,

two freaking continental armies getting beat from Ben Lincoln to Horatio Gates, right? George's nemesis, essentially. And then Nathaniel Green brilliantly uses these underpaid, ragged, don't even have shoes, you know,

soldiers to lead Lord Cornwallis on a wild goose chase and wear him down until he finally decides to go up into Virginia. Come on. That dude's awesome. But how many people think about Nathaniel Green when you think about the revolution? That's true. Right. No. Okay. Okay. So the next question is, is it true that Spain provided some support in a similar way to, he's referencing to the Haitians in this question by using which was let's just clarify episode 11 southern discomfort right when we talked about the Haitian soldiers French if you will right but black French soldiers from today Haiti going up

come on this is such a crazy global war right anyhow sorry Josh no you're fine that's a good caveat um by using subjects of their own colonies namely cuba and puerto rico should i take the brun in this question i guess uh given your background uh are you going to answer this one in spanish or do you want to keep it english yeah we'll do spanish okay entonces hit no i'm gonna do spanish obviously um no this is a really great question spain for some reason seems to kind of get overlooked as we look at the Revolutionary War. Not that they played a massive role, but they did play a pretty big role. Yeah, they're significant. So to answer your question just straight off, yes, they did. Cuba, actually, from Havana,

starting out, they have a bunch of observers that go to the colonies and meet with George Washington and members of Congress. And they kind of figure out what's going on, how are they supporting the war monetary-wise. And they basically get involved from the war after talking with George Washington there. Puerto Rico, soldiers from Puerto Rico, they fight in multiple wars in the southern campaign. They fight in Baton Rouge, the siege of or battles sorry in the southern campaign they fight in baton rouge the siege of pensacola in florida so they're kind of all over the place helping out mostly in the southern campaign though right i think i think that's something that we need everybody understand well and i do think it's important to again remember that spain is not an ally of the

united states it's an awkward situation but spain is an ally of france which of course is the ally of the united states uh and spain isn't um it's not interested in really helping the united states as much as it is moving forward its own uh its own agenda which of course that's france too right just france fulfills that agenda by actually aligning with the u.s whereas spain since it has american colonies it's in a little bit of a conflicted situation i think it'd be safe to say too that spain definitely had an agenda yeah during the war as did france yeah but i think what i guess i'm trying to get at is nonetheless spain pursuing kind of piggybacking on the uh american uh independence you know well on its effort for independence um provides a what we would call a positive

externality you know that's helping the united states even though it's not directly out aligned because every spanish soldier fighting the british is that's just one fewer British soldiers or British armies that can be in the 13 colonies because they're busy over in what would today be Louisiana and Florida and so forth. And to kind of give a brief example of this complex of France is our ally, but Spain is France's ally, but not our ally um the french needed money specifically kind of to bankroll is that the word i'm looking for yeah yeah bankroll i think so it depends on what you're gonna keep saying it depends on what i'm gonna say the battle of yorktown and so as france needs money they go to spain who goes to cuba and they, yeah, right. One of their colonies. And basically all these, I'm summing the story up,

but they do these notices to the public. And within, I think it says basically hours. Yeah, half a day, basically. They get the equivalent of 500,000 Spanish pesos. They take those and deliver those to france to pay for the soldiers for yorktown so spain's definitely there they're kind of in the background but they're actually paying for some pretty significant battles vicariously indirectly indirectly through france it's like a massive three four point bank shot playing pool but you know it's important it's uh it's indirect

assistance that is vital at the end of the day and so to answer your question yes puerto rico and cuba both soldiers from there and actually later uh puerto rican soldiers who stayed in the united states they will later uh fight in the War. I do just want to add the reason I threw that to Josh. I made a joke about him answering it in Spanish. His capstone for his bachelor's degree is focused on Mexican history. Josh speaks fluent Spanish. He also speaks some indigenous languages in Mexico. Nahuatl.

Yeah, Nahuatl. Just Nahuatl. You're only trilingual, right? Just Nahuatl. Yeah, Nahuatl. Just Nahuatl. You're only trilingual, right? Just Nahuatl. Yeah. So, yeah, Latin America is definitely Josh's domain. Amazon's holiday deals are here so you can celebrate the season early. With low prices on decor, electronics, and beauty.

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This is such a good one to end on. What was George Washington's religion? All right. Yeah, so this is fun. I kind of want to expand this a little bit because you'll hear people today, on one side, you'll hear people say that the founding fathers were all super christian and religious and then on the other side you hear people who kind of want to basically depict them as not being religious because they're all men of the enlightenment and the fact is if you're cherry

picking you can get either uh you can kind of run with either version because both are kind of true so when you look at the mass conglomerate of founding fathers that include, if we can put it this way, the B-listers. Yeah. I'm sorry, I don't mean to like put down their efforts and contributions, but this is definitely a Jesus crowd, you know, hands down.

However, if you want to look at the A-listers, people like Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson, let me just pick on Jefferson for a second. We're getting to the original question. Jefferson went through his New Testament and freaking ripped out the miracles that Jesus performed. I mean, you can get on Google Books if you want to and read it. It's called the Jefferson Bible. He didn't change the, not that I'm aware of, the translations, though maybe he looked at

that, I'm not sure, because he believed that Jesus was a real person, that Jesus was a person worth emulating and so forth. He did not believe that Jesus turned water into wine. He did not believe that Jesus enabled the know, enabled the lame to walk, the blind to see, raised Lazarus from the dead, and himself was resurrected. So, yeah, he, that's how Jefferson rolled. So, getting to Washington, he also is a deist, and that term simply means, it's someone who believes that there's basically a a great power out there that there is a god or some sort of yeah there's a there's a there's a supreme being thank you supreme being but he doesn't intervene in human life yeah so the the go-to example of this that's been used for

jesus i don't know i remember hearing this in multiple classes as i was learning about uh this belief system and within the enlightenment or belief system this ideology it's not like this is a religion let's be clear on that um but uh god or the supreme being is considered like a clockmaker someone who's made a clock but now the clock just does its thing and the clockmaker doesn't come to intervene and you know and help so that's where washington Washington falls in. I mean, you know, you're going to hear him use language that invokes a higher being because again, he doesn't reject that idea. And he does go to church with his wife. Yes. Martha was Episcopalian and she was devout, but George just went with Martha. He wasn't getting a lot out

of the sermon. Supportive hubs. I'm sure he's the only guy who's ever gone to church because his wife. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah. Right. It's a good American tradition, really. That's right.

If you're a patriot, you know, you know. So, you know, that's where George falls. You know, definitely not someone who is like against religion or, I mean, I remember reading a letter once. Oh, I wish I had it in front of me now. But he did make some comment about the heathens, which if that sounds like, oh, how insensitive of him, it's the freaking 18th century. Right. So, clearly, I mean, at least as I read it, this is a reference to people who wouldn't be Christian. I think if you pushed him, he'd probably, well, I don't know. I guess it depends on public persona what he's trying to go for.

But deist, the short answer is deist. He believes in a supreme being. He's not going to go much further than that on his personal beliefs, even if, you know, you'll find him in the pews when the missus is around. Right. And I think it's important to dispel a myth about George Washington. A lot of people have heard that after he finished his swearing in, he added the words, so help me God, to his oath. This is a Victorian fable. It's just not true. It's about the same time the cherry tree stuff came up.

Yeah. Right, right. Those Victorians, they loved to romanticize. They played loose and fast with George, huh? Yes, they did. They're just like, let's rewrite this guy. Yeah. Also, axes trees at five or whatever.

Yeah, neither one of those things happened no so george was a literalist when it came to the constitution he read the swearing in verbatim verbatim he did not mess with the wordage there and there aren't any um people who actually witnessed his swearing in that said, oh, yes. And then he added, so help me God. That comes about 100 years later. And that's classic for historians. So the actual records, we call that a primary source.

Because we're getting in basically, if you're familiar with the expression, straight from the horse's mouth. So when we don't see that in any of the primary sources, but then it just magically appears like a century later. You're like, what? Exactly. We're like, uh-huh, yeah, BS. It didn't happen. So, God, I feel like there was something else I was gonna add. Oh, just that Deus really avoided the word God.

So you'll see that as well if you decide to start reading a lot of George's letters or writings or whatever. He's always saying things like the supreme being or the almighty. Providence. Providence. Oh, Providence.

Dude, that is- Look up, you should look up his- Capital P, Providence. His inaugural address. You'll see Providence in there. You'll see almighty being. Yeah. He'll never say uh yeah god or at

least not frequently i i at least in a public i don't know if i'm gonna quite yeah go so far as to say like you'll never find him use the word god but it's like you know if we're talking about his top 10 ways to refer to the big chief i know i'm just purposely trying to come up with different ways uh you know god's gonna be pretty low i don't know if it's going to make the top 10. So if we're playing family feud with George, ways to refer to God, don't go with the word God. Yeah, it's not going to work for you. All right.

Well, hey, I think that does... That's basically most of the questions. I apologize to those. There are still a few questions. Jeez, this episode. As always, we want to keep things under an hour so i apologize to those of you who we we didn't get to we will you know we'll be in touch with you though um thank you so much for listening uh we can't say that enough you you make me happy when i look at my very i don't i hope it doesn't come across as scary, you know, just the analytics that show downloads. Again, I don't have anyone's home address or anything.

You know, as I just think to myself, more people have a better understanding of how the United States came into existence. Seriously, this is so fulfilling for me. And I will just add lastly, as we said, all the amount, you know, the hours we pour into making this thing, uh, we do have some concern that we're going to have to slow down simply because we have, we have a poverty of time. None of us are crying poverty. It's a poverty of time. Nonetheless, with your support, we can replace how we pay, how we pay our bills basically. Um, because we, we just, we don't have any more free time left to give literally it's gone. It's, it's toast. So, uh, if you'd please consider even just a dollar Patreon subscription a day, a day, I don't know

where I'm going with that. Please. Yes. Hey, yeah, do do that dollar a day but you know just a dollar a month um you know you you help us keep this going and hopefully not have to take any breaks i'm trying so hard for to make sure we avoid that but i god i don't know if that's gonna happen and then to add an addendum onto what greg just said thank you so much for those who do support us and those who listen yeah We actually have kind of a cool announcement. We just hit 10,000 downloads. That's right. Podcast. And all 50 states have listened.

I mean, it's like one guy in South Dakota who I think has listened to one episode, but Hey, thanks for finally getting on board. South Dakota. That's right. Yeah. So thank you. We're so grateful that you're valid. There's a validation going on for all our hard work.

It's scary when you launch something like this and think like who's even going to listen besides my mom right thanks for listening mom and please keep the feedback coming if you this will always be a free podcast but yes with that said please let us know what you like what you don't like give us feedback what you want to hear more of, or we want to tailor this to you. I will also add, I do have something of an agenda. We are going to walk you through U.S. history.

It's going to continue to be funny. It's going to be narrative-driven in common vernacular, common language that everyone can follow. But as we hit those stories, we're going to weave in all the important things that you need to know. I mean, I, I'd say you're, you know,

more than 90% of the American population about the revolution at this point, if you've listened to every episode, you're, you're like basically a freaking scholar compared to nine out of 10 people around the globe in the United States. Yeah. I've totally agree with that statement. So I think we're good.

Yeah. I think that's it. Oh. And next time, just so you know, right. We always tell you what we're going to do next time. Um,

we are, I'm going to give you just an overview. So we're going to get back to normal stories. All right. That's totally coming because things are still awesome and exciting just because the revolution is over. It doesn't mean that things are going to calm down. We're going to build up to a civil war people. So that's coming. But just in case you might've gotten lost in terms of, you know, seeing the, the, the forest from the trees in terms of what the big picture issues are in the revolution.

Because sometimes maybe the stories are cool and interesting, but maybe as you're catching, say, John Hancock losing his ship and Boston Massacre breaking out, you might have lost some of the details on the tax crisis that launched that whole thing. So I'm just going to give you a breakdown overview real quick that if you've listened to all the last, know what is it 15 16 episodes 15 yeah man um you know you're gonna listen to that and just be like i'm a rock star i grasp everything he's talking about don't worry i'll still keep it you know light ish in terms of the way i word things right now anyhow okay i think we're done i think so all right join me in two

weeks where i'd like to tell you a story. HTDS is supported by premium membership fans. You can join by clicking the link in the episode description. My gratitude to you kind souls providing additional funding to help us keep going. And a special thanks to our members, whose monthly gift puts them at producer status. Christopher Pullman, David DeFazio, David Rifkin, Denki, Durante Spencer, Donald Moore, Donna Marie Jeffcoat, Ellen Stewart, Bernie Lowe, George Sherwood, Gurwith Griffin, Henry Brunges, Jake Gilbreth, James G. Bledsoe, Janie McCreary, Jeff Marks, Jennifer Moods, Jennifer Magnolia, Jeremy Wells, Jessica Poppock, Joe Dobis, John Frugaldugel, John Boovey, John Keller, John Oliveros, John Radlavich, John Schaefer, John Sheff, Jordan Corbett, Joshua Steiner, Justin M. Spriggs, Justin May, Kristen Pratt, Karen Bartholomew, Cassie Conecco, Kim R., Kyle Decker, Lawrence Neubauer, Linda Cunningham, Mark Ellis, Matthew Mitchell, Matthew Simmons, Melanie Jan, Nate Seconder, Nick Caffrel, Noah Hoff, Owen Sedlak, Paul Goeringer, Randy Guffrey, Reese Humphreys-Wadsworth, Rick Brown, Sarah Trawick, Samuel Lagasa, Sharon Thiesen, Sean Baines, Steve Williams, Creepy Girl, Tisha Black, and Zach Jackson. Why do rivers curve? Why did the T-Rex have such tiny arms? And why do so many more kids need glasses now than they used to? Spoiler alert, it isn't screen time.

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