History That Doesn't Suck - Volume III Epilogue

Episode Date: April 15, 2019

No, no, no, no--Cortes would’ve gotten his butt whooped if he had not gained lots of indigenous help.” -Josh It’s time to end Volume III: “The Age of Jackson!” We have more corrections on Greg’s pronunciation (and on fracking!), an Antarctic email (no joke), other updates, and--of course--historical analysis to tie together the whole volume. We’re talking Andrew Jackson’s presidency, the extension of American democracy, western settlement, and the Mexican-American War. Finally, we’ll end with a little hint on where Volume IV is going. ____ 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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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 I'd like to tell you a story. Today, however, I'm pleased to share an interview with a special guest versus my normal storytelling. Regular listeners of HTDS know that we do this occasionally to recap and give some broader context of an era explored over a series of preceding narrative episodes. If you're new to HTDS, welcome, and you may want to jump back a couple of episodes to hear the stories leading up to this epilogue. Now, on with the show. Welcome to History That Doesn't Suck. I'm your professor, Greg Jackson, and today we are epiloguing, which means I'm going to correct my pronunciation on a

million things I've said wrong across the country. Looking forward to that. We're going to acknowledge some really cool emails, including one from Antarctica, assuming I just said that continent correctly. And then of course, we will get to the overview. Let's tie together all the last episodes from the beginning of the age of Jackson up through the Mexican-American War. Ready? Here we go. All right. So here we go. Epilogue time. I am joined by Josh.

What's up, everybody? And CL. What was that greeting, Josh? I don't know. You got very nervous there. I got nervous for a second. Like, what am I going to say? Dude, you do this on office hours all the time.

Literally like every other week. It's okay. It's okay, Josh. Yeah, it's all right. We're here for you. If this gets scary, just let us know. I mean, you can always borrow my tagline if you want. Hey, guys.

Hey, guys. You're so good at it. Oh, gosh. All right. So it's always good. I love doing the epilogues. It's fun to tie together the last 10 or so episodes. I think that's about where we're at this time around.

Yeah, pretty close. We don't really have a set number. It's just where it makes sense. Right. Yeah, we don't make ourselves make the history fit into a certain number of episodes just tell the cool stories exactly then when it makes sense to kind of overview we get our overview on so let's do this but first of all let's uh let's establish how i cannot pronounce a damn thing well i think you should be a little less harsh on yourself, Rick. I agree. All right. All right.

You only got a few things wrong. It's true. It's true. You know, the real great challenge, of course, I mean, I won't bore everyone with the etymology of the English language and in particular American English. But all the different influences from French to Spanish to indigenous languages. And then we bring in our own spellings. And then people regionally change. I mean like this has nothing to do with, we haven't covered this region in the podcast but

living here in Utah we all know of Hurricane Utah. It's Hurricane. Yeah. Hurricane. Yeah. Hurricane. It's spelled Hurricane just so we're all clear. Yeah just so everyone there knows as well. Guys it's her that's where my family's from yeah josh your family does not say their hometown correctly yeah um i remember the first time i met someone from there i said i'm sorry that you're from what i was like yeah hurricane yeah it's right next to laverkin yeah he showed me the writing you know how it was written on no that is not how that word is said.

But it is. And that's my point, is that- There's local pronunciation. And we try so hard. I mean, we get on YouTube and look up news clips from the regions at times. We email friends, family, if we have them in the area.

Those areas, yeah. And we've even had a few fans that, if we have them in the area. Those areas, yeah. And we've even had a few fans that, and we thank you, who said, hey, next time you find yourself writing about this region, let me know. Yeah, I got you. I got you. It's so helpful. We'll get that straight.

But enough of that. Shall we get to some of these pronunciations? Let's do it. Okay, so first of all, our thanks to Christopher from South Carolina. He is a descendant of George Washington's buddy, Christopher. Now you got to think about it. Yeah, I got to think that through. Gist, not gist. Gist. So we're going all the way back to episode one here.

Hang on. No, wait. Did I say it wrong? Yes, you got it you got it yeah wait it's the opposite it's it's spelled gist yes but it's pronounced gist yes christopher gist yes there it is so this is a throwback all the way to episode one but he uh informed us of this a few months ago i mean since epilogue. So here we are acknowledging it. Yep. Good times. Let's move to the opposite side of the continent. We got an email from Megan

up in Spokane. Spokane, Washington. Spokane, Washington. Yeah, nothing like correcting pronunciation errors and like correcting pronunciation errors and then making pronunciation errors during the process. Megan, it was a brief email.

I'm just going to go ahead and read it all whopping, you know, like two or three sentences, right? Mostly because I just like complimenting us. Thank you, Megan. She wrote, love, love, love history that doesn't suck. You guys are amazing.

We agree, Megan. We do. And we're so humbled too. So humbled. Back to Megan though. As a graduate of the college founded by missionary Jason Lee in Salem, Oregon, the river, the valley, and the college are all Willamette? Willamette.

Willamette. And she points out rhymes with dammit. And you know, that is definitely a way to get to my heart. You can make it rhyme with dammit. That's locked in. Yeah, it's a great mnemonic device. That's right. So this is back to what episode was the Oregon Trail number? 31. Was it? It was either 30 or 31, I think. We'll get a correction email on how we got our number wrong. It's 30. I just pulled it up.

It was episode 30. And he was right. Yeah, 31 is the California Trail, but 30 is the Oregon Trail. And again, that was one where we totally watched a video, and I apparently still could not get it together. So thanks for the help, Megan. Yes, thank you so much. Next time we talk about the Willamette Valley, we'll say it right.

She's cringing right now. She's like, no. Stress is wrong valve um we um on office hours i did an interview with judge ken wise of the wise about texas podcast and the judge and i we uh we had a good time that was fun it was a good episode yeah it was and i'm also grateful to him we started emailing a little bit before the texas episode came out on history doesn't suck and this isn't recorded for your listening uh pleasure but he offered to, you know, chat with me. I mean, sure. I'm, I have my PhD, I'm a historian, all that jazz, but I was absolutely elated to get kind of an insider view from, you know, someone who he he's on, I'm going to forget the name of it off the top of my head, but, uh, one of, uh,

Texas's like state boards uh for history um so i mean he he is a historian maybe not you know professionally trained to be a historian he's professionally trained in the law but you know he he's very much in touch with the history of texas yeah yeah and you know i i always i think this comes out in all the episodes i really like getting people in touch with the way that whether it's pronunciation or to nuances on history, how is it perceived by the people who actually live there? Right. Yeah. And he's definitely got the inside track on that. Yeah.

So he, you know, he volunteered to talk to me. So we had a great phone call before we released the Texas Revolution episode. And anyhow, during that conversation, or no, it must have been after that, obviously, because we hadn't released the episode yet. But at some point, maybe it was on the Office Hours interview, was it? I can't remember. But yeah, he let me know that.

It was on the interview. Oh, it was? There we go. Okay, yeah. He let me know. In a nice way. Oh, yeah, no, no, no, no. It was everything you expect from a Texan gentleman.

Right? Perfect gentleman about it. But certainly brought to my attention, which I always want. You know, if I've got something wrong, please. Yeah. Let us know. We want to be accurate. That's right.

Better to be accurate than, you know, try to do some supposed face-saving thing. I'm not into that crap. Yeah. So, I don't even know where to begin and I wouldn't get it right. I just want you to know

that there are some words said in the Texas Revolution episode. I think we nailed San, no, no, I won't want to say it. San just,

San Jacinto. San Jacinto. That's how Texans say it. In San Jacinto? Yeah. that's how it's said in spanish in spanish and that's correct in spanish texans have see this americanized it this is again to uh to the point right that these local words they come in from one one language they get changed uh as they get anglicized um specifically American Anglicized, right? So,

yeah. Or we just call every place Santa Cruz during the episode. Oh my gosh. That was so funny. Everyone's like, what? Because we cut it all so they didn't really get to hear it. We'll go ahead and acknowledge that real quick. During the Mexican-American

War episode, I don't even know. Several episodes. Several episodes, right? Yeah. We mentioned Veracruz. Well, Greg is from California where it's not Veracruz, it's- It's Santa Cruz. Yep.

I just kept writing or reading every time it was Veracruz. We would be going through the script, literally live recording, and all of a sudden we'd read a sentence and we'd all go, wait, what? They were in Santa Cruz all of a sudden? No, no. Veracruz. Veracruz. Different place, different ocean.

My brain was not okay with, you know, there's but one Santa apparently. And it's cruising. It's cruising. Yeah. Oh, so if you want to know the multitude of pronunciation errors I made on Texas, just go listen to the Office Hours interview with the good judge. Yeah, you'll hear all the corrections. Also, great interview. He's so fascinating.

That was a really fun one. It was fun. It was fun. All right. This one, this isn't, well, let's do the email from Steven and then we'll, we'll flip back to more pronunciation stuff. Is that order okay? Yeah, of course.

But, uh, Steven, our, our good friend in Southwestern, um, PA, he's corresponded with us a bit here and there. And he pointed out that in episode 20, we were trying to make a modern day comparison to how the cotton gin, I think it was, right, had changed the dynamics of the slave economy and basically made slavery. Profitable. Yeah. Profitable. Reinvigorated it.

And so we compared that to fracking, a technological innovation that, you know. Invigorated an industry yeah yeah and he pointed out and i'm so i'm going to go ahead and throw this out there for uh anyone else who who found this interesting i'm just going to quote steven he's so kind in the way he corrected me too i always that's cool that's nice i to quote him itty bitty teensy weensy air of no real historical import. Episode 20, minute 25, second 36. The cotton gin, he's now quoting me, the cotton gin is to short staple cotton as fracking is to oil. He says that should read, quote, fracking is to natural gas. Close quote.

So I guess no one's going to mistake me for having spent my youth on an oil. Or fracking or any fracking experience at all. But so there we go. There's that correction. Okay. Let's talk about that Mexican-American war. Un poco de español.

Si, si. Josh is just going gonna show us up i did feel bad on the episode part four the one that just got released i had some family stuff and i was not able to be here while we were actually recording it which i felt horrible about because the majority of the episode i have lived in the places that we were talking about. I've been there before. But Greg did great with his pronunciation. Oh my gosh.

Yeah, that was hard work for us French speakers. Besides the two minutes of cutting it out before he actually nailed it, he did a really good job. Well, and I guess this is something I kind of feel a need to clarify. I don't know. Josh and I have discussed many times

whether I am bilingual or trilingual, I, I have very bad Spanish. It's good enough to understand a lot of things and communicate ideas. I'm just in that awkward, not quite conversational, but kind of can get around. Exactly. So I don't know. First of all, I mean, to all of our Spanish listeners, I am so apologetic for having butchered your language whenever I did. Great, you tried.

You really did. I did. I think most people probably listen to that. Yeah, people understand. Not bad. Not bad for the- For the guy who speaks French. Yeah, for the gringo.

Yeah. bad for the uh for the guy who speaks french yeah for the gringo yeah um but um i mean we did throw in a full sentence of of spanish with uh part three and yep with um mariano and you know again i i guess if i meet one of you someday if you were to just come up like hola que paso i'm i'm gonna keep up with you for a little bit but do not have great expectations yeah that's all i'm saying i'm gonna lose you yeah yeah so but those are fun episodes oh they were fun and you know i love languages i think that probably comes out right that the fact that i am willing to try yeah of course and the accents that i'm willing to yeah that was another thing that made that episode so difficult was we had a lot of Spanish words.

Then there were some French thrown in there because of the military terms and a lot of military terms were in French. Then we were throwing in the Irish accents and then Southern accents, two different ones. Because we had our Southern gentlemen and then we kind of had our backwoods Southern, more like Tennessee mountain country

as opposed to our Virginia gentlemen. Which these are, by the way, these are actual terms now for us i never thought you know not only before this podcast began but even when did we start going with accents i don't know at some point i realized as i'm reading a script it's helpful yeah yeah in into the quote or the moment or whatever it is i mean you started pretty early because you've got an accent for thomas jefferson i do but i mean even thomas jefferson he doesn't come out in a war yeah it was after the war i think that we started doing that i think so too sorry revolutionary war i should say yeah since we've covered three wars there's only one real war though come on right the important war that's right there's a bunch

of civil war enthusiasts who are freaking out right now we promise we're good you haven't even got to the important war yet um yeah so i mean it's this has been an interesting evolution of the podcast and ongoing thing because i also i'm not interested in trying to do any accents i don't feel like i can land you know um hence i don't know the irish accent i've always felt a little more comfortable with you do a good irish accent the but you know i i have avoided i've kind of changed my intonation at times to help out with with the storytelling when there's different people but i've never tried to do a full-blown English accent when that could have been called for.

And maybe if I had the time, the time to try and practice it and really learn it, that'd be another matter. But I wasn't going to just botch it. We hope people know we're not doing these disrespectfully. Yeah. I do sometimes worry about that. I hope that sorry josh no yeah that's basically what i was saying we don't want to come off disrespectful at all right we're just trying to trying to make the

story connect yeah you know and i mean trying to make the people real well because like andrew jackson for instance i i think i for me, he became more alive. Um, not that I hadn't taught about the guy a million times before this podcast, but when I'm reading his words and I'm attempting to put the accent onto him, that best, you know, that I can best do as a Southern Californian,

you know, South Southwestern United States, uh, you know, all, but a few brief years in new england i've lived in the uh california and utah um but you know i'm trying to bring out this backwoods tennessee sound and for all my shortcomings apologies to anyone in tennessee who's like

dude you suck at this but um we we did reach out to our follower and listener and my um favorite brother-in-law Doug, and he did help a little bit. So that was, that was helpful. Yeah. I mean, yeah, these, these are not things that we've just, you know, yeah. Thrown out there. They're, uh, they're minimally coached, minimally, you know, I guess I don't want to overstate

that, But yeah, I mean, we definitely reference a lot of different accents before we really go with something. All right. I guess all I'm trying to say is, you know, we hope it's working for you people. Let us know. Yeah. Write out, you know, reach out to us. Speak up. Yeah.

And I mean, speaking of that, we've had plenty of people who have spoken up beyond the ones we already have mentioned yeah it's not just people who are looking to correct us some people actually write in and they tell us how bad the show is we want to tell you all about it oh all right so should we uh should we get on some of these other yeah let's do it all right uh cassandra shout out to you we'll get an email from cassandra tell me i pronounced your name wrong no it's it looks pretty straightforward i'm pretty sure that's cassandra yeah pretty sure in taos new mexico so um are we just are we reading this one yeah yeah go ahead and read it all right cassandra's own words here we go her email first and foremost let me express

how ecstatic i am that my home was mentioned in your last episode. Our town is full of incredible history and often overlooked. I'm going to interject really quickly. I have heard that from a number of, you know, we won't mention them all on the podcast. We can't mention every single email that we get, which is cool to be at that point. That was definitely not the case a year ago. You know, but i wasn't well but i've i've heard from a lot of people in the western united states that as we've been doing these episodes on the

oregon trail california trail mormon trail you know mexican american war a lot of like hey it's it's nice to you know see my part of the country actually get represented. There is this cool history that does connect to what's going on in the nation. And, you know, we often feel overlooked here. So thanks for not blowing us off. Yeah. And you know what? You're welcome, people. That's right.

You're welcome, Tess. That's right. So back to Cassandra's words, though, quoting her again. Something I wanted to mention, however, is the lack of coverage regarding how the U.S. Army attacked the Pueblo. I think it's important to mention that the casualties were largely people seeking sanctuary in the San Geronimo Church. The U.S. Army fired cannons point blank, killing those inside, many who were women, children, and elderly. Thank you so much for your frank

coverage of the events and the aftermath i'm a huge fan of the podcast we're a huge fan of you cassandra that's right uh thank you yeah you know and obviously she's referencing which episode would that be so she's referencing uh that's episode two that's part two part two of the mexican-amer American War yeah 34 34 yeah 34 it is so she's referencing when the US Army

goes after the Taos rebels yes and they have taken refuge in this church and she's right we didn't cover it very much

we I think it got a paragraph it's just a few minutes in the episode and yeah it's a great detail which is just is just something

we have to do sometimes I know I know we just can't tell every single cool story but I really like that she emailed us and yeah it's a great detail is uh it's just something we have to do sometimes i know you know i know you just can't tell every single cool story but i really like that she emailed us and gave us these details because she's right it was a brutal attack it was definitely um i don't think we would call it today what's the military term i'm looking for a proportional response i don't think it was proportional response so they were out to crush the rebels and they did. And they, yeah, they killed a lot of people, not just formal members of the rebellion in the process. Civilians and vulnerable civilians.

I mean, we do categorically tend to think of children of the elderly. Right. Right. And women as well. Maybe that's not, I don't know, in the 21st century. Yeah, but culturally at the time, they are a vulnerable part of the population. Yeah, think about like Andrew Jackson says, you know, in his campaign or not his campaign in particular, as we're discussing the election of 1828, when one of the editors goes after John Quincy's wife. Remember, Jackson says,

I never wage war against females. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. And so, you know, definitely in the era, especially. Yeah. In the era, it's very few and far between to find a woman who has the social place to defend herself.

Right. Because most of the time they didn't. So. So thanks, Cassandra. Yeah. Thanks, Cassandra. On that super uplifting note. Super positive note.

Ed. Oh, this email is awesome. This is a great email. My Antarctica brother. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. We officially have hit every continent now.

Yes, we have. Yes, we have. I don't know how many podcasts can say that, huh? Yeah. I'm sure there's a couple. Oh, there have to be, of course. But there's not a lot of people down there. So, you know, ed uh works down there and he let us know that he um

downloaded we'll just read a just a little snippet little snippets yeah but he said to quote ed you have now had at least one listener in antarctica which i'm now nervous that i can't say the continent correctly because i'll get an email from ping let and let me know I'm jacked it up. It's Ant-Art-Tica. That's how you say it. I feel so afraid to pronounce words at this point. Okay, but continuing on. I thought that might be a nice statistic to add to your viewership.

It is, Ed. Continuing with him though it was nice to have something to keep my mind active and keep away boredom for my extended stay at my field site collecting ice cores it's a fantastic mix of great information and entertainment again thanks for your hard work and dedication i now plan to start the office hours episodes and continue awaiting your new episodes to come out. Boom. Yeah. Boom indeed. So thanks, Ed.

Yes. That was high praise. And why are you collecting ice cores? Dude, that's awesome. Like right back into us. That sounds amazing. I know. Well, he did. I emailed back and forth on a little bit more.

You wanted details. Of course I did. Yeah. And I mean, honestly, it connects to history. He is looking at ice that froze before the Industrial Revolution. No way. Yes. Yeah.

Yeah. And seeing the anthropological, nope, that's not the word he used. It's not anthropological effect. It's just the effect of human industrialization on. Yes. The atmosphere, the ice freezing. Now I sound. We look forward to correcting our we're history majors um yeah as as my wife often says we have phd it's not the kind that help

people so don't don't expect me to yeah uh ed's helping people ed that is uh really uh that that email made my day i remember when we saw that but who would ever think you'd have someone listening in antarctica yeah there we are all right um and then uh jason yeah finish up just just uh jason little email yep uh last of the emails here but jason who's in upstate new york um thought it'd be fun to throw this out because i'm sure this happens maybe not even with the particular with the with this specific episode which he's writing on the mormonism one but i'm sure this has happened with a number of other episodes uh to different listeners but he says that i i don't think I have much to quote by here, but

he drives by Joseph Smith's old haunts up in Palmyra, New York, fairly regularly. And so he was just really, you know, jazzed to finally have some understanding of what on earth. Yeah, have a little more context. Yeah, a little more historical context. Yeah, what this is. I'm sure he probably had some, you know. Yeah.

I understand. But, you know, to go a bit deeper and get like the second great awakening, you know. The burned over districts. Yeah, they're players of the time. Yeah.

Yeah. So anyhow, Jason, glad you enjoyed it, sir. Yeah, thanks for letting us know um we like that kind of stuff if more people like have drove by stuff yeah like shoot us a little message or email we like that kind of stuff yeah it's really cool and if you're interested in knowing more about those sorts of things these these fun little details like uh mile markers with you know nods to the history that happened there or extra stuff that we don't always put in the episode yeah yeah um then well this is what we give our patrons so if you were to go to patreon.com forward slash history that

doesn't suck this is the five dollar tier uh five dollars a month so for instance the last episode with uh the you know the fourth episode on mexican american war we sent um we had a picture of the plaque that honors the san patricios yep and so you can actually like if you're ever traveling yeah like if you're ever if you're traveling mexico you can go see it. You can look it up. We did a picture of the mural that honors one of the now- Juan Pesquitero. Yes. Yeah. No, I'm going to say it wrong.

Los Niños- Los Niños Héroes. Héroes. Yeah. I would have jumped in, but now that Josh is here, no. No. No. Right?

Yes. So again, if you're ever traveling and you want to go see that mural in real life, now you know about it from the Patreon extras that we offer. And we try to offer those. Well, we do offer them with every episode. And we try to do the insights, the cool details behind the scenes that didn't make it into the episode. They're really cool.

Yeah. Sometimes excerpts of scripts that we wrote and then realized, you know what? This just isn't going to make it. That's not going to fit. Yeah. Yeah. So it's just cool backstory. Yep.

Yeah. We'll throw that in there. On different historical figures or yeah. Really Patreon is the way that we really, we appreciate everybody who listens to the show

and supports the show in ways that they don't want to pay and that's totally fine. Yep. Patreon is the way that we're gonna really get to the next level and i'm not saying that to to say hey come on get to patreon but

we're kind of at you know our maximum that we can go in terms of time resources and everything like that yeah so it really goes a long way i'm like i'm not even kidding a dollar month means a ton to us but you know and clearly we're, we're talking Patreon at this point. So let's just go ahead and wrap this up real quick. I mean, we have specific things that we would like to bring out. CL and I have talked about getting a green screen going. Yeah, we will really be bringing history to life a bit here. Yep.

If we get that going we need a bit more support to make that seriously cool pioneer bonnet you guys i'm gonna work that stuff it's gonna be awesome um clips that we'd be able to get on youtube that we just we don't have the time to to shoot we don't have the time to to chop everything up and make little clips of it so i mean if those things sound good to you, if you would be interested in basically seeing SNL style, high quality history, that's where we'd like to go with this. You know, head on over to Patreon, throw us a buck a month. We want to improve already what we're doing as well, right?

Not just extra stuff. So that means more camera angles during office hours and making that look way better than that single shot camera that we got going on well and like in in this very last episode you know um we got we got pipers uh in for the rogues march that that tune uh that's me playing uh i think well i'm sure most people don't know the uh opening outro music that's me i'm playing the guitar and your sister the bass yeah and my sister um i uh she she plays the violin so thanks to my kid sister there you know these are she appreciates being called your kid sister still oh that that is a long-standing tradition okay she's she's kid she knows that doesn't matter

that she's you know married four kids yep owns a home doesn't matter she's kid. She knows that doesn't matter that she's, you know, married for kids. Yep. Owns a home. Doesn't matter. She's always kid. Yep. It's term of endearment. Yeah, sure. Don't judge in my family dynamics.

Sorry, Greg. That's right. That's right. So, I mean, if all those things sound like, hey, you know, I'm enjoying this podcast. I'd love to see visually what this trio can bring to life. You know, if you'd like to have more, you know, if there's a music to the era that we could bring into the episodes. I mean, there are sound effects that we have thought about and talked about, but we have to go with kind of stock sound effects we just don't have the time and means i would love to create sound effects yeah yeah to have time to make that cool gunshot sound or yeah the battle sound i mean there's every episode i potentially

could do probably double the amount of sound effects i don't know if that's even what anybody would even want to hear but well so like this next episode that will come uh in two weeks from when this one's released um is going to be the an opening uh the opening scene is uh unless something changes but what we're planning on right now is uh the successful slave revolt on uh the amistad uh yeah a spanish trade ship yeah that's smuggling slaves so they're gonna break their their padlock and slip out and things are gonna get crazy and there's so many sound effects i can already hear my head and going oh man i want to do a b c d and e and we're just gonna hope that there are stock sound effects so or that i can work

some type of magic in making it so well you can work magic but yeah we just we had more support on patreon yeah you can work even more magic that's right just some thoughts you know we'll throw those out there uh we have the extras that you can get into but also you know if you we are ready to take this to another level we just need some love yeah and we'd love your support yeah it helps us to go places meet and greets and figure out all that kind of stuff too and conferences and yep seeing fans anyway in fact we are heading to a conference in orlando a podcast conference in august we would be happy to arrange a meet and greet uh for those of you in the area.

So look forward to that. We'll kind of announce things as things get closer, but yeah, August. But if you're in the area or you think you might be in the area in, in fact, what are the exact dates? It's about August 13th through the 16th. Yeah. Shoot us a line. I mean, help us get a feel for, you know, are there some cool places to check out 20, 50 of you that would be interesting meeting up

yeah go to Disney World together yeah cause Josh would love that just kidding Josh doesn't like amusement parks

that's right now everyone hates Josh we're just gonna blame Josh that's right I'm the scapegoat you know for for everything. It's okay. As long as you've made peace with that.

So, all right. Uh, let's, uh, let's continue on here. Yeah. All right.

Should we get onto kind of big overview? Yeah, let's do it. These last 10 episodes of volume three, the, the age of Jackson volume, as I like to think of it. All right.

So, I mean, first of all, let's just talk about that term, Age of Jackson. Why we're calling it that. Well, it's really different, right? Because Andrew Jackson is the first president who doesn't come from these dynasties that have ruled the country. So, dynamics shift dramatically as he comes to be the president. Because we go from this age where virginia gentlemen are our presidents except for the adams yes it's basically yeah elite virginians also the adamses yes one term one term each that's it great presidents good men uh yeah but that's it i mean andrew jackson is the first common man

when he gets elected it's more um there are more enfranchised people in the united states than there have ever been and there's a a significantly higher rate of voter turnout than you'd suspect yeah um and then is common today well and yeah and part of this, it's not just, well, as you said, CL, it's greater enfranchisement. A lot of states have laws where they're limiting the vote, not just to white men, but white men who own- Own property. Yeah.

And not just own property, own a certain amount of property. Significant property, yeah. So your little cabin shanty, that's not going to happen in a lot of cases. But that's shifting as we get into the Jacksonian era. So we have more

and this is scaring a lot of the old elites. They see democracy as it's killing the republic. Infringement on our power. Yeah. Yeah. They want a republic. You're right. It's infringement on our power yeah yeah yeah they wanted a republic you're right it's infringing on the power they are they frame that as it's killing the republic right right where the the republican form of government is specifically meant to offset

the anarchy that democracy can bring that's that's how they how they view it yeah and you know i mean if you were to think all the way back to episode, was it 15, I believe, the Philly Convention? Yes. You know, and I don't even remember if we included every single quote. I'm sure we didn't. No, that wouldn't be possible.

But we had a number of founding fathers, including Alexander Hamilton, that we cited who, you know, are making some, might I just say, disparaging comments about direct democracy. Yeah. They're scared of it.

They are. They're terrified, in fact. You know, they see tyranny from the bottom as just as scary as tyranny from the top. Right. So for the old guard, the Jacksonian era is, you know, it's opening up basically to the unwashed masses in a way, which even as we look back as 21st century Americans are like, are you serious? Yeah.

I mean, people of color can't vote. Women don't vote. How is this? How is this okay? Yeah. Well, and we would like value like a grassroots movement, right? Like the people getting behind a cause and really making a change and making that happen. That's something that's valuable to 21st century Americans.

Not in this day and age. I mean, it is. It's just that none of those people have a vote. None of those people have a voice. And so with the age of Jackson, that starts to shift. Let's be clear. It doesn't shift a lot, but it starts to shift to more enfranchisement than there's been before and jackson is the embodiment of that because as you're saying cl right like here's this here's

this backwoods dude and he is ascending to the white house yeah and you know i mean it's the sort of thing that would just make um and a true elite you you know. Cringe. Absolutely, yeah. Yeah. You know, like drop their porcelain cup. Teacup. Yeah. Yep. So we're into the age of Jackson here,

and it does encapsulate all the last episodes we talked about because his influence also far outlasts his presidency. Right. I mean, he is the kingmaker in many ways you know martin van buren is jackson's protege even as we get into polk polk is all of these the you know all these powerful well polk's the last powerful president before lincoln yeah but you know like nicholas trist who is the negotiator for the end ending the mexican american war served as president jackson's personal secretary after jackson fired his grandson-in-law but you know that's another story but no nicholas trist even is influenced by and a protege of andrew jackson and there he is ending the Mexican-American war, making the treaty for it.

Well, and geez, let's also think about Texas for a second. I mean, Sam Houston. Yeah, definite protege of Andrew Jackson. Yeah, when Andrew Jackson, sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off. Oh, no, no. That was what I was going to say. Until his marriage fell apart. Yeah. And then he decided to go on a bender with uh oh which tribe was that with oh i can't remember which tribe it was i just remember that they called him big drunk big drunk that is basically sam houston was a frat boy for two years after his marriage fell apart uh in the most stereotypical ways so but point being i mean do you get more protege than having andrew jackson

be your personal dueling coach yeah you know and that's sam houston he he has one duel you know set up and out comes andrew well i'm sure how's it done son yep you know yep and andrew would know i was gonna say yeah he's got experience. Yeah. Quite a lot. It still has the ball in it. Did he have the ball in his shoulder at that point? I think he did. I think he still did. I think he did. Can you imagine just, obviously there are people like that today who walk around with some sort of, you know, scars and scars, but just yeah, there's a freaking ball. I mean, that's what they were. You know, There's a ball just under your shoulder embedded in there.

Maybe that's why he was always a little bit cranky. I don't know. My shoulder this morning. That's right. I guess we know which side of the bed he did not sleep on. Yeah. Okay. So point being though, I mean, Andrew has an enormous influence on his successors. Yeah, yeah, for several presidencies to come. So I guess now's a good time to give a shout out to Steve Garrett from the podcast Within the Realm, right? Yes.

So what did he email us? What did he say? So he just messaged us. Steve, in college, basically, the Mexican-American War was his jam. Okay, like that is what he studied. Studied, yeah. And he loved all four of our episodes on it. In fact, his podcast, I mean, it's storytelling.

It's not history per se, but you can see that same sort of um you know interest coming out um the most recent episode of his i listened to was an interview an interview uh he himself steve doesn't drink but he interviewed a a whiskey collector and connoisseur and the guy just got into all all into the stories of you know each bottle he he has he's got this room with like a fake wall i kid you not that like that's all gives away and it's just whiskey bottles floor to ceiling oh my gosh every bottle has a story He has, he's got this room with like a fake wall. I kid you not. That's awesome. That like gives away. And there's just whiskey bottles floor to ceiling. Oh my gosh.

Every bottle has a story behind it. Anyhow, so that's kind of Steve's thing. And he just said, look, I mean, you nailed it on the Mexican-American War. And then the other thing that I thought was cool, I'm going to blink on which tribe, but he has some. Cherokee. It was Cherokee. Yeah. i'm gonna blank on which tribe but he has some uh cherokee it was cherokee yeah um some cherokee heritage and um obviously i not i want to make sure we say this exactly right not saying the indian removal was okay terrible um and he wasn't talking about that but he said you know the um obviously with that history it's it's uncomfortable dealing with Jackson. I don't have Cherokee blood.

I'm uncomfortable dealing with that. But he appreciated the humanizing that we were able to kind of show Andrew as a human being, but also without overstepping and somehow not- Aggrandizing. Yeah, not acknowledging the Indian removal and. Which I actually, no, I agree with Steve. Going through and learning this history as we've researched it and outlined the episodes.

Honestly, I, yeah. Sorry, go ahead, Josh. No, it humanized Andrew for me as well. And it's not to, it's not to say the choices he made were good we also part of that humanizing is recognizing stupid choices choices he shouldn't have made and the good ones that he did right but it's it's encapsulating who he was as a human being and showing that rather than just he was this president that you know did x y or z well and so my interview with Daniel

from the Age of Jackson podcast on Office Hours, which I assume will be out by the time this is out. Yes. Yes. Yes. If not, it'll be close to, but- No, it won't. He made-

Actually. It won't. Okay, so coming shortly, Daniel pointed out, and this is one of the things I'm really enjoying about doing this podcast. Yeah, I knew this history, the things I'm really enjoying about doing this podcast. Yeah, I knew this history, and now I feel like I really know this history as we keep researching and talking with other people. That Indian removal is perpetuated by other presidents as well, presidents that we think are cool, that we're okay with. And Jackson, though, kind of ends up being the one who holds the bag.

And again, it's not to say that it was okay what he did. But it's interesting that we've kind of fixated, which is a human thing. On one president, we can kind of be like, he's the nasty one. Against. Because President Grant, who also allows Indian removal to occur, is the good guy, so to speak. Right. He's the one who won the war civil war hero yeah and i have to say i mean as you say i was going okay i had not these are good points that i need

to now kind of meditate on right you know and i'd hope this is something everyone's getting it um as we go through this podcast it's we presenting the best that we can in the history to you. We're not telling you what to think about it. We want to present it to you and you can gain your own conclusions. Right. And in those conclusions, you can realize like people are complicated. Yeah. Right?

So you've got this Christmas episode where Andrew Jackson is just this amazing loving man to these orphans and great grandfather to his kids and his grandkids. And then you read about it or listen to in other episodes. Oh, when his granddaughter didn't agree with him, he kicked her out of the White House along with. Right. Yeah. Like, it's just anyway, it's not his granddaughter. I'm sorry.

It's his adopted daughter-in-law that he kicks out of the White House. Why am I blanking on her name? Donaldson's wife. Yeah. Emily emily there it is yeah uh just like the rest of us i mean we don't all happen to be presidents of a country but you know humans are complicated yeah humans are complicated and history we often at least when we get into like popular culture you know we don't um we don't always have the time or or the desire perhaps to get into the nuances and and it's easier for our brains to process kind of good guy bad guy uh rather than realize like oh well our good guys do bad things and our bad guys sometimes do good things right and maybe it's hard to even say whether someone fits into

camp a or b right and i think that trying to pigeonhole people into camp a or b is probably a um a good way to miss out on the nuance and the detail of their life well have we jacksoned it up enough there definitely have let's let's let's settle let's settle uh out west obviously if you want us to go into more detail on any of this stuff you should go check out office hours that's where we do that we're just doing big overview here yeah um so texas uh we've kind of touched on a little bit um then go listen to the episode with judge ken wise yes they can um and uh so let's just move on with, I guess, the pioneers. Absolutely.

And we'll kind of touch on Texas as we talk about the Mexican-American War. Right. Right. Because it's a big. It causes it. We're going there. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, it does. It does. At first I was thinking, well, the Texas Revolution is, but yes, then the land. Yeah. Yeah. This claimed down to the Rio Grande. Yeah. Ridiculous.

I know we just did a shout out to Steve Garrett, but shout out to Chris Caldwell. Yes. The teacher's history of the United States. Yes. Chris had me on recently. So yeah, let's mention Chris before we shift into the Pioneers. And we nerded out over, I did one of his extra credit episodes, as he calls it, where we went deep on the Constitution, which of course is always a good time for me yeah of course love love doing that um chris is basically a cut deeper than us which his show yeah his show yeah in fact this was fun he was telling me i was

talking to him yesterday he got an email from someone who said i enjoy your podcast you're kind of too detailed like the girl's too slow he's been doing this a year or two longer than us and he's just gotten to the constitutional uh you know he's just finished the constitution he's just getting into washington's first administration oh my goodness yeah he is a cutter too deeper than us yeah yeah and so he wrote her back though and said you know what totally get what you mean uh I think history that doesn't suck is what you're looking for. And then she wrote him back and said, you nailed it. That's exactly the pace I wanted. So, you know, it's just.

Oh, thanks, Chris. Yeah. I was going to say thanks. Yeah. So it's been kind of fun to see that, you know, we definitely have a lot of overlap. So I will say, you know, if you're enjoying history that doesn't suck, you might want to check out Chris. Oh, definitely. It's an awesome podcast.

I love listening to it. And, you know, it's, they're good companions they go together well i'm sure uh you'll it won't be the last that either his his audience or you know you find people will hear from from both of us there's gonna be some collaboration going on there in the future yeah but to pioneers who are badasses pretty much yes they are and that uh you know we just talked about complexities and i think that's the big takeaway i would i would mention again with with the pioneers is that um they are they are badasses no question like what they are doing i think about the opening to our oregon trail episode i mean there's a reason we went with that one it was so this poor woman her kid freaking drinks

the medicine uh-huh dies and she gives birth what three days later in the back of this you know it's dirty and gross wagon it is and then she's she's back on the trail yeah back on the trail they're hauling her down in yeah her idea of a break is going to be in the back of this wagon as it's jolted over rocks yeah yeah yeah rutted trail and it's not like being the back of a car just smooth you know 70 miles an hour just chill, I'm trying to think if we brought this out entirely in the episode, but as I recall, they had hit a specific like downward slope that was the sort of thing where they weren't even really going down. Like it wasn't

rolling. It was the sort of thing where it's like. Oh, they've got the wheels locked and they've got the ropes from behind. So, I mean, could you imagine laying in that holding your hours old baby? You're still bleeding. I'm sure. Not to get too graphic. See,

I think you probably know a little bit better than I do. No, a little bit more about giving birth. I mean, yeah, I'm just going to go out on a limb and throw that out there. Done it a few times. It's not that fun, but no,

you know, the crazy thing about that story is, is right. They're going down the trail and it's, she times. It's not that fun. But no, you know, the crazy thing about that story is, right, they're going down the trail and she's not unique in any way. Right. This woman, she's not unique. She's lost children. A lot of women on the trail lost children. She's had a baby on the trail. A lot of women had babies on the trail. There's a story of the first wagon train that makes it over the Sierras on the California Trail. They have to chain lift their wagons up over these 20-foot granite boulders that are the Sierras. If you've ever driven on the 80 and you've driven over the Sierra Mountains, Sierra Nevada Mountains, you know exactly what I'm talking about. But there's just these huge granite boulders and

there's no way over except to lift the wagons. So one guy says to his wife who has a six-day-old baby, you get in the back of the wagon. I don't want you walking up over these rocks, which is what everyone else is doing is they're scrabbling up over the rocks. And she says, okay, fine. They start to hoist this wagon up by chains. She starts screaming, let me out, let me out. I'm going to die because some of the wagons are crashing. And so they lower the wagon back down. She gets out. She crawls up these boulders with her baby in her arms and walks over the Sierras while they hoist their wagons over the Sierras. I mean, these women are crazy amazing. Like, I think I wasn't even walking when my twins were six days old

I'm pretty sure I wasn't walking pretty sure I was laying in a bed while people brought stuff to me and hoped I didn't die I'm just

like it's just crazy to me yeah so anyway yeah these these women are badasses there's no other word for it this is awesome I'm just glad

I'm not your child I'm just picturing like but mom it's cold outside. I don't want to walk to school. Well, suck it up because here's what happened. That is exactly what I say. I am so that mom. Instead of doing the, when I was your age, well, back in 1847.

Listen, let me tell you about your pioneer ancestors. You get your butt on that bike and ride your bike to school i actually drive my children to school because i'm i'm not all i'm almost not that mom i'm kind of that she's kind of that mom yeah i kind of am yeah anyway yeah but um i mean for for all that though it's also not to say that um displacement of indigenous people isn't happening. I mean, we saw that with Oregon, that this cycle of violence that happens between white settlers and the indigenous peoples as they come in. I mean, I'm going to have to say understandable after X number of settlers show up and keep just building on your land. And after countless broken promises, right?

Exactly. Like how many deals did the original pioneers make that they renege on? And then the other pioneers show up and go, well, I don't like that promise and I'm not gonna keep it. Yeah. Well, and so you can see where it happens.

This is part of the kind of the group dynamic, the idea of shirking, right? Where you don't really have some, by and large, right? I mean, malicious people exist, but you don't really have malicious pioneers who are showing up thinking, here's how I'm going to carefully, you know, lie and purposely, I mean, there's some of it.

Yeah, there's some people doing that, but not the majority. But yeah, this dynamic of one group makes an agreement, but then they come to the next and they're like, well, I didn't agree to this, so I'm not going to abide by that. And then that continues to wash over again and again and again. The indigenous peoples just are getting screwed over every single time yeah then when when violence erupts if it happens on one of these more recently arrived people uh settlers they're not grasping the gravity of how in how many ways this this tribe has already been screwed over right and so it seems to them to circle back to another word it seems like a disproportional

response which then perpetuates the idea within the settler communities that the indigenous peoples are extremely violent or, you know, uncivilized, et cetera. And so you can just see how this all is a terrible cycle. Right. Is that.

Yeah, that's exactly right. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's pretty fair. It's just another example in history of the juxtaposition. Both narratives can be factual and truth, right? Pioneers are pretty badass for what they're doing.

They're also displacing indigenous peoples as they're moving westward. Both of those things are true. And as I say that, I do want to not overstate i mean i can remember reading some primary sources of you know one uh for one one instance on the oregon trail where uh a man um shoots a um an indian woman for sport yeah like just horrible just yeah i mean so clearly he's a terrible human being now the way that plays out is that the tribe actually is close enough to have seen this uh some braves roll on up to the wagon party and basically say okay who shot her because we demand justice and i don't know if it was because of the group dynamic of realizing they were outnumbered or if it was out

of their own sense of justice but the settlers go yeah it was him yeah yeah they give him up yeah they give him up and you know then justice is very much exacted. I'm trying to remember how he was killed, but I remember it was very not fun. It was brutal. It was brutal. Yeah. I was either boiling or skinning of some sort. Oh, my gosh.

And. I mean, there's the cycle again, right? We've seen it play out. So that's another positive note. Ending on that. Ending on that. So we've talked about the trail in general. I guess a few things to say,

because we definitely got some comments on the Mormonism episode. So let's address that uh briefly the uh mormons are the you know they're a great example within the oregon trail what's the example on the oregon trail they're playing by their examples off the oregon trail a protestant 19th century america not jiving with uh nonProtestant thinking. Right. Yeah.

That's what pushes the Mormons onto the trail in the first place is that, hey, we just can't find a place where people will accept us. You know, their religious beliefs are pretty outside the box. They make a lot of people uncomfortable. They're pretty vocal about their beliefs. They make a lot of people uncomfortable with their, and they're, they, you know, everywhere they move in,

they get a bunch of political power because there's a lot of them. Because there's a lot of them. That scares people. And then they don't, they don't line up with everybody else's religious and political views. And they just get kicked from place to place. And even as they, you know, you notice that the worst of it really happens in Missouri.

Because then that's where we get an added dynamic of Mormons primarily coming from a northern background. And that's mixing with, here's this state that was very particularly made into a slave state through compromise in 1820. Right. And that is not to say that, i want to reiterate this i'm pretty sure we covered this in the episode mormons are not abolitionists not overstating you know right um there um there are some mormons that are slaveholders there are some that aren't yeah uh in fact i um i remember teaching uh a course at uh at uvu on um it was on islam and mormonism we're you know a comparative religion course interesting well you guys both know i have a minor field at least yeah josh josh knows it. Josh knows it was interesting. Yeah.

Yeah. So, I mean, it actually evolved out of a number of semesters where when I was teaching Middle Eastern history courses, students saying- Well, this is like- Yeah. And, you know, because, of course, it's not a Mormon school, but there's a lot of Mormons there. Because it's in Utah. Yeah.

Yeah. You know, just as if we're in Texas, you know, I'm sure there's a, an evangelical or two in a university there. Right. And so, you know, a lot of them are like, you know, I'd love to go deeper. So finally I went ahead and developed this course where we could just really talk through the two faith systems, which are super different in some ways and super similar in others. Um, but, uh, really the origin origin stories that's where a lot of the similarities come from okay anyhow yeah you're like so what's your point greg point is one of my students um he uh pipes up one day as we were talking about the 1847 uh arrival of brigham young and his crew and uh says yeah my um fifth great grandfather was on that train as a slave yeah because one of the men that comes across the trail with brigham young in the advance party figuring out where they're going to settle yep right he brings two slaves i think it might have been three but yeah i think you're right about that i think it is three. He brings his slaves with him. Yeah, and one of those slaves' fifth or sixth great-grandson.

Was in your class? Yeah, took, was that the semester you took a job? I'm pretty sure. Yeah. Rings a bell. Yeah. But, yeah, so point being, Mormons. Mormons are not necessarily anti-slavery.

They are a diverse group. But they do primarily come from the North and that does worry Missourians. Yeah, so you add that, right? So we already see that division going on in the country, like we're ramping up to these conflicts over slavery. And then you add on the non-Protestant component. And then you put them in large numbers

where they're able to, you know, quickly have major influence on the vote. I mean, with Ohio, right? That's when violence really erupted in Ohio and ultimately Mormons went, okay, this isn't working without a bail. It was when Mormons started holding most of the elected offices. That was the big like, you know, what turned the corner. Right, right. So. Yeah, but it's not to say that Mormons are the only people who get that kind of treatment. They aren't.

I mean, the violence against Catholics at the same time, these exact same decades, it's brutal. It's brutal. There are Protestant mobs that go into irish and german catholic um slums these all these catholic immigrants and just drag them out of their homes and kill them and beat them and yeah it's it's it's awful it's awful i do think that's something we um we kind of tend to forget about a little bit in u.s history is uh we're kind of tend to sort of think that Christians, you know, or anyone that taps into, into that tradition of any sort is all kind of cool and it's been fine. Yeah.

We're all in the same boat, right? Yeah. And we kind of forget like, no, we kind of sort of got to that page a little bit in the 20th century. I mean, you know, we'll get to JFK eventually. That was, it was uncomfortable in the, in the 60 the 60s yeah he was our first catholic president yeah so um i guess the uh you know the one thing we'll also point out um we had a number of people that kind of wanted us to go on a little different tangents go deeper on yeah yeah um so we got questions about whether or not uh joseph

smith as he was firing um in the jail the the day that he was killed and as he was fighting back uh with his uh with his little pistol um whether or not he uh killed anybody or didn't um got a question by his translation process as he's coming um as he's creating scripture yeah yeah he has new scripture he's bringing out um these are all fascinating things and there's some fascinating things that we originally had in the script that got cut um from the failed bank and i'll just call it bank. It's technically not a bank, but in Kirtland, Ohio, that was in and out of the script like twice, I think. More details on Joseph's private life with, in particular, his, shall we say legal wife? Yes, with Emma.

First wife, however you want to think of that. Emma, yeah. Emma, I mean, I really wanted to be able to talk talk about emma a little bit but the fact is we were looking at mormon mormons as a part of the oregon trail migration right westward expansion yeah right and emma doesn't go west she does not so yeah so so if all that to say if you want to go deeper there are some great resources out there so check out our bibliography um we've got great books that will go deeper on all of that background and all those details. There are some other good podcasts out

there for you. Of course, we can catch up on the bibliography on our website. Again, please go to Patreon so that we have time to update our bibliography. It really is impressive, I promise. Yes. And the index that's forthcoming. Yes. Yeah. One day. Yeah. It's in the works. It is. It's all in the the works it's all on pause too so um yeah and there there are some great other podcasts just we're us survey right i get it we happen to be in utah we happen to descend from these people but this is not a mormonism podcast so it's a one episode it's it's a survey yeah yeah so um it uh i mean i feel good about the the details that we got in there um oh yeah i think we did a good job of getting giving good background but again if

you'd like to go deeper there are other resources for you yeah all right um should we um should mexican american war this up i so. I think we're there. All right. I think so too. Kind of circling back to Texas. You know, it's, it's messy.

I mean, it's really messy. So, so here's where I guess I'd say it's, it's really messy on Texas. And then this gets less and less nuanced

as we talk about California and New Mexico where that's pretty just blatant land grab. Pretty much. I mean, when you list E.S. Grant, you know, I really like his quote from his memoirs. And there's a reason we included it in our last episode on Mexican-American War, where he basically just says, you know, that was not a moral war that we waged. Right. And if I'd had the guts to stand up and resign my commission,

I would have. But I didn't. I didn't have the guts and I participated and I didn't agree. I appreciate that he doesn't, well, and you pointed this out to me CL. Let's give credit where credit's due. I appreciate that he doesn't well and you pointed this out to me cl let's let's give credit where credit's due i i appreciate that he doesn't make excuses yeah um he he just owns that hey uh if i had more moral fiber i would not have participated in that war right well now josh you pointed something out interesting to me when i was doing research on the war so we're talking

about this war right and we've got this complicated complicated Texas boundary fight, and that's what starts it, right? But then to win the war, Americans realize, well, it's General Winfield Scott who realizes we're just going to have to take Mexico City. And so he lands at Veracruz and he marches across, goes west to Mexico City, right? Well, I guess it's a little northwest-ish. Northwest-ish. right well i guess it's a little northwest northwest yeah but you are the one who pointed out to me first this is the exact same trail that cortez marches and i i want to caveat that i'm not 100 sure it's true back trail no no it's true i found it in three books but you were the first person to point it out to me and everybody else else has pointed it out, right? So not only are we taking this country to shreds, but we're doing it the exact same way as the conquistadors.

So give me the details on Cortez's march, Josh, because I don't know that much about it. This episode's got three hours long. Right? We're kidding. We're already an hour over. What year does he land like 15 19 okay no sorry sorry sorry he's before that okay well which which landing exactly

which landing you tell me i'm just gonna sum it up because literally this is like what i wrote my thesis on i know and you're the expert so we're gonna like just do a brief but yeah you're right they take the same trail um cortez does land of vera cruz there's some other things that go down before that okay where he's landed um and he makes his way inward okay westward but he gets indigenous help big misconception is that interesting cortez lands and just starts blows it up blows every no no no cortez would have got his butt whooped if he had not gained lots of indigenous help, which is what he did. Okay. And yeah,

it makes his way all the way in. My real focus and specialty is on Tlaxcala, which everyone's like, I don't have no idea what any of this is. Where's that? It's inward in Mexico. Okay. And it's just below Mexico City,

but yeah. And then moves into Mexico City and we have all the Tenochtitlan and all that stuff. It's not Mexico City yet. It's Tenochtitlan. Right. But to bring it back to what we're talking about now, yeah, they take the exact same trail. And it's funny because when we got to the end of the episode, I remember thinking, that's pretty messed up.

Mm-hmm. Well, I'm just I didn't dawn on me even though I knew we were talking about the same places and where they're headed. I mean, even in part four, I mentioned this earlier in this episode that we talk about all these places that I have lived. I lived and took the metro station Churubusco every day. We talk about Churubusco, right? I've seen many, not just the one we talk about in the episode but other plaques and historical things

that are going back to ninos era ways and the the monuments to them and the monuments to them and and people uh celebrating their history in the in this way right and so anyway it's just crazy to think uh well i won't make that comment okay well but i another parallel is actually just striking me and i mean i'd love both of you to weigh in on this um you know the the aztec empire is sometimes spoken of very simplistically as though uh cortez was blowing through and i'm not somehow trying to justify cortez right right but like he's blowing through this super peaceful kind benevolent yeah everyone's coming in come on in yeah right but the reason that he gets indigenous help is because the aztecs correct me josh they can be pretty brutal in the way they're kicking everyone else's ass right i

mean so they're like oh you're gonna you're gonna stop them from reminding didn't they if tribes didn't pay up uh there's a tribute there's a tribute that's enacted it was like rape the women kill the men i mean it was pretty yeah earlier on it's more uh so it's funny because there's i don't want to go on a diatribe of like aztec political systems and sure they influence people but but do it but i'll give you the snippet so they um and i'm talking specifically about tenochitlanlan so this is where modern right so this is your specific yeah yeah and it's not considered you know mexico city during this time it's teno chitlan and they are the biggest governing power during this time when

cortez is coming in and what they're doing is going out and keep in mind they're not going far right so if you pictured like almost like a target the the influence of their kingdom kind of slowly dissipates as we get farther out right because this is the parallel i want to go with by the way i think you see where i'm going yeah you can't control you can't march an army thousands of miles down to whatever pueblo may hey you guys are out of control i just one way don't have the resources the time the, the people, whatever, right? Right, well, the difficult terrain to say nothing. Or the enough people to defend where I still need to defend because I'm getting attacked by people

who don't agree with what's going on with us. So usually what it was is they sent envoys initially saying, hey, we would love to protect you, part of our kingdom. You're gonna have to pay some tribute. And if people nicely said no then the next they literally give them three or four times well the next time we're gonna come around we're gonna bring some people with us we'll let you guys think about it they

say no again this is your last warning we're gonna show up next time with an army and we're gonna make you pay okay and that's where we get to what i'm remembering you're remembering where they say no again okay it's time to throw down okay and obviously that is apples and oranges mexico city is not doing that with mexican people no but but the the parallel that was just striking me is how um as mexico has its internal uh struggle yeah struggle right yeah it is um this is again something we can blow over quickly in Mexican-American wars, forgetting that since independence in 1821, Mexico is really struggling to get its act.

To unify. Yeah. Yeah, they don't have a unified government. There are two pretty strong camps, the Federalists and the Puros. There are other camps, though. I mean, don't get me wrong. It's not just the two.

And there's a constant power struggle and a lack of trust between the leaders and it's always somebody trying to one-up somebody else which is how you get santa anna coming back and forth into power i can't remember how many times he's president i don't either like which is so interesting because they just as we in the u.s history here have their own issues with indigenous peoples there and when all this is going on and and how the indigenous people are starting to be treated and exiled and taking land grab and all that's happening at the same time as well. And so the United States Army is able to exploit those weaknesses. Well, yeah.

And so similar to this is the parallel I was just seeing is, you know, as indigenous peoples and the Aztecs, those who've been subjugated are like sure Cortez this sounds like a good idea not that that's happening everywhere but when we think about these rebellions that are even before the Mexican-American war in the Yucatan Peninsula you know to Texas

the Californians who who've been contemplating rebellions yeah and on occasion have you know we even pointed out in fact actually downplayed it who keep- Who've been contemplating rebellion. Yeah, and on occasion have, we even pointed out, in fact, actually downplayed it, but didn't have the time to go into how many times different individuals within the Californians

had declared independence or revolted. Right, right. It's a ridiculous number of times. So it's just fascinating to see that as well. The farther out from Mexicoxico city you get the more nebulous the relationship and that is again something that is definitely exploited as as the americans roll in you know to new mexico right they got fire shot initially then of course they realize like okay oh no this actually sucks yeah right but initially they're

like oh absolutely let's get rid of our corrupt mexican governor who's fleecing us like crazy and we'll take you guys as our leaders and and then they find out the mexican the americans aren't going to be that great either but the only little difference oh please we're getting like really need no dude this is good stuff is internet that is that same scenario is happening with her don't get me wrong there's definitely people going yes we're feeling subjugated or whatever by when i don't want to overstate that on you know it's not like that's how no no with mexico of course not but that i think there's an underlying and obviously there's some things we don't know for sure because journals weren't a big thing right yeah um don't have a huge literate population later as now what becomes um what's the word i'm looking for latinized that's not the

word i'm looking for oh you're talking about using the latin yeah using latin alphabet able to is adapted to the latin script yes and priests come in we actually get more writings on how things went down although it's written by priests and so but anyway sure that has problems right but um they see this opportunity as here is this person who has technology that's way more advanced right than ours um horses all these types of things and they but they're still seeing we could still take these guys right now if we needed to like we could beat them and defeat them but we're going to use them and there's kind of this underlying thing like we're going to maybe use them get what we need and then we'll kind of dispose of them it doesn't quite go down no it doesn't work out but but i i wonder if there's some of that parallel happening

oh that's interesting on the other side of i mean it's possible because along the u.s armies march from vera cruz to mexico city there are towns that are friendly to the u.s army and there are towns that aren't yeah right and so that's how you end up there are towns that are friendly to the U.S. Army, and there are towns that aren't. Yeah, right. And so that's how you end up with some towns that are like, oh, yeah, welcome, guys. We're happy to trade with you. We're happy to make a bargain. And some towns that fight to keep the Americans out, and the Americans have to fight their

way in. Yeah, it's an interesting concept that I hadn't considered before. There's serious political stuff going on. Oh, my gosh. I mean, you get envoys with Hernan Cortez that are like, yeah, let's go to Tlaxcala. But then you have the envoys down from the Aztec Empire, like in Tenochtitlan. They're like, no, no, no, don't go to the Aztecs or the Tlaxcalans. They're so bad, right?

Right. And Cortez basically has this flip of like, okay, who do I trust? Because he doesn't know the situation's going on. Right. We're getting nitty gritty, but. But. Right. We're getting nitty gritty, but, but fun, uh, segue to 1500s.

New Spain slash Aztec, um, Central America. So I, I mean, but in, in closing, um,

I mean, it's, uh, uh, America's on the Imperial path here. you know there's two there's no two ways about that um we can there's definitely nuance as to you know i think discussing how these people in these different regional areas are not as attached to mexico city as perhaps sometimes people assume as they talk about the the jacking of land but the land is jacked regardless of whether it's really mexico city so much that's losing you know maybe it's already lost power but who who were you know the u.s forces to come in and take it yeah right right yeah and be like

oh you just be part of america now yeah you'll love it it'll be great and of course i mean that calhoun quote um you know that was in the very last episode yeah i want to point out again i just just reiterate that um i mean throws i guess throw stones at calhoun for that one but it's not like he is in a bubble you know there's no great outcry when he said he's not we can't annex mexico because you know not white people it's not like everyone in america was like that you know how dare you say that yeah how dare you be so racist yeah no he's not an extremist are just like well solid point he's pointing out the views of his constituents a hundred percent yeah yeah yeah there are people who don't agree with him but there are a lot of people who do yeah yeah and i guess let's

maybe wrap up on that note that not just as there are many people who do agree with calhoun you know i do like to circle around and show some love to america it's my little american heart here at the end but you know there were the john quincy adams yes you know, those who were saying this war is being waged immorally. This is not okay. And, you know, this is here what American principles are. We're about liberty. We don't take from our sister republic as is one of the terms that was thrown out there. So, you know, it's the messy, complicated that we always see. American values

are alive and well at the same time as they are, you know, we're seeing a different set of values that today, at least in 21st century, I don't think we want to say are American values. Right. Yeah. But again, people are complicated and people aren't perfect. And so, yes, you have these great American ideals, but they aren't always applied. Yeah.

And in this conflict, they definitely aren't applied very much. Yeah. Well, I think that sums up Age of Jackson. We've epilogued it on up

and hopefully people are still listening to this. We'll, we look forward to getting into we're building up to the civil war now yep i mean that's that's the direction we're going so we already have some pretty crazy stories that are lining up for you um i'll also point out that um i will be uh on a shaping opinion podcastinion podcast with Tim. We'll be talking about,

as long as plans don't change between now and then, I don't see why they would. But right now we're planning on talking about the flag for the 4th of July. It's going to be great. Yeah, check out Tim's podcast. I mean, he does a lot of history stuff, a lot of cool stories too.

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