RPTM Podcast Episode Ten: King Phillip, Bacon, Gambling, and Witches

Rule Eight of History: Focus on the Vices. This is true for several reasons. First and most is pragmatic:  it’s the sheer entertainment value. Breaking down the history of sex, drugs, and violence captivates audiences (as mentioned in earlier podcasts). Our lizard brain deep down in the recesses of our minds are completely captivated by carnal pleasures. Secondly, vices are an innate connection to us all. While you may not have done a line of cocaine off a stripper, you at one point have ingested a stimulant, been in a fight, or been sexually aroused. Vices are to a certain extent, egalitarian in that respect. And lastly, we need to study the ways vices are suppressed throughout history. Not “what” people were doing, but “why” someone would want to stop them from doing it. 

To err is human, yes?  

HIGHLIGHTS

• King Philip's War is considered the bloodiest war per capita in U.S. history. It left several hundred colonists dead and dozens of English settlements destroyed or heavily damaged. Thousands of Indians were killed, wounded, or captured and sold into slavery or indentured servitude. 
• The laws relating to slavery and their enforcement hardened in the second half of the 17th century, and the prospects for Africans and their descendants grew increasingly dim.
•  The backlash from Bacon's rebellion is credited with helping kick off the racial distinctions that defined the colonies and the United States that followed. As for the Native Americans caught in the crosshairs of Bacon and Berkeley's feud, the few Occaneechi people who remained fled their traditional lands after the massacre. Eventually, they merged with another tribe.
• Attitudes toward gambling varied greatly from community to community, but there were no large-scale restrictions on the practice at the time. By the 1680s, an emerging upper class in Virginia cemented their economic status through an iron grip on horse racing gambling. Heavy betters demonstrated their courage and skill while promoting shared values and consciousness among the social elite. 
• Many of the settlers lived far away from one another; this made it difficult to get together and participate in various sporting events. In England, they lived closer together, making it easier to get for the people to come together and participate in multiple events.  In colonial America, sports or games would only occur when certain factors fell in line with one another. These factors included times of increased wealth, populations, and growth of cities.
• The Salem witch trials occurred in colonial Massachusetts between 1692 and 1693. More than 200 people were accused of practicing witchcraft—the Devil's magic—and 20 were executed. Eventually, the colony admitted the trials were a mistake and compensated the families of those convicted. Since then, the trials' story has become synonymous with paranoia and injustice, and it continues to attract popular imagination more than 300 years later.

CHAPTERS
0:00 Start
0:37 Introduction
1:46 King Phillip's War
8:55 The Business of Slavery
17:35 Bacon's Rebellion
25:22 Colonial Gambling
30:01 Birth of Sport
34:06 Salem Witch Trials
41:00 Outro

RESOURCES
King Philip’s War
Slavery in the colonial history of the United States
Why America’s First Colonial Rebels Burned Jamestown to the Ground
A History of Gambling in the United States
Christmas in 17th-Century England and Virginia
Cultural Evolution of Sports Gambling
History of Sports in Colonial America
History of sports in the United States
A Brief History of the Salem Witch Trials

Episode 9

RPTM Podcast

Episode 11