RPTM Podcast Episode Seventy Four: Roanoke, Rabies, and Really Bad Squats

Episode #074: Roanoke, Rabies, and Really Bad Squats
08/25/2025

The Podcast kicks off in 1585 with the Roanoke Colony, England’s great disappearing act—a bunch of settlers vanish into the American woods, leaving behind nothing but cryptic carvings and a bad reputation for colonial planning. Then along comes Joachim Gans, a Jewish metallurgist poking around Carolina dirt for copper like some mad scientist dropped into a swamp. The episode portrays colonial life not as tea parties and wig powder, but as a nonstop CrossFit nightmare—chopping trees, hauling buckets, fighting the weather, and battling bugs. No gyms, no yoga mats, just survival disguised as “fitness.”

From there, the story gets darker and weirder: new foods crossing oceans in 1609, tomatoes and potatoes blowing English minds while Indigenous populations get wiped out by plagues that rode in on Spanish ships after 1493. Smallpox spreads like a cruel rumor, reshaping entire continents. By 1605, the French were planting flags at Port Royal, and the Dutch crashed into the Mid-Atlantic in 1614, all scrambling for land, glory, and God knows what else. It’s a chaotic buffet—science, disease, greed, and hunger all tangled together, the messy birth of a “New World” that didn’t ask to be born.

Main Topics:

• 2:15 - History is Constantly Changing
• 7:10 - 1585 - Roanoke Colony
• 12:48 - 1585 - Joachim Gans
• 17:22 - 1537 - Colonials & Fitness Colonial
• 26:49 - 1609 - Food in the New World
• 32:02 - 1493 - Epidemic Disease
• 36:22 - 1673 - French Colonization II 1605
• 41:52 - 1614- Dutch Mid-Atlantic

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Hosts:
Ryan Lancaster
ARCHIE
HILDY

Producer: Ryan Lancaster
Executive Producer: Ryan Lancaster
Sound Engineer: Ryan Lancaster
Editor: Ryan Lancaster
Theme Music Composer: Craig Riley
Artwork Design: Ryan Lancaster
Recorded at: Ryan Lancaster Studios

Email:
[email protected]

Social Media:
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YouTube: RyanGLancaster

Hey, welcome to the work cited section! Here's where you'll find all the heavy hitters that inspired the content you've just consumed. Some might think citations are as dull as unbuttered toast, but nothing gets my intellectual juices flowing like a good reference list. Don't get me wrong, just because we've cited a source; doesn't mean we're always going to see eye-to-eye. But that's the beauty of it - it's up to you to chew on the material and come to conclusions. Listen, we've gone to great lengths to ensure these citations are accurate, but let's face it, we're all human. So, give us a holler if you notice any mistakes or suggest more sources. We're always looking to up our game. Ultimately, it's all about pursuing knowledge and truth. ​
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• Beneke, Chris, and Christopher S. Grenda, eds. The First Prejudice: Religious Tolerance and Intolerance in Early America. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010.
  
• Brown, Peter. The World of Late Antiquity: AD 150–750. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1989.
  
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• Fenn, Elizabeth A. Pox Americana: The Great Smallpox Epidemic of 1775–82. New York: Hill and Wang, 2001.
  
• Fritz, Jean, and Hudson Talbott. The Lost Colony of Roanoke. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons Books for Young Readers, 2004.
  
• Gibbon, Edward. The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Abridged edition. Edited by David P. Womersley. London: Penguin Classics, 2001.
  
• Henry, John. The Scientific Revolution and the Origins of Modern Science. 3rd ed. Studies in European History. London: Red Globe Press, 2008.
  
• Jacobs, Jaap. The Colony of New Netherland: A Dutch Settlement in Seventeenth-Century America. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2009.
  
• Jones, David S. Rationalizing Epidemics: Meanings and Uses of American Indian Mortality since 1600. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004.
  
• Merwick, Donna. Possessing Albany, 1630–1710: The Dutch and English Experiences. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990.
  
• Miller, Lee. Roanoke: Solving the Mystery of the Lost Colony. 1st ed. New York: Arcade, 2012.
  
• Quinn, David Beers. The Landscape of History: The Lost Colonists: Their Fortune and Probable Fate. Kindle edition. Raleigh: North Carolina Office of Archives and History, 1984.
  
• Richter, Daniel K. Facing East from Indian Country: A Native History of Early America. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003.
  
• Riley-Smith, Jonathan. The Crusades: A History. 2nd ed. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005.
  
• Rink, Oliver A. Holland on the Hudson: An Economic and Social History of Dutch New York. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1989.
  
• Smith, John. Captain John Smith: A Select Edition of His Writings. Edited by Karen Ordahl Kupperman. Chapel Hill: Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture and the University of North Carolina Press, 1988.
  
• Stannard, David E. The Puritan Way of Death: A Study in Religion, Culture, and Social Change. 1st ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 1979.
  
• Taylor, Alan. American Colonies: The Settling of North America. Vol. 1. Edited by Eric Foner. Revised ed. New York: Penguin Books, 2002.
  
• Thwaites, Reuben Gold, ed. The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents: Travels and Explorations of the Jesuit Missionaries in New France, 1610–1791. 73 vols. Cleveland: Burrows Brothers, 1896–1901.

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