American Colonies

What would you find in a time capsule of the Jamestown Colony? Perhaps a portrait of John Smith, glass beads, or skeletal remains? Listeners examine artifacts like these as they explore the history of the first permanent English settlement in North America in this Time Capsule History book.

Former Federal Air Marshal Stephen Mason has again done the impossible. He has passed back through an unexplainable time portal and reunited with the three people he cares about most. It's 1720, Charles Town, Carolina Colony, a time and place fraught with hardships and hazards. Carving out a life here will be challenging, especially for these modern-day transplants. There are few people they can trust, none in whom they can confide. But they have each other. And they have a rice plantation.

Three journeys. Three loves. One enduring legacy. Experience the complete saga of faith, courage, and romance that forged America's first permanent New England settlement in Tim Sawyer's captivating Plymouth Collection. From the perilous Mayflower crossing to the tender unions that strengthened the colony to the powerful story of redemption that completed the foundation of a new world, this trilogy brings Plymouth's extraordinary beginnings to vivid life. In Mayflower Hearts, Plymouth Weddings, and Carpenter's Redemption, Sawyer masterfully weaves historical accuracy with emotional depth, ...

Young Gabe travels through time and space, reliving history in virtual reality, as he trains to lead a viable space colony. Gabe leaves Earth to colonize last-chance planet Rayas. The space colony is funded by Mexican descendants of California’s El Grande – the Big One. The expedition bootstraps its terraforming talent from teenagers. Their flexible minds will spend the interstellar years of stasis in a virtual reality academy. But Gabe’s a physical guy. Cast among genius, what can he aspire to? History captures his imagination. Unlike home, air is breathable under a clean blue sky, ...

Along the banks of the James River, Virginia, during an oppressively hot spell in the middle of summer 1619, two events occurred within a few weeks of each other that would profoundly shape the course of history. In the newly built church at Jamestown, the General Assembly - the first gathering of a representative governing body in America - came together. A few weeks later, a battered privateer entered the Chesapeake Bay carrying the first African slaves to land on mainland English America.

"Common Sense" was published anonymously on January 10, 1776, at the beginning of the American Revolution, and became an immediate sensation. Written in clear and persuasive prose, Thomas Paine marshaled moral and political arguments to encourage common people in the Colonies to fight for egalitarian government. "Common Sense" made public a persuasive and impassioned case for independence, which before the pamphlet had not yet been given serious intellectual consideration.

For a woman traveling without her husband in the late nineteenth century, there was only one reason to take the train all the way to Sioux Falls, South Dakota, one sure to garner disapproval from fellow passengers. On the American frontier, the new state offered a tempting freedom often difficult to obtain elsewhere: divorce. In The Divorce Colony, writer and historian April White unveils the incredible social, political, and personal dramas that unfolded in Sioux Falls and reverberated around the country through the stories of four very different women.

Did you know that Plymouth was named by the explorer John Smith in 1608? Twelve years later, in 1620, the Pilgrims started their journey from Plymouth, England, and were blown off course, landing in Plymouth, North America. As if it was a sign from God, the Pilgrims decided not to continue their journey but to settle right where they landed, starting one of the earliest American communities.

You may know of Pocahontas, but there is more to her story. Learn about life in the time that Pocahontas lived, and how she impacted the First Colonies.

Over the last generation, historians have broadened our understanding of colonial America by adopting both a trans-Atlantic and a trans-continental perspective, examining the interplay of Europe, Africa, and the Americas through the flow of goods, people, plants, animals, capital, and ideas. In this Very Short Introduction, Alan Taylor presents an engaging overview of the best of this new scholarship.

The settlement of North America was the beginning of a new era in human history. The oppressive laws, habits, and customs of the Old World no longer held such power over those who had made the treacherous journey across the Atlantic. No reigning monarch or dictatorial power ever stepped onto the ground of North America. Yet, despite this, the men and women of the 13 colonies of North America were still not free until they threw off the shackles of England's government and asserted their own rights.

Virginia Laydon, an infant at the end of Blood on the River, has now grown up in a colony that is teetering dangerously on the precipice of conflict with the native Algonquins. Virginia has the gift, or the curse, of the knowing - an ability that could help save the colony and is equally likely to land her at the burning stake as an accused witch.

A master gunsmith. A war that changes everything. Can one young man forge his own destiny in the fires of revolution? From the author of the smash-hit bestselling Sunlit Silence Series of WWII in the Air comes Frank A. Mason’s award-winning Journeyman Chronicles, an unforgettable historical adventure set in the turbulent years of the American Revolution. Will Yelverton is just nineteen, a skilled gunsmith with dreams of setting up his own shop on the Tennessee frontier. But when war erupts in the colonies, his future shatters. Drafted as the armorer for the North Carolina Militia, Will ...

One mistake cost him everything. Building a new life might give him a second chance at love. Thomas Bray came to Gloucester to escape his disgrace in Plymouth Colony, not to find his future. The skilled carpenter seeks redemption through hard work until he meets Mary Wilson—a founding family's daughter who sees beyond his painful past. As Thomas builds a canal vital to the settlement's future, Mary challenges the barriers around his heart. But when a wealthy merchant pursues her and whispers from Plymouth resurface, Thomas must decide: retreat again or finally fight for the love he ...

Proctor is a youth with ambitions beyond his station. Quick witted and with an uncanny knack for mimicry, he can impersonate anyone. Spotting an opportunity for financial gain, and an improvement in his social standing, he accepts the position as an understudy to a puritan minister. But, living in the home of his benefactor, he meets and falls in love with a girl he shouldn't. That's where matters take a turn. After a duel with the girl's uncle, he moves away from London, and then on to the American colonies, where he founds the township of Salvation. But boredom ensues, and Proctor embarks...

From the perilous ocean crossing to the shared bounty of the first Thanksgiving, the Pilgrim settlement of New England has become enshrined as our most sacred national myth. Yet, as best-selling author Nathaniel Philbrick reveals in his spellbinding new book, the true story of the Pilgrims is much more than the well-known tale of piety and sacrifice; it is a 55-year epic that is at once tragic, heroic, exhilarating, and profound.

Nearly 20 years before Jamestown was settled, the English established one of the earliest colonies in North America. Like other early settlements, Roanoke struggled to survive in its infancy. The colony's leader, John White, sailed back to England in 1587 to bring more supplies and help. What White found when he came back to Roanoke led to one of the most enduring mysteries in American history. Despite the fact he left over 100 people in Roanoke in 1587, White returned to literally nothing, with all traces of the settlement gone and no evidence of fighting.

“Complete with a romantic subplot, DECEPTIONS: A Colonial Jamestown Novel is a strong historical tale that brings the Jamestown Virginia Colony to life through the eyes of the determined heroine Catherine, who manages to travel to the New World in search of her betrothed. Breathtaking suspenseful action follows as Catherine tries to unravel the various mysterious happenings between her husband and the Powhatan Indians. Readers will relish this in-depth look at how the first English colonists struggled to survive in Jamestown, circa 1617-1619.” —Harriet Klausner Desperate to escape a ...

In 1587, 115 men, women, and children arrived at Roanoke Island on the coast of North Carolina to establish the first English settlement in the New World. But when the new colony's leader returned to Roanoke from a resupply mission, his settlers had vanished, leaving behind only a single clue - a "secret token" etched into a tree. What happened to the Lost Colony of Roanoke? That question has consumed historians, archeologists, and amateur sleuths for 400 years. In The Secret Token, Andrew Lawler sets out on a quest to determine the fate of the settlers.

Founded by James Oglethorpe on February 12, 1733, the Georgia colony was envisioned as a unique social welfare experiment. Administered by twenty-one original trustees, the Georgia Plan offered England's "worthy poor" and persecuted Christians an opportunity to achieve financial security in the New World by exporting goods produced on small farms. Most significantly, Oglethorpe and his fellow Trustees were convinced that economic vitality could not be achieved through the exploitation of enslaved Black laborers.