Digital Options

Table of Contents

Part 1: TRANSFORMATIONS OF NORTH AMERICA (1491–1700)

Chapter 1: Colliding Worlds, 1491–1600

1-1 | An Englishman Describes the Algonquin People

THOMAS HARIOT, A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia (1588)

1-2 | De Soto Encounters Incans in Peru

ARTIST UNKNOWN (SPANISH SCHOOL), Construction of the First Christian Church in San Miguel de Piura, and the Battle of Hernando de Soto with the Indians (1726)

1-3 | Columbus Encounters Native Peoples

CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS, Journal of the First Voyage (1492) 　

1-4 | Las Casas Describes European Atrocities

BARTOLOME DE LAS CASAS, A Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies (1552) 　　　

1-5 | Huejotzingo Petitions the Spanish King for Relief

COUNCIL OF HUEJOTZINGO, Letter to the King of Spain (1560)

1-6 | Debating the Morality of Slavery

BROTHER LUIS BRANDAON, Letter to Father Sandoval (1610) 　

COMPARATIVE QUESTIONS

2-1 | Indians Resist Spanish Conquest

Testimony of Acoma Indians (1599) 　

2-2 | "City Upon a Hill" Sermon

JOHN WINTHROP, A Model of Christian Charity (1630) 　

2-3 | English Planters in the New World

　　　　　　　CAREL ALLARD, English Quakers Planting Tobacco on Barbados (1680) 　

2-4 | Maryland Protects Religious Belief

Maryland Act of Religious Toleration (1649)

2-5 | Slave Labor on the Rise

EDMUND WHITE, Letter to Joseph Morton (1687) 　

2-6 | Spreading the Gospel Among the Iroquois

REV. FATHER LOUIS CELLOT, Letter to Father François Le

Mercier (1656) 　

COMPARATIVE QUESTIONS 　

P1-1 | The Aztec God Tlaloc with Maize

Meal of Maize and Beans, the Sixth Month of the Aztec Solar Calendar (c. 1585)

P1-2 | Florida Natives Welcome the Returning French

THEODORE DE BRY, The Natives of Florida Worship the Column Erected by Commander on His First Voyage (1591) 　

P1-3 | A European Encounters the Algonquin Indians

THOMAS MORTON, Manners and Customs of the Indians (of New England) (1637) 　

P1-4 | The Trade in Goods and Slaves

THOMAS PHILLIPS, A Journal of a Voyage Made in the Hannibal (1693–1694) 　

P1-5 | Making the Case for Colonization

RICHARD HAKLUYT, A Discourse of Western Planting (1584) 　

COMPARATIVE QUESTIONS

CHAPTER 3: The British Atlantic World, 1607–1750

3-1 | Bostonians Welcome the Glorious Revolution

　　　　　　[Broadside] At the Town-House in Boston: April 18^th, 1689. A Letter to Sir Edmond Andros Knight (1689)

3-2 | The Onondaga Pledge Support to Colonies

CANASSATEGO, Papers Relating to an Act of the Assembly of the Province of New York (1742)

3-3 | Virginia Tightens Slave Codes

THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF VIRGINIA, An Act for Suppressing Outlying Slaves (1691)

3-4 | Gentility and the Planter Elite

WILLIAM BYRD II, Diary Entries (1709–1712)

3-5 | Trade Creates Dynamic Commercial Economy

JOHN BARNARD, The Autobiography of the Rev. John Barnard (1766) 　

3-6 | Colonists Assert Their Rights

LORD CORNBURY, Letter to the Lords of Trade (1704)

COMPARATIVE QUESTIONS

4-1 | The American Enlightenment

　　　　　　　Benjamin Franklin’s Experiments with Electricity (Turned into an 18th-Century Parlor Game) (c. 1700s)

4-2 | Sarah Osborn on Her Experiences During the Religious Revivals

SARAH OSBORN, Memoirs of the Life of Mrs. Sarah Osborn (1814) 　

4-3 | Anglican Minister on the Manners and Religion of the Carolina Backcountry

CHARLES WOODMASON, Journal (1766–1768)

4-4 | Franklin Calls for Colonial Unity

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, Albany Plan of Union (1754)

4-5 | Colonists Argue for an Alliance with Indians Against the French

State of the British and French Colonies in North America (1755) 　

4-6 | The North Carolina Regulators Protest British Control

Petition from the Inhabitants of Orange County, North Carolina (1770) 　

COMPARATIVE QUESTIONS 　

PART 2 DOCUMENT SET: The Causes and Consequences of the Peopling of North America, 1607–1763

P2-1 | The Horrors of the Middle Passage

OLAUDAH EQUIANO, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African. Written by Himself (1794) 　

P2-2 | German Immigrant Describes Carolina Opportunities

Letter from Christen Janzen to His Family (1711) 　

P2-3 | An Indentured Servant Confesses to Murder

Hellier (1680)

P2-4 | Dangers of Missionary Work

GREGOIRE HURET, The Death of Some Jesuit Fathers in

Nouvelle-France (1664)

P2-5 | Colonial Settlements Raise Indian Alarms

Journal of James Kenny (1761–1763)

COMPARATIVE QUESTIONS 　　

5-1 | A Virginia Planter Defends the Natural Rights of Colonies

RICHARD BLAND, Inquiry into the Rights of the British Colonies (1766) 　

5-2 | Colonists Protest Parliament’s Acts

STAMP ACT CONGRESS, Declaration of Rights (1765) 　

5-3 | A Loyalist Decries the Boston Mob

PETER OLIVER, Origin and Progress of the American Rebellion (1781)

5-4 | Worcester Loyalists Protest the Committee of Safety

A Protest by the Worcester, Massachusetts, Selectmen (1774) 　

5-5 | The Danger of Too Much Liberty

THOMAS HUTCHINSON, Letter to Thomas Whately (1769) 　

5-6 | Thomas Paine Attacks the Monarchy

THOMAS PAINE, Common Sense (1776) 　

COMPARATIVE QUESTIONS 　

6-1 | Democratic Spirit Empowers the People

Instructions to the Delegates from Mecklenburg to the Provincial Congress at Halifax in November (1776)

6-2 | A Call to "Remember the Ladies"

ABIGAIL AND JOHN ADAMS, Correspondence (1776) 　

6-3 | Enslaved Blacks Adopt the Cause of Liberty

PRINCE HALL, Petition for Freedom to the Massachusetts Council and the House of Representatives (1777) 　

6-4 | A Republican Hero Emerges

JAMES PEALE, General George Washington at Yorktown (c. 1782) 　

6-5 | A Shaysite Defends the "Risings of the People"

DANIEL GRAY, Address to the People of Several Towns (1786)

6-6 | Madison Defends the Constitution

JAMES MADISON, Federalist No. 10 and Federalist No. 51 (1787)

COMPARATIVE QUESTIONS

7-1 | Hamilton Diverges from Jefferson on the Economy

ALEXANDER HAMILTON, Letter to Edward Carrington (1792)

7-2 | Jefferson’s Agrarian Vision for the New Republic

THOMAS JEFFERSON, Notes on the State of Virginia (1781)

7-3 | An Anti-Jefferson Political Cartoon

　　　　　　　The Providential Detection (c. 1790s)

7-4 | Anxiety Over Western Expansion

THE PANOPLIST AND MISSIONARY HERALD, Retrograde Movement of National Character (1818)

7-5 | A Shawnee Chief Calls for Native American Unity

TECUMSEH, Sleep Not Longer, O Choctaws and Chickasaws (1811)

7-6 | New England Federalists Oppose the War of 1812

Report of the Hartford Convention (1815)

COMPARATIVE QUESTIONS

P3-1 | Mourning Washington

　　　　　　　　　RICHARD ALLEN, Eulogy for Washington (1799)

P3-2 | Defining the American Character

J. HECTOR ST. JOHN DE CRÈVECOEUR, Letters from an American Farmer (1782)

P3-3 | Women’s Right to Education in the New Republic

JUDITH SARGENT MURRAY, On the Equality of the Sexes (1790)

P3-4 | A Warning for the Young Republic

George Washington’s Farewell Address (1796)

P3-5 | Depicting America’s New Identity

　　　　　　　　　EDWARD SAVAGE, Liberty. In the Form of the Goddess of Youth, Giving Support to the Bald Eagle 　(1796)

COMPARATIVE QUESTIONS

8-1 | Building the Economy

J. HILL, Junction of Erie and Northern Canal (c. 1830–1832)

8-2 | In Praise of Domestic Manufacturing

THE WEEKLY REGISTER, Home Influence (1813)

8-3 |A Factory Girl Remembers Mill Work

Lucy Larcom, Among Lowell Mill-Girls: A Reminiscence (1881)

8-4 | Reporting on the South’s Peculiar Institution

Ethan Andrews, Slavery and the Domestic Slave-Trade (1836)

8-5 | Workers Organize to Defend Their Rights

Ely Moore, Address Delivered Before the General Trades’ Union of the City of New-York (1833)

COMPARATIVE QUESTIONS

9-1 | A Professional Politician on the Necessity of Political Parties

MARTIN VAN BUREN, The Autobiography of Martin Van Buren (1854)

9-2 | Insurgent Democrats Flex Political Power

FITZWILLIAM BYRDSALL, The History of the Loco-Foco or Equal Rights Party (1842)

9-3 | President Defeats Monopoly Threat

ANDREW JACKSON, Veto Message Regarding the Bank of the United States (1832)

9-4 | Whig Leader Campaigns against Jacksonians

Henry Clay, Speech on the Presidential Election (1840)

9-5 | Poking Fun at Van Buren

Capitol Fashions for 1837 (1837)

9-6 | Native American Women Urge Resistance to Removal Policy

CHEROKEE WOMEN, Petition (1821 [1831?])

COMPARATIVE QUESTIONS

10-1 | A Transcendentalist View of Women’s Rights

MARGARET FULLER, Woman in the Nineteenth Century (1845)

10-2 | Mormon Leader’s Vision of Religious Community

JOSEPH SMITH, History of Joseph Smith, the Prophet (c. 1830s)

10-3 | A Night at the Museum

Advertisement for the American Museum (1845)

10-4 | Attacking the Legal Disabilities of Women

SARAH GRIMKÉ, Letters on the Equality of the Sexes and the Condition of Woman (1837)

10-5 | Abolitionist Decries Slavery’s Dehumanizing Power

DAVID WALKER, Preamble to Walker’s Appeal in Four Articles (1830)

10-6 | Antiabolitionist Attacks Reformers’ Efforts

CALVIN COLTON, Abolition a Sedition (1839)

COMPARATIVE QUESTIONS

11-1 | Southern Hospitality on Display

　　　　　　　　　SUSAN DABNEY SMEDES, Memorials of a Southern Planter (1887)

11-2 | Private Life of Enslaved African Americans

Slave Songs of the United States (1867) and Slaves Dance to Their Own Music on a Southern Plantation (c. 1852)

11-3 | The Lure of the West

LANSFORD HASTINGS, The Emigrants’ Guide to Oregon and California (1845)

11-4 | Two Views of the War with Mexico

JOHN D. SLOAT, To the Inhabitants of California (1846) and GENERAL FRANCISCO MEJIA, A Proclamation at Matamoros (1846)

11-5 | An Attack on Polk’s Mexican Policy

Richard Doyle, The Land of Liberty (1847)

COMPARATIVE QUESTIONS 　

P4-1 | Commerce Overcomes Nature’s Obstacles

Process of Excavation, Erie Canal, Lockport (c. 1820s)

P4-2 | Cultivating the "Garden of Graves"

JOSEPH STORY, Address Delivered on the Dedication of the Cemetery at Mount Auburn (1831)

P4-3 | A Woman’s Perspective on the Overland Journey West

EMMELINE B. WELLS, Diary (1846)

P4-4 | Commentary on "Civilization" and the Native American

GEORGE CATLIN, Wi-jun-jon — Pigeon’s Egg Head: Going to and Returning from Washington (c. 1837–1839) and Letters and Notes (1841)

P4-5 | Creating a Heaven on Earth

ALBERT BRISBANE, A Concise Exposition of the Doctrine of Association (184

COMPARATIVE QUESTIONS

12-1 | On the Santa Fe Trail

Susan Shelby Magoffin, Diary (1846)

12-2 | Opposing Slavery’s Expansion into the Territories

John l. Magee, Forcing Slavery Down the Throat of a Freesoiler (1856)

12-3 | A Southern Perspective on the Political Crisis

JOHN C. CALHOUN, Speech on the Slavery Question (1850)

12-4 | Attacking the Slave Power Conspiracy

CHARLES SUMNER, The Crime of Kansas (1856)

12-5 | Supreme Court Rules Against Antislavery Cause

Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857)

12-6 | A Southern Woman Reacts to Lincoln’s Election

KEZIAH GOODWIN HOPKINS BREVARD, Diary (1860–1861)

COMPARATIVE QUESTIONS

13-1 | View of Southern Women’s Role in War

Sowing and Reaping (1863)

13-2 | A Witness to the War’s Terrible Toll

Ambrose Bierce, What I Saw of Shiloh (1881)

13-3 | A Battlefield View of the Cost of War

CORNELIA HANCOCK, Letters of a Civil War Nurse (1863)

13-4 | Political Divisions over Freeing the Slaves

ABRAHAM LINCOLN, Emancipation Proclamation (1863), and JEFFERSON DAVIS, President’s Message (1863)

13-5 | Hearing the News of Emancipation

HARRY SMITH, Fifty Years of Slavery (1891)

13-6 | Redistributing the Land to Black Refugees

WILLIAM T. SHERMAN, Special Field Order No. 15 (1865)

COMPARATIVE QUESTIONS

14-1 | President Focuses on Work of Reconstruction

ABRAHAM LINCOLN, Last Public Address (1865)

14-2 | A Freed Family’s Dream of Landownership

BETTY POWERS, Federal Writers’ Project Interview (c. 1936)

14-3 | A Former Slave Owner Complains of "Negro Problem"

FRANCES BUTLER LEIGH, Letter to a Friend in England (1867)

14-4 | A Liberal Republican Opposes Universal Suffrage

CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS JR., The Protection of the Ballot in National Elections (1869)

14-5 | Nast Lampoons Freedmen’s Government

THOMAS NAST, Colored Rule in a Reconstructed State (1874)

14-6 | African American Congressman Urges Support of Civil Rights Bill

ROBERT BROWNE ELLIOTT, Speech to Congress (1874)

COMPARATIVE QUESTIONS

15-1 | Opening the West

Indian Territory, That Garden of the World (c. 1880)

15-2 | Railroad Transforms the Nation

CURRIER & IVES, Across the Continent (1868)

15-3 | Harvesting the Bison Herds

J. WRIGHT MOOAR, Buffalo Days (1933)

15-4 | Addressing the Indian Question

FRANCIS A. WALKER, Annual Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs (1872)

15-5 | Remembering Indian Boarding School Days

MOURNING DOVE, A Salishan Autobiography (1990)

COMPARATIVE QUESTIONS

P5-1 | Women Reformers Demand Citizenship Rights

ELIZABETH CADY STANTON, Declaration of Rights and Sentiments (1848)

P5-2 | Defining Native American Rights and Limits

STATUTES OF CALIFORNIA, An Act for the Government and Protection of Indians (1850)

P5-3 | The Catholic Threat to American Politics

SAMUEL F. B. MORSE, Foreign Conspiracy Against the Liberties of the United States (1855)

P5-4 | Debating the Meaning of the Constitution

ABRAHAM LINCOLN, Cooper Union Address (1860)

P5-5 | Southern Leader Contrasts Union and Confederate Constitutions

ALEXANDER STEPHENS, "Cornerstone" Speech (1861)

P5-6 | Contesting African American Citizenship

　　　　　　　　　THOMAS NAST, "This Is a White Man’s Government" (1868)

COMPARATIVE QUESTIONS

Authors

James A. Henretta

James A. Henretta is Professor Emeritus of American History at the University of Maryland, College Park, where he taught Early American History and Legal History. His publications include “Salutary Neglect”: Colonial Administration under the Duke of Newcastle; Evolution and Revolution: American Society, 1600-1820; and The Origins of American Capitalism. His most recent publication is a long article, “Magistrates, Lawyers, Legislators: The Three Legal Systems of Early America,” in The Cambridge History of American Law.

Eric Hinderaker

Eric Hinderaker is Distinguished Professor of History at the University of Utah. His research explores early modern imperialism, relations between Europeans and Native Americans, military-civilian relations in the Atlantic world, and comparative colonization. His most recent book, Boston’s Massacre, was awarded the Cox Book Prize from the Society of the Cincinnati and was a finalist for the George Washington Prize. His other publications include Elusive Empires: Constructing Colonialism in the Ohio Valley, 1673–1800; The Two Hendricks: Unraveling a Mohawk Mystery, which won the Herbert H. Lehman Prize for Distinguished Scholarship in New York History from the New York Academy of History; and, with Peter C. Mancall, At the Edge of Empire: The Backcountry in British North America.

Rebecca Edwards

Rebecca Edwards is Eloise Ellery Professor of History at Vassar College, where she teaches courses on nineteenth-century politics, the Civil War, the frontier West, and women, gender, and sexuality. She is the author of, among other publications, Angels in the Machinery: Gender in American Party Politics from the Civil War to the Progressive Era; New Spirits: Americans in the “Gilded Age,” 1865–1905; and the essay “Women’s and Gender History” in The New American History. She is currently working on a book about the role of childbearing in the expansion of America’s nineteenth-century empire.

Robert O. Self

Robert O. Self is Mary Ann Lippitt Professor of American History at Brown University. His research focuses on urban history, American politics, and the post-1945 United States. He is the author of American Babylon: Race and the Struggle for Postwar Oakland, which won four professional prizes, including the James A. Rawley Prize from the Organization of American Historians, and All in the Family: The Realignment of American Democracy Since the 1960s. He is currently at work on a book about the centrality of houses, cars, and children to family consumption in the twentieth-century United States.

Kevin B. Sheets

Kevin B. Sheets is Professor and Chair of the History Department at the State University of New York, at Cortland, where he teaches courses on American intellectual and cultural history. He has received six National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) awards and three U.S. Department of Education "Teaching American History" grants to lead K-12 teacher professional development programs.

Related Titles