History 205
Spring 2005
Wed. 7-10 pm
204 Kirkbride
Prof. Cathy Matson
Office: 121 Munroe Hall
Office Hours: by appointment
Email: cmatson@udel.edu
Mr. Timothy Hack
Office: Brewhaha
Office hours: 2 to 4 p.m., Wed.,
and by appointment
Email: hacktx@udel.edu
Survey of North American History
to the Civil War
In this course you will be introduced to some of the basic
people, events, and issues that shaped the development of North America
from its earliest times to the Civil War. We will be reading and talking
about many ways of interpreting what happened in the past; however, because
we will be covering a very large amount of time and a great range of material,
it is possible to cover only selected themes and certain events in that
history. As we look at moments and general trends, we will also be discussing
the methods and sources historians use to evaluate the past.
The format for this course is unusual, and will be dictated
by the fact that we meet only once a week for three hours. The primary
mode will be lecture, but you are welcome to ask questions at any time during
class, or to email either the professor or the TA at any time. There will
not be discussion sections, so if you believe you are having difficulty
with the assignments, please do not wait long to get in touch.
It is very important for you to attend every Wed. night class
that is listed in the outline below. Sincere there are only 12 meetings
together, if you miss just one of them you will most certainly do poorly
on one or more of the three quizzes. This means that you will need to arrive
on time, and that you may not leave early or at the break. As you arrive
you will be asked to take an attendance slip, and as you leave you will
give it to the TA at the end of class. We will take a short break during the
three-hour class, and we will vary the tempo and activities so that the
three-hour schedule is comfortable.
There will be three half-hour quizzes, which are scheduled below.
The material covered on the quizzes is indicated below, and will be reiterated
in class. If you fail to take a quiz, there will be no automatic scheduling
of make-ups; you must have ample proof of why you missed a quiz, and you
must schedule the quiz at the convenience of the TA. Please remember that
make-up quizzes will not necessarily have the same format or content as
the in-class version of the quizzes. In addition, there will be two worksheet
assignments that you will take home to complete, and these are scheduled
below as well. These worksheets must be turned in on the due-date indicated
on the syllabus below. Finally, there will be a final exam during the
regular UD exam week. We will review for this exam, you will receive a
study guide, and there will be ample opportunities for everyone to ask
questions or confer with the professor or T.A. Please do not wait until
the final hours before an exam to read and review assignments, or to review
the assignments, because chances are, it will be too late to think about
the issues we have covered. Your best approach to this course will be to
read assignments as they are made, come to every class, and raise issues
as they occur to you from day to day. If you believe you are not able
to take good notes in lectures and discussion, please see one of us for coaching.
Also, don't forget that your classmates are a good resource for reviewing
-- form study groups and share notes with each other!
Required readings for this course include:
1. Matson and Gillon, The American Experiment, Vol. 1
paperback, in the bookstore.
2. Websites from which some assignments will be made, and which
are listed below, with the full url that will connect you to the readings.
You may print pages from these sites, or simply read and take notes.
Your grade for the course will be based on the following:
3 half-hour quizzes 15% each
2 worksheet assignments 15% each
a final exam 25%
Course Outline
Feb. 9 Introduction to course goals and requirements
– lectures, assignments, books, webs.
Europe, Africa, and native North America, ca.
1400-1600
The Western Hemisphere at the time of European
imperial exploration: goods, lands, peoples
Comparing European empires
England's first toeholds: Ireland, Roanoke,
Norumbega, trappers, fishermen, and others
Feb. 16 Failure and Foundation: Permanent Settlements in
the Western Hemisphere
Strains of Settlement: Native American and
Imperial Warfare, Fragile Elites, Social Intolerance, Communities emerge;
Servants and Slaves, Pirates and Witches
Read before class: The American Experiment,
pp. 1-104
Feb. 23 No Class on Wed. evening
Your assignment: Worksheet #1 is
printed below after the "Course Outline;" it is a set of documents,
plus assigned pages from your textbook, plus
internet links to read – as well as a set of questions for you to answer.
Complete it, and turn it in at our next class, Mar. 2.
You will find it helpful to start reading The
American Experiment, pp. 104-160.
Mar. 2 Colonial Maturation: Imperial connections, internal
expansion, varieties of life in distinctive regions, new institutions,
the Atlantic world of goods, people, and
ideas.
Worksheets due!
Read before class: The American Experiment,
pp. 104-160.
Mar. 9 First Quiz, at beginning of class. Will
cover lectures, textbook pp. 1-160, and website assignments for the worksheet.
The Great War for Empire and Growing Challenges
to the English Empire in North America
The Imperial Crisis begins
Mar. 16 The Imperial Crisis continues, and the war for independence
begins: Hesitation, Mobilization, Social Divisions
Read before class: The American Experiment,
pp. 161-208
Mar. 23 The Internal War; Loyalists, Spies, Prisoners, Campfollowers,
Visionaries -- Sustaining the American Revolution; the Achievements
and Limitations of the Revolution
Read before class: The American Experiment,
pp. 208-259
Mar. 30 Spring break
Apr. 6 Second Quiz, at beginning of class.
Will cover everything since the first quiz.
The Critical Period and Constitutional Movement;
the early nation’s cities and frontiers; engagement with other nations.
Apr. 13 National? Local? Regional? The challenges of
territorial expansion, economic development, migration and immigration,
race relations, party systems, and popular restlessness
-- America's early republic and its growing pains
Read before class: The American
Experiment, pp. 259-311, AND 322-356
Apr. 20 No class on Wed. evening.
Your assignment: See Worksheet #2 below.
Complete it, and bring it to our next class, April 27.
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Apr. 27 The Transforming Political Culture and the Jacksonian
Persuasion in American Life, 1815-1840:Commerce and Agriculture, Mills
and Families, the Advancing Frontier
The Impulse to Reform, and the Emergence of a Working
Class
Worksheets are due!
Read before class: The American Experiment,
pp.311-321, AND 363-403
About the Quiz on May 4:
The quiz on May 4 will cover the following pages of your textbook:
251-344, 363-387. This includes part of chap. 7, chap. 8, chap. 9, and
part of chap. 10.
The quiz will also cover all lecture material from April 6, April
13, and April 27.
There will be 20 multiple choice questions from lectures and textbook
readings that are worth 1 point each, AND 5 short answer identifications
that are worth 2 points each. The reason we are including the identifications
on this quiz is to give you the opportunity to practice for the final exam,
which will have some identifications on it at the end of the semester.
For these identifications, you will need to write one or two good sentences
that explain WHY the term is important, and indicate WHEN it was important,
and to WHOM it was important. All of the terms will be from lectures and
readings.
Here are some examples from which the identifications will be taken:
Articles of Confederation assumption and funding
Robert Morris Federalist #10
land ordinances cotton gin
national domain National Road
overlapping claims transportation
revolution
Shays Rebellion Louisiana Purchase
returning loyalists Oliver
Evans
Annapolis convention Revolution of
1800
Virginia Plan impressment
New Jersey Plan putting out
system
Federalists Samuel
Slater
necessary and proper Panic of 1819
Whiskey Rebellion free labor
American System Irish immigrants
Era of Good Feelings franchise
Horace Mann Pet Banks
asylums Bank of
the United States
May 4 Third Quiz at beginning of class; for tips
and format, see above.
Southern Society, Slavery, and its Opponents
Westward movement from the Old Northwest Territory to the
Donner Pass
Read before class: The American Experiment,
pp. 404-484
May 11 Rising Sectionalism throughout the Nation, 1820-1850
The Failure of Compromise in the 1850s; The Slide
into Civil War
Read before class: The American Experiment,
pp. 485-558
May 18 Study Guides handed out
Course Evaluations
Plans for the Final Exam
***********************
Study Guide: Will be handed out in our last class on Wednesday,
May 18, with lists of terms, study questions, and full explanation of what
will be covered.
Review Session: May 23, 6:30 to 8:30 p.m., in 205 Gore. This
is your golden opportunity to bring questions and go over any issues related
to the final exam.
Final Exam: May 25 in our regular classroom, 7 to 9 p.m.
No bluebooks needed.
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Worksheet #1
Servants and Slaves
The founding settlers, or “charter generation,” of most colonies
of the Western Hemisphere (especially in North America, the Caribbean,
or the far north Atlantic) all had a very large question to answer: Who
would do the work? The imperatives of clearing land, starting up plantations
and enterprises, building communities, and creating linkages to the distant
sources of necessary supplies all created a huge demand for people to work
in the new colonies. Your task is to write an essay of two to three pages
(no more than three) that examines documentary evidence and analyses the
following questions:
What conditions accounted for the large number of people
who came voluntarily to the New World as indentured servants, and what
kind of work arrangements did they have?
Why, if European settlers at first had indentured servants,
did this kind of labor deteriorate or become less desirable than slavery?
How do we explain the transition from largely servant, to largely slave
labor (keeping in mind that both forms of work would continue – it was
the proportions that changed)?
What were the major similarities and differences between
servants and slaves?
To do this assignment, you will use three things: (1) lecture
notes and assigned reading in your textbook; (2) the Africans in America
web pages outlined immediately below; and (3) the evidence presented in
the documents about indentured servitude that also come immediately below.
(2) Africans in America is at: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part1/
[you can Google “Africans in America” if the link does
not work]
At this site, go to the page called “From Indentured Servitude
to Racial Slavery,”
Read this page AND,
“Arrival of First Africans”
“Africans in Court”
“Virginia Recognizes Slavery”
“Virginia Slave Codes”
“Colonial Laws”
“Virginia Looks toward Africa for Labor”
(3) Indentured Servants:
The Virginia Company devised the system of indentured servitude
in the late 1610s to finance the recruitment and transport of workers
from England to the colony. Those unable to afford an Atlantic passage
could "borrow" the needed funds. In return for their passage, maintenance
during their service, and certain "freedom dues" at the end of the term,
servants signed contracts or "indentures" to work for their masters for
a fixed number of years. Servitude played a major role in the settlement
of the colonies. During the colonial era, some 200,000 to 300,000 servants
came to British mainland North America, accounting for one-half to two-thirds
of all European immigrants.
Pamphlets were written to encourage servants and the poor in
England to emigrate to the New World. The people who emigrated first were
not the desperate poor or the indigent; how could they afford a ticket
aboard a vessel to the New World? The first were free men, paying their
own way, either with family fortune leftovers or selling their belongings
to raise the capital. Indentures, by definition, did not have passage money
or adequate connections in the New World to travel on their own; they voluntarily
boarded ships or were forcibly removed by “spirits” and impressments officers
in the Old World. White indentured servants came from all over Great Britain.
Men, women, and sometimes children signed a contract with a master to serve
a term of 4 to 7 years. In exchange for their service, the indentured servants
received their passage paid from England, as well as food, clothing, and
shelter in the colonies. When the contract had expired, the servant was
paid freedom dues of corn, tools, and clothing, and was allowed to leave
the plantation.
Indentured servitude is sometimes thought of as an adaptation
of apprenticeship, but it more closely resembled "service in husbandry,"
a major source of agricultural labor in early modern England. Typically,
farm servants were boys and girls from poor families who left home in their
early teens to work for more prosperous farmers until they married. They
usually lived in their master's household, agreed to annual contracts for
wages, food, and lodging, and changed places frequently, often every year.
Given the pervasiveness of this form of life-cycle service, it is a likely
antecedent for the indenture system and was a major source of recruits
for American plantations.
But indentured servitude was harsher and more restrictive than
apprenticeship or service in husbandry. It was not, however, a form of
slavery. Servants entered into their labor contracts voluntarily, and
they retained some legal rights: they could bring suit and testify, own
property, and turn to colonial courts for protection against abusive masters.
On the other hand, they could not marry without their master's consent,
and they had little control over the terms or conditions of their labor
and living standards, although custom and local law did set limits and provide
for certain minimums. Terms varied substantially, from four years for skilled
adults to a decade or more for unskilled minors. And all could find their
terms extended if they ran away or became pregnant. Servants could be sold
without their consent, a necessity given the distance and terms involved.
Servants could be bought, sold, or leased. They could also be physically
beaten for disobedience or running away. Unlike slaves, however, they
were freed after their term of service expired, their children did not
inherit their status, and they received a small cash payment of "freedom
dues." To sell an English youth "like a damn'd slave" at first shocked
some contemporaries, but it was essential to the success of the indenture
system.
Prices paid for indentured servants varied depending on skills.
While under contract a person could not marry or have children. A master’s
permission was needed to leave a farm, to perform work for anyone else,
or to keep money for personal use. An unruly indentured servant was whipped
or punished for improper behavior. Due to poor living conditions, hard
labor, and difficulties adjusting to new climates and native diseases,
many servants did not live to see their freedom. Often servants ran away
from their masters. Since they often spoke English and were white, runaway
servants were more difficult to recapture than people of color. If runaway
servants were captured, they were punished by increasing their time of
service. Moreover, indentured servants who journeyed to America were unprepared
for the working conditions they encountered. Most were not seasoned to
Virginia's climate, or the malaria of the New World. But as time went on,
freedom dues were less frequently paid, land became less available to
freed servants, headrights were gobbled up by the rich planters (see your
textbook). The first large tobacco boom drove the prices of tobacco down
in the global market, depressing wages and freedmen's purchasing power,
and eventually driving many freedmen back to the larger plantations and
affluent planters for their livelihood. Some were even forced to return
to indentured servitude to support their families, until they could afford
land of their own.
Some of the male indentured servants were highly skilled laborers,
holding such jobs as bricklayer, joiner, plasterer, cook, clerk, gardener,
coachman, butcher, blacksmith, and musician. Female indentured servants
performed domestic chores like laundry, sewing, and housekeeping. Children
also were indentured. For example, William Gunnell, Jr., was born in Great
Britain, probably Scotland, in 1705. He and his family sailed together
to Virginia. They became the indentured servants of Richard Lee in Westmoreland
County, where William turned ten in November 1715. His master Richard Lee
died soon after. William’s indenture was inherited by Richard Lee’s son
Thomas. He still had five years and eleven months to work. William ran errands
and, if his writing and numbers were neat and easy to read, helped keep
accounts. He shared a bed and a room with some of the other servants. He
became free when he turned sixteen in 1721.
Most servants signed contracts before their departure from
England, but many
arrived without written contracts, however, and they were to serve
according to "the custom of the country." These customary servants were
usually younger than those with indenture contracts, and they served
longer terms. The third form of voluntary servitude appeared in the eighteenth
century with the German migration to the Mid-Atlantic colonies. "Redemptioners"
agreed to pay passage upon arriving in the colonies, thus shifting much
of the risk in the trade from merchants to the migrants. If unable to pay,
they were sold as servants to satisfy their debt.
Transported convicts, both men and women, were sold to plantation
owners as another form of labor after British Parliament adopted a law
in 1717 banishing convicts to North America. One-fourth of the British
immigrants to the colonies were convicts. Most of these convicts were male,
young, unskilled, and poor. The usual crime was grand larceny. Generally,
the only people exiled were those judges felt could be rehabilitated. Convicts
performed the same type of work as indentured servants but were less trusted.
Their length of service was usually longer than that of indentured servants.
Most servants, especially in the early years of settlement,
were male, young, in their late teens and early twenties, and single,
traveling alone rather than with family members. In the seventeenth century
they were also chiefly English, although as opportunities and wages in
England improved, more came from Scotland, Ireland, Wales, and Germany.
Details of the individual migrations are now largely lost, but most seem
to have entered the national labor market at home before signing on as
servants, hitting the road in search of work and better prospects. Once
on the road, detached from home and family, they became candidates for migration
overseas in a process that made America an extension of the labor markets
first of England and later of Britain and the Rhine Valley.
Servants played a critical role in the colonial economy. Although
they worked in all regions at a wide range of tasks throughout the colonial
period, there were clear patterns. Initially, servants were concentrated
in the staple-producing colonies, working as field hands to produce sugar
in the West Indies and tobacco along the Chesapeake Bay. As demand for
labor grew and servant prices rose, planters found that they could employ
African slaves more profitably in their fields but continued to use servants
as plantation craftsmen and domestics and in supervisory positions. As slaves
learned English and plantation work routines, they eventually displaced
servants in those positions as well. By the early eighteenth century, indentured
servants played only a marginal role in the plantation districts. Thereafter,
they were concentrated in a few industries in the Mid-Atlantic region demanding
particular skills—chiefly iron making, shipbuilding, and construction—and
in the several colonial towns where they worked in various service trades
and crafts.
There were success stories of people who had started as indentured
servants and later became prominent citizens, but the number was probably
very small. Indentured servants sometimes managed to find the time and
means to write letters back home to family members. Below is a letter
from very early in Chesapeake history, 1623. Think about Mr. Frethorne's
experience alongside that of the young woman from chapter 2 in your textbook.
Others wrote about the darker side of servitude, about those
who could not afford to buy land and were unable to find employment. The
result was hundreds of rootless men in many frontier areas. This fueled
movements of social unrest, including Bacon’s Rebellion in Virginia in
1676.
During the 1670s, the flood of servants coming to America slowed.
Economic conditions in England had improved and fewer people were willing
to take the risk of starting from scratch in a faraway land. At the same
time, many conditions in the trans-Atlantic system of trade and conditions
within Africa were changing, too. [See Africans in America and your
textbook] The plantation owners in the Chesapeake region, still badly
in need of workers, turned increasingly to slavery to keep their operations
functioning.
In this extract, John Hammond describes servitude in
Virginia in 1656. Notice the tone optimism:
“It is the glory of every Nation to enlarge themselves,
to encourage their own foreign attempts, and to be able to be able to
have their own, within their territories, as many several commodities as
they can attain to, that so others may rather be beholding to them, than
they to others.... But alas, we Englishmen...do not only fail in this, but
vilify, scandalize and cry down such parts of the unknown world. . . [Virginia]
is reported to be an unhealthy place, a nest of Rogues, whores, dissolute
and rooking persons; a place of intolerable labour, bad usage and hard Diet,
&c. …. At the first settling and many years after, it deserved most of
those aspersions .... Then were Jails emptied, youth seduced, infamous women
drilled in, the provisions all brought out of England, and that embezzled
by the Trustees (for they durst neither hunt fowl, nor Fish, for fear of
the Indian, which they stood in awe of) their labour was almost perpetual,
their allowance of victual small, few or no cattle, no use of horses nor
oxen to draw or carry, (which labours men supplied themselves) all of which
caused a mortality; no civil courts of justice but under a martial law, no
redress of grievances, complaints were repaid with stripes...in a word all
and the worst that tyranny could inflict.... [But then with the institution
of servitude in Virginia, things improved]…. The usual allowance for servants
is (besides their charge of passage defrayed) at their expiration, a year's
provision of corn, double apparel, tools necessary, and land according to
the custom of the Country.... When ye go aboard, expect the Ship somewhat
troubled and in a hurly-burly …. when ye arrive and are settled, ye will
find a strange alteration, an abused Country giving the lie to your own approbations
to those that have calumniated it....The labour servants are put to, is not
so hard nor of such continuance as Husbandmen, nor Handicraftmen are kept
at in England, I said little or nothing is done in winter time, none ever
work before sun rising nor after sun set, in the summer they rest, sleep or
exercise themselves give hours in the heat of the day, Saturdays afternoon
is always their own, the old Holidays are observed and the Sabbath spent in
good exercises. The women are not (as is reported) put into the ground to
work, but occupy such domestic employments and housewifery as in England,
that is dressing victuals, right up the house, milking, employed about dairies,
washing, sewing, &c. and both men and women have times of recreations,
as much or more than in any part of the world besides, yet some wenches that
are nastily, beastly and not fit to be so employed are put into the ground,
for reason tells us, they must not at charge be transported then maintained
for nothing, but those that prove so awkward are rather burthensome than servants
desirable or useful.... Those Servants that will be industrious may in their
time of service gain a competent estate before their Freedoms, which is
usually done by many, and they gain esteem and assistance that appear so
industrious: There is no Master almost but will allow his Servant a parcel
of clear ground to cut some Tobacco in for himself, which he may husband at
those many idle times he hath allowed him and not prejudice, but rejoice his
Master to see it, which in time of Shipping he may lay out for commodities,
and in Summer sell them again with advantage and get a Pig or two, which any
body almost will give him, and his Master suffer him to keep them with his
own, which will be no charge to his Master, and with one years increase of
them may purchase a Cow Calf or two, and by that time he is for himself; he
may have Cattle, Hogs and Tobacco of his own, and come to live gallantly;
but this must be gained (as I have said) by Industry and affability, not by
sloth nor churlish behavior.”
[From: John Hammond, “Leah and Rachel, or The Two Fruitful Sisters
Virginia and Mary-land: Their Present Condition, Impartially Stated and
Related,” London, 1656.]
Against the rosy accounts of better living standards in
the Americas one must place many others, like one immigrant's letter:
'Whoever is well off in Europe better remain there. Here is misery and
distress, same as everywhere, and for certain persons and conditions incomparably
more than in Europe.' Beatings and whippings were common. Servant women
were raped.... The Maryland court records showed many servant suicides....
As another letter noted, “Many [of those who died from diseases] were poor
children, gathered up by the hundreds on the streets of England and sent
to Virginia to work.” The master tried to control completely the sexual
lives of the servants.... Servants could not marry without permission, could
be separated from their families, could be whipped for various offenses.
In the mid-1600s a report from the military stated: 'Virginia is at present
poor and more populous than ever. There is great apprehension of a rising
among the servants, owing to their great necessities and want of clothes;
they may plunder the storehouses and ships.' Escape was easier than rebellion.
Strangers had to show passports to prove they were free men. Agreements
between the colonies provided for the extradition of fugitive servants.
Compare Hammond’s account above with the following one, taken from the court
records of Virginia and describing what happened to indentured servants who
ran away, which suggests something of the social order in seventeenth-century:
“Virginia. July 22nd, 1640. Whereas complaint has been
made to this Board by Capt. William Pierce, Esqr., that six of his servants
and a negro of Mr. Reginald's has plotted to run away unto the Dutch plantation
from their said masters, and did assay to put the same in Execution upon
Saturday night, being the 8th day July, 1640, as appeared to the Board
by the Examinations of Andrew Noxe, Richard Hill, Richard Cookeson and
John Williams, and likewise by the confession of Christopher Miller, Peter
Milcocke and Emanuel, the foresaid Negro, who had, at the foresaid time,
taken the skiff of the said Capt. William Pierce, their master, and corn,
powder and shot and guns to accomplish their said purposes, which said
persons sailed down in the said skiff to Elizabeth river, where they were
taken and brought back again, the court taking the same into consideration
as a dangerous precedent for the future time (if left unpunished), did order
that Christopher Miller, a dutchman (a prime agent in the business), should
receive the punishment of whipping, and to have thirty stripes and so
be burnt in the cheek with the letter R and to work with a shackle on
his legg for one whole year and longer if said master shall see cause,
and after his full time of service is Expired with his said master to serve
the colony for seven whole years, and the said Peter Milcocke to receive
thirty stripes and to be Burnt in the cheek with the letter R, and after
his term of service is Expired with his said master to serve the colony
for three years, and the said Richard Cockson, after his full time Expired
with his master, to serve the colony for two years and a half, and the said
Richard Hill to remain upon his good behavior untill the next offence, and
the said Andrew Noxe to receive thirty stripes, and the said John Williams,
a dutchman and a chirurgeon [surgeon] after his full time of service is
Expired with his master, to serve the colony for seven years, and Emanuel,
the Negro, to receive thirty stripes and to be burnt in the cheek with the
letter R and to work in shackles one year or more as his master shall see
cause.”
[Decisions of the General Court, 1640, reprinted in The Virginia
Magazine of History and Biography (Vol 5. 1897-1898), 236-237.]
Another bleak picture of indentured servitude is painted
in the following account, from “Our Plantation Is Very Weak”: The Experiences
of an Indentured Servant in Virginia, 1623,” written by Richard Frethorne.
Frethorne came to Jamestown colony in 1623 as an indentured servant. In
this letter dated March 20, 1623, written just three months after his entry
into the colony, he described the death and disease all around him. Two
thirds of his fellow shipmates had died since their arrival. Those without
capital suffered particularly precarious situations with the lack of supplies
and loss of leaders. Frethorne pleaded with his parents to redeem (buy
out) his indenture.
“To my LOVING AND KIND FATHER AND MOTHER:
….This is to let you understand that I your child am in a most
heavy case by reason of the country, [which] is such that it causeth
much sickness, [such] as the scurvy and the bloody flux and diverse other
diseases, which maketh the body very poor and weak. And when we are sick
there is nothing to comfort us; for since I came out of the ship I never
ate anything but peas, and loblollie (that is, water gruel). As for deer
or venison I never saw any since I came into this land. There is indeed
some fowl, but we are not allowed to go and get it, but must work hard
both early and late for a mess of water gruel and a mouthful of bread and
beef. A mouthful of bread for a penny loaf must serve for four men which
is most pitiful. …. people cry out day and night – Oh! That they were in
England without their limbs – and would not care to lose any limb to be
in England again, yea, though they beg from door to door. For we live in
fear of the enemy every hour, yet we have had a combat with them … and we
took two alive and made slaves of them. But it was by policy, for we are
in great danger; for our plantation is very weak by reason of the death
and sickness of our company. For we … . are but 32 to fight against 3000
if they should come. . . . And I have nothing to comfort me, nor is there
nothing to be gotten here but sickness and death, except [in the event]
that one had money to lay out in some things for profit. But I have nothing
at all–no, not a shirt to my back but two rags (2), nor clothes but one poor
suit, nor but one pair of shoes, but one pair of stockings, but one cap,
[and] but two bands [collars]. My cloak is stolen by one of my fellows, and
to his dying hour [he] would not tell me what he did with it; but some of
my fellows saw him have butter and beef out of a ship, which my cloak, I
doubt [not], paid for. So that I have not a penny, nor a penny worth, to
help me too either spice or sugar or strong waters, without the which one
cannot live here. For as strong beer in England doth fatten and strengthen
them, so water here doth wash and weaken these here [and] only keeps [their]
life and soul together. But I am not half [of] a quarter so strong as I was
in England, and all is for want of victuals; for I do protest unto you that
I have eaten more in [one] day at home than I have allowed me here for a
week. . . . .And indeed so I find it now, to my great grief and misery; and
[I] saith that if you love me you will redeem me suddenly, for which I do
entreat and beg. And if you cannot get the merchants to redeem me for some
little money, then for God’s sake get a gathering or entreat some good folks
to lay out some little sum of money in meal and cheese and butter and beef.
Any eating meat will yield great profit. Oil and vinegar is very good;
but, father, there is great loss in leaking. But for God’s sake send beef
and cheese and butter, or the more of one sort and none of another. But
if you send cheese, it must be very old cheese; and at the cheesemonger’s
you may buy very food cheese for twopence farthing or halfpenny, that will
be liked very well. But if you send cheese, you must have a care how you
pack it in barrels; and you must put cooper’s chips between every cheese,
or else the heat of the hold will rot them. . . . Therefore, good father,
send as soon as you can; and if you send me any thing let this be the mark.
ROT
RICHARD FRETHORNE,
MARTIN’S HUNDRED .
[From: Richard Frethorne, letter to his father and mother, March
20, April 2 & 3, 1623, in Susan Kingsbury, ed., The Records of the
Virginia Company of London (Washington, D.C, 1935), 4: 58–62]
Single men were the typical migrants to the British settlements
of Virginia, Maryland, the Carolinas, Jamaica, and Barbados in the early
years. These colonies became mostly staple crop exporting regions of the
British empire. The Southern and Caribbean colonies, moreover, were awarded
to favorites of the Crown, and were believed to be the most potentially
profitable colonies, since they were believed to have a "mediterranean" climate.
In addition, settlement in the Southern and Caribbean colonies was an investment,
and migration there was linked to periods of rising prosperity in the British
economy. Although the laboring classes in England often were suffering
hard times in the seventeenth century, entrepreneurs tried to expand abroad
during better-than-usual times. Prosperity pulled labor migration to the
Southern and Caribbean colonies, although it was a prosperity that few
of the migrants themselves enjoyed. In addition, British indentured servants
proved to be a not-entirely-reliable source of labor in the deep South and
Caribbean, since they had little resistance to the tropical diseases they
encountered in swampy and hot areas. The resulting high levels of mortality
led investors to think about alternative forms of labor.
Worksheet #2
The Early American Empire: Territorial
expansion, global involvement,
and taming of the frontiers.
For this assignment, you will write a two-to-three page essay that
discusses different aspects of the early movement of Americans westward.
The main questions you should answer are: Where did Americans go, from
1781 to 1830, and how did the shape of the country change over these years?
How would you compare the shape of the nation at different points in time,
such as 1781, 1803, 1810, 1819, etc.? Using a chronological approach, trace
the major moments, the landmark turning points, and the significant policy
and ideological changes that occurred in America’s westward movement from
1781 to 1830. As you trace these developments, analyze whether Americans
were constructing their own empire soon after breaking out of the British
empire, and what consequences stemmed from their westward movement. Link
together the advancing frontiers that involved the Northwest Ordinance,
land cessions of the states, Louisiana Purchase, Lewis and Clark expedition;
Haitian Revolution, the War of 1812; the Missouri Crisis; and the Monroe
Doctrine. You do not have to use specific numbers of people, or specific
square miles of territory, etc. to talk about this advancing frontier of
Americans. But you should reflect on the meanings that such territorial
expansion had for American life. Remember that you are NOT writing about
the frontier that was developed after the 1830s.
Your sources for this assignment are: (1) lectures and textbook reading
assignments, including all maps; and (2) the web pages as follows:
http://www.lewis-clark.org
explore this site – it is rich! -- follow the trail, read
about what was "discovered," what Lewis and Clark saw, what problems they
had
http://teachpol.tcnj.edu/amer_pol_hist/
(if the link does not work, type in the URL on your computer's search
line)
Go to "Maps of Growth....," and then to a few particular
images:
"Map of Territorial Growth, 1810"
"Map of Territorial Growth, 1820"
"Map of Territorial Growth, 1830"
Trans-Allegheney Population Movement, 1790
Distribution of U.S. Population in 1810
Distribution of U.S. Population in 1820
pages of your textbook with important maps: p.256, p.258, p.297,
p.315, p.326
******************************************************************************************************************
Additional Internet Sites to Accompany
the Syllabus
1450-1750
On Native Americans:
www.sipapu.gsu.edu/html/kiva.html -- Southwestern Native Americans
www.anth.ucsb.edu/projects/index.html --- Anasazi and kiva life
www.medicine.wustl.edu/ --- very good site on Cahokia
www.laplaza.org/about_taos/history/spanish_colonial.html/ ---
Spanish mission history
http://www.nps.gov/sapu/spirit.htmn --- Pueblo and Spanish missions
For native Americans, also search under Oneida Indians, Seneca
Indians, Mohawk Indians, Aztecs, Tenochtitlan.
http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/colonial_america/ --- browse
this very large collection of articles on numerous aspects of earliest
colonial settlement, including Pocahantas, Powhatans, the Massacre of
1622 in Virginia, Caribbean colonies,
http://odur.let.rug.nl/ --- Columbus
Hakluyt, Discourse,1584
Mayflower compact
Charters
Bacon's rebellion
Locke
Gottlieb Mittelberger on servants
Ben Franklin -- Autobiography, etc.
ETC.
For Mexico:
www.umich.edu/~proflame/texts/mirror/conflict/html - the Buried
Mirror site
For Columbus:
[see other citations on this list, too]
www.forham.edu/halsall/source/columbus1.html
www.huhttp.cc.ukans.edu/carrie/docs/texts/inlcolum.html
www.user1.thebook.com/papax7/herit2.htm
www1.minn.net/~keithp/ --- great site on Columbus, with
many links
www.lcweb.loc.gov/exhibits/1492 --- companion to other sites
on Columbus -- mostly visual
www.metalab.unc.edu/expo/1492 --- very good; numerous documents
on Columbus and voyages
www.marauder.millersv.edu --- long lists of sources and
exhibits; expanding regularly
For Virginia founding:
www.apva.org/history --- History of Jamestown, with lists of
supplies, pictures of forts, etc.; this is a HUGE site, and the best;
narratives of Capt. Smith and other first settlers; great maps and pictures
of White done at the time settlement;
www.tobacco.org/History/Jamestown -- good timelines and narrative
of details
www.smith2.sewanee.edu/gsmith/cours
www.longman.awl.com/history/primarysource -- good material
on the Europeans
www.historyisfun.org -- on Jamestown and Yorktown, with numerous
documents and essays; includes information about Powhatans, original
settlers, the voyages, and living conditions
www.ccwf.cc.utexas.edu/~russell/hal/docs/virginiaslaverystatutes/
--- good on origins of slavery
www.nv.cc.va.us/home/nvsageh/Hist121/ --
www.nationalcenter.org/SettlementofJamestown/ --
www.jefferson.village.virginia.edu/vcdh/jamestown/contents1.html
-- a large place
Search for "Virtual Jamestown" -- a rich site
Search for the Folger Institute's pages on Virginia's founding,
especially "From the Archive", for documents on indentured servants and
slave voyages, including maps and etchings.
http://www.folger.edu/institute/jamestown -- for much on the founding
of Virginia, including indentured servant contracts, slavery documents,
documents of British founders, etc.
www.ushistory.org --- a large site, including documents of
Columbus, Mayflower, etc.
http://vi.uh.edu/pages/mintz --- numerous documents on the
slave trade and slave culture
www.metalab.unc.edu/docsouth --- documents on slave trade and
southern life
The Avalon Project (Yale University) -- a huge and diverse
collection of documents
www.uiarchive.cso.uiuc.edu/pub/etext/gutenberg --- text of
captivity of Mary Rowlandson
For witchcraft:
www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/salemn/SALEM.HTM
-- trial testimony documents
www.salemweb.com/witches
etext.virginia.edu/salem/witchcraft/witch
www.longman.awl.com/history/primarysource_2_6.htm ---
[see Geocities citations, too]
For Pueblo Revolt:
www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/wpages/wpgs610
http://www.sos.state.nm.us/BLUEBOOK/hist04.htm -- history of
Spanish in southwest
http://www.canyonart.com/RugHist.htm -- Navajo weaving and
history
http://web.nmsu.edu/~pueblhist/ccjune21.html -- history of
Pueblo
For King Philip's War:
www.geocities.com/heartland/hills/1094/King.htm --
cwrl.utexas.edu/…cooper/white.htm
For Seven Years' War:
File:///Al/wm_henry.htm
http://earlyameria.com/review/1998/scalping.html
For immigration and migration:
http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/vedh/jamestown/experience.html
-- indentured servants
wysiwyg://55http://earlyamerica.com/review/1998/brent.html -- essay
on Margaret Brent, servant immigrant
http://cs.muohio.edu/Clio/Publications/indentured.shtml
For Slavery:
www.metalab.unc.edu/ --- a very large site with much on southern
life and slavery
http://www.pbs.org/wbgh/aia/part1 -- documents and narrative on
the Stono Rebellion, 1739; This Africans in America site has many valuable
documents and essays about the rise of slavery in the colonies; e.g.,
Journal of Landon Carter, documents of Carter's Grove slave quarters, and
a 34-page history of Cheaspeake slavery from 1619ff.; African background,
etc.
www.pbs.org/ghbh/aia/hom.html
www.mhhe.com/socscience/history --- huge site, with many excellent
colonial sources; EG:
Rare Map collection, including early exploration
Colonial Williamsburg
Mayflower documents
Plymouth documents
Jamestown
Age of Discovery
http://gropius.lib.virginia.edu/slavery/ -- for maps, pictures,
and many documents on the slave trade of the 18th century
For Plymouth and early New England:
www.members.aol.com/calebj/ --- Merrymount
New England Indian life
Plymouth development
www.members.aol.com/calebj -- good documents on Mayflower and
early settlement, with lists of people, goods, ships, etc.
http:///www.plimoth.org --- -- excellent site for info. About
Plymouth, Wampanoags, Pilgrims, etc.
http://www.state.ma.us/dhch/iprofile/239.htm ---- large collection
of documents and historical narratives
http://members.aol.com/calebj/crew.html -- one of many cites
on Plymouth and Mayflower social life, passenger lists and supplies,
and conditions of settlement -- very good -- follow the links -- also has
many documents about native Americans in New England -- also, many wills
and inventories
www.geocities.com -- also huge; EG:
www.salemweb.com/witches.htm www.bio.umass.edu/biology/conn.river/mary.html
-- captivity narratives, including Mary Rowlandson
www.geocities.com/heartland/hills/1094/nar.html --
currency pictures and articles
colonial New England slavery, with links to African-American
life
Mayflower documents
For the more adventuresome:
www.history.org -- related to Colonial Williamsburg projects
www.state.de.us -- yes, it's about Delaware early history
www.oieahc.h-net.msu.edu --- site maintained by William and Mary
Institute
www.mdarchives.state.md.us/msa -- Maryland and Chesapeake settlement;
admiralty court records, documents about indentured servants
For Piracy:
www.history.org/other/journal/blackbea.htm
1750-1783:
http://odur.let.rug.nl/ --- Seven Years' War
Boston Tea Party, Boston Massacre, Stamp Act, ….. and many other
crisis documents
Tom Paine writings
Articles of Confederation
Documents about loyalists
Albany Plan
Correspondence during the revolutionary war
www.longman.awl.com/nash/ --- a long, good site that gives you
maps, quizzes, links to other sites, study guides for your textbook, etc.
www.nara.gov/education/cc/main.html --- images of the American
Revolution
The Avalon Project: --- [a treasure trove of documents! From
earliest foundings to
the present] For example:
An Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery, 1780
Paine, The American Crisis
Alien and Sedition Acts
Barbary Treaties
Albany Plan
Constitutions and Charters of all colonies and states
The Federalist Papers
Documents of diplomacy and foreign affairs
Opinions on the Constitutionality of the BUS
Treaties with native Americans
Documents of the Whiskey Rebellion
The American Revolution: -- another large site with numerous
documents; EG:
Numerous bibliographies and timelines;
Spy Letters of the American Revolution
Documents relating to women's roles in the Amer. Rev.
www.ushistory.org -- numerous branches within the site, including
"odur" ; see esp:
Valley Forge links,
Diary of Albigence Waldo
www.historyplace.com -- for everything from Stamp Act to Congresses,
Tea Parties, Patrick Henry, etc.
http://anza.uoregon.edu/archives.html -- California and Oregon
during the 1770s, much of it in Spanish; timelines, biographies, maps,
diaries and letters of two expeditions of the Spanish to colonize California
in 1774-1776
www.msstate.edu/archives/history --- many different topics, mostly
revolution era
www.memory.loc.gov/ --- Library of Congress collections; some
excerpts from Jefferson and Washington papers, and from other early
republic events.
www.fisher.lib.virgina.edu -- early census data
www.libertynet.org -- revolutionary era and its aftermath;
esp. from collections of the David Library of the Amer. Rev.
www.h-net.msu.edu
www.state.de.us
www.oup.usa.org/anb -- American National Biography
www.earlyamerica.com --- a very large site; some of the most
important documents it has include:
Tom Paine's Common Sense
Nonimportation agreements
Articles of Confederation
George Washington's War Journals
The Newburgh Address
The Paris Peace Treaty
Autobiography of Ben Franklin
www.americanrevolution.org
www.revolution.h-net.msu.edu/essays
www.digitalhistory.org --- good documents on the 7 Years' War and
Revolution beginnings; excellent place to read about daily life of soldier
www.ccs.neu.edu/home/bcortez/rev war --- mostly military history
www.lives/gwlife/ -- Washington biography; use to link to other
bios of the era's leaders
www.accessible.com --- the Pennsylvania Gazette on line
http://teachpol.tcnj.edu --- excellent trove of graphics on the
Rev.
www.angelfire.com --- esp. good on the economics of the Rev.
www.plpsd.mb.ca/amhs/history -- links to many events, and esp.
good on Loyalists
1783-1820:
http://odur.let.rug.nl/ --- Washington's Farewell Address
Important Court Cases of the early republic
Monroe Doctrine
Marbury v. Madison, 1803
McCulloch v. Maryland, 1819
Dartmouth College case, 1819
Jefferson's inaugural address
Treaties, bill of rights, northwest ordinances, etc.
www.nara.gov/education/cc/main.html --- Eli Whitney's Patent for
the Cotton Gin
The Lewis and Clark Expedition
Anti-Railroad Posters
www.constitution.org --- many constitutions of states and governments;
Federalist debates, Con Con debates; etc.
The Avalon Project: [see above]
www.law.emory.edu/FEDERAL --- complete Federalist Papers and search
tools
Also other documents of the founding period.
www.earlyamerica.com --- includes "The Early America Review"
with many articles, plus:
Alien and Sedition Acts
Whiskey Rebellion
Treaty of Greenville
Louisiana Purchase
Jay's Treaty
Northwest Ordinances
Washington's Farwell Address
Adventures of Daniel Boone (3 parts)
Vignettes on notable early American women
ETC.
Lewis and Clark:
www.lewis-clark.org --- very large site; very GOOD; interactive;
maps; excellent narrative
www.pbs.org/lewisandclark --- timelines, maps, and complete "Journals"
of L. and C. -- good historical context provided
www.nationalgeographic.com/lewisclark --- not as good, but worth
a look
www.why.org (or perhaps, www.whyy.org
www.syracuse.com/features/eriecanal/ --- 15 pages of good material
on material and economic life living along the canal, with pictures of
locks and dams, boats, etc. -- and the song! -- about the Erie Canal
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/HNS/Boone --- Daniel Boone site
1820-1850s:
http://odur.let.rug.nl/ --- Manifest Destiny documents
Dred Scott case
Monroe Doctrine
Frederick Douglass autobiography
Alamo
Gerokee Nation v. State of Georgia, 1831
Confessions of Nat Turner, 1831
Fugitive slave documents
Henry Carey documents
www.loc.gov/exhibits/african/influ.html --- Abolitionists and
Antislavery documents and biographies
http://gropius.lib.virginia.edu/slavery/ -- for many pictures,
maps, and documents on the trans-Atlantic slave trade, abolition, and
slavery in the Western Hemisphere.
Removal:
http://rosecity.net/tears/trail/map.html -- for a map of the
Trail of Tears, and estimated numbers of those who perished.
www.nara.gov/education/cc/main.html --- Fugitive Slaves, Henry
Garnett and Moses Honner
Letters and Photos from the Civil War
www.nara.gov/education/teaching ----The Amistad Case -- newspaper
articles and court case, etc.
The Mexican War
African-American soldiers of the Civil War
http://amistad.mysticseaport.org/main --- primary documents, pamphlets,
newspaper accounts, court cases, etc. -- covers histories of the event
during the same generation, too.
http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/vshadow2 --- large Civil
War site, including comparative look at two communities before the war;
newspaper accounts, letters, diaries, photos, maps, etc.
For the Mexican War: www.sunsite.unam.mx/revistas/1847
For the Gold Rush:
www.notfrisco.com/calmem/goldrush/index.html --- many essays
and documents
http://ceres.ca.gov/ceres/calweb/geology/goldrush/html
http://memory.loc.gov/ammen/cbhtml/cbhome.html --- especially
good; has over 60 first person accounts of gold discoveries, life in
the camps and moving to California
For the Donner Party:
www.metrogourmet.com/crossroads/kjhome.htm
http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammen/calbk:@field(DOCID+@lit(C187T00)):@@@$REF$
--- this is Elizabeth Donner's narrative of moving West and living through
the ordeal of the Donner Party
http://member.aol.com/DanMRosen/donner/ -- includes the diaries
of the Donner Party families
www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/donner/ -- the transcript of the TV series
by Ken Burns
For Lowell:
www.tcr.org/advpl_3html -- an essay on women and factory work
www.si.edu/lemelson/ --- Tom Dublin essay, plus activities, questions,
the Lowell work schedule and technology
www.lclark.edu/~invent/lowell/html --- documents by the women at
Lowell
www.bibliomania.com/Fiction/dickens --- Charles Dickens' tour around
the Lowell complex
http://www.bennington.edu/users/students/dotread/millgirls.html
--- good documents
http:/people.clemson.edu/~pammack/lec323/lowell.htm -- life in
and around the mills
http:/people.clemson.edu/~pammack/lec323/amsystem.htm -- technology,
factory organization
www.forham.edu/halsall/mod/robinson-Lowell.htm --- narratives of
the Lowell Girls
http://www.nps.gov/Lowe/Loweweb/Lowell%20History/ --- very good!
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/DETOC/Fem/author/htm --- writings
by De Tocqueville, Martineau, Dickens, Chevalier, etc. -- foreign travelers
to America during this era -- full texts
For Lincoln-Douglas Debates and the 1850s:
www.ameritech.net/users/dsadowski/littlegiant.html -- on Stephen
A. Douglas -- many links to other documents!
www.debateinfo.com/hall_of_fame/lincoln-douglas/ --- the entire
debates
www.nac.gmu.edu/mnts/50relate.html -- many links to 1850s documents
and maps
http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/jbrown/master.html -- best
site on John Brown
http://wwwnyhistory.com/central/conflict/htm --- Seward's Irrepressible
Conflict speech
www.msstate.edu/archives/history/women --- for women on the frontier