AMH 5116.01
Colonial American History, 1607-1763:
Cultural Encounters and Identity in Early America
Fall Semester 2007, Mondays, 6:00-8:45 pm
Dr. Rosalind J. Beiler Office CNH 551
email:  beiler@pegasus.cc.ucf.edu
 Phone:  823-2224
Office Hours:  Tues. 3:30-5:30 and by appointment

Course Description:

AMH 5116 is an intensive reading colloquium which explores the historical debates about cultural encounters in Colonial North America.  Throughout the semester we will examine historians' arguments about the interactions between American Indians, Europeans and Africans in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.  While British America will be the primary focus of the colloquium, we will place it in the context of other cultural groups — Native American, European and African — competing for power on the continent.  The course will pay particular attention to conflict and accommodation between different cultural groups which, in turn, shaped colonial political, social and economic life.    

The goals of this course are to provide a general overview of early American history and historiography and to improve skills in analytical thinking and expression.  Class periods will be spent discussing common readings and analyzing the arguments of other historians.  In addition, students will choose a particular topic on which they will complete additional readings.  By the end of the semester, students will be thoroughly acquainted with the current literature on their topic.

Course Requirements:

1.  Short written assignments.  Course assignments will include a series of short papers that will be spread throughout the semester.  These assignments will include two 3-4 page book reviews, and a 4-5 page paper in which students compare several authors' arguments on a specific topic.  The point of the short written assignments will be to prepare students for class discussions and for writing a historiographic essay.
Book Review Instructions
Comparative Essay Instructions

2.  Historiographic Essay.  Students will choose one of the themes of the course and complete a 12-15 page historiographic essay by the end of the semester.  Each essay should be based on at least 4 books on the topic (in addition to any readings required for the course) and discuss the major arguments among scholars writing on the theme.  What have been the major questions historians have asked about the topic?  What kinds of sources have scholars used in their arguments?  How have the sources influenced interpretations and debates among scholars?  
Historiographic Essay Instructions

3.  Class discussion.  Class participation will be a significant element of this colloquium.  Each week students should be prepared to discuss the main arguments of the authors they have read for the week.  Students will also present a brief summary (10 minutes) of the major debates in the topic they have chosen for their historiographic essay during the week the class is reading and discussing the same theme.

Literature Analysis Form -- This form includes the questions you should answer for each essay and book you read in order to prepare for class discussion each week.  It is also designed to help you prepare for reviewing any literature you read in preparation for your preliminary exams.  Please answer these questions for all secondary literature you read for this class!

Required Readings:

Collection of Essays:

    Katz, Stanley, John Murrin, and Douglas Greenberg.  Eds.  Colonial America:  Essays in Politics and Social Development.  5th edition.  New York:  McGraw-Hill, Inc., 2001.  ISBN 0-07-231740-X.
    
Monographs:

    Berlin, Ira.  Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery in North America.  Cambridge, MA: Belknap/Harvard University Press, 1998.  ISBN 0-674-81092-9.
    Brown, Kathleen.  Good Wives, Nasty Wenches, and Anxious Patriarchs:  Gender, Race, and Power in Colonial Virginia.  Chapel Hill, NC:  University of North Carolina Press, 1996.  ISBN 0-8078-2307-4.
    Goodfriend, Joyce.  Before the Melting Pot: Society and Culture in Colonial New York City, 1664-1730.  Princeton, NJ:  Princeton University Press, reprint, 1994.  ISBN 0-691-03787-6    
    Lepore, Jill.  The Name of War: King Philip’s War and the Origins of American Identity.  New York: Vintage Books, 1998.  ISBN 0-679-44686-9
    Richter, Daniel.  Facing East from Indian Country: A Native History of Early America.  Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001.  ISBN 0-674-01117-1
    Salisbury, Neal.  Manitou and Providence: Indians, Europeans and the Making of New England, 1500-1643.  Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982.  ISBN 0-19-503454-6
    Sleeper-Smith, Susan.  Indian Women and French Men: Rethinking Cultural Encounter in the Western Great Lakes.  Boston:  University of Massachusetts Press, 2001.  ISBN 1-55849-310-7.
    Usner, Daniel.  Indians, Settlers, and Slaves in a Frontier Exchange Economy: The Lower Mississippi Valley Before 1783.  Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press, 1992.  ISBN 0-8078-4358-x.
    White, Richard.  The Middle Ground:  Indians, Empires, and Republics in the Great Lakes Region, 1650-1815.  New York:  Cambridge University Press, 1991.  ISBN 0-521-42460-7.
    Wood, Peter.  Black Majority: Negroes in Colonial South Carolina from 1670 through the Stono Rebellion.  New York: W.W. Norton & Co./Alfred Knopf, 1974; 1996.  ISBN 0-393-31482-0.

Please note:  Books are available for purchase at the University bookstore.  You may wish, however, to purchase books through Amazon.com or Half.com.

Course Protocols:
    1. Students are expected to attend every class and to arrive promptly.  Preparation and participation are critical.  As this is a discussion course, you will only benefit from the class in proportion to your efforts both in and out of the classroom.  Please be considerate of your colleagues – arrive in a timely fashion.  Absences and late arrivals will directly affect your class participation grade.
    2.  Late papers will be accepted with a penalty only if the student makes timely arrangements with the professor.
    3.  All written assignments must be typed and double-spaced with standard one-inch margins.
    4.  The plagiarism of ideas and/or words is not acceptable.  Incidents of plagiarism will result in an automatic “F” for the course.
    5.  All papers will use footnotes or endnotes which will be cited according to Kate Turabian, A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press,1996).  If you do not own a copy of Turabian, please purchase one.  You will need this style guide when writing your thesis.
    6.  As a courtesy to your colleagues, please turn of all cell phones and other electronic devices during class.
7.  No tape recorders are permitted in class without the prior permission of the instructor.

Class Schedule:

Aug. 20:  Introduction

Aug. 27: Alternative Perspectives on Early American History
    Readings:  Daniel Richter, Facing East from Indian Country:  A Native History of Early America
                       Jared Diamond, “Spacious Skies and Tilted Axes,” in Katz, Murrin and Greenberg, 3-16.
    Book Review #1 Due

Sept. 3: No Class – Labor Day

Sept. 10:  European Invasion of the Americas
    Readings:  Patricia Seed, “Taking Possession and Reading Texts,” in Katz, Murrin and Greenberg, 19-46.
                        David Weber, “Conquistadores of the Spirit,” in Katz, Murrin and Greenberg, 47-89.
                        Peter N. Moogk, “Reluctant Exiles,” in Katz, Murrin and Greenberg, 90-130.

Sept. 17:  English Settlement in the Chesapeake
    Readings:  Kathleen Brown, Good Wives, Nasty Wenches
                        Russell Menard,” From Servant to Freeholder,” in Katz, Murrin and Greenberg, 131-53.
                        Lois Carr and Lorena Walsh, “The Planter’s Wife,” in Katz, Murrin and Greenberg, 154-81.
                        John Thornton, “The African Experience,” in Katz, Murrin and Greenberg, 182-98.
    Brown Reviews Due

Sept. 24:  English Settlement in New England
    Readings:  Neal Salisbury, Manitou and Providence
                        Philip Greven, “Family Structure,” in Katz, Murrin and Greenberg, 199-218.
                        Elizabeth Reis, “The Devil, the Body and the Feminine Soul,” in Katz, Murrin and Greenberg, 219-39.
    Salisbury Reviews Due
    Class presentation:  Luke Leonard

Oct. 1:  Settling the Mid-Atlantic
    Readings:  Joyce Goodfriend, Before the Melting Pot
                        Barry Levy, “‘Tender Plants,’" in Katz, Murrin and Greenberg, 240-65.
    Goodfriend Reviews Due

Oct. 8:  Cultural Encounters in the Lower South
    Readings:  Peter Wood, Black Majority
    Wood Reviews Due
   
Oct. 15: Africans and African Americans in Colonial America
    Readings:  Ira Berlin, Many Thousands Gone
                        Philip Morgan, “Social Transactions between Whites and Blacks,” in Katz, Murrin and Greenberg, 556-89.
    Class presentation:  Stephen Villiotis

Oct. 22:  The Clash of Cultures in an Age of Crisis
    Readings:    Daniel Richter, “War and Culture: The Iroquois Experience,” in Katz, Murrin and Greenberg, 269-300.
                        James H. Merrell, “The Indians’ New World: The Catawba Experience,” in Katz, Murrin and Greenberg, 301-328.
                        Virginia DeJohn Anderson, “King Philip’s Herds,” in Katz, Murrin and Greenberg, 329-54.
                        Edmund Morgan, “Slavery and Freedom: The American Paradox,” in Katz, Murrin and Greenberg, 355-379.
                        John M. Murrin, “The Menacing Shadow of Louis XIV," in Katz, Murrin and Greenberg, 380-418.
                        Ramon Gutierrez, “The Pueblo Revolt and its Aftermath,” in Katz, Murrin and Greenberg, 419-30.
    Comparative Essay Due
    Class presentation:  Jessica Hoeschen; Marie Harding

Oct. 29:  The Clash of Cultures in an Age of Crisis, part 2
    Readings:  Jill Lepore, The Name of War
    Class presentation:  Eric Totten

Nov. 5:  Empires in Early America
    Readings:  Richard White, The Middle Ground    
                        Warren Hofstra, “‘The Extention of His Majesties Dominions,’" in Katz, Murrin and Greenberg, 433-66.
    Class presentation:  Eric Deupree; Deborah Bauer

Nov. 12: No Class – Veterans Day
                
Nov. 19:  Gender and the Family in Early America
    Readings:  Susan Sleeper-Smith, Indian Women and French Men
                        Cornelia Hughes Dayton, “Taking the Trade,” in Katz, Murrin and Greenberg, 524-55.
    Class presentation:  Kimberly Burton

Nov. 26: Economy in Early America
    Readings:  Daniel Usner, Indians, Settlers and Slaves in a Frontier Exchange Economy
                        T.H. Breen, “‘Baubles of Britain;: The American and Consumer Revolutions of the Eighteenth Century,” in Katz, Murrin and Greenberg, 467-96.
                        Richard M. Bushman, “Markets and Composite Farms in Early America,” in Katz, Murrin and Greenberg, 497-523.
    Class presenation:  Derek Russell

Dec. 3: Mid-Century Crises and Transformations
    Readings:  Jane Landers, “Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mose: A Free Black Town in Spanish Colonial Florida,” in Katz, Murrin and Greenberg, 593-619.
                        John Thornton, “African Dimensions of the Stono Rebellion,” in Katz, Murrin and Greenberg, 620-35.
                        Frank Lambert, “‘Pedlar in Divinity’: George Whitefield and the Great Awakening, 1737-1745,” in Katz, Murrin and Greenberg, 636-63.
                        Gregory Evans Dowd, “The Indians’ Great Awakening, 1745-1775,” in Katz, Murrin and Greenberg, 664-90.
    Class presenation:  Russell Moore; Chris Teixeira

Dec. 10, 6:00 pm -- Historiographic Essays Due