William Penn, a well placed English gentlemen and a Quaker, turned an old debt into a charter for the proprietary colony called "Pennsylvania," (all the land between New Jersey and Maryland) Penn took great pains in setting up his colony; twenty drafts survive of his First Frame of Government, the colony's 1682 constitution. Penn was determined to deal fairly and maintain friendly relations with the Lenni Lenape or Delaware Indians. He laid out in great detail the city of Philadelphia as well as organized other settlements and established the Free Society of Traders to control commerce with England. He sent back glowing accounts of the colony to his English friends and patrons. This Letter to the Free Society of Traders, published in 1683, has been recognized as the most effective of his promotional tracts. And it proved successful; by 1700 Pennsylvania's population reached 21,000.
General George Washington and the patriot leaders faced an enormous challenge in mounting a military campaign against the British forces during the revolutionary war. For soldiers, they drew upon existing state militias and also raised a Continental army. But no such source for a naval force existed. Instead, Washington's officers acquired the services of American captains and sailors by commissioning them as privateers, or private citizens authorized to attack a military enemy. Colonists had long experience serving as privateers for the British forces during numerous eighteenth-century wars against Spain, France, and the Netherlands. They now turned their skills against Great Britain. Andrew Sherburne's memoirs capture the youth's enthusiastic desire to participate in the military campaign against the British; many others were less enthusiastic about their military service due to its infrequent pay and poor living conditions.
Studies the relation between imaginative texts and the culture surrounding them. Emphasizes ways in which imaginative works absorb, reflect, and conflict with reigning attitudes and world views. Instruction and practice in oral and written communication. Topic for Fall: Ethical Interpretation. Topic for Spring: Women Reading, Women Writing. The course examines the earliest emergence of stories about King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table in the context of the first wave of British Imperialism and the expanded powers of the Catholic Church during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The morphology of Arthurian romance will be set off against original historical documents and chronicle sources for the English conquests in Brittany, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland to understand the ways in which these new attitudes towards Empire were being mythologized. Authors will include Bede, Geoffrey of Monmouth, Chrétien de Troyes, Marie de France, Gerald of Wales, together with some lesser known works like the Perilous Graveyard, the Knight with the Sword, and Perlesvaus, or the High History of the Holy Graal. Special attention will be paid to how the narrative material of the story gets transformed according to the particular religious and political agendas of each new author.
In the late 17th-century, Spain's empire in the Americas extended north to New Mexico, Texas, Arizona, and California, where Spanish soldiers, settlers, and missionaries began to settle. The missionaries resettled the indigenous Pueblo people into peasant communities, building forts and missions to subdue and convert them to Catholicism. The New Mexico Pueblo people resisted Spanish conversion efforts and forced labor demands. Their sporadic resistance became a concerted rebellion in 1680 under the leadership of the charismatic El Pope. The revolt was the most successful of Native American efforts to turn back European colonists, and for over a decade the Pueblos were free from intrusion. But in 1690 the Pueblos were weakened by drought and Apache and Comanche raiders from the north. Spain retook territory and interrogated and punished the rebels in their "reconquest" of the Pueblo. A Keresan Pueblo man called Pedro Naranjo offered his view of the rebellion and its causes.
Wealthy planters from the Caribbean island of Barbados settled in Carolina in the late seventeenth century and turned Carolina's farms into large plantations that concentrated on growing rice. This transformation was enabled by the many enslaved Africans in the colonies who had grown rice as free men and women in West Africa; scholars have traced the origins of Carolina and Georgia's rice culture back to those African rice fields. In this letter, Johann Martin Bolzius described rice cultivation's highly skilled but backbreaking labor, and the colonies' task system of work. Each slave was assigned a particular duty and, after completing the day's tasks, might have some time to him or herself. Bolzius had left Halle, Germany, in 1733 on route to the new colony of Georgia where he lived upriver from Savannah. He wrote this letter in the form of a questionnaire, providing a vivid description of agriculture and life in the new colony.
Economic and social power became concentrated in late seventeenth-century Virginia, leaving laborers and servants with restricted economic independence. Governor William Berkeley feared rebellion: "six parts of Seven at least are Poore, Indebted, Discontented and Armed." Planter Nathaniel Bacon focused inland colonists' anger at local Indians, who they felt were holding back settlement, and at a distant government unwilling to aid them. In the summer and fall of 1676, Bacon and his supporters rose up and plundered the elite's estates and slaughtered nearby Indians. Bacon's Declaration challenged the economic and political privileges of the governor's circle of favorites, while announcing the principle of the consent of the people. Bacon's death and the arrival of a British fleet quelled this rebellion, but Virginia's planters long remembered the spectacle of white and black acting together to challenge authority.
This course will introduce the student to the history of Latin and South America from the year in which European explorers first discovered and began to colonize the region to the early 19th century, when many Latin and South American colonies declared their independence from European rule. The student will learn about the major political, economic, and social changes that took place throughout Latin and South America during this 400-year period. By the end of the course, the student will understand how the interaction between native peoples and European settlers created diverse and complex colonial societies throughout Latin and South America, and why the colonies of the region eventually declared their independence from European political control. Upon successful completion of this course, student will be able to: Think critically about the history of Latin and South America from the pre-colonial period though the beginning of the 19th century; Compare and contrast the political, economic, and social practices of the peoples of Iberia, Africa, and the Americas in the pre-colonial period; Analyze the political, social, and military interactions between Iberian explorers and conquerors and the indigenous peoples of the Americas in the 15th and 16th centuries; Identify how Spanish colonists settled Latin and South America in the 16th century and analyze the role played by imperial and religious institutions in colonization efforts; Assess the role of European Mercantile policies in the formation of colonial economies and trade networks; Analyze the structure of Spanish and Portuguese colonial societies and assess the role of women, indigenous peoples, and Afro-Latinos in these societies; Students will be able to assess the status of Latin and South American colonies in the Spanish and Portuguese Empires of the 17th and 18th centuries and identity how European conflicts affected political and economic life in the colonies; Identify how the Napoleonic Wars of the early 19th century led to the rise of independence movements in the colonies of Latin and South America; Assess how political revolutions and wars for independence throughout Latin and South America ended European colonial control of the region, and compare and contrast the consequences of these revolutions for ethnic European and indigenous populations; Analyze and interpret primary source documents from the pre-colonial period though the beginning of the 19th century using historical research methods. (History 221)
Francis Daniel Pastorius arrived in Pennsylvania in 1683, commissioned by the Frankfort Land Company and a group of German merchants to obtain 15,000 acres of land for a settlement in the new colony of Pennsylvania. Pastorius, well educated in European universities, reported back to his friends in Germany. This report was later published as Positive Information From America, concerning the Country of Pennsylvania by a German who Traveled There (1684), a promotional tract to encourage other Germans to immigrate. Pastorius found the journey to be difficult but the prospects attractive. He remarked notably upon the ethnic and religious complexity of the colony. Pennsylvania attracted many colonists seeking religious freedom and communal prosperity. Pastorius went on to lead settlement of Mennonites and Quakers at Germantown.
In this course the conquest and colonization of the Americas is considered, with special attention to the struggles of native peoples in Guatemala, Canada, Brazil, Panama, and colonial New England. In two segments of the course-one devoted to the Jesuit missionization of the Huron in the 1630s, the other to struggles between the government of Panama and the Kuna between 1900 and 1925-students examine primary documents such as letters, reports, and court records, to draw their own conclusions. Attention focuses on how we know about and represent past eras and other peoples, as well as on the history of struggles between native Americans and Europeans.
John Dane, a tailor, was born in Berkhampstead, England, around 1612. In the late 1630s, which he recollects here as a period of "a great coming to New England," he and his family emigrated to Ipswich, Massachusetts. He died in Ipswich in 1684. Dane's parents, like many Puritan parents, raised their children to carry what historian Philip Greven calls an "inner disciplinarian" within their own consciences at all times. Dane's mother reminded him: "Go where you will, God will find you out." In this narrative, Dane, who always remembered her warning, related the temptations he faced over the course of his life--to steal, to accept the advances of women, to avoid church--and the prices he negotiated with an all-seeing God. (The spelling of this selection has been regularized to make it easier to read.)
Henry Hudson, employed by the Dutch India Company, anchored off of Manhattan in 1609 and traded with local Indians. Hudson then headed up the river (later named the Hudson River) seeking Northwest Passage to Asia. Other Dutch settlers soon followed. Delawares and Mahicans, who had been living along the coast of New Jersey and up the Hudson River when the Dutch arrived, were driven westward by expanding European settlements. The Reverend John Heckwelder, a Moravian missionary in the Ohio Valley, took down this particular narrative in the 1760s "as it was related to me by aged and respected" Delawares and Mahicans. Indian stories of the first encounters between Indians and Europeans often depicted the Europeans as "the great Mannitoo" or Supreme Being. This account went on to describe the trading and hospitality that followed the first encounter and the Europeans' eventual desire for land above all else.
On March 18, 1741, the first of a series of suspicious fires broke out in New York's Fort George. When a few weeks later a black man was seen running from the scene of one of these fires the cry went up: "The negroes are rising!" The extent of the plot, or even if there really was a plot, has never been absolutely proven. What is true is that the threat of a slave uprising was enough to send the city's white population into hysteria. Of the 181 people arrested during the "Great Negro Plot," 34 were sentenced to death and 72 were transported from New York. In this excerpt from the trials, several important witnesses provided evidence. Peggy was a white prostitute who lived in the home of John Hughson, a riverfront tavenkeeper and, like shoemaker John Romme, a receiver of stolen goods. Peggy's room was paid for by Caesar, a slave with whom she had a child. Today the trial transcripts are valuable for what they reveal about the shady, waterfront world shared by slaves, free blacks, and poor whites in 18th-century New York.
This subject examines the paradoxes of contemporary globalization. Through lectures, discussions and student presentations, we will study the cultural, linguistic, social and political impact of globalization across broad international borders and on specific language communities. We will consider answers to key questions such as: What are the contending definitions of globalization? What are the principal agents of change? How have those agents of change been transformed in our contemporary world? What's new, what's hybrid, and what's traditional? What does it mean to be a world citizen? How can world citizens preserve cultural specificity?
In the 1730s and 1740s many rural folk rejected the enlightened and rational religion that came from the cosmopolitan pulpits and port cities of British North America. Instead, they were attracted to the evangelical religious movement that became known as the Great Awakening. The English Methodist George Whitefield and other itinerant ministers ignited this popular movement with their speaking tours of the colonies. In this account farmer Nathan Cole described hearing the news of Whitefield's approach to his Connecticut town, as fields emptied and the populace converged: "I saw no man at work in his field, but all seemed to be gone. " Like many others during the Great Awakening, Cole achieved an eventual conversation by focusing not on intellectual issues but on emotional experience. Cole took away an egalitarian message about the spiritual equality of all before God, a message that confronted established authorities.
The entry of Europeans into the Indian's world caused a series of dislocations through disease, trade, and warfare. Indian leaders, who encountered new diplomatic and trading partners, found themselves caught between a familiar old and an unsettling new world. John Lawson, employed by Carolina's proprietor to explore the colony's backcounry and aspiring to a career as a natural scientist, spent months traveling through the Carolina interior in the company of colonists and Indians. This excerpt from Lawson's published account of the trip describes the final leg of the journey, when Lawson relied on Enoe Will, the chief of the Eno-Shakori. Will was a well known and trusted guide among colonial traders. He confided to Lawson that he feared he had alienated some of his own people, and now sought European protection. But Will remained close to his native religion and roundly rejected Lawson's offer of conversion to Christianity.
Tragically, contact between Indians and the Europeans extended beyond just trade goods; the invasion of foreign microbes devastated Indian communities well beyond the coastal region. When John Lawson visited the Carolina interior in the 1690s, he encountered the Congaree people, whose numbers and villages had been dramatically reduced by smallpox and other diseases. In 1660, Lawson, born into a London gentry family and aspiring to a career as a natural scientist, had set sail for the Carolina colony that was founded after the restoration of the British monarchy. He traveled more than a thousand miles as an employee of the colony's proprietors, who were eager to attract additional colonists and foster economic development. Lawson's keen eye for the native and non-native people, flora, and fauna of the region was evidenced in his journal A New Voyage to Carolina, published in 1709.
Samuel de Champlain was a trader, soldier, explorer, diplomat, and author. The critical figure in French efforts to establish the colony of New France along the St. Lawrence river, he set up a small trading post at Quebec, the capital of the colony, in 1608. Given the small numbers of French colonists and their primary interest in the fur trade, Champlain recognized that success depended on alliances with the native peoples of the northern region. In June 1609, Champlain and nine French soldiers joined a war party of Montganais, Algonkaian, and Hurons to fight their enemies, the Iroquois. They met their foe, probably about 200 Mohawks, along the lake later named Lake Champlain. The French firearms caused death and consternation among the Indians and introduced such weapons to native conflicts. Over the next decades, Champlain chronicled his explorations and observations of New France in several volumes, providing important information on life and warfare in seventeenth-century North America.
Surveys the major political, socio-economic, and cultural changes in the Middle East from the rise of Islam to present times (A.D. 600-2002), with special emphasis on Islam's encounter with the West. Examines the rise and fall of Islamic empires; the place of Arabs, Persian and Turkic peoples, as well as minorities in Islamic society; scientific and technological achievements and their transmission to the West; and the impact of European expansion after 1800. Considers contemporary crises and upheavals facing the Middle East in light of the historical past. This course aims to provide students with a general overview of basic themes and issues in Middle Eastern history from the rise of Islam to the present, with an emphasis on the encounters and exchanges between the "Middle East" (Southwest Asia and North Africa) and the "West" (Europe and the United States).
Over 20,000 migrants from England crossed the Atlantic to the new colony of Massachusetts Bay in the decade of the 1630s. This sudden influx of settlers became known to historians as the "Great Migration." Once in New England, they quickly dispersed to various towns. About forty families followed Sir Richard Saltonstall and the Reverend George Phillips four miles up the Charles River to found the community of Watertown in July 1630. Many had relocated from the East Anglian region of England, where William Pond, the correspondent's father, lived. These families attempted to set up a familiar farm economy based on grain and livestock, but early dreams of an easy trade with the Indians proved elusive. Their concerns focused on feeding themselves and achieving economic sufficiency.
After the restoration of the British monarchy in 1660, a group of proprietors received a royal grant to establish the colony of South Carolina. They envisioned an agricultural economy based on mixed farming, cattle raising, and trade in deerskins with the local Indians, diverging from the Chesapeake's tobacco and slave economy to the north. The Carolina proprietors sought settlers from the Caribbean by offering inexpensive land for family farms. But conditions were harsh, work was heavy, and poor nutrition was common, as Oxford University-educated Thomas Newe made clear in this 1682 letter to his father. A small minority of wealthy colonists seized economic and political control of the colony. They concentrated in the town of Charleston, drove out the local Indians, and occupied huge tracts of land. Deviating from the society that had been planned, these planters established rice cultivation, thanks to the African slaves whose experience in West Africa formed the basis for the economy. By 1707 South Carolina had the first black majority population in North America. Thomas Newe died within a year of writing these letters, at the age of 28.
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