HIS 315K United States History, 1492-1865 87902 • Spring 2020 T/TH 9:30-11:00 • Gar 1.102 Instructor: Jesse Ritner [email protected] Office Hours: GAR 3.302 Wednesday 1:00-2:00 Course Description: The goaL of this cLass is to expLore the settLing, forming, and consolidating of the United States from before European contact to the American CiviL War in 1865. We wiLL cover common topics in US history, such as (but not limited to) first encounters between Indigenous peoples and European settLers, the rise of chatteL sLavery, the American RevoLution, Indigenous removaL, the Mexican-American War, aboLition, and the CiviL War. Formal poLitics and LegisLation pLays an important role in this story, but our view wiLL aLso often drift away from the haLLs of power, and expLore interactions between different sociaL and cuLturaL groups in industriaLiZing cities, on sprawLing pLantations, and on the edges of an expanding empire. History is more than the study of dates. In this cLass we wiLL examine peoples’ public and private Lives. We wiLL explore how people act individuaLLy and in groups. And we wiLL think about what direct and indirect forces drive peopLe to act poLiticalLy. Understanding what happened is only the first step. The study of history focuses on deducing why people acted in the ways they did, and how those actions and reactions shaped Life LocaLLy, regionaLLy, and nationaLLy. History is the study of continuity and change in communities—large and smaLL— across time and space. As a resuLt, we wiLL connect issues in the past to those we confront in the 21st century worLd in order to understand how the past has shaped the present and future. Objectives: • KnowLedge of events (poLiticaL, sociaL, economic, and geographic) in what is now the United Stated from pre-contact to present. • KnowLedge of the experiences of different groups and how those groups contributed to the US’s. • The abiLity to buiLd connections between events and experiences in order to determine why events happened the way they did, and in order to determine the meaning of those events. Readings: There is no textbook assigned for this cLass. Readings are a combination of peer reviewed articLes, book chapters, textbook chapters, and articLes written for magazines or history bLogs. In addition, most cLasses have primary source documents assigned. You are expected to have compLeted aLL readings assigned for the day prior to cLass. Furthermore, you are expected to engage and evaLuate the readings in the exams. Assignments and Evaluation: • Attendance 10% • Participation 10% • Two Midterm Exams, each: 25% • Final Exam: 30% Attendance Policy: Attendance in cLass is critical to your success (and grade). A sign-in sheet wiLL be circuLated every day. You are responsible for making sure that you sign in every day. If you arrive more than 20 minutes Late or Leave earLy, you wiLL be considered absent. You get 1 unexcused absence. After that each unexcused absence wiLL negativeLy impact your grade. Grades: A = 94+ A- = 90-93 B+ = 87-89 B = 84-86 B- = 80-83 C+ = 77-79 C = 74-76 C- = 70-73 D+ = 67-69 D = 64-66 D- = 60-63 F = 59 or Less Exams: AlL exams are essay format. I wiLL post a question on Canvas at midnight, the day of the exam. You wiLL have 24 hours to submit your essay. The essays shouLd be 500-600 words. Part One: Vying for a Continent Week One Tuesday, Jan. 21: Introduction This day we wiLL look over the syllabus. I will begin with a short discussion of what history is and what historians do. I wiLL emphasize that we are often Looking for how things change as weLL as how they stay the same. LastLy, we wiLL cover the main themes of the cLass. Thursday, Jan. 23: A WeLL PopuLated Continent: TurtLe IsLand before CoLumbus - Readings: CaLLoway, “American History before CoLumbus,” in First Peoples: A Documentary Survey of American Indian History. Boston: Bedford/st.martin’s, 2019. - Primary Reading: An Iroquois Emergence story, introduction and documents in The First Peoples, p. 53-59. The Majority of this day wiLL be derived from the CaLLoway textbook. The Lecture wiLL offer a rapid overview of precontact North America. It wilL begin with migrations, matching archeoLogical and DNA evidence along with Indigenous origin stories. It will highLight the “Kennewick Man” as an exampLe of why origins continue to matter in the more recent past. We wiLL then take a deep history tour starting with the Hohokam in what is today southern AriZona from 450-1450. We wiLL traveL north to the AncestraL PuebLo cuLture, and discuss Chaco Canyon, Mesa Verde, and their network of roads. We wiLL then expLore Chaco Canyon’s coLLapse and the rise of the puebLos. We wiLL move east to the Mississippian cuLtures. We wiLL expLore the Mississippian town of Cahokia in approximateLy 1100-1300 and the rise of the Caddo. The finaL section wiLL focus on the emergence of the Iroquois Confederacy sometime between 1450-1550. Sources for Lecture: JuLiana Barr, “There’s No Such Thing as ‘Prehistory’: What the Longue Durée of Caddo and PuebLo History TeLLs Us about CoLoniaL America,” William & Mary Quarterly 74, no. 2 (2017): 203–240. CoLLin G. CaLLoway, “American History before CoLumbus.” In First Peoples: A Documentary Survey of American Indian History, Sixth Edition (Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2019); DanieL Richter, “Chapter One: The Iroquois in the WorLd on the TurtLe’s Back” & “Chapter 2: The Great League of Peace and Power.” In The Ordeal of the Longhouse: The Peoples of the Iroquois League in the Era of European Colonization (ChapeL HiLL: University of North CaroLina Press, 1992); Alan TayLor, “Natives, 13,000 B.C. – A.D. 1492”. In American Colonies: The Settling of North America, ed. Eric Foner, Revised ed. edition (Penguin Books, 2002). This day is LargeLy inspired by Barr’s contention that the term prehistory has LargeLy set in stone 1492 as a marker that separates the pre-historicaL from the historicaL, in effect erasing the many ways the prehistorical matters weLL into the post-contact moment. WhiLe this day is compLeteLy pre-1492, it sets the stage for my Lecture on January 30 which wiLL engage this problem specificaLLy. My organiZation foLLows CaLLoway’s, in the first chapter of his textbook; however, I focus predominantLy on Indigenous peoples who wiLL re-emerge Later on in this class, forgoing much of the Northwest and the northern pLains. ALan TayLor offers a more in-depth synthesis than CaLLoway in the first chapter of American Colonies of the Southwest, the Mississippian societies, and of the Iroquois which wiLL aLLow me to buiLd on the briefer content in Calloway. FinaLLy, Richter offers the most in-depth anaLysis of the Iroquois prior to and foLLowing coLoniZation. His book, though oLder than Barr’s articLe, does some of the work she caLLs for, examining how the formation of the Iroquois before coLoniZation pLays a centraL roLe in geopoLitics in what is now the northeastern United States and southeastern Canada. Week Two Tuesday, Jan. 28: The Making of an Atlantic WorLd - Reading: Alan TayLor, “CoLoniZers, 1400-1800.” In American Colonies: The Settling of North America, ed. Eric Foner, Revised ed. (Penguin Books, 2002), 24-49. - Alfred Crosby, “Reassessing 1492,” American Quarterly 41, no. 4 (1989): 661–69. This cLass wiLL offer a rapid overview of earLy expLorers and coloniZation attempts starting with the Portuguese in the Canaries. It wiLL briefly cover the Reconquista and its reLevance to Spanish coLoniZation. Next, we wiLL naturalLy expLore CoLumbus, his confLicts with the Taino, and the conquering of HispanioLa. And, we wiLL discuss the CoLumbian Exchange. Here we wiLL emphasiZe how diseases LargeLy came west and food went east. Sources for Lecture: The Columbian Exchange: Biological and Cultural Consequences of 1492, 30th Anniversary Edition, 1st edition (Westport, Conn: Praeger, 2003); Alan TayLor, “CoLoniZers, 1400-1800.” In American Colonies: The Settling of North America, ed. Eric Foner, Revised ed. (Penguin Books, 2002). I chose TayLor’s chapter on ColoniZers for the reason because it covers much of the information covered in the Lecture (and some future days) but it is considerably less dense than textbook chapters. My goaL here is to offer Atlantic context to earLy coLoniZation. I aLso want to emphasiZe what is different about Spanish coLoniZation, aLthough I may not fLag this expLicitLy, in order to set up the process of settler-coLoniaLism in AngLo-American coLoniZation. For the CoLumbian Exchange, I wiLL obviousLy cover the transfer of food and disease, emphasiZing the earLy impacts on both side of the AtLantic. That said, the exchange is part of a continuing process. We are stiLL experiencing it today (i.e. invasive species), but more importantLy for our purposes, disease hits different places at different times. As we wiLL discuss the next day, the Caddo were not hit tiLL after 1600,the Iroquois were first hit in the 1590s, and for the PiLgrims, the immediate impact of disease in the previous haLf-decade meant they arrived during a dramatic viroLogicaL crisis. Thursday, Jan. 30: First encounters in the Southwest - Readings: “Searching for Other Empires” & “North American Attempts at Conquest.” In First Peoples: A Documentary Survey of American Indian History. Boston: Bedford/st.martin’s, 2019, 76-80. - DanieL K. Richter, Facing East from Indian Country: A Native History of Early America. (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 2003), 18-25. - JuLiana Barr, “There’s No Such Thing as ‘Prehistory’: What the Longue Durée of Caddo and PuebLo History TeLLs Us about CoLonial America,” William & Mary Quarterly 74, no. 2 (2017): 203–225.