History 113-01
Topics in U.S. History/Early Period
Prof. Seth Cotlar
Office: ETN 103
Phone: 370-6297
E-mail: scotlar@willamette.edu
Office Hours: Monday 3:00-4:00 and Friday 1:30-3:00
Course Description:
This class offers beginning history students an introduction to some of the central interpretive and methodological issues of the discipline. Rather than surveying every key event and theme in the first half of American History, we will closely examine three founding moments in American History—Jamestown in 1607, the American Revolution, and the founding of the Willamette Mission. We will interrogate how subsequent generations have told the stories of those foundational moments and pay particular attention to the ways in which historically specific ideas about race shaped the power dynamics of each foundational moment. By the end of the class students should have a much better sense of what historians do and what it means to study history as an interpretive endeavor rather than as a catalog of names and dates.
Teaching Method: Discussion with occasional short lectures to provide context.
Attendance Policy: Because the success of discussion classes depend largely upon the participation of the students, attendance is mandatory. More than three absences (for any reason) will detract severely from one's participation grade.
Plagiarism Policy: Students are expected to do their own work and to provide proper attribution when using someone elseÕs words or ideas. The instructor will rigorously enforce the universityÕs policy regarding academic dishonesty.
Evaluation:
--Three 1500-word essays (approximately 6 double-spaced pages): 20% each
--Contributions to class conversation: 30%
--Informal writing assignments (2 response papers, occasional in-class quizzes, in-class freewrites, etc.): 10%
Required Books: (All books are for sale at the Willamette University Bookstore.)
Helen
Rountree, Pocahontas, Powhatan, Opechancanough: Three Indian Lives Changed
by Jamestown
Henry
Wiencek, An Imperfect God: George Washington, His Slaves, and the Creation
of America
Julie Roy
Jeffrey, Converting the West: A Biography of Narcissa Whitman
All of the other class readings are either on electronic reserve at the library (R) or are available in journals to which the library has electronic access (Library). Students are expected to obtain copies of those readings well ahead of time in case of unforeseen complications. [Note: each reserve reading is listed under the authorÕs name and a shortened title, i.e. Loewen—True Importance.]
DAILY SCHEDULE OF CLASS
MEETINGS
UNIT 1: Founding
Misunderstandings—Jamestown in History and Memory
W Aug 31—Introduction
to class.
W Sept. 5— What are
the sorts of stories we tell about the past, and why does it matter?
**Response paper #1 due via
e-mail by 10am.
Reading:
1) William Cronon, "A Place for Stories: Nature,
History, and Narrative," Journal of American History. v. 78,
no. 4 (1992): 1347-1376. (Library)
2) James
Loewen, Ò1493: The True Importance of Christopher Columbus,Ó in Lies My
Teacher Told Me, 37-74. (R)
3) Helen Rountree, Pocahontas,
Powhatan, Opechancanough: Three Lives Changed by Jamestown, xi-xii,
1-7.
M Sept. 10—The ÒNew
WorldÓ before the Europeans showed up
Reading:
1) Rountree, 8-52
2) Spend some time familiarizing yourself
with the materials at http://www.virtualjamestown.org/page2.html
Be sure you examine the collection of late 16th century
watercolors and engravings of the Indians who inhabited what is now the outer
banks of North Carolina about 50 miles south of Jamestown: http://www.virtualjamestown.org/images/white_debry_html/introduction.html
3) Watch The New World (2006), dir. Terence Malick.
W Sept. 12—Making
sense of the first two years at Jamestown
Reading:
1) John Smith, A True RelationÉ (1608). Full text can be found at http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/etcbin/jamestown-browsemod?id=J1007
2) Edmund Morgan, ÒThe Jamestown Fiasco,Ó
in American Slavery—American Freedom (1976), 71-91.
(R)
M Sept. 17—Cultural Contact in the early years
at Jamestown
Reading:
1) Rountree, 53-85
2) Robert Appelbaum,
ÒHunger in Early Virginia: Indians and English Facing Off over Excess, Want,
and Need,Ó in Envisioning an English Empire: Jamestown and the Making of the
North Atlantic World (2005), 195-216. (R)
W Sept. 19—The building and breaking of a
cross-cultural alliance
Reading:
1) Rountree, 86-133
M Sept. 24—An unraveling relationship
**Response paper #2 (for those whose last names begin
with A-M) due via e-mail by 10am.
Reading:
1) Rountree, 134-186
W Sept. 26—Jamestown: the end of the story?
**Response paper #2 (for those whose last names begin
with N-Z) due via e-mail by 10am.
Reading:
1) Rountree, 187-238
UNIT 2: Foundational
Exploitation—The Paradox of Slaveholding Revolutionaries
Note: a large selection of George
WashingtonÕs papers can be found at http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/gwhtml/gwhome.html
M Oct. 1—Paper #1 due in class. View Africans in America.
W Oct. 3—How have we and how should we tell the
story about slavery and our national founding?
Reading:
1) Nathan Irvin Huggins, "The Deforming Mirror
of Truth," in Black Odyssey. (New York: Vintage, 1990), xi-lxx. (R)
M Oct. 8—The Making of WashingtonÕs World: The
Expansion of Slavery in 18th century Virginia.
Reading:
1) Edmund Morgan, ÒToward SlaveryÓ and ÒToward
Racism,Ó in American Slavery—American
Freedom (1976), 295-337. (R)
2) Watch The Patriot (2000), dir. Roland Emmerich.
W Oct. 10—How should we remember George
Washington?
Reading:
1) Henry
Wiencek, An Imperfect God, 3-48
M Oct. 15—George Washington: Self-Made Man, or
Slave-Made Man?
**Response paper #3 due via
e-mail by 10am.
Reading:
1)Wiencek, 49-133
W Oct 17—Reckoning with Slavery in
Williamsburg: 1769 and today.
Reading:
1) Wiencek, 134-88.
2) Stacy A. Teicher and Walter H. Robinson, ÒThe
Other Side of Liberty,Ó Christian Science Monitor, 3 July 2003, accessible at http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0703/p12s01-ussc.html
3) Rubina Madan, ÒSlave Passage Found at Washington
House,Ó 7 June 2007, accessible at http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=2007-06-07_D8PK8B6O2&show_article=1&cat=breaking
M Oct. 22—Slavery and the American Revolution
Reading:
1) Wiencek, 189-249
2) Henry Louis Gates, Jr., ÒNative Sons of Liberty,Ó New
York Times, 6 August 2006. (e-mail)
W Oct. 24—Slavery and the Constitution
Reading:
1) Wiencek, 250-278.
2) Paul Finkelman, ÒGarrisonÕs Constitution: The
Covenant With Death and How it was Made,Ó Prologue, vol. 32, no. 4, (Winter 2000), accessible at http://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2000/winter/garrisons-constitution-1.html?template=print
(Note: be sure to follow the link
to Part 2 of the article)
M Oct. 29—The View from the Slave Quarters
Reading:
1) Wiencek, 279-343
W Oct. 31—How historically significant was
WashingtonÕs decision to free his slaves in his will? Is it an act worthy of celebration?
Reading:
1) Wiencek, 344-362.
2) Philip D. Morgan, ÒTo Get Quit of Negroes: George
Washington and Slavery,Ó Journal of American Studies, vol. 39, no. 3, (2005), 403-429, accessible at journals.cambridge.org/production/action/cjoGetFulltext?fulltextid=359426
3) Gary Nash, ÒFive Reasons Why the Founding Fathers
Could Have Killed Slavery,Ó Chicago Sun-Times, 5 March 2006, accessible at http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4155/is_20060305/ai_n16189455
UNIT 3: Debunking Founding Myths:
Missionaries, Indians, and the Complicated Origins of Certain Liberal Arts
Colleges in the Pacific Northwest
M Nov. 5—Paper #2 Due in class. Lecture
on western history and screening of The West.
W Nov. 7—How Willamette has told the story
about its own founding.
Reading:
1) Robert Moulton Gatke, Chronicles of Willamette, (1943), 3-70. (R)
M Nov. 12—The making of a missionary: faith and
family in the early life of Narcissa Whitman.
Reading:
1) Julie Roy Jeffrey, Converting
the West, xi-xvii, 3-34
2) Ruth H. Bloch, ÒAmerican Feminine Ideals in
Transition: The Rise of the Moral Mother, 1785-1815,Ó Feminist Studies, v. 4, no. 2, (Jun. 1978): 100-126. (Library)
W Nov. 14—The
missionary enterprise.
Reading:
1) Jeffrey, 35-99
M Nov. 19—Gender, civilization, and cultural
misunderstanding.
Reading:
1) Jeffrey 100-49
2) Theda Perdue, ÒWomen, Men and American Indian
Policy: The Cherokee Response to ÔCivilization,ÕÓ in Nancy Shoemaker, ed., Negotiators
of Change: Historical Perspectives on Native American Women (1995), 90-114. (R)
W Nov. 21—class will not meet.
Thanksgiving break
M Nov. 26—Assessing the work of missionaries:
Cultural Imperialists or People of their time?
Reading:
1) Jeffrey, 150-226
2) William McLoughlin, "Native American
Reactions to Christian Missions," in The Cherokees and Civilization (1994), 9-33.
(R)
W Nov. 28—Before the Missionaries Showed Up:
The Indians of the Willamette Valley
Reading:
1) Excerpts from Chapters 1-3 of Melinda Marie Jette,
ÒAt the Hearth of the Crossed Races: Intercultural Relations and Social Change
in French Prairie, Oregon, 1812-1843,Ó (Ph. D. Dissertation, University of
British Columbia, 2004).
M Dec. 3—The missionariesÕ perspective
Reading:
1) Excerpts from the diaries and letters written at
the Willamette mission. (R)
W Dec. 5—The perspective of a disgruntled
missionary.
Reading:
1) Margaret Jewett Bailey, The Grains (1854), 1-9, 100-120, 135-147, 163-180. (R)
Final paper due Friday December 14 by 5pm.