Additional Primary Source Documents are listed at the end of this Table of Contents.
1. New World Encounters.
Clash of Cultures: The Meaning of Murder in Early Maryland.Native American Histories Before Conquest.A World Transformed. West Africa: Ancient and Complex Societies. Europe on the Eve of Conquest. Imagining a New World. The French Claim Canada. The English Enter the Competition. Irish Rehearsal for American Settlement. An Unpromising Beginning: Mystery at Roanoke. Conclusion: Marketing Dreams. Feature Essay: The Columbian Exchange: Ecological Revolution.
2. Conflicting Visions: Seventeenth-Century Colonies.
Profit and Piety: Competing Blueprints for English Settlement. Breaking Away. The Chesapeake: Dreams of Wealth. Reforming England in America. Diversity in the Middle Colonies. Quakers in America.Planting the Carolinas. The Founding of Georgia. Conclusion: Living with Diversity. Feature Essay: Capital Punishment in Early America: A Kind of Moral Theater?
3. Putting Down Roots: Opportunity and Oppression in Colonial Society.
Families in an Atlantic Empire. Sources of Stability: New England Colonies of the Seventeenth Century. Challenge of the Chesapeake Environment. Race and Freedom in British America. Rise of a Commercial Empire. Colonial Factions Spark Revolt, 1676-1691. Conclusion: Local Aspirations Within an Atlantic Empire. Feature Essay: Anthony Johnson: A Free Black Planter on Pungoteague Creek. Law and Society: Witches and the Law: A Problem of Evidence in 1692.
4. Frontiers of Empire: Eighteenth-Century America.
Constructing an Anglo-American Identity: The Journal of William Byrd. Growth and Diversity. Spanish Borderlands of the Eighteenth Century.The Impact of European Ideas on American Culture.Religious Revivals in Provincial Societies. Clash of Political Cultures. Century of Imperial War. Conclusion: Rule Britannia? Feature Essay:Learning to Live with Diversity in the Eighteenth Century: What Is an American?
5. The American Revolution: From Gentry Protest to Popular Revolt, 1763-1783.
Rethinking the Meaning of Equality.Structure of Colonial Society. Eroding the Bonds of Empire. Steps Toward Independence. Fighting for Independence. The Loyalist Dilemma. Winning the Peace. Conclusion: Preserving Independence. Feature Essay: Popular Resistance: Religion and Rebellion.
6. The Republican Experiment.
A New Moral Order.Defining Republican Culture. Living in the Shadow of Revolution. The States: Experiments in Republicanism. Stumbling Toward a New National Government. Strengthening Federal Authority. Have We Fought for This? Whose Constitution? Struggle for Ratification. Conclusion: Success Depends on the People. Feature Essay: The Elusive Constitution: Search for Original Intent.Law and Society: The Strange Ordeal of Quok Walker: Slavery on Trial in Revolutionary Massachusetts.
7. Democracy in Distress: The Violence of Party Politics, 1788-1800.
Partisan Passions and Public Opinion.Principle and Pragmatism: Establishing a New Government. Conflicting Visions: Jefferson and Hamilton. Hamilton's Plan for Prosperity and Security. Charges of Treason: The Battle over Foreign Affairs. Popular Political Culture. The Adams Presidency. The Peaceful Revolution: The Election of 1800. Conclusion: Danger of Political Extremism. Feature Essay: Defense of Superiority: Science in the Service of Nationalism in the Early Republic.
8. Republican Ascendancy: The Jeffersonian Vision.
Limits of Equality.Regional Identities in a New Republic. Jefferson as President. Jefferson's Critics. Embarrassments Overseas. The Strange War of 1812. Conclusion: Republican Legacy. Feature Essay: Barbary Pirates and American Captives: The Nation's First Hostage Crisis.
9. Nation Building and Nationalism.
A Revolutionary War Hero Revisits America in 1824.Expansion and Migration. A Revolution in Transportation.Emergence of a Market Economy. The Politics of Nation Building after the War of 1812. Conclusion: Adams and the End of the Era of Good Feeling. Feature Essay: Confronting the Land.
10. The Triumph of White Men's Democracy.
Democratic Space: The New Hotels.Democracy in Theory and Practice. Jackson and the Politics of Democracy. The Bank War and the Second Party System. Heyday of the Second Party System. Conclusion: Tocqueville's Wisdom. Feature Essay: Grass Roots Democracy in Michigan.
11. Slaves and Masters.
Nat Turner's Rebellion: A Turning Point in the Slave South.The Divided Society of the Old South.The World of Southern Blacks. White Society in the Antebellum South. Slavery and the Southern Economy. Conclusion: Worlds in Conflict.Feature Essay: Harriet Jacobs and Maria Norcom: Women of Southern Households.
12. The Pursuit of Perfection.
Redeeming the Middle Class.The Rise of Evangelicalism. Domesticity and Changes in the American Family. Institutional Reform. Reform Turns Radical. Conclusion: Counterpoint on Reform. Feature Essay: Spiritualism: Religion or Entertainment? Law and Society.The Legal Rights of Married Women: Reforming the Law of Coverture.
13. An Age of Expansionism.
The Spirit of Young America.Movement to the Far West. Manifest Destiny and the Mexican-American War. Internal Expansionism. Conclusion: The Costs of Expansion.Feature Essay: Hispanic America After 1848: A Case Study in Majority Rule.
14. The Sectional Crisis.
The Brooks-Sumner Brawl in Congress.The Compromise of 1850. Political Upheaval, 1852-1856. The House Divided, 1857-1860. Conclusion: Explaining the Crisis. Feature Essay: The Enigma of John Brown. Law and Society.The Case of Dred and Harriet Scott: Blurring the Borders of Politics and Justice.
15. Secession and the Civil War.
The Emergence of Lincoln.The Storm Gathers. Adjusting to Total War. Fight to the Finish. Conclusion: An Organizational Revolution.Feature Essay: Soldiering in the Civil War.
16. The Agony of Reconstruction.
Robert Smalls and Black Politicians During Reconstruction.The President Versus Congress. Reconstructing Southern Society. Retreat from Reconstruction. Reunion and the New South. Conclusion: Henry McNeal Turner and the Unfinished Revolution.Feature Essay: Changing Views of Reconstruction. Primary Source Documents
1.1 Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca, Indians of the Rio Grande (1528-1536).
1.2 Dekanawida Myth & the Achievement of Iroquois Unity (ca 1500s).
2.1 Captain John Smith, President in Virginia, to the Treasurer and Council of the Virginia Company, from Smith's The Generall Historie of Virginia (1624).
2.2 John Winthrop, A Model of Christian Charity (1630).
3.1 Alexander Falconbridge, The African Slave Trade (1788).
3.2 Gottlieb Mittelberger, On The Misfortune of Indentured Servants (1754).
4.1 Michel Guillaume Jean de Crevecoeur, excerpt, Letters from an American Farmer (1782).
4.2 Virginia Law on Indentured Servitude (1705).
5.1 BostonGazette, Description of the Boston Massacre (1770).
5.2 Slave Petition to the General Assembly in Connecticut (1779).
6.1 Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia (1787).
6.2 Patrick Henry Speaks Against Ratification of the Constitution (1788).
7.1 George Washington, Sixth Annual Address to Congress (1794).
7.2 The Alien and Sedition Acts (1798).
8.1 Opinion of the Supreme Court for Marbury v. Madison (1803).
8.2 President Jefferson's Confidential Message to Congress (1803).
9.1 Henry Clay, Defense of the American System (1832).
9.2 Black Hawk, Excerpt from The Life of Black Hawk (1833).
10.1 Female Industry Association, from the New YorkHerald (1825).
10.2 Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Concord Hymn (1837).
11.1 Slave Narrative, The History of Mary Prince, A West Indian Slave, Related by Herself (1831).
11.2 De Bow's Review, The Stability of the Union (1850).
12.1 Mathew Carey, Rules for Husbands and Wives, (1830).
12.2 National Convention of Colored People, Report on Abolition (1847).
13.1 Levi Coffin, Reminiscences of the Underground Railroad in the 1850s.
13.2 Horace Greeley, An Overland Journey (1860).
14.1 Frederick Douglass, Independence Day Speech (1852).
14.2 George Fitzhugh, Slavery Justified (1849).
15.1 Letter from H. Ford Douglas to Frederick Douglass's Monthly (January 8, 1863).
15.2 Clara Barton, Memoirs of Medical Life at the Battlefield (1862).
16.1 Carl Schurz, Report on the Condition of the South (1865).
16.2 Jourdon Anderson to His Former Master (1865).
