Once celebrated as a heroic episode in the providential expansion of Western civilization, the European "discovery" and colonization of North America between 1492 and 1700 has more recently been portrayed as an imperialistic enterprise that wrought a holocaust upon native peoples and promoted the spread of slavery in the Atlantic World. This seminar attempts to move beyond sweeping generalizations and simple moral judgments to explore in detail the complex interactions of Native Americans, Europeans, and Africans in different regions of North America during the 16th and 17th centuries. In the process we will consider the historian's role as investigator, interpreter, and evaluator of past human behavior. How can we reconstruct the perspective of people who left behind no written record? To what extent do human motivations and norms of acceptable behavior vary not only from culture to culture but also from era to era? How should we "position" ourselves in regard to the people we study, especially when their way of life seems profoundly different from our own? In approaching these and other questions, we will read a mixture of eyewitness accounts and recent scholarly analyses. We will also make considerable use of educational technology, and we will work on a host of skills necessary for effective academic writing, college-level research, and information literacy in the contemporary scholarly environment. Our common mission is to develop our capacities for critical thinking, for the close reading of texts, for the examination of issues from multiple points of view, for logical analysis, and for the persuasive expression of our ideas in a variety of formats.

Purchases: The following books are available for purchase at the Oberlin Bookstore. You are expected to buy them and to bring them to class when we are discussing them.

• Stuart B. Schwartz, ed., Victors and Vanquished
• Calvin Martin, Keepers of the Game
• William Cronon, Changes in the Land
• James D. Drake, King Philip's War
• Donna Merwick, Death of a Notary
• Edmund S. Morgan, American Slavery, American Freedom

Schedule of classes and assignments:

Tues., Sept. 2

Thurs., Sept. 4

Discussion of

• Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies (1999), 354-75 (on ERes)
• J.H.Parry, The Age of Reconnaissance (1963), 1-37 (on ERes)
• John Thornton, Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World, 1400-1680 (1992), 13-42 (on ERes)

Tues., Sept. 9

Discussion of

• Schwartz, ed., Victors and Vanquished, 1-126

Thurs., Sept. 11

Discussion of

• Schwartz, ed.,Victors and Vanquished, 127-213

Tues., Sept. 16

Discussion of

• Alfred W. Crosby, "Conquistador y Pestilencia: The First New World Pandemic and the Fall of the Great Indian Empires," Hispanic American Historical Review, 47 (Aug. 1967): 321-37 (in JSTOR, accessible from a campus computer)
• Francis J. Brooks, "Revising the Conquest of Mexico: Smallpox, Sources, and Populations," Journal of Interdisciplinary History 24 (Summer 1993): 1-29 (in JSTOR, accessible from a campus computer)

Discussion of

• Tzvetan Todorov, The Conquest of America (1982), 53-97, 127-45 (on ERes)
• Camilla Townsend, "Burying the White Gods: New Perspectives on the Conquest of Mexico," American Historical Review 108 (June 2003): 659-87 (in the History Cooperative, accessible from a campus computer)

Draft of first position paper due by noon (post on Blackboard)

Discussion of drafts

Thurs., Sept. 25

• Calvin Martin, Keepers of the Game, 1-21, 69-156

First position paper due by 5 p.m.

Title page of Jesuit Relations
National Library of Canada website

Tues., Sept. 30

Discussion of

• "Father Le Jeune's Relation, 1634," in The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents: Travels and Explorations of the Jesuit Missionaries in New France, 1610-1791, ed. Reuben Gold Thwaites, 6: 99-269 (online; read odd-numbered pages, which are in English)

Special evening session: Pizza dinner and viewing of Black Robe, 6:30- 9 p.m., at 271 West College St.

Thurs., Oct. 2

• Carol Devens, "Separate Confrontations: Gender as a Factor in Indian Adaptation to European Colonization in New France," American Quarterly 38 (1986):461-80 (in JSTOR, accessible from a campus computer)
• Nancy Shoemaker, "Kateri Tekakwitha's Tortuous Path to Sainthood," in Shoemaker, ed., Negotiators of Change, pp. 49-71 (on ERes)

Discussion of

• Morgan, American Slavery, American Freedom, 3-91
• Martin H. Quitt , "Trade and Acculturation at Jamestown, 1607-1609: The Limits of Understanding," William and Mary Quarterly 3rd. Ser., 52 (April 1995): 227-58 (in JSTOR, accessible from a campus computer)

Thurs., Oct. 9

Discussion of

• Kathleen Brown, "'Changed into the fashion of man': The Politics of Sexual Difference in a Seventeenth-Century Anglo-American Settlement," Journal of the History of Sexuality 6 (Oct. 1995): 171-193 (on ERes)
• Morgan, American Slavery, American Freedom, 92-130

Draft of second position paper due by noon

Tues., Oct. 14

Discussion of drafts

Discussion of class dynamics

New England

John Winthrop
Massachusetts Historical Society website

Tues., Oct. 28

• John Winthrop, "Reasons for the Plantation in New England" (ca. 1628) (online)
• John Winthrop, “A Model of Christian Charity” (1630) (online)

Thurs., Oct. 30

Discussion of

• Cronon, Changes in the Land, 19-107, 127-170

Tues., Nov. 4

Discussion of

• Jill Lepore, "Dead Men Tell No Tales: John Sassamon and the Fatal Consequences of Literacy," American Quarterly 46 (Dec. 1994): 479-512 (in JSTOR, accessible from a campus computer)
• Drake, King Philip's War, 1-74

Thurs., Nov. 6

Discussion of

• Drake, King Philip's War, 75-167, 197-201

Tues., Nov. 11

Information Literacy at the College Level

Meet at Mudd Center lobby at 3 p.m. for resource tour and discussion of bibliography project

Discusssion of

• Daniel K. Richter, "War and Culture: The Iroquois Experience," William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd ser., 40 (Oct. 1983): 528-59 (in JSTOR, accessible from a campus computer)
• Daniel K. Richter, "Cultural Brokers and Intercultural Politics: New York-Iroquois Relations, 1664-1701," Journal of American History 75 (Jun. 1988): 40-67 (in JSTOR, accessible from a campus computer)

Tues., Nov. 18

Discussion of

• Merwick, Death of a Notary, xv-xvi, 1-93

Thurs., Nov. 20

Discussion of

• Merwick, Death of a Notary, 94-186
  

Virginia (again)

Colonial Williamsburg website

Tues. , Nov. 25

Discussion of

• Morgan, American Slavery, American Freedom,133-270
• Documents from Bacon's Rebellion (online) :
  • Governor Berkeley's Remonstrance
  • Bacon's Declaration in the Name of the People

Thurs., Nov. 27

Thanksgiving

Tues., Dec. 2

Discussion of

• Oscar and Mary F. Handlin, "Origins of the Southern Labor System," William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd. Ser., 7 (April 1950): 199-222 (in JSTOR, accessible from a campus computer)
• Winthrop Jordan, The White Man's Burden, 26-54 (on ERes)

Thurs., Dec. 4

Discussion of

• Morgan, American Slavery, American Freedom, 271-387

Reflections on the course
Fourth position paper due in class

Discussion of annotated bibliographies