Reading Assignments:
Each week, students will read selections from Speaking of America by Laura Belmonte and/or other materials that compliment that week's lectures.  Each of the four tests (not including the final exam) will contain a discussion question or two, worth 25 - 50 points, related to those readings.

Students who do the assigned reading during the weeks for which they were assigned will get more out of both the readings and class lectures than those students who wait to do their reading right before each test.

Unless otherwise stated, all page numbers refer to Belmonte, Speaking of America

(Click here for a printable copy of this assignment schedule.)

Week 1 - Native American / European Contact

Bartolome de las Casas, Brief Account of the Devastation of the Indies, 3

John Smith Describes the Founding of Jamestown, 7

William Bradford on Sickness Among the Natives, 11

Jesuit Observations on the Enslavement of Native American Women, 17

The Indians of the Six Nations to William & Mary College, 13

Week 2 - Colonial Virginia

The London Company Instructs the Governor in Virginia, 23

The Experiences of an Indentured Servant in Virginia, 25

Week 3 - Colonial New England

Trial and Interrogation of Anne Hutchinson, 29

Mary Rowlandson, Narrative, 36

A Puritan Prescription for Marital Concord, 55

Jane Colman Turell, “Lines on Childbirth,” 57

Week 4 - Middle and Deep South Colonies

Pennsylvania, Poor Man’s Paradise, 41

Reverend Charles Woodmason on Religion in the Carolina Backcountry, 47

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Week 5 - New World Slavery

Race, Gender, and Servitude in Virginia Law, 27

Olaudah Equiano Recalls the Horrors of the Middle Passage, 50

Week 6 - Enlightenment & Great Awakening

Jonathan Edwards, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” 63

Jefferson on Slavery and Race, 119

Samuel Adams, “The Rights of the Colonists,” 80

Week 7 – Revolution and Nation Building

Declaration of Independence, Murrin A-2

The Northwest Ordinance, 104

The Constitution of the United States of America, Murrin A-5

The Bill of Rights, 117

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Week 8 – The Market Revolution

Catherine Beecher on Domestic Economy, 223

Henry Clarke Wright on Marriage and Parentage, 227

Week 9 - Reform and Abolitionism

Dorthea Dix Calls for Humane Treatment of the Mentally Ill, 204

Horace Mann on Educational Reform, 206

Nathaniel Hawthorne, A Letter From Brook Farm, 239

John Humphrey Nowes on Free Love at Oneida, 241

Henry David Thoreau, “Civil Disobedience,” 301

William Lloyd Garrison on Slavery, 213

Week 10 - Antebellum Slavery

Managing the Butler Estate, 257

Fannie Kemble Describes Plantation Slavery, 261

Religion as Social Control: A Catechism for Slaves, 263

Nat Turner’s “Confession,” 268

Frederick Douglass on Slavery, 272

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Week 11 – Conflicts over Slavery

Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, 319

George Fitzhugh Defends Southern Society, 265

Dred Scott v. Sandford , 325

Week 12 – A Year in the South (all)

Week 13 – A Year in the South (all)

Week 14 - no assignment (Fall Break)

Week 15 - Civil War & Reconstruction

Mississippi Declaration of Secession (located on the “Readings” page of course website)

Tally Simpson, Letter From Fredericksburg, 355

Corporal James Kendall Hosmer, On the Firing Line, 358

Mary Boykin Chesnut Describes Richmond at War, 366