Table of Contents

• Instructor Resources (Materials Available with Log-in)

• The Americas, Europe, and Africa Before 1492

  • Introduction to the Americas, Europe, and Africa Before 1492
  • The Americas
  • Europe on the Brink of Change
  • West Africa and the Role of Slavery
  • Primary Source Reading: A Slave Revolt
  • Primary Source Reading: The Life of Gustavus Vassa
  • Assignment: The Black Atlantic

• Early Globalization: The Atlantic World, 1492–1650

  • Introduction
  • Portuguese Exploration and Spanish Conquest
  • Religious Upheavals in the Developing Atlantic World
  • Challenges to Spain’s Supremacy
  • New Worlds in the Americas: Labor, Commerce, and the Columbian Exchange
  • Video: The Black Legend, Native Americans, and Spaniards
  • Primary Source Reading: Aztec Accounts of the Conquest
  • Primary Source Reading: Vasco De Gama

• Creating New Social Orders: Colonial Societies, 1500–1700

  • Introduction
  • Spanish Exploration and Colonial Society
  • Colonial Rivalries: Dutch and French Colonial Ambitions
  • English Settlements in America
  • Video: When is Thanksgiving? Colonizing America
  • Video: The Natives and the English
  • The Impact of Colonization
  • Primary Source Reading: Jamestown Charter
  • Primary Source Reading: Bradford, History of Plymouth Plantation

• Rule Britannia! The English Empire, 1660–1763

  • Introduction
  • Charles II and the Restoration Colonies
  • The Glorious Revolution and the English Empire
  • An Empire of Slavery and the Consumer Revolution
  • Great Awakening and Enlightenment
  • Wars for Empire
  • Video: The Seven Years War and the Great Awakening
  • Primary Source Reading: The Social Contract
  • Primary Source Reading: A Treatise on Tolerance

• Imperial Reforms and Colonial Protests, 1763–1774

  • Introduction
  • Confronting the National Debt: The Aftermath of the French and Indian War
  • The Stamp Act and the Sons and Daughters of Liberty
  • The Townshend Acts and Colonial Protest
  • The Destruction of the Tea and the Coercive Acts
  • Video: Taxes & Smuggling - Prelude to Revolution
  • Disaffection: The First Continental Congress and American Identity
  • Primary Source Reading: Common Sense
  • Primary Source Reading: "Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death!"
  • Primary Source Reading: The Declaration of Independence

• America's War for Independence, 1775–1783

  • Introduction
  • Britain’s Law-and-Order Strategy and Its Consequences
  • The Early Years of the Revolution
  • War in the South
  • Identity during the American Revolution
  • Video: Who Won the American Revolution?

• Creating Republican Governments, 1776–1783

  • Introduction
  • Common Sense: From Monarchy to an American Republic
  • How Much Revolutionary Change?
  • Debating Democracy
  • The Constitutional Convention and Federal Constitution
  • Video: The Constitution, the Articles, and Federalism
  • Video: Where US Politics Came From
  • Primary Source Reading: The U.S. Constitution
  • Listen: Early American Parties Podcast
  • Assignment: The Constitution

• Growing Pains: The New Republic, 1790–1820

  • Introduction
  • Competing Visions: Federalists and Democratic-Republicans
  • The New American Republic
  • Partisan Politics
  • Video: Thomas Jefferson & His Democracy
  • The United States Goes Back to War
  • Video: The War of 1812
  • Primary Source Reading: The Alien and Sedition Acts
  • Primary Source Reading: The Star-Spangled Banner

• Industrial Transformation in the North: 1800–1850

  • Introduction
  • Early Industrialization in the Northeast
  • Video: The Market Revolution
  • A Vibrant Capitalist Republic
  • On the Move: The Transportation Revolution
  • A New Social Order: Class Divisions
  • Primary Source Reading: The Mercantile System
  • Primary Source Reading: Lowell Mill Girls
  • Primary Source Reading: The Life of the Industrial Worker
  • Primary Source Reading: Irish Immigration
  • Extra Credit Assignments

• Jacksonian Democracy, 1820–1840

  • Introduction
  • A New Political Style: From John Quincy Adams to Andrew Jackson
  • The Rise of American Democracy
  • The Nullification Crisis and the Bank War
  • Video: Age of Jackson
  • Indian Removal
  • The Tyranny and Triumph of the Majority
  • Primary Source Reading: "An Address to the Whites"
  • Primary Source Reading: Speech to Congress on India Removal
  • Primary Source Reading: Jackson and the Bank of the U.S.

• A Nation on the Move: Westward Expansion, 1800–1860

  • Introduction
  • Lewis and Clark
  • The Missouri Crisis
  • Independence for Texas
  • The Mexican-American War, 1846–1848
  • Video: War & Expansion
  • Free Soil or Slave? The Dilemma of the West
  • Primary Source Reading: The Great Nation of Futurity

• Cotton Is King: The Antebellum South, 1800–1860

  • Introduction
  • The Economics of Cotton
  • African Americans in the Antebellum United States
  • Video: Slavery
  • Wealth and Culture in the South
  • The Filibuster and the Quest for New Slave States
  • Primary Source Reading: Twelve Years a Slave
  • Primary Source Reading: Fredrick Douglass
  • Primary Source Reading: John Calhoun on Slavery
  • Primary Source Reading: The Life of Plantation Field Hands

• Antebellum Idealism and Reform Impulses, 1820–1860

  • Introduction
  • An Awakening of Religion and Individualism
  • Video: 19th Century Reforms
  • Antebellum Communal Experiments
  • Reforms to Human Health
  • Addressing Slavery
  • Women’s Rights
  • Video: Women in the 19th Century
  • Primary Source Reading: The Declaration of Sentiments
  • Primary Source Reading: The Liberator
  • Primary Source Reading: Henry Box Brown
  • Primary Source Reading: Letter from Anthony Burns to the Baptist Church

• Troubled Times: The Tumultuous 1850s

  • Introduction
  • The Compromise of 1850
  • The Kansas-Nebraska Act and the Republican Party
  • John Brown and the Election of 1860
  • Video: The Election of 1860 & the Road to Disunion
  • The Dred Scott Decision and Sectional Strife
  • Assignment: Pre-Civil War Perspectives

• The Civil War, 1860–1865

  • Introduction
  • The Origins and Outbreak of the Civil War
  • Early Mobilization and War
  • Video: Battles of the Civil War
  • 1863: The Changing Nature of the War
  • The Union Triumphant
  • Videos: The Civil War
  • Primary Source Reading: The Emancipation Proclamation
  • Primary Source Reading: Lincoln's 2nd Inaugural Address
  • Primary Source Reading: Stephens' Cornerstone Address
  • Course Project

• The Era of Reconstruction, 1865–1877

  • Introduction
  • Restoring the Union
  • Congress and the Remaking of the South, 1865–1866
  • Radical Reconstruction, 1867–1872
  • The Collapse of Reconstruction
  • Video: Reconstruction and 1876
  • Assignment: Reactions to Jim Crow

• Appendices

  • The Declaration of Independence
  • The Constitution of the United States
  • Presidents of the United States of America
  • U.S. Political Map
  • U.S. Topographical Map
  • United States Population Chart
  • Further Reading