COURSE OUTLINE, SEMESTER 1

The Instructor reserves the right to change the syllabus and/or calendar if necessary.

Week 1:

I. PreColumbian Indians and the age of exploration (1 week)
  a. Themes
     i. Native America
     ii. European quest for empire
     iii. Clash of cultures
  b. Content
     i. Native cultures in North and South America
     ii. The age of exploration
    iii. Spanish, French, and English models of colonization, social, political, and biological exchange
  c. Readings
     i. Text, Chapter 1, “Meeting of Cultures”
     ii. Diamond, Jared, Guns, Germs, and Steel, Chapter 18, “Hemispheres Colliding”
  d. Project question: What causes the ascendancy of one society overanother?
  e. Essay test: free response, regarding motivations of the Europeans in coming to the Americas.

Week 2:

II. Colonial America (1 week)

  a. Themes
     i. English legacy in America
     ii. Development of pluralism
     iii. Emerging regional patterns in the 13 colonies
  b. Content
     i. Settlement of the 13 colonies
     ii. Social, economic, and religious patterns: southern, middle, and New England colonies
     iii. Wars with the Indians and the French
  c. Readings
     i. Text: Chapter 2, “English Transplantations, “pp. 3770 and Chapter 3, Society and Culture in Provincial America,” pp.   75110
     ii. Excerpts from David Hackett Fisher, Albion’s Seed
     iii. Mayflower Compact
  d. Projects and assessments
     i. Multiple choice test, from text
     ii. Essay: What was the synergy of the two societies (English and Indian) represented in colonial America?
     iii. Project: create a chart detailing the points of the Mayflower Compact

Week 3 and 4:

III. Causes of the American Revolution (2 weeks)

  a. Themes
     i. Changing English policies and attitudes toward the colonies
     ii. Our “rights as Englishmen”
     iii. The tortuous road to independence
  b. Content
     i. The acts of Parliament and the American response
     ii. The ambiguity of “no taxation without representation”
     iii. The road to war
     iv. From the Olive Branch Petition to Independence
  c. Readings
     i. Text, Chapter 5, “The American Revolution,” pp. 151185
     ii. Selected readings, Thomas Paine, Common Sense, John Locke, Two Treatises on Government, Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, JeanJacques Rousseau, The Social Contract, The Declaration of Independence
  d. Projects and assessments
     i. DBQ, Locke, Hobbes, Rousseau and their impact on the founding fathers
     ii. Project: create a graph showing the percent of population that were loyalist and patriot

Week 5:

IV. The Revolution and its aftermath (1 week)

  a. Themes
     i. Washington’s leadership, French Alliance, and British blunders
     ii. A conservative or radical revolution?
     iii. The difficulties of starting a nation
  b. Content
     i. Evolution of the Revolution
     ii. Military victory and the Treaty of Paris
     iii. The failure of the Articles of Confederation
  c. Readings
     i. Text, Chapter 5, “The American Revolution,” pp. 151185
     ii. Selected readings, Thomas Paine, The Crisis, David McCulloch, 1776
     iii. The Articles of Confederation
  d. Assessments
     i. Multiple choice test
     ii. Essay: “A little blood” the legacy of Bacon’s and Shay’s Rebellion

Week 6:

V. The Constitution and the Bill of Rights

  a. Themes
     i. The importance of compromise
     ii. Balance of power and the rule of law
     iii. States rights and unity
  b. Content
     i. The call for federal power
     ii. Writing the constitution
        1. separation of power
        2. fear of the mob
        3. large state, small state
        4. ratification and the Bill of Right
  c. Readings
     i. Text: Chapter 6, “Framing a New Government,” pp. 193203
     ii. The United States Constitution and the Bill of Rights
     iii. Selected readings from The Federalist Papers
  d. Assessments
     i. Multiple choice test
     ii. Project: Essay, Why did the founding fathers distrust democracy?

Week 6 and 7:

VI. The Early Republic (2 weeks)

  a. Themes
     i. Leadership of Washington, Hamilton, and Jefferson
     ii. National growth and the growth of Nationalism
     iii. Keeping Europe at arms length
  b. Content
     i. Getting started: Washington, Adams, and the Marshall Court
     ii. The debate of national vision, Jefferson and Hamilton, states rights versus federal power
     iii. Napoleon and the U.S.
     iv. The war of 1812
     v. The Era of Good Feeling and the “corrupt bargain”
  c. Readings
     i. Text: Chapter 6, “Constitution and the New Republic,” pp. 204215, Chapter 7, “The Jeffersonian Era,”236260,
Chapter 8, “Era of Good Feelings,” pp. 273282
     ii. Jefferson’s 1800 inaugural speech
  d. Assessments
     i. Essay: Agrarian Republic or Manufacturing Republic?
     ii. Project: Create a chart for landmark Marshall Court rulings, giving circumstances, ruling, rationale, and effect
     iii. Compare Jefferson’s 1800 inaugural address with George W. Bush’s 2000 inaugural address

Week 8 and 9:

VII. The Age of Jackson (2 weeks)

  a. Themes
     i. Party politics and the advance of democracy
     ii. The phenomenon of Andrew Jackson
     iii. The specter of sectionalism
  b. Content
     i. Jackson’s election, a new breed of leader
     ii. The spoils system
     iii. Jackson and the Indians
     iv. Nullification and John Calhoun
  c. Readings
     i. Text, “Revival of Opposition,” pp. 283286, Chapter 9, “Jacksonian America,” pp. 291320
     ii. Alexis d’Tocqueville, Democracy in America
     iii. Excepts from the WebsterHayne debates
  d. Assessments
     i. Multiple choice test
     ii. Essay, Tocqueville, Liberty or Equality?

Week 10 and 11:

VIII. The Birth of the Modern Age (2 weeks)

  a. Themes
     i. Our changing civilization
     ii. The evolution of national thought, art, and culture
     iii. Emerging sectional economies
  b. Content
     i. Invention and the beginnings of the industrial revolution in America
     ii. Changes in society and the development of cities
     iii. Abolition, women’s rights, and reform
     iv. Utopian societies
  c. Readings
     i. Text: Chapter 7 “Rise of Cultural Nationalism” and “Stirrings of Industrialism” pp. 371395, Chapter 10, “America’s Economic Revolution” pp. 325365, Chapter 12, “Antebellum Culture and Reform” pp. 399424
     ii. Seneca Falls, Declaration of Sentiments
  d. Assessments
     i. Terms test
     ii. Essay; Why were the Utopian Societies important in our development as a nation?

Week 12 and 13:

IX. The Westward Movement before the Civil War (2 weeks)

  a. Themes
     i. Manifest Destiny
     ii. U.S. expansion, the Mexican point of view
     iii. U.S. expansion, the Indian point of view
  b. Content
     i. Penetration of the TransMississippi West
     ii. The Mexican War and its consequences
     iii. The gold rush and its aftermath
  c. Readings
     i. Text, Chapter 8 “Expanding Westward,” pp. 269273, Chapter 13, “Looking Westward,” and “Expansion and War.” Pp. 429442
     ii. Excerpt from David Lavender, Bent’s Fort
     iii. Albert Pike’s impressions of the Great Plains
  d. Assessments
        1. Multiple choice test
        2. Essay: Was genocide a part of U.S. policy concerning the Indians?

Week 14 and 15:

X. Causes of the Civil War (2 weeks)

  a. Themes
     i. Manifest Destiny and slavery
     ii. Sectionalism and southern nationalism
     iii. Slavery as core of conflict
  b. Content
     i. The history of American Slavery
     ii. Sectional issues after 1848
     iii. Lincoln’s election, secession, and Fort Sumter
  c. Readings
     i. Text: Chapter 11, “Cotton, Slavery, and the Old South,” pp371395 Chapter 13, “Sectional Debated” and “Crisis of the 1850’s,” Chapter 14, pp. 442462, “Secession Crisis” pp. 467474
     ii.Dred Scott v. Sanford
     iii. Excerpts from LincolnDouglas debates
     iv. I. A. Newby, The South, A History
  d. Assessments
     i. Essay: Race and Racism in the Coming of the Civil War
     ii. Terms test
     iii. Project: Identify the main qualities of the Missouri Compromise, The Compromise of 1850, and the Dred Scott decision that would bring the U.S. to civil war

Week 16 and 17:

XI. The Civil War and Reconstruction (2 weeks)

  a. Themes
     i. The American people and the Civil War
     ii. Restoring the Union
    iii. From slave to Freedman
  b. Content
     i. Waging the Civil War, Gettysburg and Vicksburg
     ii. Northern victory
     iii. Reconstruction
        1. Reconstruction plans
        2. Reconstruction Acts
        3. Compromise of 1877
     iv. Jim Crowism
        1. court cases
        2. dejure segregation
  c. Readings
     i. Text; Chapter 14, “The Civil War,” pp. 474501, Chapter 15 “Reconstruction and the New South,” pp. 507549
     ii. Selected readings from Shelby Foote
     iii. Excerpts from Stephen Crane’s Red Badge of Courage
     iv. Slaughterhouse Case, Civil rights Cases
  d. Assessments
     i. Projects, choice of one
        1. White paper: Protocols of War: logistics, objectives, philosophy
        2. Create a diary of a common soldier on either side, North or South, detailing life in army. Your soldier must be with
the Army of the Potomac or the Army of Virginia.
        3. Write a report of a social worker for the Freedman’s Bureau.  This report is going back to Washington, D.C. and will be read before Congress. Detail life in the south for the Freedmen and what the Freedman’s Bureau is doing for them.