• Unit 1 : Patriarchy and Sovereignty in Early Modern Europe

  • Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, Chap. 13

  • Robert Filmer, Patriarcha (excerpt)

  • New England Primer or (better alternative) John Cotton, Spiritual Milk for Boston Babes

  • Isaac Watts, "Lord, I Am Vile, Conceived In Sin"

• Unit 2 : Patriarchy, Sovereignty, and the American Indians

  • *James Axtell, "The White Indians of Colonial America"

  • Pierre de Charlevoix (bio), Excerpts on Indian child-rearing, criminal justice, and politics

  • Rev. John Heckewelder (bio), Defense of Indian marriage practices and gender roles 

  • Requerimiento (1510)

• Unit 3: Patriarchs in the Wilderness --Virginia

  • *T.H. Breen, "Looking Out for Number One: Conflicting Cultural Values in Early 17th-Century Virginia"

  • MENTIONED IN CLASS -- John Cotton, God's Promise to His Plantations

  • RECOMMENDED (not required): John Smith, Generall Historie of Virginia

• Unit 4: Patriarchs in the Wilderness -- New France and New England

  • John Winthrop, "A Modell of Christian Charity" (excerpt)

  • Mary Rowlandson, The Sovereignty and Goodness of God (Puritan Indian captivity narrative) -- plain text version; or  hypertext version w/ annotations & illustrations

• Unit 5:  Middle Colonies and the Enlightenment

  • *Patricia Bonomi, "The Middle Colonies: Embryo of a New Political Order"

  • William Penn, Preface to the "Frame of Government of Pennsylvania" (1682)

• Unit 6: Coming of the Revolution

  • Isaac Barre's Speech to Parliament

  • Resolves of the First Continental Congress

  • Thomas Jefferson, A Summary View of the Rights of British America

  • The Declaration of Independence

•  Unit 7: Unintended Consequences of the Revolution

  • Thomas Paine, Common Sense

  • Pennsylvania Constitution of 1776

  • Virginia Declaration of Rights

  • #Alfred Young, "George Robert Twelves Hewes (1742-1840): A Boston Shoemaker and the Memory of the American Revolution"

  • The Articles of Confederation

  • Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom

• Unit 8: Fathers of Their Country

  • US Constitution 

  • Jefferson, Attack on the Constitutionality of the Bank of the United States

  • Hamilton, Defense of the Constitutionality of the B.U.S.

  • Alien and Sedition Acts

  • Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions

• Unit 9: The Jeffersonian Experiment
  • Jefferson, Letters on the "Revolution of 1800" 
    • to John Dickinson; Joseph Priestley; Spencer Roane
  • Jefferson's First Inaugural Address
  • RECOMMENDED: Pasley, "The Cheese and the Words: Popular Political Culture and Participatory Democracy in the Early American Republic"
• Unit 10: Economic Change & the New Middle-Class Family
  • Catherine Beecher, "The Peculiar Responsibilities of American Women" OR
    Lydia Sigourney, Letters to Mothers, Letter I
  • RECOMMENDED: Check out some of the songs & images related to "Sentimental Culture" at the University of Virginia online exhibit Uncle Tom's Cabin and American Culture
• Unit 11: The Cotton Kingdom
  • The Domestic Slave Trade (look through web site): What Became of the Slaves on a Georgia Plantation?;  Interview with Hanna Jones, Missouri slave 
  • The Proslavery Argument: Dr. Samuel Cartwright; George Fitzhugh; James Henry Hammond
  • Violence and Southern Culture:
    • RECOMMENDED: John Lyde Wilson, The Code of Honor 
    • # Elliott J. Gorn, "Gouge and Bite, Pull Hair and Scratch": The Social Significance of Fighting in the Southern Backcountry"
• Unit 12: The Benevolent Empire
• Unit 13: The Great Father  
• Unit 14: Coming of the Civil War

  • Abraham Lincoln, "House Divided" speech

  • Read a couple of northern & a couple of southern editorials (usually a paragraph each) on the following issues:

    • The Caning of Charles Sumner

    • John Brown's Raid on Harper's Ferry 

  • South Carolina's Address to the Slaveholding States 

  • Abraham Lincoln, 1st Inaugural Address

  • Alexander Stephens, "Cornerstone Speech," March 1861 (extract)

*=Documents available only to registered students in this course.
#=Documents that will only be accessible through the MU network (or another institutional network with JSTOR access).