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Partnership Programs: American Revolution American Revolution: Evaluations {Read what the participants have to say about each session.} "To Form a More Perfect Union" (PDF) Read the article printed in Five College Ink magazine about the series (PDF files require Adobe Acrobat Reader 4.0 to view. Download free program) |
Resources Lesson Plans Videos Recommended Other Books Recommended Butler, Jon. Becoming America:
The Revolution Before 1776, University Harvard Press:
Cambridge, 2000. King George Can't You Make
Them Behave (Children's book: a
perspective of King George) American Revolution-
Extended Bibliography Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, selections. Toward an Inclusive History of the Revolutionary
Era ( Neal Salisbury & Barry O'Connell) Benjamin Quarles, "The Revolutionary
War as a Black Declaration of Independence," in Berlin,
Slavery and Freedom in the Age of the American Revolution, pp.
283-301 Mechal Sobel, The World They Have Made Together:
Black and White Values in Eighteenth-Century Virginia,
selections. Day 2: The Geo-politics of the Revolutionary
Atlantic World, 1740 to 1820 (Barry O'Connell, Amherst College
& Rosemary Agoglia).
The major text for this session will be D.W. Meinig, The Shaping of America: A Geographical Perspective on 500 Years of American History. The selections will be from Vol 1: Atlantic America, 1492 and Vol. 2: Continental America, 1800-1867. Meinig's exceptionally comprehensive study makes it possible to review concisely the movements of population from all over Europe and Africa into North America. His texts also provide clear descriptions of differences in settlement, economic, and other major cultural patterns among all the constituent groups of North American history in our period. This session will intensively examine various maps, demographic charts, and elements of material culture through which we can explore the range of geographical movement and change within and to North America with a comprehensive review of regional and group differences. Day 3: The Enduring Ambiguity and Exultation
of "Liberty" (Neal Salisbury, Smith College and Bob
Hansbury).
Edward. Countryman, chs. 1-4, 5-8. Day 4: Sovereignty: Who Rules, Who is Ruled,
and By What Means (Alice Nash and Virginia Ahart).
The thirteen colonies united under the principle that they could declare sovereignty from Britain. But what is sovereignty? And, as with liberty, we must ask, "sovereignty for whom?" Our discussion of sovereignty will consider the competing visions asserted by states (in opposition to the federal government) and Indian nations (in opposition to state and federal claims). Colin G. Calloway, "'We Have Always Been the Frontier': The American Revolution in Shawnee Country," American Indian Quarterly 16:1 (1992): 39-52. Walter L. Williams, "From Independence to Wardship: the Legal Process of Erosion of American Indian Sovereignty, 1810-1903," American Indian Culture and Research Journal 7:4 (1983): 5-32. John Hope Franklin, "The North, the South, and the American Revolution," Journal of American History 62:1 (1975): 5-23. Day 5: The Many Struggles for Citizenship,
1740-1840 (Joyce Berkman and Tracey Pinkham).
The Declaration of Independence states that governments derive their just powers "from the consent of the governed." This radical concept repudiates the traditional idea of civic identity as rooted in one's allegiance to the political ruler under whom one was born. Presumably, the new and non-traditional Republic would establish one's nationality and citizenship based upon one's consent, rather than on accident of birth. But this was not to be. From 1776 to the present, controversies have raged over the meaning of national and civic identity and citizenship, over the rights and obligations of citizens, and over who qualifies as a full citizen. Ambiguous and exclusionary features of the US Constitution limited the range of citizenship, spurring a multitude of court cases and Amendments to the Constitution. Today we still have not resolved the legal status of foreign immigrants, the offspring of illegal immigrants, and the precise rights and obligations of women. The citizenship rights of native born people of color continue precarious. The session on Citizenship will focus on contradictions in the assumptions and arguments of leaders of the American Revolution and the framers of the Constitution regarding nationality and citizenship. What are the sources of late eighteenth-century confusion over a person's nationality and civic status? Why did this confusion prevail? Why did social class, race and gender become contested axes of citizenship rights and obligations? How did confusion over civic identity and ideals become manifest during the Revolution's aftermath and eventually within the Constitution? What is the legacy of this confusion? We will look at specific court cases, e.g. Martin vs. Massachusetts (1805) that disqualified women from independent civic identity, a decision that historian Linda K. Kerber does not view as inevitable. Is she correct? Readings: Rogers Smith, Civic Ideals: Conflicting Visions
of Citizenship in U.S. History; Candace Lewis Bredbenner, A Nationality of Her Own : Women, Marriage and The Law of Citizenship; Nancy Isenberg, Sex and Citizenship in Antebellum America; Linda K. Kerber, No Constitutional Right to be Ladies: Women and the Obligations of Citizenship. Essays and Articles: Michael Walzer, "Citizenship" in Political
Innovation and Conceptual Change; Selected Articles and Amendments from the US Constitution Day 6: Equality: Americans' Ambivalent and
Reluctant Ideal (Marla Miller and Tracey Pinkham)
Following the discussion of citizenship-i.e., the relationship between individuals and the state-the session on equality will examine relationships between and among residents of the newly formed nation. How has equality been defined? How has it been contested? Participants will discuss how their assigned Revolutionary characters experienced equality in the Early Republic. David Brion Davis, "American Equality
and Foreign Revolutions," Journal of American History
1989 76(3): 729-752; W.J. Rorbaugh, "I thought I Should Liberate
Myself from the Thraldom of Others": Apprentices, Masters
and the Revolution" in Alfred F. Young, ed., The
American Revolution: Explorations in the History of American Radicalism
, 185-220; Day 7: Empire: From an Anti-Imperial Revolution
to the Manifest Destiny of a Democracy. (Neal Salisbury and Bob
Hansbury)
The rhetoric of empire provides a fascinating continuity from 1740 to 1840 though who wields it, and how, changes fundamentally. The material enactment of various kinds of imperial ambitions and designs configures North American history centrally. The 18th century cannot, of course, be understood apart from the imperial hopes of the three dominant European powers: France, Great Britain, and Spain. Nor can this history be separated from the clash of these powers not only on the mainland but also in the Caribbean and in Europe itself. The colonists in rebellion used anti-imperial rhetoric brilliantly while seeking to extend their own dominion over Africans and American Indians. In time a new imperial language and practice emerges as white Americans begin to characterize themselves and their new nation in terms of a "manifest destiny" to "civilize and settle" all of North America, including Mexico. This session will particularly examine the resistance of backcountry settlers to the Revolution. Many allied with the British in their own struggle against what they saw as the imperialism of the lowcountry. It will also selectively examine both African American and American Indian resistance during and after the Revolution, as well as the complex interactions among the European empires in shaping their perceptions of their choices. We will end with a discussion, grounded in primary documents, of how some Americans maintained their identities as "anti-imperialists" while marking the whole of North America for their conquest. Secondary Readings: T.H. Breen, "'Baubles of Britain': The American and Consumer Revolutions of the Eighteenth Century," Past and Present 119 (1998), 73-104. Woody Holton, "Land Speculators versus Indians and the Privy Council," In Holton, Forced Founders: Indians, Debtors, and Slaves in the Making of the American Revolution, ch. 1. John M. Murrin, "A Roof without Walls: The Dilemma of American National Identity," in R. Beeman, et al (eds.), Beyond Confederation: Origins of the Constitution and American National Identity, 333-48. Robert F. Berkhofer Jr., "Early United States Policy: Expansion with Honor," in Berkhofer, White Man's Indian: Images of the American Indian from Columbus to the Present, pp. 134-45. Primary Source Readings: Alexander McGillivray, Letter to Arturo O'Neill [Governor of Florida], 10 July 1785, in J. Caughey (ed.), McGillivray of the Creeks, 90-93. Brutus I, "To the Citizens of the State of New-York" [1787], in J. Kaminski and R. Leffler (eds.), Federalists and Antifederalists, pp. 4-13. Alexander Hamilton, Federalist Papers, no. 11. Thomas Jefferson, Third Annual Message [1803]. Meriwether Lewis, Letter to Thomas Jefferson, 23 September 1806, in R. Thwaites (ed.), Original Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition (New York, 1905), 334-37.
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