American History, 1492 to 1865 美國史（一）
Fall 2012
340516
Joe Eaton, PhD
wjeaton@nccu.edu.tw
Please – no eating during class (save food for our breaks)
Course description: Major components include the exploration of the “New World,”
Native Americans, colonial society, the Revolutionary War and Constitution,
westward expansion, slavery, the Alamo, Mexican War, gold and silver discoveries,
the development of the political parties, and the Civil War. This semester’s class will
focus on the use and interpretation of “primary” source documents.
Online textbook: http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/database/hyper_titles.cfm
Additional reading assignments: from Web or handouts, as needed
Assignments and grading criteria:
Participation and attendance: 10%
Mid-term: 30% (November 16)
Writing assignment(s): 30% details to be announced
Final: 30%
Course outline: subject to change
September 18 - Introduction to course & Exploration and Discovery
September 25– Early English Colonization
John Smith, http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/johnsmith.htm
““Pocahontas: Her Life and Legend”: An Exhibition Review” Winterthur Portfolio 29
(Winter 1994), pp. 265-275. (available on JSTOR)
Mayflower Compact (1620) http://www.law.ou.edu/ushistory/mayflow.shtml
October 2 – Rethinking the Pocahontas Story – Movie and discussion: "The New
World" (2005, Colin Farrell, Christian Bale)
October 9 – 17th-18th Century Colonies
Salem Witches: Robert Detweiler, “Shifting Perspectives on Salem Witches” The
History Teacher 8 (August 1975), 596-610.
Salem in primary sources:
http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/salem/salem.htm (focus on
“Examinations and evidence”)
October 16 – Salem in the movies – Movie and discussion: “The Crucible” (1996,
Daniel Day-Lewis, Winona Ryder)
October 23 - Patterns of Change, Exceptionalism in the Colonies
John Winthrop (1630) "City Upon a Hill”
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/winthrop.htm
Crevecour, “Letters from an American Farmer” (1782) read paragraphs 49-56
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~Hyper/CREV/letter03.html
October 30 – Hints about English-language academic writing
November 6 –Early American Revolution
What did the Founding Fathers read?
http://www.constitution.org/primarysources/influences.html
Dr. Joseph Warren, March 5, 1772,
http://www.constitution.org/primarysources/warren.html
Patrick Henry, “Give me Liberty, or give me Death” speech (1775)
http://www.law.ou.edu/ushistory/henry.shtml
November 13 - American Revolution, part II
Thomas Paine, “Common Sense”
http://www.sagehistory.net/revolution/topics/PaineCommonSense.html
Samuel Langdon, May 31, 1775 sermon, “Government corrupted by vice”
http://www.belcherfoundation.org/government_corrupted.htm
Declaration of Independence, July 1776
http://www.law.ou.edu/ushistory/decind.shtml
November 20 – Mid-term examination
Some topics for post-mid-term
Articles of Confederation, Constitution drafting
Washington’s presidency
Jeffersonian Republicanism, War of 1812
Jacksonian Democracy
Foreign Views of the Early Republic
Pre-Civil War American Culture
Pre-Civil War Reform
Religion and the Early Republic
The Roots of American Economic Growth
The Pre-Civil War South
The Impending Crisis
The Civil War
Final -