HST 201D
6 October 2010
Wednesday 10:00 and 2:00
Landscapes of Access and Privilege: Redefining Nature as Property and Calling it “Right”
1.
2.
Administrative:
Presentation assignments for Week#3 (on overhead and/or powerpoint)
Discussion of remaining primary source readings for Week #2
Next Monday: question for Analysis Paper #1 (due the following week)
Week #2 Readings: Goldfield, pp. 30-56, voices and images listed below
1.
2.
3.
How did perceptions of the landscape relate to ideas of virtuous behavior, legitimacy, and authority? How did depictions of
landscapes relate to perceptions of power and virtue?
How did the idea of property as a natural right affect the status of people without property? How did this vary with race and gender?
How did the concept of “found wealth” (furs, gold, land, slaves, etc.) affect ideas of justice and legitimate violence?
Voices: de Aviles (ca. 1560), de Onate (ca. 1590), Harriot and White (ca. 1590), de Champlain (ca. 1610), Henning
(ca. 1620), Freethorn (ca. 1620s) Winthrop (ca. 1630), Mason (ca. 1640), Hutchinson (ca. 1640), Miantonomo’s Plea
(ca. 1640s)
Images: Virginia Dare, Slave cabins and pens, slaves processing tobacco, slave ship diagram, Jamestown landing and
settlement, Smith’s “True Travels”, Harvard Yard, Penn’s Treaty
3.
Discussion of Historical Method/Goals:
A. Guidelines for analyzing primary sources, secondary sources, images (from Rampolla)
B. What are some tools historians can use when evaluating primary sources?
1. Internal contradictions/consistencies
2. External contradicitions/consistencies
3. Author/author’s purpose
4. Intended audience (context for generating source)
C. What are some tools historians can use when evaluating secondary sources?
1. Prefatory information (what does the author claim as his/her purpose?)
2. Footnotes & endnotes
3. Other contemporary sources (who is this author responding to/challenging?)
4.
Monday: misperceptions of the “other” and the critical use of primary sources—emphasis on Native American traditions
and the problem of external sources for early contact period (note that this changes after 1600s—more Native voices
begin to appear in the primary record –when and in what context?
A. Similarities and differences in Europe, North America, and West Africa on the eve of contact:\
 Disease epidemics and failed nutritional levels as key to European success (Columbian exchange)
 Chaos, conflict, and religious schisms as impetus for expansion
 Era of superstition and unpredictable technology in Europe
 Agriculture and the myth of technological superiority ?
 Surplus economies and agricultural methods in Africa and North America
B. West African diaspora and the emergence of race slavery in North America
1. West African voices and the critical use of primary sources—how does the selection of evidence influence early
perceptions of and construction of race in North America?
2. Comparisons of colonization efforts at Massachussetts Bay and at Chesapeake Bay, 1620s-1640s
3. Where and how does race slavery develop?
4. How does the idea of property as a natural right affect the status of people without property? (comparison of the
cases of Massachussetts Bay and the Chesapeake regions)
5.
Unit Theme: Redefining Land and Property in North America in the Era of Early Colonization
A. What kind of a world did Europeans envision in North America?
1. Dual images of a land of plenty (“Edenic Garden”) and land of savagery (“Wilderness”)
2. Transference of European beliefs/customs/priorities onto N.American landscape:
a. warlords, violence, barbarism
b. pre-occupation with “good” vs “evil” dichotomies
-garden of Eden myths vs serpent in the garden fears
-suspicious, faction-ridden, acquisitive agents of contact (merchant culture and the art of the deal)
B. Comparisons of Jamestown with other European outposts (Santa Fe, Quebec, Plymouth, St. Augustine)
1. Opechancanough (don Luis de Velasco) and connections linking New Spain, New France, and New England:
(a) Algonquian man (brother of Powhattan) captured on the Chesapeake by Spanish expedition, mid-1500s
(b) Transported to Spain from North America at least twice
(c) Lived in Mexico City under the protection of the viceroy of Mexico (who became his Godfather)
(d) Accompanied a Spanish expedition to the Chesapeak in 1566
(e) Signed on with Jesuit missionaries (Father Juan Baptista de Segura) on an expedition to James River in
1570—led to the founding of Ajacan, on the York River, just across the peninsula from Jamestown (near
the later site of Werowacomoco & Powhattan’s confederacy
(f) Led local Algonquian people in a successful attack against the Jesuits in 1572
(g) Led an offensive against the Jamestown colony in 1622
(h) Died in Jamestown in 1644 of a bullet-wound in the back. Note: “Opechancanough” means “he whose soul
is white” in the Algonquian language of the Chesapeake region.
2. Who established settlements and why? Individual vs group motivations?
3. How did initial purposes compare/contrast with eventual outcomes?
4. Why were Jamestown settlers so susceptible to disease epidemics?
3. Why would someone go to Virginia colony in 1607-1622 period?
4. When and why was the “headright” system imposed?
a. 100 acres for each “freeman” in Virginia as of 1617
b. 50 acres for each freeman paying his way to Virginia
c. 50 acres to the person who paid passage to Virginia for a servant
d. How does an indentured servant differ from a “slave”?
e. When and why was slavery introduced in Virginia?
f. When and why was the Virginia House of Burgesses established?
g. How did the indentured servant system affect relations with Indian groups in Virginia?
h. Why did Opechancanogh lead the 1622 offensive? Results?
C. The New England Experience: Massachussetts Bay Company and the Commonwealth ideal:
1. Calvinism and “visible sainthood”
2. When and why did the Winthrop lead the Puritan migration to New England?
3. How did Winthrop describe his vision of an ideal community? (A Model of Christian Charity)
4. How was power structured in a Puritan Village (Dedham Covenant, 1636-1659)?
5. How English women’s status in Massachussetts Bay differ from English women in Virginia?
Terms for week Two:
The “Columbian” Exchange (disease epidemics)
Werowacomoco
St. Augustine (est. 1565)
Jamestown (1607-1611)
Virginia Colony (Crown colony, est 1622)
Port Royal (est 1604)
Juan de Oñate (Santa Fe, ca 1598-1610)
Fort Nassau (Albany, ca 1609-1611)
Songhai Empire (ca 1350-1591)
Kingdom of Dahomey (Beled es Sudan, ca 1590s)
The Virginia Company (monopoly grant of 1606)
Plymouth Colony (est 1620)
A Model of Christian Charity (Winthrop, 1630)
Anne Hutchinson
Thomas Morton (ca 1625-1647 d.)
Dutch-Iroquois Alliance (est 1630s-1660s)
Bacon’s Rebellion (1676)
Metacom’s War (King Philip, Wampanoag, 1675)
“Talomeco” (De Soto Expedition, ca 1539-42)
Ajacan (est 1570)
Opechancanough
Powhattan Confederacy
indentured servants
Samuel de Champlain (Quebec, ca 1604-1609)
House of Burgesses (est 1619)
Headright system (est 1617)
University of Sankore (Timbuktu, ca 1500)
Santa Fe
Puritan movement (ca 1620s-1640s)
visible sainthood (doctrine of the elect)
Massachussetts Bay Company (est 1630)
Pequot War (1636-7)
English Civil War (Charles I vs Puritans, 1640s)
The Council for New England (1620-1640)
Pueblo Revolt (Popè, 1680)
Mary Rowlandson, (ca. 1670s)