Thought Questions:

• What was the author’s purpose in writing?
• How did the author succeed or fail in their purpose?
• What left an impression on you?
• How do the experiences of the “First Frontier” provide guidance for our attitudes and actions as citizens today? 
• How can the lessons of the “First Frontier” apply to making the United States (or your home nation) a stronger better nation today?

Optional Supplemental Reading

• A Very Mutinous People: The Struggle for North Carolina, 1660-1713by Noeleen McIlvenna, Prologue, Chapters 9-10
• The Tuscarora War: Indians, Settlers, and the Fight for the Carolina Colonies by David La Vere, Chapter 8-9

Thought Questions: 

• How was the “long peace” different in New England and Pennsylvania? 
• How did gender and intermarriage effect relations between different Europeans and Native Americans?
• Why was religion of less importance in 1750 than in 1620? 
• How does this episode in history relate the Colonial Era (pre 1763) to the Revolutionary Era to follow? 

Resources: Map One | Map Two

Primary Sources:

• A Journal of my Journey over the Mountains began Fryday the 11th. of March 1747/8 (George Washington Papers)
• Record of Service in the Assembly, 1751–64 (Franklin Papers)
• Memorandum, 1749–1750 (Washington Papers)
• From George Washington to Robert Dinwiddie, 10 June 1752 (Washington Papers)
• Memorandum: Preliminary Conference with the Indians, 26 September 1753 (Franklin Papers)
• Instructions from Robert Dinwiddie, 30 October 1753 (Washington Papers) 
• Journey to the French Commandant: Narrative (Washington Papers)

Optional Supplemental Reading

• A Very Mutinous People: The Struggle for North Carolina, 1660-1713by Noeleen McIlvenna, Prologue, Chapters 5-6
• The Tuscarora War: Indians, Settlers, and the Fight for the Carolina Colonies by David La Vere, Chapter 4-5

 

Note: We will cover the Caribbean origins of the Carolina colony when we read The Americans: The Colonial Experience 

Thought Question:

• What similarities and differences are seen in Virginia, New England and Carolina settlement? 

Optional Supplemental Reading

• A Very Mutinous People: The Struggle for North Carolina, 1660-1713by Noeleen McIlvenna, Prologue, Chapters 1-2
• The Tuscarora War: Indians, Settlers, and the Fight for the Carolina Colonies by David La Vere, Introduction and Chapter 1

David La Vere teaches American Indian History at the University of North Carolina Wilmington. He is an award-winning author and public speaker. Born in New Orleans, he served a hitch as a Marine Corps infantryman, then earned a B.A. in Journalism from Northwestern State University in Natchitoches, Louisiana. Upon graduation, he spent five years in Dallas as an advertising copywriter. Discovering he enjoyed writing history more than writing ad copy, he returned to Northwestern State and earned an MA in History, From there he went on to Texas A&M University for his Ph.D. in History. He came to UNC Wilmington in 1993 and is now a professor of history there. La Vere has just finished his seventh book, titled The Tuscarora War: Indians, Settlers and the Fight for the Carolina Colonies, and published in October 2013 by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Press. Besides books, he’s written numerous articles for Our State North Carolina magazine and for historical journals. La Vere often lectures around the state, giving talks about the history of North Carolina Indians. He has given a talk at the Oxford Round Table at Oxford University, England on diversity in society.

Primary Sources

• Christoph von Graffenried’s Account of the Founding of New Bern

Note: We will be looking at the influence and activity of the French when we read The Americans: The Colonial Experience. One of the advantages to reading multiple surveys will be our ability to focus on different specific topics related to an event each time we read through a new book. This also avoids the myopic disadvantages of dwelling on a single event for an extended period. 

Thought Questions:

• How are the Pequot War, King Phillip’s War and King William’s War similar and different on both the macro colony level and micro participants level 

Optional Supplemental Reading

• A Land As God Made It: Jamestown and the Birth of America by James Horn Chapters 8-9
• Captive Histories: English, French, and Native Narratives of the 1704 Deerfield Raid University of Massachusetts Press
• What Was the Dominion of New England? 

Article Thought Question:

How were the New England Confederation and the Dominion of New England similar and different? In what ways were they successful and failures? Why did the New Englanders view they differently? 

Primary Sources: Captivity Narratives 

• A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson (1682) 
• John Giles Memoirs of Odd Adventures 
• A Narrative of Hannah Swarton, Containing Wonderful Passages, relating to her Captivity, and her Deliverance
• Humiliations follow’d with Deliverances.Cotton Mather
• Cotton Mather’s Magnalia Christi Americana (Full Text) University of Michigan Library

Resources: 

• Oxford Bibliography of Captivity Narratives 
• The Indian Captivity Narrative Radford University
• Selected Secondary Bibliography on Captivity Narratives 
• The Story of Hannah Duston: Cotton Mather to Thoreau 

Primary Source Thought Question

• How is gender reflected in the different captivity narratives? How does Cotton Mather’s and others retelling of female captivity narratives in their own voice effect our understanding? (in the above and other reading)? 

Thought Questions:

• In what ways was King Phillip’s War also a Native American civil war? 
• In what ways did economic circumstances effect relations between Native Americans and Europeans? 

Optional Supplemental Reading

• The Religious History of America by Edwin GaustadChapter 3: Puritan New England
• A Land As God Made It: Jamestown and the Birth of America by James Horn Chapters 6-7

Article: What Was the New England Confederation? 

Map: Native American Regions approximately during King Phillip’s War 

Primary Sources: 

• A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson (1682) 
• The Act of Surrender of the Great Charter of New England to His Majesty : June 7, 1635
• The Articles of Confederation of the United Colonies of New England; May 19 1643

Primary Source Thought Question:

• Understanding history means understanding the world views and context individuals lived in. What does Mary Rowlandson’s account tell us about her viewpoint and context of events?

 

Thought Questions: 

• How did the different approaches Virginia and New England settlers took with Native Americans effect the nature of their relationships? 

Primary Source:

• A Brief History of the Pequot War (1736 text) as recounted by John Mason

From DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska Lincoln 

Thought Question for primary source document (John Mason):

• Understanding history means understanding the world views and context individuals lived in. What does John Mason’s account tell us about his viewpoint and context of events? 

Optional Supplemental Reading

• The Religious History of America by Edwin GaustadChapter 1: Beginnings 
• A Land As God Made It: Jamestown and the Birth of America by James Horn Chapters 4-5

Thought Questions on Supplemental Reading:

• How did religious beliefs about the events occurring around them effect how Europeans and Native Americans understood their situations?

Thought Questions

• What are the general attitudes of Europeans towards Native Americans? 
• What are the general attitudes of Native Americans towards Europeans? 
• How did nationality impact different European encounters with Native Americans?
• How did Native American rivalries effect their European encounters? 

Optional Supplemental Suggested Reading

• An Economic History of the United States by Ronald Seavoy Chapter 1: English Commercial Revolution of the Seventeenth Century 
• A Land As God Made It: Jamestown and the Birth of America by James Horn Chapters 2 3 

Thought Question for supplemental reading:

• What norms and themes do both Horn and Weidensaul introduce about Native Americans and Europeans?
• How do the cultural pictures of Europeans and Native Americans show the contrast between them?

The Jamestown Historical Society 

Primary Sources 

The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of the English Nation 

Thought Questions – Introduction

What is the purpose in the author using the story of the Hochstetler Farm?
What is the author’s purpose in writing and how does he organize his writing?

Thought Questions – Chapter 1 

• What is the significance of the words Native Americans used to describe themselves? 
• How are Europeans and Native Americans similar and different and what effect does this have? 
  

  Optional Supplemental Suggested Reading 

• The Barbarous Years: Chapter 1 by Bernard Bailyn (2013)

A History of the American People by Paul Johnson – “Raleigh the Proto American and the Roanoke Disaster”

Bernard Bailyn is an American historian, author, and academic specializing in U.S. Colonial and Revolutionary-era History. He has been a professor at Harvard University since 1953. Bailyn has won the Pulitzer Prize for History twice. 

Thought Question – Supplemental Reading 

• Bailyn and Weidensaul focus on different aspects of Native American culture. How does this contrast help understand the Native American reaction to encounters with Europeans? 

  The Hakluyt Society 
  Founded in 1846, the Hakluyt Society seeks to advance knowledge and education by the publication of scholarly editions of primary records of voyages, travels and other geographical material. 

  The 1606 grants by James I to the London and Plymouth companies (from Wikipedia)