Note: The following outline has been updated for the Fall 2012 semester.
1. Introduction
- Who is an American?
- Syllabus
2. The First Americans
- Where, when, with whom to begin?
- Race and Region
- 8 Facts about Pre-Columbian Native Americans
3. The Renaissance and Reconquista
- From Dark Ages to Renaissance
- Renaissance (1400s)
- Human Potential
- Spreading beyond Home
- From Religious to Secular
- Reconquista Islamic Imperialism
- Tours (732)
- Crusades (1096-1400s)
- Granada, Spain (1492)
- Ferdinando Isabella
- Cristóbal Colón
- Portugal
- Henry the Navigator (1420s)
- Slavery: Old & New
- Bartolomew Díaz (1488)
- Vasco de Gama (1498)
4. Spanish Exploration and Conquest
- Establishing a Spanish-American Empire
- Columbus (1492)
- Myths
- Legacies
- Cortés (1519-1521): Aztec Empire
- Factors resulting in victory
- ¿Conquistador o Libertador?
- Pizarro (1533): Inca Empire
- Columbian Exchange
- Columbus (1492)
- Evaluation
- Fr. Bartolomé de las Casas
5. Four European Empires in America
- Spain: Gold and God
- Florida
- Southwest and Great Plains
- France: Fur Trade and Christianity
- Quebec
- Mississippi River Valley
- Holland: Multi-Ethnic Corporate Ventures
- Northwest Passage
- New Amsterdam (=NYC)
- England: A Slow Beginning
- Sea Dogs
- Lost Colony of Roanoke
- Defeat of the Spanish Armada (1588)
6. Chesapeake and New England
- Chesapeake
- Virginia Company
- John Smith
- Powhatan, John Rolfe, Pocahontas
- Tobacco
- VA Assembly
- Opechancanough
- Indentured Servants
- New England
- English Reformation
- Puritans
- Politics & Family Life
- Religious Dissent
7. Carolina and Middle Colonies
- Restoration Background Context
- English History
- Royalism
- Restoration Colonies
- Carolina (1663)
- Fundamental Constitution
- Slavery & Rice
- Middle Colonies
- English Restoration
- New York (1664): From Holland
- Pennsylvania (1681): For Quakers
8. The Glorious Revolution & the Great Awakening
- Glorious Revolution
- Royalism of James II
- England's Glorious Revolution (1688)
- America's Glorious Revolution (1689)
- Locke's Two Treatises on Govt. (1690)
- Great Awakening
- Jonathan Edwards
- George Whitefield
- Old & New Lights
9. Slavery and Mercantilism
- Slavery
- W.E.B. DuBois
- Ten Basic Facts
- The Middle Passage
- Mercantilism
- Navigation Acts
- Three Legacies
- Benign Neglect
10. EXAM (for Fall 2012, this will not include material from Lesson 11)
11. Imperial Wars
- Imperial Wars (1689-1763)
- The Seven Years War
- Names & Dates
- Land Rush
- Albany Conference
- Early Conflict
- Pitt's Role
- Battles
- Legacies
- Treaty of Paris (1763)
- Imperial Budget