History 343 Charles L. Cohen
Fall, 1994 4115 Humanities
TuTh 9:30-10:45, 5322 Social Science Tel: 263-1956, -1800 (Dept.)
Sections: 301 - Th 1:20-2:10, 2121 Humanities Office hours: Tu 8:15-9:15,
302 - Th 2:25-3:15, 2261 Humanities Th 11:00-12:00, and by appt.
Class email: hist-343@facstaff.wisc.edu Email: clcohen@macc.wisc.edu
clcohen@wiscmacc.bitnet
The following books are required reading, but they can be fun too.
Lois Green Carr, et al., Robert Cole's World
Robert Ritchie, Captain Kidd and the War Against the Pirates
Ian K. Steele, Betrayals
Alden Vaughan, American Genesis
A packet of required materials entitled:
Common Histories: A Reader for History 343
is available at the Humanities Copy Center, 1650 Humanities Building. All additional assignments come from this packet.
The College Library has placed the books and packet on three-hour reserve.
Writing-Intensive Course
History 343 is a writing-intensive course aiming to promote your compositional skill as well as enhance your knowledge of colonial America. You will pen something almost every week, although most assignments will be quite brief.
Written Assignments
The major written assignments consist of two 5-page papers and a final examination. Papers must be typed and double-spaced; they are due at the beginning of class on the Tuesdays indicated. Please note that you have two options for each paper, due on different dates; you may choose your option but may not turn in two options for one paper. Minor assignments are due in the Thursday sections; they too must be typed, double-spaced. Pages 4-5 below list the paper topics, minor assignments, and due dates.
Rewrite Policy
You may rewrite any written assignment except the final exam. To begin, you must first talk with me about such details as the new due date and the kinds of changes to be made. You must inform me of your decision to rewrite by the end of the next class session after I return the original version. You will ordinarily receive one week to rewrite, but I am flexible about negotiating extensions for good cause. The old draft (plus any separate sheet of comments) must accompany the new version. Rewriting cannot lower your grade (nor can changing your mind about handing in a revised paper), but it does not by itself guarantee a higher one; you must substantially rework the essay, following my comments and initiating your own improvements too.
Grading
Simplicity itself. The two major papers, the final exam, and class participa- tion count 25% of the final grade. Class participation will be evaluated on a combination of attendance and quality of discussion (which is not identical to quantity). The minor assignments will be ungraded, but failure to turn them in will lower your class participation grade.
Date Lecture Program and Assignments
Sept. 1 The American Environment
6 The Amerindians of the Eastern Woodlands
8 Two Latin Empires
Reading: William Cronon, Changes in the Land, 54-81;
Roger Williams, Key into the Language of America,
94-102, 122-45, 159-67, 182-91; "Two Land Deeds"
Minor assignment: #1
13 England on the Eve of Colonization
15 Yom Kippur - no lecture or sections; UW schedule adjustment
20 Planting Virginia
22 Rachel and Leah
Reading: Alden Vaughan, American Genesis; William
Strachey, comp., "The Lawes Divine, Morall and
Martiall"
Minor assignment: #2
27 The City on a Hill
First Paper Due - Option 1
29 The Expansion of New England
Reading: Philip Gura, A Glimpse of Sions Glory, 237-75;
"The Examination of Mrs. Ann Hutchinson at the
court at Newtown"
Minor assignment: #3
Oct. 4 New Netherland
First Paper Due - Option 2
6 The Beginnings of the English Empire
Reading: Oliver Rink, Holland on the Hudson, 214-63;
Arnold J.F. Van Laer, Council Minutes, 186-281
Minor assignment: #4
Date Lecture Program and Assignments
Oct. 11 Two Proprietaries
13 The English West Indies
Reading: Robert Ritchie, Captain Kidd, 27-238; Alexander
Exquemelin, The Buccaneers of America, 77-113;
[Daniel Defoe], A General History ... of the Most
Notorious Pirates, 130-41
18 Tobacco Roads
20 Times of Trouble
Reading: Carr et al., Robert Cole's World, 1-182
Minor assignment: #5
25 The Society of the Godly
27 Coven and Covenant in New England
Reading: David Hall, Worlds of Wonder, 71-116; S[amuel]
D[anforth], New-England Almanack for ... 1686;
[Dorothy Cotton], "The Nature and Disposition of
the Moon, in the Birth of Children"
Minor assignment: #6
Nov. 1 The African Element
3 War in the Woodlands
Reading: Ira Berlin and Philip D. Morgan, "Labor and the
Shaping of Slave Life in the Americas"; Jack P.
Greene, Diary of Colonel Landon Carter, 285-330;
Olaudah Equiano, The Life of Olaudah Equiano, or
Gustavus Vassa, the African, 65-110
Minor assignment: #7
8 The Glorious Revolution
Second Paper Due - Option 1
10 The Revolutionary Settlement
Reading: Thomas Barrow Trade & Empire, 39-59; Robert
Toppan and Alfred Goodrick, eds., Edward
Randolph, III, 78-91; VII, 373-84, 507-517; Leo
F. Stock, ed., Proceedings ... of the British
Parliaments ..., II: 1689-1702, 177-211
15 Smoke and Oaks, Loaves and Fishes
Second Paper Due - Option 2
Date Lecture Program and Assignments
17 Money and Migrants in Eighteenth-Century Society
Reading: Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, A Midwife's Tale, 72-
101; Edward Papenfuse, In Pursuit of Profit, 35-
75; Jacob M. Price, ed., Joshua Johnson's
Letterbook, 1771-1774, 1-31, 161-62
22 Material Culture
24 Thanksgiving Vacation - Thank a Semi-Separatist
29 God's Kingdom in Eighteenth-Century America
Dec. 1 Reason and Revelation
Reading: Michael J. Crawford, Seasons of Grace, 180-95;
Patricia Bonomi, Under the Cope of Heaven, 131-
61; Jonathan Edwards, "Sinners in the Hands of an
Angry God"; J.M. Bumsted, ed., "Emotion in
Colonial America: Some Relations of Conversion
Experience in Freetown, Massachusetts, 1749-1770"
Minor Assignment: #8
Dec. 6 Rule Britannia
8 Colonial Politics
Reading: Edmund S. Morgan, Inventing the People, 174-208;
Robert Munford, "The Candidates; or, the Humours
of a Virginia Election"
Minor Assignment: #9
13 The Imperial Wars
15 Ends and Beginnings
Reading: Ian K. Steele, Betrayals; "Journal of Stephen
Cross of Newburyport," 334-57, 12-21
22 Final Examination (12:25 P.M.)
Paper Topics
In writing these essays, you should draw on the lectures, discussions and class readings, making specific statements firmly rooted in the evidence, using quotations whenever applicable, and evaluating the arguments of all "authorities" (including me!). You may of course draw on materials from outside the course but are not required to. You may choose another topic if the suggested ones bore, fatigue or disorient you, but you must consult with me before so proceeding.
PAPER 1:
Option 1 - Due Sept. 27. Taking into account Amerindian and Anglo-
American notions of "property" and "possession," explain how
contests over land and landholding affected the early settlement
of Virginia and Massachusetts.
Option 2 - Due Oct. 4. Define what constitutes an "orderly society" and
discuss the difficulties early settlers of both Virginia and
Massachusetts experienced in creating one.
PAPER 2:
Option 1 - Due Nov. 8. Explain how slavery operated as a labor system in
colonial British America by analyzing the tasks slaves performed,
the way in which slaves carried out their duties, the goals
masters wanted slaves to achieve, and the methods masters used to
control their work force.
Option 2 - Due Nov. 15. Discuss England's North American colonial policy
during the period 1660-1715.
Final Examination
The final examination will consist of an essay written during the exam period. You will receive the question at least one week before the exam, and may use a single page of notes during the exam.
Minor Assignments
#1-3: Summarizing an Argument - #1, due Sept. 8: In one sentence NOT EXCEEDING
50 words (the 51st word and its successors face a terrible fate),
summarize as fully as possible Cronon's primary argument. #2: due Sept.
22: In like manner, summarize Vaughan's primary argument. Make two
copies of your summary, one with your name (for me) and the other
without (for another student). #3: due Sept. 29: Put your name on the
anonymous summary you received and in the margins evaluate both its
writing and content.
SET 2: Analyzing a Source - #4, due Oct. 6: In one or two sentences NOT
EXCEEDING 50 words total (see above for implied threat), explain what
the court records reveal about women's lives in New Amsterdam during the
mid-1640s. #5, due Oct. 20: In like manner, analyze agricultural
production on Robert Cole's farm based solely on the information in his
inventory (pp. 176-82). Make two copies of your summary as previously.
#6, due Oct. 27: Put your name on the anonymous analysis you received
and in the margins evaluate both its writing and content.
SET 3: Devising a Definition - #7, due Nov. 3: In one sentence NOT EXCEEDING
50 words (or else ...), define "slavery." #8, due Dec. 1: In like
manner, define "revival." Make two copies of your summary as previously.
#9, due Dec. 8: Put your name on the anonymous definition you received
and in the margins evaluate both its writing and content. A PROCLAMATION
Regarding Late Papers
Whereas it may come to pass that one or more individuals, whether through dilatoriness, dereliction, irresponsibility, or chutzpah, may seek respite and surcease from escritorial demands through procrastination, delay, and downright evasion;
And whereas this unhappy happenstance contributes mightily to malfeasance on the part of parties of the second part (i.e., students, the instructed, you) and irascibility on the part of us (i.e., me);
Be it therefore known, understood, apprehended, and comprehended:
That all assignments must reach us, or be tendered to the Department Receptionist, on or by the exact hour announced in class, and that failure to comply with this wholesome and most generous regulation shall result in the assignment forfeiting one half letter grade for each day for which it is tardy (i.e., an "A" shall become an "AB"), "one day" being defined as a 24-hour period commencing at the announced hour on which the assignment is due; and that the aforementioned reduction in grade shall continue for each succeeding day of delay until either the assignment shall be remitted or its value shrunk unto nothingness. And let all acknowledge that the responsibility for our receiving papers deposited surreptitio (i.e., in my mailbox or under my door), whether timely or belated, resides with the aforementioned second-part parties (i.e., you again), hence onus for the miscarriage of such items falls upon the writer's head (i.e., until I clutch your scribbles to my breast, I assume you have not turned them in, all protestations to the contrary notwithstanding).
Be it nevertheless affirmed:
That the greater part of justice residing in mercy, it may behoove us, acting entirely through our gracious prerogative, to award an extension in meritorious cases, such sufferances being granted only upon consultation with us, in which case a negotiated due date shall be proclaimed; it being perfectly well understood that failure to observe this new deadline shall result in the immediate and irreversible failure of the assignment (i.e., an "F"), its value being accounted as a null set and less than that of a vile mote. And be it further noted that routine disruptions to routine (i.e., lack of sleep occasioned by pink badgers dancing on the ceiling) do not conduce to mercy, but that severe dislocations brought on by Acts of God (exceedingly traumatic events to the body and/or soul, such as having the earth swallow one up on the way to delivering the assignment) perpetrated either on oneself or on one's loving kindred, do.
And we wish to trumpet forth:
That our purpose in declaiming said proclamation, is not essentially to terminate the wanton flouting of didactic intentions, but to encourage our beloved students to consult with us, and apprehend us of their difficulties aforehand (i.e., talk to me, baby), so that the cruel axe of the executioner fall not upon their Grade Point Average and smite it with a vengeance.
To which proclamation, we do affix our seal:
Information provider:
Unit: H-Net program at UIC History Department
Email: H-Net@uicvm.uic.edu
Posted: 8 Jul 1994
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