| |
| |
| Preface | |
| |
| |
| Studying and Writing History | |
| |
| |
| |
| Indians and Europeans: New World Encounters | |
| |
| |
| Points of View: Contact and Conquest (1502-1521) | |
| |
| |
| |
| Dispatches of the Conquest from the New World | |
| |
| |
| |
| In a letter to King Charles V of Spain, Hernando Cort�s recounts his recent conquest of Mexico | |
| |
| |
| |
| A Nahua Account of the Conquest of Mexico | |
| |
| |
| |
| An anonymous Nahua account of the conquest of Mexico describes the Spanish conquest and suggests possible reasons for their defeat | |
| |
| |
| For Critical Thinking | |
| |
| |
| |
| Destruction of the Indies | |
| |
| |
| |
| The Dominican friar Bartolom� de Las Casas's powerful report of the horrors of the Spanish conquest is often described as the "Black Legend." | |
| |
| |
| |
| Description of Virginia | |
| |
| |
| |
| Captain John Smith describes Virginia and the Powhatan Indians he encountered at Jamestown in 1607 | |
| |
| |
| |
| Encounter with the Indians | |
| |
| |
| |
| The French Jesuit missionary Father Paul Le Jeune reports from Quebec in 1634, where he lived among North American Indians | |
| |
| |
| |
| Captured by Indians | |
| |
| |
| |
| Mary Jemison, a white woman, describes her captivity and assimilation into mid-eighteenth-century Seneca culture | |
| |
| |
| Visual Portfolio: New World Contact | |
| |
| |
| |
| The Colonial Experience: A Rapidly Changing Society | |
| |
| |
| Points of View: The Salem Witchcraft Trials (1692) | |
| |
| |
| |
| The Case Against George Burroughs | |
| |
| |
| |
| Many neighbors accuse George Burroughs of leading witches in Salem, Massachusetts | |
| |
| |
| |
| Reconsidering the Verdict | |
| |
| |
| |
| Puritan leader and ordinary villagers look back at the conviction and execution of Reverend Burroughs, whom they had formerly accused of witchcraft | |
| |
| |
| For Critical Thinking | |
| |
| |
| |
| The African Slave Trade | |
| |
| |
| |
| An eyewitness account of the African slave trade by Olaudah Equiano, an Ibo prince supposedly kidnapped in the early 1760s | |
| |
| |
| |
| On the Misfortune of Indentured Servants | |
| |
| |
| |
| Gottlieb Mittelberger, a young German, relates his arrival in Pennsylvania in 1750 and his sale as an indentured servant | |
| |
| |
| |
| A Man of the American Enlightenment | |
| |
| |
| |
| Benjamin Franklin writes of religion, science, and public service in his autobiography, published after his death in 1790 | |
| |
| |
| |
| Leaving an Abusive Husband | |
| |
| |
| |
| Abigail Abbot Bailey finds few legal protections following her marriage in 1767 | |
| |
| |
| Visual Portfolio: The Colonial Home and Family | |
| |
| |
| |
| Resistance and Revolution: Struggling for Liberty | |
| |
| |
| Points of View: The Boston Massacre (1770) | |
| |
| |
| |
| A British Officer's Description | |
| |
| |
| |
| Thomas Preston, a British officer stationed in Boston before the American Revolution, recalls why his soldiers fired on Americans | |
| |
| |
| |
| Colonial Accounts | |
| |
| |
| |
| the Boston Gazette and Country Journal | |
| |
| |
| George Robert Twelves, a patriot shoemaker, the Boston merchant John Tudor, and the Boston Gazette and Country Journal relate this bloody event from the colonists' perspective | |
| |
| |
| For Critical Thinking | |
| |
| |
| |
| "The Bloody Massacre" Engraving | |
| |
| |
| |
| Paul Revere's famous engraving offers a visual representation of the Boston Massacre | |
| |
| |
| |
| A Soldier's View of the Revolutionary War | |
| |
| |
| |
| Joseph Plumb Martin, who joined the Revolutionary Army before his sixteenth birthday, writes about his life as a common soldier | |
| |
| |
| |
| Choosing Sides | |
| |
| |
| |
| A South Carolina slave escapes to enlist in the British Army and is rewarded with freedom in Canada in 1783 | |
| |
| |
| |
| Secret Correspondence of a Loyalist Wife | |
| |
| |
| |
| Catherine Van Cortlandt sends letters to her Tory husband behind British lines in 1776 and 1777 | |
| |
| |
| |
| Republican Motherhood | |
| |
| |
| |
| Letters of Eliza Pinckney and Abigail Adams during the Revolutionary War years | |
| |
| |
| |
| Shays's Rebellion: Prelude to the Constitution | |
| |
| |
| |
| George Richards Minot describes Shays's Rebellion of 1786-1787 | |
| |
| |
| |
| Defining America: The Expanding Nation | |
| |
| |
| Points of View: Religion in the New Nation (1800-1830) | |
| |
| |
| |
| The Great Revival of 1800 | |
| |
| |
| |
| Finley preaches during the Great Revival in Kentucky | |
| |
| |
| |
| Religion in America | |
| |
| |
| |
| British writer and journalist, Harriet Martineau, observes religious practices in America, including camp-revivals and the role of women in the church | |
| |
| |
| For Critical Thinking | |
| |
| |
| |
| How the West was Won | |
| |
| |
| An Officer of the "Army of the West" | |
| |
| |
| Dispatches from the U.S. Army describe a mix of power and persuasion in taking New Mexico | |
| |
| |
| |
| Crossing the Great Divide | |
| |
| |
| |
| In 1805, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark crossed the Rockies, one of the most difficult parts of the famous expedition in American history - from St. Louis, Missouri, to the mouth of the Columbia River | |
| |
| |
| |
| A Ride on the Erie Canal | |
| |
| |
| |
| Frances Trollope describes the travel conditions and social customs of ordinary Americans in this humorous account of her trip by boat down the Erie Canal | |
| |
| |
| |
| The Trail of Tears | |
| |
| |
| |
| John Ross, of mixed Cherokee and white ancestry, protests efforts by President Jackson and Congress to remove his tribe from Georgia to Oklahoma Territory in the 1830s | |
| |
| |
| |
| Pulling a Handcart to the Mormon Zion | |
| |
| |
| |
| Pioneer Priscilla Merriman Evans arrives in Salt Lake City, Utah, in 1856, after walking one thousand miles from Iowa City, Iowa | |
| |
| |
| |
| Life in California before the Gold Discovery | |
| |
| |
| |
| Aging Californios remember their lives in California before the 1846 "Bear Flag Revolt" and the 1849 gold rush brought thousands of Anglo settlers to the region | |
| |
| |
| |
| Miners During the California Gold Rush Daguerreotype | |
| |
| |
| |
| This photograph provides a glimpse of the lives of Chinese and Anglo miners in the California gold fields | |
| |
| |
| |
| An Age of Reform: Rearranging Social Patterns | |
| |
| |
| Points of View: Nat Turner's Rebellion (1831) | |
| |
| |
| |
| A Slave Insurrection | |
| |
| |
| |
| Nat Turner confesses to leading a slave uprising in Southampton County, Virginia, where at least fifty whites were killed | |
| |
| |
| |
| Who is to Blame? | |
| |
| |
| |
| The abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, editor of The Liberator, John Hampden Pleasants, editor of the Richmond Constitutional Whig, and Virginia governor John Floyd, in a letter to a friend, offer widely different reasons for and responses to Nat Turner's slave insurrection | |
| |
| |
| For Critical Thinking | |
| |
| |
| |
| The Lowell Textile Workers | |
| |
| |
| |
| Harriet Hanson Robinson, a young factory worker, describes working conditions in the mill and her desire for labor reform in the 1830s | |
| |
| |
| |
| Life Under the Lash | |
| |
| |
| |
| Narratives of Charles Ball and other former slaves provide personal responses to life as slaves on mid-nineteenth-century Southern plantations | |
| |
| |
| |
| Life of a Female Slave | |
| |
| |
| |
| Writing under a pseudonym, Harriet Jacobs tells the story of her sexual exploitation under slavery beginning at the age of fifteen | |
| |
| |
| |
| A Pioneer for Women's Rights | |
| |
| |
| |
| Elizabeth Cady Stanton remembers the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention and its famous "Declaration of Sentiments" | |
| |
| |
| |
| "The Early Life of this Boy" | |
| |
| |
| |
| John Brown, abolitionist and leader of the raid at Harpers Ferry, recounts his early life in a letter and his last address to the Virginia Court on November 2, 1859, before being hanged for his crimes one month later | |
| |
| |
| Visual Portfolio: Slavery and Freedom | |
| |
| |
| |
| Civil War and Reconstruction: The Price of War | |
| |
| |
| Points of View: Pickett's Charge: High Tide of the Confederacy (July 3, 1863) | |
| |
| |
| |
| "The Last and Bloodiest Fight": A Union Account | |
| |
| |
| |
| Franklin Haskell, Union soldier and staff officer in the 6th Wisconsin Infantry Regiment, describes his decisive action to rally reinforcements during the battle of Pickett's Charge in a letter to his brother shortly after the battle | |
| |
| |
| |
| "Field of Carnage": A Confederate Account | |
| |
| |
| |
| Major Walter Harrison, Confederate soldier and Inspector General of Pickett's division, describes the battle and the role of the men he served with in this gripping account of the famous charge at Gettysburg | |
| |
| |
| For Critical Thinking | |
| |
| |
| |
| Three Days of Terror | |
| |
| |
| |
| Visiting her brother in New York City, Ellen Leonard is caught in the violence of the draft riot of 1863 | |
| |
| |
| |
| Healing Wounds | |
| |
| |
| |
| Cornelia Hancock becomes a nurse during the Civil War | |
| |
| |
| |
| A Slaveowner's Journal at the End of the Civil War | |
| |
| |
| |
| Henry William Ravenel describes the effects of emancipation in South Carolina after Lee's surrender at Appomattox in 1865 | |
| |
| |
| |
| African Americans During Reconstruction | |
| |
| |
| |
| In interviews conducted in the 1930s, Felix Haywood and other former slaves tell about their lives immediately following the Civil War | |
| |
| |
| |
| White Southerners' Reactions to Reconstruction | |
| |
| |
| |
| Testimony by Caleb G. Forshey and the Reverend James Sinclair before a joint congressional committee in 1866 shows the reaction of Southern whites to Reconstruction policies | |
| |
| |
| |
| Ruins in Charleston, South Carolina, 1865 or 1866 Photograph | |
| |
| |
| |
| A photograph of the ruins in Charleston, South Carolina, from a portfolio of images of Sherman's march by George N. Barnard, one of the best field photographers of the Civil War | |