Syllabus: Atlantic World and the American South

Dr. Karin L. Zipf office hours: TTH 1:30-2:30pm

Associate Professor MWF 11am-12pm

219-A Brewster

zipfk@ecu.edu

HIST 3005

History of the Atlantic World and the American South

TTH 11:00am-1:15pm

BB204

Required Texts:

Gordon S. Brown, Toussaint’s Clause: The Founding Fathers and the Haitian Revloution (2005)

Sylvia R. Frey, Come Shouting to Zion: African American Protestantism in the American South and the British Caribbean to 1830 (1998)

Michael A. Gomez, Reversing Sail: A History of the African Diaspora (2005)

Frank Lambert, The Barbary Wars: American Independence in the Atlantic World (2005)

Helen C. Rountree, Pocahontas, Powhatan, Opechancanough: Three Indians Lives Changed by Jamestown (2005)

Linda L. Sturtz, Within Her Power: Propertied Women in Colonial Virginia (2002)

Optional:

The instructor has assigned text selections, available on Blackboard. The texts are also available for purchase in the bookstore.

Bernard Bailyn, Atlantic History: Concept and Contours (2005)

Bradley G. Bond, French Colonial Louisiana and the Atlantic World (2005)

Course Description: This course examines the region known today as the American South (or the U.S. South) from 1400-1800, studied through the exciting and dynamic crossings, connections, and interactions in and around the Atlantic Ocean. The American South emerged not in isolation but as a product of a volatile mix of peoples, pathogens, and politics from these crossings and connections. Monarchs and minions in England, France and Spain viewed their loyalties not in terms of discrete national loyalties but in terms of vast empires that stretched from Europe to Africa and across the Atlantic to North and South America. Settlers and explorers from all three empires contested their claims to these lands, struggles that forever impacted the lives of indigenous peoples and Africans brought to these shores. Caribbean and Latin American history also interweaves with the American South as many English and Spanish settlers of North America had ties to plantations in Barbados, the West Indies, and Latin America. The Diaspora that marked the cultural and demographic population shifts of Africans to American shores demonstrate that slaves in the American South held ties not only to Africa but to the Caribbean, as well. Most significantly, emancipation and revolution from imperial constraints represented not only the American experience but the realities of Caribbean, Latin American, African and European peoples world-wide.

This course examines the history of the American South through the lens of the Atlantic World. It explores this history through five themes, Cultural Exchange and Conquest, Labor and Economies, Religion, Gender, and Emancipation and Revolution. Students will recognize cultural, economic, and political patterns in the Atlantic World, evaluate the diversity of experiences of populations within this world, and understand important transformations that occurred from 1400-1800.

This course is also designed to help students enhance their critical thinking skills. The course materials and assignments will train students to evaluate different and sometimes contradictory sources of information. Students will develop their verbal and written communication skills through the preparation of paper assignments and class discussion. In a final group presentation, students will hone their critical thinking, verbal skills, and evaluation abilities.

Course Requirements: History requires skills in critical reading and thinking. This course requires intensive and focused concentration on reading and writing. You MUST read the assigned material. Thinking critically requires active listening and note-taking. Discussion (oral participation by all students) is crucial in every class. In addition, you must submit workshop handouts, complete 5 writing assignments and, in collaboration with students from our sister section, Dr. Chad Ross’ course on the Atlantic World and Europe, prepare a group presentation to be given at a joint session of both classes at the end of the semester. Throughout the semester students will meet in scheduled workshops with Dr. Ross’ class to encourage this collaboration.

Attendance: Attendance is mandatory. Sometimes unforeseen circumstances, such as an accident or a death in the family, require students to miss class. Therefore, this professor allows students three class absences without penalty. But, students must use their absences wisely. Students exceeding three absences will by penalized 1% of their final grade for each absence exceeding three. If you miss an assignment due to unexpected illness you must provide a doctor’s note. Students are expected to come to class ON TIME.

Email: All students, staff and faculty at ECU have a university email account. Periodically the professor will send out comments, reminders, and helpful hints through university email. Students are responsible for checking their university email accounts regularly. Students who prefer to use another email address must have mail from their university account forwarded to the preferred address. To do so, call 328-6866.

Papers and Projects: In addition to attending lecture, students will complete three papers and one group project and presentation.

Papers: Students will complete three short papers for this course. Each paper will summarize, compare, and critique 2-3 of the assigned readings as indicated by the professor. The papers will be 4-6 pages in length. Each paper should offer a thesis statement that serves as the student’s overall impression of the three readings compared, briefly summarize the author’s thesis for each work, and offer grounds for a critique based upon key themes raised in the texts.

Presentation: Students will collaborate with members of our sister section taught by Dr. Chad Ross. Students will work in groups of 4-5 on a theme assigned to their group. They will conduct research on the theme, evaluate readings from the theme, and complete a project that will explain the relationship of the theme in Atlantic History. At the end of the semester, each group will conduct a 20-25 minute presentation that will demonstrate the significance of this theme in the Atlantic World.

Requirements and Grades

Your grade will be based on a combination of group work with our sister section (40%) and of written assignments for this section (60%).

The exact breakdown of the grade proceeds as follows:

Individual Discussion of Readings: 10%

Individual Papers: 60% (20% each)

Group Work:

Film Response 10%

Workshop 1 5%

Workshop 2 5%

Semester Project 10%

Websites: Students must consult the sites included in the syllabus in preparation for the week’s discussion. These websites illuminate the complex ideas and events of the History of the United States Since 1945. Images, maps, biographies, essays, video games, literature, and chronologies on the sites will provide students with a more comprehensive understanding of relevant issues.

Disability Services Notice: East Carolina University seeks to comply fully with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Students requesting accommodations based on a covered disability must go to the Department for Disability Support Services, located in Brewster A-117, to verify the disability before any accommodations can occur. The telephone number is 252-328-6799.

Assignment Deadlines: Unless otherwise noted by the professor, students must meet all assignment deadlines as noted on the syllabus. Assignments must be turned in to the professor by 5pm on the day of the deadline. Any late papers will receive a penalty of one letter grade for each day the document is late. Of course, I will accept papers early.

Schedule of Classes:

WEEKS 10, 12.

Week 1: Introduction

Jan. 9&11 What Is Atlantic History?

Reading: Bailyn, “The Idea of Atlantic History,” Part I of Atlantic History: Concept and Contours, pps. 1-56. BlackBoard

Websites: Map of the North Atlantic Ocean

http://go.hrw.com/atlas/norm_htm/natlantc.htm

Map of Atlantic World by Diego Gutierrez (1562)

http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/gmd:@filreq(@field(NUMBER+@band(g3290+ct000342))+@field(COLLID+dsxpmap))

Early Maps of the Atlantic World

http://www.nypl.org/research/midatlantic/intro3atlantic.html

Edmund Spenser, A View of the Present State of Ireland (1596)

http://www.uoregon.edu/~rbear/veue1.html

Ireland: Reform, Conquest and Rebellion, 1541-1603

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/utk/ireland/reform.htm

` Laws in Ireland for the Suppression of Popery

http://www.law.umn.edu/irishlaw/chron.html

Bartolome de Las Casas, “Great atrocities are committed upon the indigenous people”

http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/documents/documents_p2.cfm?doc=213

Edward Randolph’ description of King Philip’s War, 1685

http://www.swarthmore.edu/SocSci/bdorsey1/41docs/45-ran.html

Thomas Harriot, A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Colony of Virginia

http://docsouth.unc.edu/nc/hariot/hariot.html

Part I: Cultural Exchange and Conquest

Week 2: Atlantic Ecologies

Jan. 16&18 Reading: Crosby, chapter 1-2 and 4 from the Columbian Exchange, pps. 3-63, 122-164. BlackBoard

Websites: Indian Trader John Lawson’s Journal of Carolina, 1709

http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/6379

Week 3: Peoples and Cultures of the Black Diaspora

Jan. 23&25 Reading: Gomez, Reversing Sail, full text

Exercise: Workshop with Dr. Ross’ class on Reversing Sail

Websites: Africans in America: Resource Bank

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part1/index.html

The Atlantic Slave Trade and Slave Life in the Americas (UVA)

http://hitchcock.itc.virginia.edu/Slavery/search.html

Week 4: Encounters in the American South

Jan. 30 & Reading: Rountree, Pocahontas, Powhatan, Opechancanough, full text

Feb. 1 Assignment: Paper 1 due Feb. 1 (on Bailyn, Crosby, and Rountree)

Websites: John Smith’s observations of Jamestown, 1622

http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/documents/documents_p2.cfm?doc=213

Edward Waterhouse, “Race War in Virigina,” 1622

http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/documents/documents_p2.cfm?doc=215

Part II: Labor and Economies

Week 5: Sugar and Slaves

Feb. 6 &8 Reading: Austen and Smith, “The Transatlantic Slave Trade, Part 2: Private Tooth Decay as Public Economic Virtue: The Slave-Sugar Triangle, Consumerism, and European Industrialization,” Social Science History 14(Spring 1990) 1: 95-115.

http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0145-5532%28199021%2914%3A1%3C95%3APTDAPE%3E2.0.CO%3B2-Y

Exercise: Film showing of “Sankofa”

Week 6: Fortunes on the Mississippi

Feb. 13&15 Reading: Chapters 1 (Usner), 2 (Morris), and 3 (Saadani) in Bond, French Colonial Louisiana and the Atlantic World, pps. 1-64.

Websites: John Mitchell’s Map of Empire, 1750-1755

http://www.usm.maine.edu/~maps/mitchell/full2.jpeg

International Seminar on the History of the Atlantic World

http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~atlantic/weblinks.html

Week 7: What’s Up With Rice?

Feb. 20&22 Reading: Carney, “Rice Milling, Gender and Slave Labour in Colonial South Carolina,” Past and Present 153 (November 1996): 108-134.

http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0031-2746%28199611%290%3A153%3C108%3ARMGASL%3E2.0.CO%3B2-2

Menard, “Financing the Lowcountry Export Boom: Capital and Growth in Early South Carolina,” The William and Mary Quarterly 51 (October 1994) 4: 659- 676.

http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0043-5597%28199410%293%3A51%3A4%3C659%3AFTLEBC%3E2.0.CO%3B2-C

Assignment: Film Response due on Feb. 22 (on “Sankofa,” Austen and Smith, and Carney)

Websites: Letters of Thomas Newe to his Father, from South Carolina (1682)

http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/6384

Part III: Religion

Week 8: Religion and Empire

Feb. 27& Reading: Chapters 4 (Carson), 5 (Ruymbeke) and 6 (Clark) in Bond, French Colonial Louisiana and the Atlantic World, pps. 65-110.

Mar. 1

Week 9: Creolizing Faith

Mar. 6&8 Reading: Frey, Come Shouting to Zion, full text

Assignment: Handout due Mar. 8

Websites: African-American Religion in the Atlantic World, 1441-1808

http://www.amherst.edu/%7Eaardoc/Atlantic_World.html

Sacred Arts of Haitian Vodou

http://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/vodou/index.html

March 11-18 SPRING BREAK

Part IV: Gender

Week 10: Defining Manhood and Womanhood

Mar. 20&22 Reading: Theda Perdue, "Constructing Gender," chapter 1, Cherokee Women: Gender and Culture Change, 1700-1835 see Bb

Michelene E. Pesantubbee, chapters 4 and 5, Choctaw Women in a Chaotic World see Bb

Kathleen Brown, “Engendering Racial Difference,” chapter 4, Good Wives Nasty Wenches & Anxious Patriarchs, pps. 107-136. see Bb

Jennifer Spear, "Colonial Intimacies: Legislating Sex in French Louisiana," WMQ, Vol 60 (Jan 2003) No. 1

http://www.historycooperative.org//journals/wm/60.1/spear.html

Exercise: Workshop with Dr. Ross’ class, March 22, LIBRARY Room 1020 at Reference (pass through double doors and ask for directions as needed)

Websites: Gender Issues in the Atlantic World (scroll down)

http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~atlantic/weblinks.html

Week 11: Colonial Women and the Law

Mar. 27&29 Reading: Sturtz, Within Her Power: Propertied Women in Colonial Virginia, full text

Part V: Emancipation and Revolution

Week 12: Slave Rebellion and Revolution

Apr. 3&5 Reading: Cassandra Pybus, Epic Journeys of Freedom, chs. 1-4

Websites: Black Loyalists in Nova Scotia

http://museum.gov.ns.ca/blackloyalists/index.htm

Week 13: Egads! Pirates!

Apr. 10&12 Reading: Lambert, The Barbary Wars: American Independence in the Atlantic World

Exercise: Workshop with Dr. Ross’ class

Week 14: Liberty’s Reach

Apr. 17&19 Reading: Brown, Toussaint’s Clause: The Founding Fathers and the Haitian Revolution

Exercise: Workshop with Dr. Ross’ class

Assignment: Paper 2 due Apr. 12 (on Perdue, Brown and Sturtz)

FINAL EXAM Tuesday, May 1, 11:00am-1:30pm

Assignment: Paper 3 due May 1 on Pybus, Lambert and Brown (NO EXTENSIONS!)