HS1760: "An Empire for Liberty": Race, Space and Power in the United States, 1775-1898

School History
Department Code SHARE
Module Code HS1760
External Subject Code 100767
Number of Credits 30
Level L6
Language of Delivery English
Module Leader Dr David Doddington
Semester Double Semester
Academic Year 2014/5

Outline Description of Module

In 1775, thirteen of Britain’s twenty-six American colonies began an unlikely revolt against the most powerful army in the world. By 1898, the United States had brushed aside European rivals and assumed continental dimensions, announcing itself as an economic, political, and military rival to the great imperial powers of Europe. This course examines the development of the United States from the American Revolution to the Spanish-American war, but challenges simple narratives of triumph or exceptionalism by focusing on the limitations placed on the diverse population of the United States and the very human costs of expansion. Indeed, for a nation “conceived in liberty”, the simple premise that “all men are created equal”proved rather more problematic in practice. How can we explain the effective exile of non-whites from the promises of the Declaration of Independence? Did white Americans view black people and Native Americans as inherently inferior, perhaps even sub-human? Did expansion into the space of the frontier place impossible strains on the political, cultural, and social unity of the new nation? And what impact did race, class, and gender have upon both the politics of the period and the understandings and projections of power in the United States and abroad?

This course explores issues associated with race, space, and power in the United States from the 1770s to the 1890s. Topics include: the American Revolution; race and slavery in the early Republic; America’s unstable position in an “Age of Revolutions”; politics and class divisions; the various plans of the U.S. government for ‘civilizing’ or ‘removing’ Native Americans and free blacks; the influence of racial prejudice on the Mexican-American War and the Civil War; the violence of Reconstruction; western expansion and the rise of the United States as an imperial power.

On completion of the module a student should be able to

Intellectual skills:

  • Critically address the history of American expansion on the continent and abroad, examining how this was shaped by and reflected racial, political, and ideological positions.
  • Demonstrate an understanding of nineteenth-century debates about race, class, and gender, and identify key historiographical and methodological issues associated with these.
  • Acknowledge and explain the varied responses of marginalised groups to aggression and exploitation in the United States and abroad.
  • Use evidence and examples to compare the relative merits of historical interpretations on American history in the nineteenth century.

Discipline Specific (including practical) Skills:

  • Use and critique a wide range of primary and secondary source material on North American history, engaging in historiographical and methodological debate over the use of this material.
  • Apply these skills to the construction and presentation of coherent and articulate work (whether written or oral).
  • Compare and contrast source material and place it within a strong historical framework.
  • Express their ideas and opinions confidently and clearly in a collaborative learning environment.

Transferable skills:

  • Communicate ideas and arguments effectively and accurately, whether in speech or in writing, both individually and in group work.
  • Formulate and justify their own arguments and conclusions about a range of issues, making use of evidence and examples to support their views.
  • Demonstrate an ability to modify as well as to defend their position.
  • Engage with online material and organise their research on virtual learning environments.
  • Independently organise study methods and workload.

How the module will be delivered

A range of teaching methods will be used in each of the sessions of the course, comprising a combination of lectures and seminar discussion of major issues. The syllabus is divided into a series of major course themes, then sub-divided into principal topics for the study of each theme.

Lectures:

The aim of the lectures is to provide a brief introduction to a particular topic, establishing the salient features of major course themes, identifying key issues and providing historiographical guidance. The lectures aim to provide a basic framework for understanding and should be thought of as useful starting points for further discussion and individual study. Where appropriate, handouts and other materials may be distributed to reinforce the material discussed.

Seminars:

The primary aim of seminars will be to generate debate and discussion amongst course participants. Seminars for each of the course topics will provide an opportunity for students to analyse and further discuss key issues and topics relating to lectures.

Skills that will be practised and developed

  • communicate ideas and arguments effectively, whether in class discussion or in written form, in an accurate, succinct and lucid manner.
  • formulate and justify arguments and conclusions about a range of issues, and present appropriate supporting evidence
  • an ability to modify as well as to defend their own position.
  • an  ability to think critically and challenge assumptions
  • an ability to use a range of information technology resources to assist with information retrieval and assignment presentation.
  • time management skills and an ability to independently organise their own study methods and workload.
  • work effectively with others as part of a team or group in seminar or tutorial discussions.  

How the module will be assessed

Students will be assessed by means of a combination of one 1000 word assessed essay [15%], one 2000 word assessed essay [35%] and one two-hour unseen written examination paper in which the student will answer two questions [50%].

Course assignments:

  1. Assessed Essay 1will contribute 15% of the final mark for the module. It is designed to give students the opportunity to demonstrate their ability to review evidence, draw appropriate conclusions from it and employ the formal conventions of scholarly presentation. It must be no longer than 1,000 words (excluding empirical appendices and references).
  2. Assessed Essay 2will contribute 35% of the final mark for the module. It is designed to give students the opportunity to demonstrate their ability to review evidence, draw appropriate conclusions from it and employ the formal conventions of scholarly presentation. It must be no longer than 2,000 words (excluding empirical appendices and references).
  3. The Examination will take place during the second assessment period [May/June] and will consist of an unseen two hour paper that will contribute the remaining 50% of the final mark for this module. Students must write 2 answers in total.

Assessment Breakdown

Type % Title Duration(hrs)
Written Assessment 15 Assessed Essay 1 N/A
Written Assessment 35 Assessed Essay 2 N/A
Exam - Spring Semester 50 "An Empire For Liberty": Race, Space And Power In The United States, 1775-1898 2

Syllabus content

  1. An imperial crisis: the problems of British America

  2. Breaking the chains: the American Revolution

    1. Seminar – Empire and Independence

  3. Conflict, consolidation, and compromise in the early Republic

  4. The limitations of the American Revolution

    1. Seminar – “All men are created equal...”

  5. America in the world: An “Age of Revolutions”

  6. Native Americans, expansion, and the War of 1812

    1. Seminar – An Empire for Liberty?

  7. Politics in the Early Republic

  8. Getting rich in America

    1. Seminar - Power and politics

  9. Slavery in North America

  10. Slave resistance and rebellion

    1. Seminar – The internal slave trade and slave resistance.

Spring term

  1. Jacksonian America

  2. Arrivals and departures – immigration and colonization

    1. Seminar – Expansion and expulsion

  3. Manifest Destiny and the Frontier

  4. Slavery, expansion, and empire

    1. Seminar - Texas and the Mexican-American War

  5. The 1850s: compromise, conflict, and collapse

  6. The Civil War

    1. Seminar – “The fiery trial”: race, abolition, and the Civil War.

  7. The ending of the War

  8. Reconstruction and Redemption

    1. Seminar - Violence in the postbellum South

  9. Indian Wars and the closing of the frontier

  10. Expansion abroad – Cuba and the Philippines

    1. Seminar - An imperial power

Essential Reading and Resource List

Seminar 1: Empire and Independence

  • Robert Allison, The American Revolution: A Concise History. Oxford, 2011. 1-94.
  • P.J. Marshall, ‘A Nation Defined by Empire’, in Alexander Grant and Keith J. Stringer, eds., Uniting the Kingdom? London, 1995. 208-222.
  • J.H. Elliott, Empires of the Atlantic World. New Haven, 2006. 292-301.
  • T. H. Breen, ‘“Baubles of Britain”: The Consumer Culture of Eighteenth-Century America and the Coming Revolution’, Past & Present, 119.1 (May, 1988), 73-104.
  • Select essays from Jack Greene, ed., A Companion to the American Revolution. Oxford, 2003.
  • Select chapter from Steven Sarson, ed., British America, 1500-1800: Creating Colonies, Imagining an Empire. London, 2005.

Seminar 2: “All men are created equal...”

  • Max Edling, A Revolution in Favor of Government: Origins of the U.S. Constitution and the Making of the American State. New York; Oxford, 2003. Chapters 5 & 7 (73-88, 101-114).
  • Edward Countryman, The American Revolution, revised edition. New York, 2003. Chapter 6 (“One Republic”) 167-203.
  • Woody Holton, Unruly Americans and the Origins of the Constitution. New York, 2007. 179-198. 
  • Rosemarie Zagarri, ‘The Rights of Man and Woman in Post-Revolutionary America’, William and Mary Quarterly, 55.2 (1998), 203-30.
  • Gary Nash, The Forgotten Fifth: African Americans in the Age of Revolution. Cambridge, Mass., 2006. 69-122.
  • Kenneth Morgan, ‘Slavery and the Debate over the ratification of the United States Constitution’, Slavery & Abolition, 22.3 (Dec. 2001), 40-65.

Seminar 3: An Empire for Liberty?

  • Jay Sexton, The Monroe Doctrine: Empire and Nation in Nineteenth Century America. New York, 2011. 15-45. 
  • Gordon S. Wood, Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early American Republic. New York; Oxford, 2009. 357-400, 659-700. 
  • John M. Murrin, ‘The Jeffersonian Triumph and American Exceptionalism’, Journal of the Early Republic 20.1 (Spring 2000), 1-25.
  • Stuart Banner, How the Indians Lost Their Land: Law and Power on the Frontier. Cambridge, Mass., 2005, 112-149.
  • Robert M. Owens, ‘Jeffersonian Benevolence on the Ground: The Indian Land Cession Treaties of William Henry Harrison,’ Journal of the Early Republic, 22.3 (Autumn 2002), 405-35.
  • Reginald Horsman, ‘The Indian Policy of an “Empire for Liberty,”’ in Frederick E. Hoxie, Ronald Hoffman and Peter J. Albert, eds., Native Americans and the Early Republic. Charlottesville, Va, 1999. 37-59.

Seminar 4: Power and politics

  • James Roger Sharp, American Politics in the Early Republic: The New Nation in Crisis. New Haven, 1993. 53-68.
  • Gordon S. Wood, Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early American Republic. New York: Oxford, 2009. 276-356, 459-68.
  • Daniel Walker Howe, What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848. New York; Oxford, 2007. 125-47, 270-84, 411-445.
  • Andrew M. Schocket, ‘Thinking about Elites in the Early Republic’, Journal of the Early Republic, 25.4 (2005), 547-555.
  • Alexander Keyssar, The Right to Vote: The Contested History of Democracy in the United States, revised edition, New York, 2009. 22-42.
  • Sean Wilentz, The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln. New York, 2005. Chapter 12, ‘1832: Jackson’s Crucial Year’, 359-90.

Seminar 5: The internal slave trade and slave resistance

  • Adam Rothman, Slave Country: American Expansion and the Origins of the Deep South. Cambridge, Mass., 2005. 165-216.
  • Steven Deyle, Carry me Back: The Domestic Slave Trade in American Life. New York; Oxford, 2005. 245-275.
  • Damian Pargas, ‘The Gathering Storm: Slave Responses to the Threat of Interregional Migration in the Early Nineteenth Century’, Journal of Early American History, 2.3 (Fall 2012), 286-315.
  • Judith Kelleher Schafer, ‘New Orleans Slavery in 1850 as Seen in Advertisements’, Journal of Southern History, 47.1 (1981), 33-56.
  • Michael TadmanThe Reputation of the Slave Trader in Southern History and the Social Memory of the South’, American Nineteenth Century History, 8.3 (2007), 247-271.
  • Edward E. Baptist, ‘“Cuffy,” “Fancy Maids,” and “One-Eyed Men”: Rape, Commodification, and the Domestic Slave Trade in the United States’, American Historical Review, 106.5 (2001), 1619-1650.

Seminar 6: Expansion and expulsion

  • Anthony Wallace, The Long, Bitter Trail: Andrew Jackson and the Indians. New York, 1993, 50-72.
  • Herman J. Viola, Thomas L. McKenney, Architect of America’s Early Indian Policy: 1816-1860. Chicago, 1974. 200-222.
  • Kathleen DuVal, On Native Ground: Indians and Colonists in the Heart of the Continent. Philadelphia, 2006. 196-226.
  • Nicholas Guyatt, ‘“The Outskirts of our Happiness”: Race and the Lure of Colonization in the Early Republic’, Journal of American History, 95.4 (March 2009), 986-1011.
  • James T. Campbell, Middle Passages: African-American Journeys to Africa, 1787-2005. New York, 2006. 15-56.
  • John Saillant, ‘The American Enlightenment in Africa: Jefferson's Colonizationism and Black Virginians’ Migration to Liberia, 1776-1840’, Eighteenth-Century Studies, 31.3 (1998). 262-82.

Seminar 7: Texas and the Mexican-American War

  • Lars Schoultz, Beneath the United States: A History of U.S. Policy Toward Latin America. Cambridge, Mass., 1998. 14-38.
  • Gregg Cantrell, Stephen F. Austin, Impresario of Texas. New Haven, 1999. 104-131.
  • Brian DeLay, ‘Independent Indians and the U.S.-Mexican War’, American Historical Review, 112.1 (Feb. 2007), 35-68.
  • Robert M. Utley, The Indian Frontier of the American West, 1846-1890. Albuquerque, 1984. 31-63.
  • Reginald Horsman, Race and Manifest Destiny: The Origins of Racial Anglo-Saxonism. Cambridge, Mass., 1981. 208-249.
  • Thomas R. Hietala, Manifest Design: Anxious Aggrandizement in Late Jacksonian America. Ithaca, 1985. 132-172.

Seminar 8: “The Fiery Trial”: race, abolition, and the Civil War

  • David Brion Davis, Inhuman Bondage: The Rise and Fall of Slavery in the New World. New York, 2006. 250-267.
  • Edward Bartlett Rugemer, The Problem of Emancipation: The Caribbean Roots of the American Civil War. Baton Rouge, 2008. 258-291.
  • Paul Goodman, Of One Blood: Abolitionism and the Origins of Racial Equality. Berkeley, 1998. 235-260.
  • Matthew Pratt Guterl, American Mediterranean: Southern Slaveholders in the Age of Emancipation. Cambridge, Mass., 2008. 12-46.
  • Gary J. Kornblith, ‘Rethinking the Coming of the Civil War: A Counterfactual Exercise’, Journal of American History, 90.1 (June 2003), 76-105.
  • Eric Foner, The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery. New York, 2010. 63-91.

Seminar 9: Violence in the postbellum South

  • Eric Foner, Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution. New York, 1988. 228-280.
  • Steven Hahn, A Nation Under Our Feet: Black Political Struggles In the Rural South from Slavery to the Great Migration. Cambridge, Mass., 2003. 265-313.
  • James L. Huston, ‘Reconstruction as it Should Have Been: An Exercise in Counterfactual History’, Civil War History, 51.4 (2005), 358-63.
  • William J. Harris, ‘Etiquette, Lynching, and Racial Boundaries in Southern History: A Mississippi Example’, The American Historical Review, 100:2 (1995), 387-410.
  • James Campbell, Crime and Punishment in African-American History. London, 2012. 60-81.
  • Kidada Williams, ‘Resolving the Paradox of our Lynching Obsession: Reconsidering Racialized Violence in the American South after Slavery’, American Nineteenth Century History, 6.3 (Sept. 2005), 323-350.

Seminar 10: An Imperial Power?

  • Jay Sexton, ‘Toward a synthesis of foreign relations in the Civil War era, 1848-77’, American Nineteenth Century History, 5.3 (2004), 50-73.
  • Louis A. Perez Jr. ‘Incurring a Debt of Gratitude: 1898 and the Moral Sources of United States Hegemony in Cuba’, American Historical Review, 104.2 (Apr. 1999), 356-398.
  • Matthew Frye Jacobson, Barbarian Virtues: The United States Encounters Foreign Peoples at Home and Abroad. New York, 2000. 15-59, 221-261.
  • Richard Drinnon, Facing West: The Metaphysics of Indian-Hating and Empire-Building. Minneapolis, reprint 1997, 1st pub. 1980. 355-374.
  • Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers. New York, 1987. 194-202.
  • Thomas Schoonover, Uncle Sam’s War of 1898 and the Origins of Globalization. Lexington; KY, 2003. 53-65; 88-123.

Background Reading and Resource List

Introductory and general reading:

  • Gordon S. Wood, An Empire of Liberty: a History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815. New York; Oxford, 2007.
  • Daniel Walker Howe, What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848. New York; Oxford, 2007.
  • Eric Foner, The Story of American Freedom. New York, 1998.
  • Ira Berlin, The Making of African America: The Four Great Migrations. London, 2010.
  • David Brion Davis, Inhuman Bondage: The Rise and Fall of Slavery in the New World. New York; Oxford 2006.
  • Stuart Banner, How the Indians Lost Their Land: Law and Power on the Frontier. Cambridge, Mass., 2005.
  • Adam Rothman, Slave Country: American Expansion and the Origins of the Deep South. Cambridge, Mass., 2005.
  • Lars Schoultz, Beneath the United States: A History of U.S. Policy Toward Latin America. Cambridge, Mass., 1998.
  • Steven Hahn, A Nation Under Our Feet: Black Political Struggles In the Rural South from Slavery to the Great Migration. Cambridge, Mass., 2003.
  • Eric Foner, Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution. New York, 1988.

Preliminary primary sources:

  • Joseph Galloway, Historical and Political Reflections on the Rise and Progress of the American Rebellion. London, 1780. 112-132
  • Thomas Paine, Common Sense. Philadelphia, 1776. 17-34.
  • Joseph Galloway, Plan of Union. Philadelphia, 1774.
  • Letters from Benjamin Franklin to Joseph Galloway, February 1775.
  • The Address and Reasons of Dissent of the Minority of the Convention of Philadelphia to Their Constituents 
  • ‘Pennsylvania Packet, December 18, 1787’, in David Wootton, ed., The Essential Federalist and anti-Federalist Papers. Indianapolis, 2003. 3-24.
  • David Rice, Slavery Inconsistent with Justice and Good Policy. Philadelphia, 1792.
  • Matthew Carey, Short Account of Algiers. Philadelphia, 1794. 10-18, 40-46
  • Alien and Sedition Acts, 1798
  • James Madison justifies war with the British, June 1, 1812.
  • Tecumseh speaks out against American policy in the Old Northwest, August 20, 1810, in Sean Patrick Adams, ed., The Early American Republic: A Documentary Reader. London, 2009. 43-44.
  • James Sullivan, The Path to Riches: An Inquiry into the Origin and Use of Money. Boston, 1792. skim.
  • ‘John C. Calhoun Promotes Federal Internal Improvements, February 4, 1817’, in Sean Patrick Adams, ed., The Early American Republic: A Documentary Reader. London, 2009. 67-70.
  • Images of Andrew Jackson provided by tutor.
  • Twelve Years a Slave: Narrative of Solomon Northup, a Citizen of New-York, Kidnapped in Washington City in 1841, and Rescued in 1853.Buffalo; London, 1853.
  • Advertisement for Slave Sale. Georgia, 1860.Transcript provided by tutor.
  • George Bourne, Picture of Slavery in the United States of America. Boston, 1838.
  • Thomas L. McKenney to Jeremiah Evarts, May 1st , 1829, in Documents and Proceedings Relating to the Formation and Progress of a Board in the City of New York for the Emigration, Preservation, and Improvement, of the Aborigines of America. New York, 1829, 11-19.
  • Andrew Jackson, ‘Indian Removal Act’, 1830.
  • American Colonization Society Appeals to Congress, 1820. Provided by tutor.
  • William E. Channing, A Letter to the Hon. Henry Clay. Boston, 1837, esp. 23-47.
  • ‘The Texas Question’, Democratic Review (New York), April 1844. 423-430; and ‘The Reannexation of Texas’, Democratic Review, July 1844. 11-16. Provided by tutor.
  • ‘President Polk’s War Message to Congress, May 11, 1846’, in Sean Patrick Adams, ed., The Early American Republic: A Documentary Reader. London, 2009. 195-199.
  • Speech of Mr. Calhoun of South Carolina on his Resolutions in Reference to the War with Mexico. Washington, 1848.
  • ‘Annexation’, United States Magazine and Democratic Review, 17.85 (July/August 1845), 5-10. Provided by tutor.
  • Wendell Phillips, ‘Public Opinion: Speech Before the Massachusetts Antislavery Society, January 28, 1852’, in Speeches, Lectures, and Letters of Wendell Phillips. Boston, 1863. 35-54.
  • James Henry Hammond, ‘Speech to the U.S. Senate’. 4 March 1858.
  • Carl Schurz, Report on the Condition of the South (1865). Provided by tutor.
  • George P. Rawick, The American Slave: A Composite Autobiography. Westport, CT, 1972-79. Provided by tutor.
  • The Ku Klux Klan Act (1871).
  • Carl Schurz, ‘Thoughts on American Imperialism,’ The Century Magazine 56 (September 1898), 783. Provided by tutor.

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