APU HIST553 All Weeks Forums Latest 2019 November

HIST553 History of Colonial America

Week 1 Forum

1.1 Required Introductions

Introduce yourself in the class. Share where you work or plan to work after completing your program, your family, and any hobbies or special interests. Also tell us why you are taking this course and what you hope to gain from obtaining your degree. In addition, please take a look at the course objectives in the syllabus and discuss the relevance to your career goals.

1.2 Initial Week One Discussion Topic (Optional)

So...to move into actual course material, in the required reading for this week, Richter states, “In both North America and Western Europe, new, often brutal, cultural syntheses emerged during the Middle Ages to codify the distinctive forms of power that men and women wielded toward one another and toward the natural world, only to enter a period of crisis when the climate cooled. When people from the two continents met each other in the sixteenth century, the terms of engagement were determined by systems of power that their respective medieval progenitors had created.”

Against this backdrop, an optional "think about it" question: Do you feel it is fair to judge past historical actions (say, the initial Spanish interactions with the indigenous populations in North America) by contemporary standards? Briefly explain your answer from your own, individual point of view. (And no right or wrong answers...just an informal opinion.)

HIST553 History of Colonial America

Week 2 Forum

Europeans in North America

Now that the Richter essay has captured your attention – I think you will agree that it is a great icebreaker – for this week we continue to discuss Richter and his observation, “In Western Europe, as in North America, the localized worlds owed shifting forms of allegiance to paramount leaders whose authority was more ceremonial than absolute, more temporary than permanent, more dependent on religious belief than raw power….[and] when peoples from the two continents met, their medieval syntheses of social order and power were in crisis.” What do you think? Reasonable advice? And I am just looking for an informal discussion…no footnotes required. However, if you do use quotes and/or specific statistics then please include formal citation.

HIST553 History of Colonial America

Week 3 Forum

The Chesapeake and Northeast Cultures

In the required reading for this week, Nash states, "The English brought no military force comparable to the conquistadores to subjugate the Chesapeake tribes and drive them into agricultural labor. The Anglican Church sent only a handful of clergy to the colony, and made only token efforts to mount a missionary campaign. Their power over local settlers, as far as relations with the Indians were concerned, was minimal." What do you think? Based on chapter three, consider the idea of "ulterior" motives. Why was this the case. Additionally, I'd like you to do a little research and/or add your own insight as to why the English differed from the French and the Spanish with "how" they treated the indigenous people. Again, think of ulterior motives.

HIST553 History of Colonial America

Week 4 Forum

The Coastal Societies

In the required reading for this week, Allen notes that, “Resettlement in [Pennsylvania] did not, of course, mean [Quaker] freedom from disease, inequality, or persecution. During Penn’s second visit to the colony in 1700, he discovered that there had been an outbreak of yellow fever, which had resulted in a large number of deaths. At the same time, Penn spoke out against slave holding. In 1704, John Kelsall had observed in his diary that the settlers in Virginia were not well disposed towards the Friends at Philadelphia, and the London Yearly Meeting had to send some literature to members to combat the verbal onslaughts. In a letter in October 1706 to Kelsall, Rowland Ellis informed him that the non-Quaker deputy-governor, John Evans, had seized upon a false rumour of an imminent French invasion of Pennsylvania. According to Ellis, ‘a more unsuitable man to govern a colony of Quakers’ could not be found. It seems clear that Evans was attempting to test the Quaker pacifist credentials by forcing them to take military action in order to defend themselves.” Against this challenging backdrop, why do you think the Quaker settlement in Pennsylvania endured?

HIST553 History of Colonial America

Week 5 Forum

Slavery and the African Ordeal

As a preface to the required reading for this week, Goetz states, “In recent decades, historians of early North America have explored the emergence of the institution of black chattel slavery. They have also investigated ideas of heritable physical differences and inferiorities that justified and defended slavery—concepts that moderns have called race. Chattel slavery and race were critical to the formation of the Atlantic colonial enterprise, even as they were simultaneously the products of it. Unsurprisingly, given the importance of the topic, the mechanisms by which both slavery and race became so firmly entrenched—how, when, where, and why—remain hotly debated questions. The outpouring of scholarship on these questions reveals astonishing regional variations in slavery and in the experiences of enslaved people, as well as the chronologically and geographically uneven development of racial ideologies.” Drawn from the various scenarios offered in the essay, what do you think? Were, as suggested by Goetz, “slavery and race…critical to the formation of the Atlantic colonial enterprise?” Briefly support you position.

HIST553 History of Colonial America

Week 6 Forum

The Transformation of Euro-American Society and Indian Strategies for Survival

In the required reading for this week, Rossel prefaces his thesis by noting, “The period of religious revival falling between the years 1730 and 1745 in Puritan New England is one of extreme change in social organization. The task of this paper will be to analyze the Great Awakening as a mechanism of social change. In one sense, the revival was symptomatic of the extreme functional incompatibility between New England's dominant religious-political institutional order and its emergent differentiated economic and social substructure. The intensity and magnitude of the revival was indicative of strains inherent in an attempt to maintain a religious-political order which was basically incompatible with the material conditions of a colonial frontier environment. The latent function of the revival was to prepare the way for a moral and social order more in keeping with these material conditions by clearing away many of the ideological and institutional trappings that served to maintain the establishment of religion and its dominance of the polity and the economy. In so doing, the revival gave great impetus to a disposition toward individualism, voluntarism, and democracy already at work in and around New England.” Based upon the essay, what is your personal (and informal) opinion: did the revival give great impetus to a disposition toward individualism, voluntarism, and democracy already at work in and around New England? Briefly explain your answer.

For this Forum, I'm looking for the specifics from the reading AND your analysis of the class (up until this point). So, I'd like to read a good bit of your "voice," and your ability to put this in the greater historical context.

HIST553 History of Colonial America

Week 7 Forum

The Seven Years' War, the American Revolution and the Aftermath

In the required reading for this week, Gipson states

In accounting for the radical change in attitude of many leading colonials between the years 1754 and 1774 respecting the nature of the constitution of the empire, surely among the factors that must be weighed was the truly overwhelming victory achieved in the Great War for the Empire. This victory not only freed colonials for the first time in the history of the English-speaking people in the New World from dread of the French, their Indian allies, and the Spaniards, but, what is of equal significance, opened up to them the prospect, if given freedom of action, of a vast growth of power and wealth with an amazing westward expansion. Indeed, it is abundantly clear that a continued subordination of the colonies to the government of Great Britain was no longer considered an asset in the eyes of many Americans by 1774, as it had been so judged by them to be in 1754, but rather an onerous liability.

What exactly is Gipson stating in this thesis? Like last week, please use your own voice to put this into historical perspective. Please use the reading but also include any other historical terms/events that you may know about this period. An overarching question to guide you is "how did this era change the geography, politics and identity of the specific Colonies?"

HIST553 History of Colonial America

Week 8 Forum

The Mixing of Cultures

Congratulations, we have made it to Week 8. For this Forum, this more of your opinion. I know that you are busy with your historiographies, so perhaps this will give you a moment to catch your breath.

Based upon the numerous factors examined in this course, what do you personally consider to be the most critical theme in American colonial history and justify your choice.

For this Forum I'll be looking for causation and segues to history from the upcoming decades as the United States attempts to define themselves as a new nation.

For this week, you are required to post your initial commentary by 11:55pm, ET, Thursday. You are also required to respond to two other student postings by 11:55pm, ET, Sunday. Your initial response to the forum topic should be between 250-300 words long. Your response to your classmates should be at least 100 words. [Original posting: 70 points; response to student posts: 15 points each.]

Note: Post your initial response through the "Start a new Conversation" option. Post any responses to the other student postings through the Reply Icon associated with the particular post. (This is the icon with the small blue envelope highlighted by the green arrow.)