1301 Reading Assignments
Directions: view or read each of the assignments then respond to the questions via WebCT. All responses are due as indicated on the Tentative Schedule.
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READING ASSINGMENT 1
Indentured Servants
Gottlieb Mittelberger “The Passage of
Indentured Servants” 1750 http://www.vlib.us/amdocs/texts/gottlieb.html
3 sentences
on your thoughts
Richard Frethorne “Letter to His Parents”
1623 http://www.virtualjamestown.org/frethorne.html
3 sentences on your thoughts
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READING ASSIGNMENT 2
Petition of "A Grate Number of Blackes of
the Province" to Governor Thomas Gage
and the Members of the
Letters of the
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READING ASSIGNMENT 3
WAR OF 1812 PRIMARY SOURCE EXCERPTS
Choose 3 of the following excerpts and tell how the issues of the War of 1812
relate to issues of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Keep response to less
than 8 sentences.
New York Evening Post Jan 24, 1812 The Folly of Joining the Army
The wages proposed to be given to induce men to come forward and enlist for 5
years, leave their homes and march away to take Canada, is a bounty of $16 and
a $5 a month; and at the end of the war, if they can get a certificate of good
behavior, 160 acres of wild land and 3 months pay…
… where a stout able-bodied man can earn $15 a month from May to
November, and a dollar a day during mowing and harvesting, he will go into the
army for a bounty of $16, $5 a month for 5 years, if the war should last so
long, and 160 acres of wild land, if he happens to be on such good terms with
his commanding officer as to obtain a certificate of good behavior?
The administration tell me that the object for which they are going to war with
Great Britain is to secure our commercial rights; to put the trade of the
country on a good footing; to enable our merchants to deal with Great Britain
on full as favorable terms as they deal with France, or else not deal at
all.
If you will just cast a glance at this document, you will find of the articles
of our own growth or manufactures we in that time carried or sent abroad (in
round numbers) no less than $45,294,000 worth. You will next find that
out of this sum, all the rest of the world (Great Britain and her allies
excepted) took about $7,719,366 and that Great Britain and her allies took the
remainder, amounting to $38,575,627. Now, after this, let me ask you what
you think of making war upon Great Britain and her allies, for the purpose of
benefiting commerce?
Washington National Intelligencer April 14, 1812 War Should Be Declared
Our wrongs have been great; our cause is just; and if we are decided and firm,
success is inevitable.
But it is said that we are not prepared for war, and ought therefore not to
declare it. This is an idle objection, which can have weight with the
timed and pusillanimous only. The fact is otherwise. Our
preparations are adequate to every essential object.
The war in the Peninsula, which lingers, requires strong armies to support
it. [Great Britain] maintains an army in Sicily; another in India; and a
strong force in Ireland, and along her own coast, and in the West Indies.
Can anyone believe that, under such circumstances, the British government could
be so infatuated as to send troops here for the purpose of invasion? The
experience and the fortune of our Revolution, when we were comparatively in an
infant state, have doubtless taught her a useful lesson that she cannot have
forgotten.
Have we cause to dread an attack from her neighboring
provinces? That apprehension is still more groundless. Seven or
eight millions of people[
New York Evening Post April 21, 1812 An Address
to the People of the Eastern States
The war-hounds that are howling for war through the continent are not to be the
men who are to force entrenchments, and scale ramparts against the bayonet and
the cannon’s mouth; to perish in sickly camps, or in long marches through
sultry heats or wastes of snow.
While these brave men who are “designing or exhorting glorious war”
lodged safe at Monticello or some other retreat, will direct and look on; and
will receive such pay for their services as they shall see fit to ask, and such
as will answer their purposes.
Citizens, if pecuniary redress is your object in going to war with England, the
measure is perfect madness. You will lose millions then you will gain a
cent.
You have lately seen 15 millions of dollars wasted in the purchase of a
province we did not want, and shall never possess [Louisiana Purchase].
Our territories are already too large.
Canada, if annexed to the United States, will furnish offices to a set of
hungry villains, grown quite too numerous for our present wide limits; and that
is all the benefit we ever shall derive from it.
From a war [the common man] are to expect nothing but expenses and sufferings; - expenses disproportionate to their means, and
sufferings lasting as life.
[The enemy’s] fleets will hover on our coasts, and can trace our line
from Maine to New Orleans in a few weeks. Gunboats cannot repel them, nor
is there a fort on all our shores in which confidence can be placed. The
ruin of our seaports and loss of all vessels will form an item in the list of
expenses. Fortifications and garrisons numerous and strong must be added.
A handful of men cannot run up and take Canada, in a few weeks, for mere
diversion. The conflict will be long and severe: resistance formidable, and the final result doubtful.
Columbian Centinel May 20, 1812
… a declaration of war would be in effect a license and a bounty offered
by our government to the British Fleet to scour our coasts – to sweep our
remaining navigation from the ocean, to annihilate our commerce, and to drive
the country, by a rapid declension, into the state of poverty and distress
which attended the close of the revolutionary struggle.
The proposed enemy is invulnerable to us, while we are on all sides open to
assault.
If the British nation, which now copes with a world in arms,
should yield to us – a people destitute of naval force and of complacence
and affection, inspired by the known partiality of our Presidents, Governors,
and Members of Congress, expressed in the public proceedings.
A fair experiment has shown that the men beyond the Potommac
who are the chief instigators of war have no money to apply to this object; and
that the men on this side of it, will not part with theirs t accelerate their
own ruin.
Niles Weekly Register May 30, 1812
Every considerate and unprejudiced man, in every part of the union, freely
admits we have just cause for war with both the great belligerents, and
especially England; whose maritime depredations are not only far more extensive
than those of rival, but who has superadded thereto the most flagrant
violations of the individual, national and territorial rights of the American
people; matters of much higher import and consequence.
As has been observed, we are driven into a corner, and must surrender at the
discretion of a wicked and unprincipled enemy, or hew our way out of it –
the hazard of life itself is preferable to the certain loss of all that makes
it desirable.
… we can do
To us she is the most vulnerable of all nations – we can successfully
attack her at home and abroad. War will deprive her of an immense stock
of raw materials….
Already are her laboring poor in a state of general disaffection for the want of
bread and lack of employment.
“Our red brethren” will soon be taught to wish they had remembered
the talks of their “father Jefferson” and of all other persons who
advised them to peace.
The war will not last long. Every scheme of taxation has already been
resorted to in Great Britain. Every means have
been tried to sustain the credit of her immense paper currency. The notes
of the Bank of England are 28 percent below their nominal value.
She will be assailed on that element she arrogantly assumes as her own, and be
perplexed in a thousand new forms, by a people as brave and more enterprising
and ingenious than any she can boast of. Her seamen once landed upon our
shores, as prisoners or otherwise, will not return to her; and her naval
officers will rarely feel themselves safe from mutiny while hovering on our
coasts.
During the war there will be ample employment for all.
Some changes in the habits of the people on the seaboard ( a
small part of our population) may take place…
Instead of sending tobacco, (the most wretched crop of all others ever raised)
to the fluctuating markets of Europe, we will furnish ourselves, and ( in a short time) the whole world, with wool; and
apply the extra laborers to its manufacture – a state of things that will
have a powerful tendency to ameliorate the condition of the unfortunate negro,
equally profitable to his master.
Money will not be wanting. The people will freely supply it when there is
need for it.
Our specie is abundant, and will greatly increase by opening a direct trade
with Mexico; and so serve ourselves and the patriots of that country by
furnishing them with arms and ammunition and stores, and enable them to drive
out their many-headed tyrant.
In fact, the great probability is, that money will be much more plenty, as the
common saying is , in a state of war than it is at
this time.
Nor will a “conscription” be necessary to
supply their regular troops or militia.
Columbian Centinel January 13, 1813
The New England Threat of Secession
North of the
The sentiment is hourly extending, and in these Northern States will soon be
universal, that we are in a condition no better in relation to the Sought than
that of a conquered people.
We have no more interest in waging this sort of war, at this period and under
these circumstances, at the command of Virginia, than Holland in accelerating
her ruin by uniting her destiny with France.
The consequence of this state of things must then be, either that the Southern
States must drag the Northern States farther into the war, or we must drag them
out of it; or the chain will break.
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READING ASSIGNMENT 4
Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/Senecafalls.html
What is this document’s impact on you? What do you think was its
impact at the time?
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READING ASSIGNMENT 5
Abraham Lincoln Assassination Theories
http://americanhistory.about.com/library/weekly/aa040701a.htm
Read all 3 pages and be prepared to discuss which theory you find most credible
and why.