America Firsthand; Volume One: Readings from Settlement to Reconstruction

by Robert D. Marcus; David Burner; Anthony Marcus

• ISBN13: 9780312446451
• ISBN10: 0312446454
• Edition: 7th
• Format: Trade Paper
• Copyright: 2006-02-06
• Publisher: Bedford/St. Martin's

Summary

Widely praised for its engaging first-person accounts, America Firsthand gives center stage to ordinary Americans who speak directly of their own lives, capturing through their voices the diverse experiences that constitute the American past and present. This best-selling text invites students to think critically about the past through the voices of the people who made it - from aging Spanish settlers' recollections of pre-Gold Rush life in California to soldiers' accounts of the battle of Pickett's charge at Gettysburg. Book jacket.

Author Biography

ROBERT D. MARCUS, late of the State University of New York College at Brockport, wrote on late-nineteenth-century American politics as well as on the United States in the 1960s. He developed materials for collaborative learning techniques and edited several dozen books for Brandywine Press.

DAVID BURNER, professor of history at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, has written two books on John F. Kennedy as well as books on Herbert Hoover, the 1960s, and the Democratic Party in the 1920s, including a number of textbooks. Burner has been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship and is currently writing a treatise on the administration of George W. Bush.

ANTHONY MARCUS teaches at the University of Melbourne, Australia. He has taught at the City University of New York, the State University of New York, and Hofstra University and served as dean at St. John's University and at the American University in Dubai. He has published numerous books and articles on American history and Afro-American life and culture. His most recent book covers the life and work of radical editor George Breitman.

Table of Contents

Preface	vii
Studying and Writing History	xi
PART ONE Indians and Europeans: New World Encounters	1	(40)
Points of View: Contact and Conquest (1502-1521)
1. DISPATCHES OF THE CONQUEST FROM THE NEW WORLD	3	(4)
Hernando Cortés
In a letter to King Charles V of Spain, Hernando Cortes recounts his recent conquest of Mexico.
2. A NAHUA ACCOUNT OF THE CONQUEST OF MEXICO	7	(36)
Anonymous
An anonymous Nahua account of the conquest of Mexico describes the Spanish conquest and suggests possible reasons for their defeat.
FOR CRITICAL THINKING	13	(1)
3. DESTRUCTION OF THE INDIES	14	(5)
Bartolomé de Las Casas
The Dominican friar Bartolome de Las Casas's powerful report of the horrors of the Spanish conquest is often described as the "Black Legend."
4. DESCRIPTION OF VIRGINIA	19	(4)
John Smith
Captain John Smith describes Virginia and the Powhatan Indians he encountered at Jamestown in 1607.
5. ENCOUNTER WITH THE INDIANS	23	(6)
Father Paul Le Jeune
The French Jesuit missionary Father Paul Le Jeune reports from Quebec in 1634, where he lived among North American Indians.
6. CAPTURED BY INDIANS	29	(6)
Mary Jemison
Mazy Jemison, a white woman, describes her captivity and assimilation into mid-eighteenth-century Seneca culture.
VISUAL PORTFOLIO: New World Contact	35	(6)
PART TWO The Colonial Experience: A Rapidly Changing Society	41	(52)
Points of View: The Salem Witchcraft Trials (1692)
7. THE CASE AGAINST GEORGE BURROUGHS	43	(5)
Ann Putnam et al.
Many neighbors accuse George Burroughs of leading witches in Salem, Massachusetts.
8. RECONSIDERING THE VERDICT	48	(8)
Cotton Mather et al.
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	56	(1)
9. THE AFRICAN SLAVE TRADE	57	(5)
Olaudah Equiano
An eyewitness account of the African slave trade by Olaudah Equiano, an Ibo prince supposedly kidnapped in the early 1760's.
10. ON THE MISFORTUNE OF INDENTURED SERVANTS	62	(1)
Gottlieb Mittelberger
Gottlieb Mittelberger, a young German, relates his arrival in Pennsylvania in 1750 and his sale as an indentured servant.
11. A MAN OF THE AMERICAN ENLIGHTENMENT	66	(1)
Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin writes of religion, science, and public service in his autobiography, published after his death in 1790.
12. LEAVING AN ABUSIVE HUSBAND	72	(1)
Abigail Abbot Bailey
Abigail Abbot Bailey finds few legal protections following her marriage in 1767.
VISUAL PORTFOLIO: The Colonial Home and Family	81	(12)
PART THREE Resistance and Revolution: Struggling for Liberty	93	(48)
Points of View: The Boston Massacre (1770)
13. A BRITISH OFFICER'S DESCRIPTION	94	(13)
Thomas Preston
Thomas Preston, a British officer stationed in Boston before the American Revolution, recalls why his soldiers fired on Americans.
14. COLONIAL ACCOUNTS	98	(8)
George Robert Twelves Hewes, John Tudor, and 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	106	(1)
15. "THE BLOODY MASSACRE"	107	(1)
Engraving by Paul Revere
Paul Revere's famous engraving offers a visual representation of the Boston Massacre.
16. A SOLDIER'S VIEW OF THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR	109	(1)
Joseph Plumb Martin
Joseph Plumb Martin, who joined the Revolutionary Army before his sixteenth birthday, writes about his life as a common soldier.
17. CHOOSING SIDES	117	(1)
Boston King
A South Carolina slave escapes to enlist in the British Army and is rewarded with freedom in Canada in 1783.
18. SECRET CORRESPONDENCE OF A LOYALIST WIFE	123	(1)
Catherine Van Cortlandt
Catherine Van Cortlandt sends letters to her Tory husband behind British lines in 1776 and 1777.
19. REPUBLICAN MOTHERHOOD	128	(1)
Eliza Pinckney and Abigail Adams
Letters of Eliza Pinckney and Abigail Adams during the Revolutionary War years.
20. SHAYS'S REBELLION: PRELUDE TO THE CONSTITUTION	135	(1)
George Richards Minot
George Richards Minot describes Shays's Rebellion of 1786-1787.
PART FOUR Defining America: The Expanding Nation	141	(60)
Points of View: Religion in the New Nation (1800-1830)
21. THE GREAT REVIVAL OF 1800	143	(12)
James B. Finley
James B. Finley preaches during the Great Revival in Kentucky.
22. RELIGION IN AMERICA	148	(6)
Harriet Martineau
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	154	(1)
23. HOW THE WEST WAS WON	155	(1)
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.
24. CROSSING THE GREAT DIVIDE	160	(1)
Meriwether Lewis and William Clark
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.
25. A RIDE ON TIIE ERIE CANAL	168	(1)
Frances Trollope
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.
26. THE TRAIL OF TEARS	173	(1)
John Ross
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 1830's.
27. PULLING A HANDCART TO THE MORMON ZION	180	(1)
Priscilla Merriman Evans
Pioneer Priscilla Merriman Evans arrives in Salt Lake City, Utah, in 1856, after walking one thousand miles from Iowa City, Iowa.
28. LIFE IN CALIFORNIA BEFORE THE GOLD DISCOVERY	188	(1)
Guadalupe Vallejo et al.
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.
29. MINERS DURING THE CALIFORNIA GOLD RUSH	197	(1)
Daguerreotype by Joseph B. Starkweather
This photograph provides a glimpse of the lives of Chinese and Anglo miners in the California gold fields.
PART FIVE An Age of Reform: Rearranging Social Patterns	201	(66)
Points of View: Nat Turner's Rebellion (1831)
30. A SLAVE INSURRECTION	202	(16)
Nat Turner
Nat Turner confesses to leading a slave uprising in Southampton County, Virginia, where at least fifty whites were killed.
31. WHO IS TO BLAME?	209	(8)
William Lloyd Garrison et al.
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	217	(1)
32. THE LOWELL TEXTILE WORKERS	218	(1)
Harriet Hanson Robinson
Harriet Hanson Robinson, a young factory worker, describes working conditions in the mill and her desire for labor reform in the 1830's.
33. LIFE UNDER THE LASH	226	(1)
Charles Ball et al.
Narratives of Charles Ball and other former slaves provide personal responses to life as slaves on mid-nineteenth-century Southern plantations.
34. LIFE OF A FEMALE SLAVE	233	(1)
Harriet Jacobs
Writing under a pseudonym, Harriet Jacobs tells the story of her sexual exploitation under slavery beginning at the age of fifteen.
35. A PIONEER FOR WOMEN'S RIGHTS	241	(1)
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Elizabeth Cady Stanton remembers the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention and its famous "Declaration of Sentiments."
36. "THE EARLY LIFE OF THIS BOY"	249	(1)
John Brown
John Brown, abolitionist and leader of the raid at Harpers Ferry, recounts his early lift 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	257	(10)
PART SIX Civil War and Reconstruction: The Price of War	267
Points of View: Pickett's Charge: High Tide of the Confederacy (July 3, 1863)
37. "THE LAST AND BLOODIEST FIGHT": A UNION ACCOUNT	268	(11)
Franklin Haskell
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.
38. "FIELD OF CARNAGE": A CONFEDERATE ACCOUNT	275	(3)
Walter Harrison
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	278	(1)
39. THREE DAYS OF TERROR	279	(1)
Ellen Leonard
Visiting her brother in New York City, Ellen Leonard is caught in the violence of the draft riot of 1863.
40. HEALING WOUNDS	289	(1)
Cornelia Hancock
Cornelia Hancock becomes a nurse during the Civil War.
41. A SLAVEOWNER'S JOURNAL AT THE END OF THE CIVIL WAR	297	(1)
Henry William Ravenel
Henry William Ravenel describes the effects of emancipation in South Carolina after Lee's surrender at Appomattox in 1865.
42. AFRICAN AMERICANS DURING RECONSTRUCTION	306	(1)
Felix Haywood et al.
In interviews conducted in the 1930's, Felix Haywood and other former slaves tell about their lives immediately following the Civil War.
43. WHITE SOUTHERNERS' REACTIONS TO RECONSTRUCTION	312	(1)
Caleb G. Forshey and the Reverend James Sinclair
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.
44. RUINS IN CHARLESTON, SOUTH CAROLINA, 1865 OR 1866	320	(1)
Photograph by George N. Barnard
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.