History 135: American History through 1877

Introduction & Course Policies

1. Review syllabus ASAP

2. Obtain the appropriate texts

3. Turn off all cell phones!

I. Was America a Mistake?

An 18th Century Debate

300th Anniversary of Columbian Voyage

(1992 - how to remember this event?)

A. Biological/natural inferiority

1. 1780s - Comte de Buffon

“It is a great and terrible spectacle to see one half of the globe disfavoredby nature that everything found thereis degenerate or monstrous.”

2. Animals were smaller

3. Natives illiterate, peaceful

4. Jefferson’s response

1787 - Notes on the State of Virginia

* natural bounty

* justified slavery

B. Cultural and racial degeneration

1. Slavery

2. Warfare among nation-states (1550-1815)

1600s: 87 conflicts; 1700-1800s, world war

3. Individual brutality

Conquistadors

4. Racial degeneration

coureurs de bois (French) mestizos (Spanish)

a. “mixed” couples

b. diluted religion

c. genocide

Fur Traders Descend the Missouri - Bingham

C. Mob politics

1. Dangers of democratization how far should it go?

2. Dark side of people

“Age of Jackson”

- Indian Removal, religious persecution,

political/social repression, nativism,

ecological devastation

D. Failure of the American Experiment

1. Enlightenment principles contract nationalism John Locke

2. The fall of the

United States

(version 1776)

“blood & iron”