-- Pohl Ch1. 54-72
Continue with last week's online readings:
-- Columbus, letter to King & Queen of Spain [1494].
-- Juan Rogel, description of massacre [1572].
-- Capt. John Smith, Description of New England [1616].
-- Comalk-Hawikh (Thin Buckskin) "Story of Creation," "Juhwerta's Song," "Notes on the Story of Creation".

-- continue Pohl Ch1. 54-72
New Online readings:
-- Richard Lowther, Servant Indenture Contract [1627]. This document is an example of an indentured servant's contract between Richard Lowther of Southill and Edward Hurd of London. Lowther contracted his labor to Hurd for four years in return for passage to Virginia and room and board while on Hurd's plantation.
-- New England Primer [1683]. This Primer, which went through several editions over decades, was used by young English-descended colonial students in New England. The images and text in the primer served not only to educate children in the basics of reading, but also conveyed religious and moral messages in keeping with colonial American society.
-- Cotton Mather, "The Devil in New England" [1692]. Cotton Mather, who served as a judge in the infamous 1692 Salem witch trials, was a Presbyterian minister from Boston. This text, an excert from his Wonders of the Invisible World in which he "proved" the existence of witches and the devil, is an example of the kind of hellfire-and-brimstone sermonizing that pervaded much of colonial New England at the time. It reveals the Puritan belief in the continual proximity of the Devil and other supernatural forces to colonial civilization. A hoot.
-- Johnathan Edwards (no, not the t.v. "psychic") "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" (excerpt) [1742]. If you thought Mather was fun, wait until you read Edward's treatise from fifty years later. Now this is hellfire-and-brimstone! Edwards, a clergyman from Connecticut who was fired by his Northhampton, Massachusetts, church in 1750 for being too strict with his congregation, began the "Great Awakening" of fundamentalist religion in New England through writings such as this which introduced the now famous concepts of the elite, predestination, and grace.

»»WEEK 4 (1/27-1/29/04)

-- in class, we will view "The Promised Land" from art historian Robert Hughes' series American Visions. This episode discusses early Spanish colonization of the "New World," and continues through the art and architecture of colonial New England up to the Revolution.

Online readings:
-- Phyllis Wheatley, "On Being Brought from Africa to America" [1773] (look on that page for this title and click the link). Wheatley was the first black woman published in America. Educated by her masters, she wrote poetry on Christian and domestic themes. This poem gives one particular perspective to black slavery, that we will compare and contrast to others.
-- Benjamin Franklin, "A Conversation on Slavery", and "The Sommerset Case and the Slave Trade". Franklin, one of the most famous colonial American people of letters (and one of the lauded "Founding Fathers" -- he's on the $100 bill) here speaks out against slavery from a white perspective. He bases his arguments on principles that would come into contest during the writing of the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, and the U.S. Constitution.
-- Philip Freneau, "To Sir Toby" [1784] (scroll down that page for this poem). Freneau, whose work is often discussed in tandem with Wheatley's, denounces slavery in this poem.
-- Ouladah Equiano, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olandah Equiano or Gustavus Vasa, Written by Himself (extract 2), (extract 3) [1793]. Writing under his adopted slave name of Gustavus Vasa, black slave Ouladah Equiano's personal account describes in detail his capture in Africa and his transportation to the Americas during the harrowing trans-Atlantic crossing called the "Middle Passage" in which as many as sixty million captive Africans died.
Journal 1 due date HAS BEEN CHANGED! (see Cultural Event and Journal page for reminders/details).