American Controversies – serie

Slavery and Sectional Strife in the Early American Republic, 1776–1821 focuses on slavery as a moral and political issue that threatened the unity and stability of the United States from the nation's inception. In tracing the story of slavery in America's history from 1776 through the Missouri Compromise, Gary J. Kornblith highlights a number of important themes: the general acceptance of slavery in colonial America, the reevaluation of human bondage during the American Revolution, how decisions made by the Founding Fathers shaped the future of slavery in the new United States, and whether the Civil War was the inevitable result of those decisions. Students are encouraged to reach their own conclusions through reading key primary documents.

Slavery and Sectional Strife in the Early American Republic, 1776–1821 focuses on slavery as a moral and political issue that threatened the unity and stability of the United States from the nation's inception. In tracing the story of slavery in America's history from 1776 through the Missouri Compromise, Gary J. Kornblith highlights a number of important themes: the general acceptance of slavery in colonial America, the reevaluation of human bondage during the American Revolution, how decisions made by the Founding Fathers shaped the future of slavery in the new United States, and whether the Civil War was the inevitable result of those decisions. Students are encouraged to reach their own conclusions through reading key primary documents.

How did diverse women in America understand, explain, and act upon their varied constraints, positions, responsibilities, and worldviews in changing American society between the end of the Revolution and the beginning of the Civil War? Antebellum Women: Private, Public, Partisan answers the question by going beyond previous works in the field. The authors identify three phases in the changing relationship of women to civic and political activities. They first situate women as "deferential domestics" in a world of conservative gender expectations; then map out the development of an ideology that allowed women to leverage their familial responsibilities into participation as "companionate co-workers" in movements of religion, reform, and social welfare; and finally trace the path of those who followed their causes into the world of politics as "passionate partisans." The book includes a selection of primary documents that encompasses both well-known works and previously unpublished texts from a variety of genres, making Antebellum Women a unique one-volume work that will introduce readers to the documentary record as well as to the vibrant body of historical work on gender in the early nineteenth century.

Witchcraft in Early North America investigates European, African, and Indian witchcraft beliefs and their expression in colonial America. Alison Games's engaging book takes us beyond the infamous outbreak at Salem, Massachusetts, to look at how witchcraft was a central feature of colonial societies in North America. Her substantial and lively introduction orients readers to the subject and to the rich selection of documents that follows. The documents begin with first encounters between European missionaries and Native Americans in New France and New Mexico, and they conclude with witch hunts among Native Americans in the years of the early American republic. The documents—some of which have never been published previously—include excerpts from trials in Virginia, New Mexico, and Massachusetts; accounts of outbreaks in Salem, Abiquiu (New Mexico), and among the Delaware Indians; descriptions of possession; legal codes; and allegations of poisoning by slaves. The documents raise issues central to legal, cultural, social, religious, and gender history. This fascinating topic and the book’s broad geographic and chronological coverage make this book ideally suited for readers interested in new approaches to colonial history and the history of witchcraft.

Though scores of texts, films and stories have been told about the American Revolution from the perspectives of our Founding Fathers and their followers, comparatively little is known about those colonists who resisted the revolutionary movement, and tried desperately to preserve their nation’s ties to the British Empire. Choosing Sides: Loyalists in Revolutionary America shows us that America’s original colonies were not nearly as united behind the concept of forming free, independent states as our society’s collective memory would have us believe. There were, in fact, numerous colonists, slaves, and Native Americans who counted themselves among the Loyalists: those who never wanted to sever ties with the English crown and who viewed revolution as an unnatural and unlawful mistake. Too often overlooked, these men and women made valid and valuable arguments against the formation of the United States—both weighing the costs of revolution and the perilousness of existing without divine rule of a monarch— arguments that even hundreds of years into America’s existence are echoed and championed both within and beyond our borders. Colonists from commoners to clergymen had nuanced and complex reasons for wanting to remain under British control, and an awareness of these reasons and their origins paints a more historically accurate portrait of the American populous around the time of our country’s founding. This volume not only showcases Dr. Chopra’s comprehensive analysis of Loyalism and its arguments, but includes letters, legislation and even poems written by Loyalists during and after the Revolutionary War. Choosing Sides lays a detailed foundation of facts for its readers and provides them entry points to the debate surrounding the genesis of the United States. It is both a primary source and a touchstone for original interpretations and discussions.