I was recently talking with a colleague about how the second half of the United States survey course grows larger every year. Where do you stop? I know some teachers of this course who are lucky to make it into the 1990s. There are two ways of dealing with this issue. First, divide the U.S. survey into three courses. Second, adopt an “uncoverage” approach to the material.
Many who teach the second half of the survey are envious of those of us who teach the first half. But we are faced with struggles of our own. For example, what do we do with “colonial America?” If we want to be true to the most recent developments in the historiography of colonial America then we should be spending considerable time on New Spain, New France, the Caribbean etc… in addition to the 13 British colonies. This, of course, makes it more difficult for students to grasp the American Revolution and, as Ken Owen argues in a recent post at The Junto, it often means that we spend very little time on 18th-century colonial America.
Like Owen, I divide the first half of the U.S. survey into three units–colonial America (to 1763), the American Revolution (1763-1815), and the early republic/Civil War (1815-1865). In the colonial section I spend most of my time on the seventeenth century, but I am still trying to figure out to how to do something more substantial with New France and New Spain. There is not enough time.
I spend three classes on 18th-century colonial America. I do a lecture on the American Enlightenment, a discussion of Franklin’s Autobiography, and a lecture called “From Colonial Provincials” that is driven largely by the Anglicization thesis. I used to do an entire lecture on the First Great Awakening, but now I fold that into the “From Colonials to Provincials” lecture. This lecture is a sort of a catch-all that includes some discussion of consumerism, mercantilism, Protestantism, and the French and Indian War.
Here is a taste of Owen’s piece:
…A similar story unfolds in many textbooks that are explicitly geared to survey students. I looked through four different recent editions of college textbooks, and they all broadly dealt with the 18th century in the same way. The 18th century was dealt with in one or two chapters that largely dealt with social or cultural history, and there was almost a sense that little political change took place at all in those years. Where a political narrative was mentioned, it emphasized a story of imperial war, and normally as a prelude to the Seven Years’ War.
All of this is broadly reflective of my own approach to the survey (though it won’t surprise regular readers of the blog that I do spend particular time talking about the development of colonial government in the 18th century). There does seem to be something lost from this approach though—that the cost of broadening the historical scope of the survey is that the first steps through American history introduce a dazzling array of characters without considering what systems held them together in sufficient detail.
This is a post designed to raise questions more than to provide answers. After all, I don’t want my students to be ignorant of the violence colonists directed against Native Americans, nor the horrors of the slave system, nor the ways in which European and imperial politics shaped the decisions taken by the North American colonies. I certainly don’t want to essentialize the colonial experience to the 13 colonies that later declared independence from Great Britain. This is not a call for a return to a triumphalist or celebratory history.
How do you handle the 18th century colonial experience (pre-Revolution) in your U.S. survey course?
“After all, I don’t want my students to be ignorant of the violence colonists directed against Native Americans, nor the horrors of the slave system…”
I wouldn't worry about that much these days. Really. Google
6th grade slavery native americans
and you'll see that every kid over 10 has been made well aware how much America sucks.
As for New France and New Spain, they really didn't have much impact on the larger historical narrative. This is where “history” starts to get bogged down with anthropology. Not that the study of places and peoples isn't important, but it's hard to sustain the historical narrative by diluting it.
New Spain matters quite a bit. Only those who prefer traditional history focused on great white men ignore it.
What no history course I ever took ever spent any time with is the examination of those events and trends which impelled a collection of English people to no longer see themselves as loyal British subjects dependent on the Crown for security and financial stability. Somehow, during the 18th Century they came to possess a collective sense that they could stand as a independent nation, peopled by folks who understood themselves as possessing a national identity separate and distinct from their homeland. This evolution in self conception happened to a greater or lesser degree at all levels of American society, and especially among the elites, who ironically owed their status and power to the English system of elites which had bred them and invested with their wealth and power. Such an evolutionary transformation appears to be unprecedented in human history, and especially in European history.
The failure to adequately address18th Century colonial developments which gave rise to this transformation leaves the casual student in a position to be easily manipulated by contemporary ideologues into believing that this political evolution was the “natural” result of oppressive taxation, or that it was an “Act of God” or that it was an unavoidable consequence of the unleashing of genuine free market capitalism. These explanations are insufficient, either alone or in conjunction, to explain the transformation. However, this is the consequence of ignoring the 18th Century developments which nurtured the American revolution.
How could the power elites in America have gained the insight and courage to abandon their institutional foundations and trust that the Colonial underclasses would come to their aid and support in a new, unscripted and untested governing structure – and that they would risk their lives in the initial fight to throw off the British Crown? The whole idea is improbable and truly demands explanation. It seems to me that the American enterprise was a unique event in human history, sui generis, and it represents a sea change in the political evolution of human history.
Frankly, my perception is that the roles played by the Native Americans and the French and the Spanish, though certainly important, were not critical in the evolution of the American independence movement. If anything these forces should have pushed the Colonials into greater dependence upon the British Crown and it's strategic and economic weapons.
It is valuable to know the broader contours of history but if the core of the curriculum is American History, one ought at least to have a clue as to WHY America happened.
I think that when we study the American Revolution we are finding that the bottom up approach is going to yield more answers as to why the elites made the decisions they did. These decisions where made because of demands from below, not above.
As to the role of the Native Americans, French, and Spanish during the independence movement, what they did during the War of American Independence had great import for the results of the conflict. Without French aid, the Americans would not have won OR would not have won independence for all thirteen states. The French role was critical.
The role of the Spanish was not so important in the actual war, but the aid they gave to George Rogers Clark and the defeats they inflicted on the British at St. Louis and the Gulf of Mexico had huge ramifications for the territory given to the Americans between the Mississippi River and the Appalachians. Without that land area, US history would be very, very different.
But without the Movement their is no revolutionary war. And th French, Spanish and Native American impact here was not significant – though the French and Indian War did provide training and a measure of confidence to future Colonial soldiers. Of course without French money, troops and warships the likelihood of the Colonials winning was even less likely.
Rebellions, successful and failed have always happened. But the American Movement was unique, both in its socio-economics and in its “principled” nature.
Frankly, my perception is that the roles played by the Native Americans and the French and the Spanish, though certainly important, were not critical in the evolution of the American independence movement. If anything these forces should have pushed the Colonials into greater dependence upon the British Crown and it's strategic and economic weapons.
It is valuable to know the broader contours of history but if the core of the curriculum is American History, one ought at least to have a clue as to WHY America happened.
Exactly. This is part of the reason our kids can't explain the Founding principles–teachers with an agenda eating up valuable classroom time on multiculti trivia.
The Revolution was going to happen regardless of the French or Spanish. However, for it to be successful, it had to have the French. For our history to have turned out the way it did, the Spanish played a significant role.
Without French gunpowder and arms the Revolution would have been ended for the most part in 1778 when the British consolidated Burgoyne's campaign victory. I say this because without those items he would not have been defeated at either battle in the Saratoga campaign. The first battle would have been a lot smaller because there would have been far fewer American troops.
We then would be teaching some other form of history and the American Revolution would have went down as a failure and become a footnote in history.
Fortunately, that did not happen. Tom, I can only speak for my course, but we cover the Founding principles quite well. It is after all, American History.
None of that has anything to do with New France, which was the topic.
But I'm sure you're an excellent teacher of the Founding principles regardless of how much they're in conflict with your politics. 😉
They are not in conflict with my personal politics. Liberalism is a strong tradition which was generated from the Revolution.