History

US History I: Discovery to 1877

Signing of the Mayflower Compact (Library of Congress)

1. Early America (1400s–1763)

After the discovery of America, the arrival of European settlers in the early seventeenth century began the intermingling of Native Americans, Europeans, and Africans—a process that would have often tragic consequences—and set the stage for the development of unique political and religious institutions in the New World.

Documents

• Iroquois Thanksgiving Address (ca. 1451)
• Christopher Columbus’s Letter to Raphael Sanxis on the Discovery of America (1493)
• John Rolfe: Letter to Sir Edwin Sandys (1619)
• Mayflower Compact (1620)
• Letter of Edward Winslow to a Friend (1621)
• John Winthrop: “A Model of Christian Charity” (1630)
• Virginia's Act XII: Negro Women's Children to Serve according to the Condition of the Mother (1662)
• Virginia's Act III: Baptism Does Not Exempt Slaves from Bondage (1667)
• John Bunyan: Pilgrim's Progress (1678)
• "A Minute against Slavery, Addressed to Germantown Monthly Meeting" (1688)
• Ann Putnam's Confession (1706)
• Letters of Governor Alexander Spotswood (1712-1716)
• Jonathan Edwards: “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” (1741)
• Benjamin Franklin: Proposal for Promoting Useful Knowledge among the British Plantations in America (1743)
• Benjamin Franklin's "Exporting of Felons to the Colonies" (1751)
• John Woolman: Some Considerations on the Keeping of Negroes (1754)