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Academic Year 2004/2005

Early African American History, 1619-1865
AFAM 203 SP
Crosslistings:
HIST 241
AMST 237

This course will examine the history of the Blacks in the New World from the fifteenth to the late nineteenth century. Beginning with the expansion of Europeans into then newly discovered lands in Africa and the Americas, this class explores the Middle Passage, the history of slavery and emancipation in a hemispheric context, as well as the ideology of race during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The course adopts a disaporic perspective in order to demonstrate the world-systemic nature of the history of Blacks in the Americas, and therefore it aims to show that rather than constituting a "minority," Blacks represent one of the founding civilizations (along with Western Europeans and the Indigenous populations) to the cultural matrix defining of the Americas.

MAJOR READINGS

Colin A. Palmer, PASSAGEWAYS (1997)
Steven Mintz, ed., AFRICAN AMERICAN VOICES (1993)
David Northrup, ed., ATLANTIC SLAVE TRADE (1994)
Philip D. Morgan, SLAVE COUNTERPOINT (1998)
Gwendolyn Hall, AFRICANS IN COLONIAL LOUISIANA (1992)
J.O. and L.E. Horton, IN HOPE OF LIBERTY (1997)
Sylvia Frey, WATER FROM THE ROCK (1990)
Virginia Ex-Slaves, ed by Charles Perdue, WEEVILS IN WHEAT (1976)
Ira Berlin, et al., eds., FREEDOM'S SOLDIERS (1998)

EXAMINATIONS AND ASSIGNMENTS

One documentary analysis (33% of your grade); one essay (33%); and a final document/essay mix (34%).

ADDITIONAL REQUIREMENTS and/or COMMENTS

You are expected to attend two weekly lectures, to read documents/chapters, and to regularly participate in discussions.

COURSE FORMAT: Lecture

REGISTRATION INFORMATION

Level: UGRD    Credit: 1    Gen Ed Area Dept: SBS HIST    Grading Mode: Graded   

Prerequisites: NONE Links to Web Resources For This Course.

Last Updated on MAR-21-2005

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