The Conquest of North America, 1500-1900

Fall 2008: Examines attempts by aboriginal, imperial, and mercantile forces to claim and control the North American continent from the arrival of Spanish conquistadors in the early 1500s to the surrender of Geronimo in 1886.  Lectures and readings will explore the processes of colonization from many perspectives, paying equal attention to Aboriginal, American, English, French, Russian, and Spanish ambitions and activities:

·      Processes of dispossession and incorporation

·      Reciprocal relationships between nature and imperialism

·      Global linkages in imperial contests

·      Aboriginal agendas and responses to expansionism

·      Political and economic development

·      Spatial and historical implications of settlement

Course Prerequisites

45 credit hours including 9 hours of lower division history credit and one of HIST 101, 212, or permission of the department

Required Text

Ann M. Little, Abraham in Arms: War and Gender in Colonial New England (Philadelphia:  University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006)

Pekka Hämäläinen, The Comanche Empire (New Haven:  Yale University Press, 2009)

Albert L. Hurtado, John Sutter:  A Life on the North American Frontier (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2008)

Other readings available through the W.A.C. Bennett Library reserve system.

Course Evaluation

Midterm exam: 25%

Research paper:      30%

Final Exam:             25%

Participation Papers (2) 5%