History Essay

The class focuses on the years from the 1500s to the 1790s, a period that utterly transformed the geographical space we now call the United States. Europeans invaded a continent already inhabited by 4 to 5 million Native Americans. We will study the combustible mixing of three cultural groups–Indian, European, and African–in these early centuries and trace their influences on the formation of a single country that emerged, in 1776, a country that came to dominate the continent. We will also investigate the making of race and the resulting often-contested nature of politics: who had power, who was left out, how was power exercised and to what ends. We will close the class with a discussion and analysis of the Constitution—a document that embodied the high ideals of the youthful nation about democracy, liberty and a free market economy, but also institutionalized the prejudices against particular groups that had now been fully formed. Select two colonies as your examples and discuss how the settlers and Indians responded and interacted with each other, and how and why did these interactions change over time? For 2 pages. MLA format.