Among the many comments received about the early selections collected in The Heath Anthology of American Literature, the plaintive comment, even from early Americanists, about the number of so-called new writers represented there strikes me as most honest and forthright. Indeed, more than a few coll...

THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR AND THE BEGINNING OF THE NEW REPUBLIC My Understanding of the American Revolutionary War and The Beginnings of the New Republic The American Revolution was inevitably going to occur, but was how the American Indians treated really inevitable or just another sign of the coloni...

1A. The common experience of European, African, and Native American women in colonial America was that no matter where they were in America, women were considered subordinate to men. The most intriguing part about the era was the way that captives were treated. Whether it be as slaves or as just c...

Manifest Destiny Manifest Destiny reflected the desire to grow and expand quickly. It also demonstrated the idealistic vision of social perfection that fueled so much of the reform energy of the time. All this rested on the idea that America was destined-by god and by history- to expand it...

Notes on the State of Virginia Any study of the United States should include Thomas Jefferson's Notes on the State of Virginia. Not only does he meticulously gather information, categorize and document the natural resources, but also discusses Virginia's constitution and laws, whic...

American Indian Wars There is perhaps a tendency to view the record of the military in terms of conflict, that may be why the U.S. Army's operational experience in the quarter century following the Civil War became known as the Indian wars. Previous struggles with the Indian,...

American Indian Wars There is perhaps a tendency to view the record of the military in terms of conflict, that may be why the U.S. Army’s operational experience in the quarter century following the Civil War became known as the Indian wars. Previous struggles with the Indian, dating back to ...

Peter C. Mancall, Deadly Medicine; Indians and Alcohol in Early America. (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, Inc., 1997). Peter C. Mancall is currently a Professor of History at the University of Kansas. He attended Harvard College and received his Ph. D. in history in 1...

The westward settlement created a dangerous area of political and social conflict between the backcountry settlers, and the eastern settlers. Economic, governmental and ethnic differences played a major role in the continuing conflicts between the east and west. There were many clashes in the earl...

The constitution of the United States reads; "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." In the 1830's, there e...

The motto of the United States, "E Pluribus Unum", meaning "Out of one, many", neatly recognizes that although America may be a single nation, it is also one originally made up of immigrants who arrived not only from Europe and Asia, but forcibly ...

John Sayle's film, Lone Star, is about crossing borders, challenging the past, and dealing with the burden of history in both the personal and the public sphere. Painted on a very broad canvas, Lone Star is an epic film touching on many themes, including racism, illegal immigration, the corruption ...

Throughout "Rip Van Winkle," Washington Irving creates a feature of a henpecked husband, Rip, who goes to the mountain to avoid his wife, but finds that he has slept for twenty years and wakes after the American Revolution. While reading "Rip Van Winkle", I found that it goes t...

There are approximately 2 million American Indians and Alaska Natives living in the U.S. They fall into about 300 different tribal or language groups. Alcohol abuse has caused compounded problems for these people. The problems also have led to an unfortunate stereotype of these people. This stere...

The Nation Takes Shape by Marcus Cunliffe published by the University of Chicago Press 1789-1800 Bobby Earl Ms. C. Love February 12, 1998 The period of time from 1789 to 1839 was an age of growth for the United States of America; the United States ...