Choose from 3 options

 

 

Write all answers as paragraphs (topic sentences and/or thesis statements, complete sentences, proper spelling and punctuation, etc.).  Provide a citation for any quotation or paraphrase.  The exam is open-book and open-note.  It is also untimed as long as it is submitted before the deadline.  No outside references and resources are necessary, but provide a link and/or citation if you use any.  Collaboration with other students is prohibited, although you are welcome to email me or visit my office if you have any questions.

 

Part III:  “Big Question” (30 points)

The “Big Question” for each module brings together your readings for the week with different strands of our discussion.  You will use this accumulated knowledge to address an important question that emerges from the study of the past.  Be bold in your thinking, and ground your argument with specific details.  There is not a “wrong” answer to these questions, but you can trip up by making a poorly thought-out, unsubstantiated argument.

Select one of the “Big Questions” from Modules 1 – 3.  Examine this “Big Question” in no more than 1000 words (approximately four pages double-spaced).  Draw from your readings (textbook and, where applicable, images and documents) and our discussion.  Cite any and all direct quotations and paraphrases (ideas from another source) with the following style citation:  (Foner 65) or (Pueblo Revolt 2).  See the Citation Guidelines Worksheet under “Assignments & Aids” for further help.

NEED TO CHOOSE JUST ONE OF THESE QUESTIONS!!

(1)Topic:  Assessing the Beginning of Globalization in the “discovery of America”

In his 1776 book The Wealth of Nations, Scottish philosopher and economist Adam Smith wrote the following about the beginning of globalization as we now know it:   “The discovery of America, and that of a passage to the East Indies [Southeast Asia] by the Cape of Good Hope, are the two greatest and most important events recorded in the history of mankind . . . . What benefits, or what misfortunes to mankind may hereafter result from those great events, no human wisdom can foresee.  By uniting, in some measure, the most distant parts of the world, by enabling them to relieve one another’s wants, to increase one another’s enjoyments, and to encourage one another’s industry, their general tendency would seem to be beneficial.”[1]

Is Smith correct in his assessment of the “discovery of America”?  Do you, like Smith, judge that the “general tendency” of contact between the “Old” and “New” Worlds was “beneficial” to humankind, or do you think it was detrimental?  Support your argument with three detailed examples.  In answering this, you need only to focus on what Smith calls “the discovery of America” and not on global trade with the East Indies.

 

 

(2) Topic:  Assessing the Paradox of Freedom and Slavery in Colonial America

In 1623 a laborer on a Virginia plant Topic:  Assessing the Paradox of Freedom and Slavery in Colonial America

In 1623 a laborer on a Virginia plantation wrote (or perhaps dictated) the following:  [Read this aloud to help you understand it.]

[W]hen wee are sicke there is nothing to Comfort us; for since I came out of the ship, I never at anie thing but pease, and loblollie [water gruell] . . . . I had beene better knocked on the head, and Indeede so I fynd it now to my greate griefe and miserie.

The letter concluded with “if you love me you will redeeme me suddenlie” for this letter was written by a young English man asking his parents to buy him out of his indenture contract.[1]

This letter is surprising to modern readers because the conditions he described sound so much like slavery.  He was, in fact, an “unfree” laborer though not a slave.  This distinction, including its implications about race, was slowly and painfully defined over the 1600s and 1700s as both “freedom” and “slavery” evolved in the British North American colonies.  This is the paradox that your textbook author identifies as “the simultaneous expansion of freedom and slavery” in colonial America (Foner 131).

How was it possible for freedom and slavery to expand simultaneously in 17th- and 18th-century British North America?  To answer, give three detailed examples of how understandings of freedom and of slavery changed over this time.  You may consider laws and legal definitions, economic practices, political culture, lived experiences, and more.  Be sure to establish the difference between indentured servitude and slavery and the role “race” came to play in these categories.  What legacy do you believe this paradox left to what would become the United States?

 

 

 

 

(3)Topic:  Assessing the “Revolutionary” in the American Revolution

In March 1776 as the Continental Congress met in Philadelphia, Abigail Adams famously wrote to her husband John to “Remember the Ladies, and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors” as the delegates considered forming a new nation.  Less famous—but just as revealing—was John’s response:

We have been told that our Struggle has loosened the bonds of Government everywhere.  That Children and Apprentices were disobedient—that schools and Colleges were grown turbulent—that Indians slighted their Guardians, and Negroes grew insolent of their Masters.  But your Letter was the first Intimation that another Tribe more numerous and Powerfull than all the rest, were grown discontented.[1]

The playful tone of Abigail and John’s correspondence does not obscure the serious issues they were debating, namely how revolutionary the American Revolution should be.  Abigail saw it as an opportunity for women to gain more rights whereas John worried about the social consequences of “loosen[ing] the bonds of Government everywhere.”

How revolutionary did the American Revolution prove to be?  What did different groups of people in or near British North America hope to gain from revolution, and how did they use the rhetoric of “liberty” and “freedom” for their own ends?  Ultimately, how successful were they?  In considering this, select three different groups of North Americans (women, African Americans, workers, Native Americans, political elites, etc.).  What legacy did this leave for following generations of Americans?
FOR YOUR ASSIGNMENTS TO BE DONE AT A CHEAPER PRICE PLACE THIS ORDER OR A SIMILAR ORDER WITH US NOW