"Life, Liberty, and Opportunity: The Struggle for Freedom in Tidewater Maryland, 1634-1865"

June 19-24 and June 26-July 1, 2005

A National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Landmarks of American History Program

Assigned Readings  

(Note: a list of suggested further readings and web site sources of primary documents for each day’s themes will be distributed at the program.  A superb portal for web-based material related to our themes is at www.historymatters.gmu.edu)

Day 1: An Atlantic World: Opportunity, Risk, and the Intersection of Many Cultures in the Colonial Chesapeake

Ian K. Steele, “Exploding Colonial American History: Amerindian, Atlantic, and Global Perspectives,” Reviews in American History 26.1 (1998): 70-95.

Ira Berlin, Introduction and Chapter One, Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery in North America  (1998)

Henry M. Miller, “Lord Baltimore’s Colony of Maryland and its Capital of St. Mary’s City 1634-1695,”  Avalon Chronicles, Volume 8, 2003

Silas Hurry et al, “Once the Metropolis of Maryland: The History and Archaeology of   Maryland’s First Capital.” (2001)

Day 2: Indigenous Cultures and Immigrant Adaptation in the Chesapeake

Helen C. Rountree and E. Randolph Turner III, Chapter Three, Before and After Jamestown: Virginia’s Powhatans and Their Predecessors. (2002)

Helen C. Rountree, Chapters One, Two, and Four, Pocahontas Powhatan Opechancanough: Three Indian Lives Changed By Jamestown. (2005)

James Horn, “Adapting to a New World: A Comparative Study of Local Society in England and Maryland 1650-1700,” in Colonial Chesapeake Society (1988).

Lois Green Carr, “From Servant to Freeholder: Daniel Clocker’s Adventure,” Maryland Historical Magazine (Fall 2004).

Day 3:  Enslavement and African-American Identity in Tidewater Maryland,

1700-1860

Cultivation and Culture, Ira Berlin and Philip D. Morgan, ed., Chapter Seven, Lorena S. Walsh, “Slave Life, Slave Society and Tobacco Production in the Tidewater Chesapeake, 1620-1820.” (1993)

Barbara Jeanne Fields, Chapters One and Two, Slavery and Freedom on the Middle Ground: Maryland During the Nineteenth Century.  (1985)

Julia King, Edward Chaney and Iris Carter Ford, “Defining Race and Identity in Early Maryland,” Baltimore Sun, February 4, 2001.

Michael Janofsky, “Descendents of Slave and Master Work to Save a Common Heritage,” New York Times, August 18, 1996.

Sotterley Plantation Lesson Plans on Slavery at http://academic.pg.cc.md.us/CARD/hrc/SotterleyLessonTOC.htm

Sotterley Plantation biographies of Alice Elsa Kane, Frank Kane, Hillery Kane, George Briscoe, Dr. Henry Briscoe, and Dr. Walter H. S. Briscoe.

Sotterley Plantation slave cabin description.

Day 4: Whose History?  Conflicting Memories and the Politics of Civil War Commemoration in Maryland

William A. Blair, “Maryland, Our Maryland: Or How Lincoln and His Army Helped to Define the Confederacy,” in Gary W. Gallagher, ed., The Antietam Campaign (1999)

Kirk Savage, “The Politics of Memory: Black Emancipation and the Civil War Monument,” in John R. Gillis, ed., Commemorations: The Politics of National Identity (1996)

Point Lookout Confederate Prisoner of War Descendants website, www.plpow.org

Day 5: Liberty’s Legacy: “Liberty of Conscience” and Religious Toleration in Maryland

John D. Krugler, “The Calvert Vision: A New Model for Church-State Relations,” Maryland Historical Magazine, Fall 2004

Jane Calvert and Anthony Lake, “From Necessity, Not Choice: Lessons in Democracy from Maryland’s Past,” Occasional Papers of the Center for the Study of Democracy, Winter 2004-2005