HIST 2154 - Minorities in US History (OER): Module 3: The Age of Expansion and Reform, 1830-1860

Topic 1: Native American in the Age of Expansion and Reform

• Answers to Enquiries Relating to the Cherokees, 1817 
• Elias Boudinot's "Address to the Whites", 1826
• “Present Crisis in the Condition of the American Indians” 1830
• Begins far left column
• The Black Hawk War: Life of Ma-ka-tai-me-she-kia-kiak,1830
• Cherokee Petition Protesting Removal, 1836
• Two Accounts of the Trail of Tears: Wahnenauhi and Private John G. Burnett
• John O'Sullivan Declares America's Manifest Destiny, 1845
• Wyandotte woman describes tensions over slavery, 1849

Topic 2: African American Voices in the Age of Expansion and Reform​​​​​​​

• David Walker's Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World, 1829
• Nat Turner Explains his Rebellion, 1831
• Constitution of the American Anti-Slavery Society, 1833
• Sale of 25 Cows, Civilian and Galveston Gazette, March 15, 1843
• "The Kentucky Colony," Civilian and Galveston Gazette, December 2, 1843
• Voucher for 141 days of work by Negro slave, Phil, in the Chain Gang of the City of New Orleans, 1846.
• The Anti-Slavery Alphabet, 1847
• An Address to the Colored People of the United States, by Frederick Douglass, 1848
• The Running of Slaves: The Extraordinary Escape of Henry Box Brown, June 23, 1849
• Frederick Douglass, “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” 1852
• Solomon Northup's Twelve Years a Slave, 1853

Topic 3: Women’s Voices in the Age of Expansion and Reform

• Maria Stewart, "Why Sit Here and Die Speech," 1832
• Harriet Robinson: Lowell Mill Girls, 1834-1848
• Angelina Grimké, Appeal to Christian Women of the South, 1836
• Sarah Grimke Calls for Women's Rights, 1838
• Dorothea Dix Defends the Mentally Ill, 1843
• Chapter III: Study in America, Pioneer Work in Opening the Medical Profession to Women: Autobiographical Sketches by Elizabeth Blackwell, 1847.
• The Declaration of Sentiments, Seneca Falls Conference, 1848
• Sojourner Truth's "Ain't I a Woman" Speech, 1851
• “Dame Shirley” Describes Life at a California Gold Mining Camp in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, 1851
• Diary of a Woman Migrating to Oregon, 1853
• Woman's Rights Petition to the New York Legislature, 1854
• A letter from Susan B. Anthony to Elizabeth Cady Stanton about women’s rights and education for women, 1856

Topic 4: Latinx and Asian American Voices in the Age of Expansion and Reform

• Declaración del Pueblo de Tejas, 1835
• “San Francisco By Day and Night," 1850
• A Chinese-American Protest, 1852
• “The Hounds 1849,” Annals of San Francisco, 1855
• “Chinese Immigration in 1852”: Annals of San Francisco, 1855
• “The Inferior Races,” Annals of San Francisco, 1855
• "Congress: Immigration," Harper’s Weekly, January 5, 1857
• “Mining Life in California,” Harper’s Weekly, October 3, 1857
• “Great Excitement-Seventy-Five Chinamen Run Off a Mining Claim-One Chinaman Reported Killed,” 1859.
• Chinese Merchant Complains of Racist Abuse, 1860

Crash Course US History [CC-BY-SA]

• The Age of Jackson
• 19th Century Reforms
• Women in the 19th Century
• War & Expansion

Crash Course Black American History [CC-BY-SA]

• The Rise of Cotton
• Maria Stewart
• The Underground Railroad
• The Dred Scott Decision
• Frederick Douglass

Khan Academy, [CC-BY-SA]

• Manifest Destiny: Causes and Effects of Westward Expansion
• The Mexican-American War

Black History in Two Minutes [Licensing/Use Statement]

• Second Middle Passage
• The First African American Patent Holders
• The Black Church
• Elizabeth Freeman Sues for Freedom
• Frederick Douglass
• Sojourner Truth
• Harriet Tubman

Ted-Ed [CC-BY-NC-ND]

• The Breathtaking Courage of Harriet Tubman
• The Electrifying Speeches of Sojourner Truth

Other

• Manifest Destiny [Kansas Historical Society, CC-BY-SA]
• Trail of Tears [National Park Service, Public Domain]
• The Indian Problem [National Museum of the American Indian, CC-0]
• David Walker's "Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World" [National Endowment for the Humanities, Public Domain]
• "What to the Slave is Fourth of July?" [National Endowment for the Humanities, Public Domain]

The American Yawp Textbook [CC-BY-SA]

• The American Yawp, Chapter 9 
• The American Yawp, Chapter 10
• The American Yawp, Chapter 11
• The American Yawp, Chapter 12

African American History Textbook [CC-BY-SA]

• African Americans and the American Revolution, pp. 51-69
• Creating an African American Culture, pp. 70-86

Teaching American Indian History through Primary Sources [NPS, Public Domain]

• Chapter 4: The Legacy of the War of 1812, pp. 88-115

New World Encyclopedia [CC-BY-SA]

• Trail of Tears
• Black Hawk
• Indian Wars
• David Walker
• Sarah and Angelina Grimke
• William Lloyd Garrison
• Manifest Destiny

Women & the American Story [New York Historical Society, Use Statement]

• The Antebellum Period
  • Harriet Robinson Scott
  • Letitia Carson
  • The Grimke Sisters
  • Sojourner Truth
  • Anarcha, Betsy, & Lucy

The Conversation [CC-BY-ND]

• The brutal trade in enslaved people within the US has been largely whitewashed out of history
• The story of Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield, America’s first black pop star
• The long history of US racism against Asian Americans, from ‘yellow peril’ to ‘model minority’ to the ‘Chinese virus’
• In a digital archive of fugitive slave ads, a new portrait of slavery emerges
• Hidden figures: How black women preachers spoke truth to power

Other

• The Annals of San Francisco, Historical Essay [San Francisco Digital Archive, CC-BY-NC-SA]
• Chinese Immigration [Library of Congress, Public Domain]
  • Searching for Gold Mountain
  • Struggling for Work
  • Intolerance

• Online
• Face to Face

• Concept Knowledge Self Assessment (Pre/Post)
• Discussion Options
• Study Guide

Stanford History Education Group (SHEG)
requires free account to download teaching materials

• Texas Revolution
• Second Middle Passage
• Slavery Narratives
• Manifest Destiny

History Matters (HM)

• Talk Show on the Lowell Mills Strike

National Archives: Docs Teach [Public Domain] 

• Twelve Years a Slave
• The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
• US v. Amistad

Other

• To What Extent were Manifest Destiny & Westward Expansion Justified? [Bill of Rights Institute]

Native American Voices 

• How did the Cherokee Nation attempt to resist American encroachment through treaty-making and assimilation? Why did that attempt ultimately fail? 

• How (and why) did Native Americans demonstrate that they were “civilized” (intentionally and unintentionally)? How was that a form of resistance? What other forms of resistance existed for Native Americans? 

African American Voices 

• How did slavery become even more important in the South between 1815 and 1860? What was the role of the cotton gin and cotton in making slavery more profitable in the South? 

• What do these select documents tell you about the different approaches enslaved people took to resist their masters and/or rebel?  What did they do and what were the outcomes? 

• Consider the “slave narrative” genre as a category of primary source. Is there a difference between the slave narrative published in the 19th century and those recorded by the WPA project in the 1930s? What was their purpose? What is their significance and credibility as a primary source? What are the limits of their credibility? 

• Compare and contrast the abolitionism activities of David Walker, Frederick Douglass, and Solomon Northup as they appeared in this section. All were attempting the same goal (abolition), but they took different approaches. How were they different? How were they similar? 

Women’s Voices 

• What was the place of women in American society between 1815 and 1860, especially with reference to the legal concept of coverture and social expectations placed upon women? How did class and changes in the class order shape the lives of women? 

• What connections did the women’s rights movement have to the Second Great Awakening and social reform movements of the period? How did the women’s rights movement offer an alternative view of the place of women in American society? 

• What sorts of specific demands did the women’s rights movement make at the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848? Why were they initially unsuccessful with their demands? How did Seneca Falls lay the groundwork for future women’s rights activism? 

• What various rhetorical strategies did these women use to argue for women’s freedoms, rights and opportunities?  How similar and dissimilar are these from abolitionist strategies?  Why are they similar/dissimilar? 

Latinx and Asian American Voices 

• Which documents provide insights into the daily lives of antebellum Native Americans, Latinx Americans, and Asian Americans and what are those insights? What role did Manifest Destiny and westward expansion play in their lives? How did they change? 

• Do you think if immigration/migration to the west had not involved the Gold Rush (with all of the uncertainties, disappointments, etc that it entailed) that there would have been the same level of anti-Asian American sentiment/treatment?  Explain/support.