Assignment 1 )

Over the course of the semester you will write a series of essays regarding the major themes of the course. You should write as much as appropriate but the majority of successful essays will be five to ten pages (5-10 pp) in length. It will be almost impossible to fully answer the question in less than five pages (typed, double-spaced, Times New Roman 12-point font recommended) but please try not to exceed twelve pages.

As a reminder, on the essays I provide numerous questions to guide you through each of the essays, but please do not simply answer the questions point for point. The ultimate goal is to write cohesive essays not compile a set of fragments. Please therefore provide an introduction and conclusion to each essay. You are strongly encouraged to write (or at least re-write) your introduction AT THE END, so that they actually introduce the essay you have completed. In addition, you will not cover all of the sub-themes equally but you will decide which are the most important points to cover IN ORDER TO make the most effective arguments.

You are expected to make arguments, which requires that all ideas are logically coherent and are supported with evidence. Without evidence you are only making assertions, which cannot be properly evaluated. Without logic and coherence, you are simply rambling. Any argument will be considered, as long it is coherent and supported by specific historical evidence. Deal with one topic per paragraph, use topic sentences and the active voice. See below for guidance:

http://www.bartleby.com/141/strunk5.html

You are expected to review all of the sources and all sections of the textbook in order to understand the issues, although for analytic clarity you will focus on some sections and but a few sources. The most successful essays will use sources from BOTH Yawp/Boyer AND Cobbs. That said, the greatest emphasis should be on the primary sources and interpretive essays from Major Problems.

No matter what, you are primarily answering the central question of the essay. You will tell me what is history, did reconstruction fail, and was the myth of frontier democracy true, providing specific historical evidence.

Assignment I: Intro, Reconstruction and the West

Remember, you will not address all parts of the question, but will focus on answering the question using the most relevant evidence

Introduction: What is history (20%)?

Cobbs and Gjerde, ?Introduction?
Cobbs and Gjerde, Chapter 1, ?Reconstruction?

1. What is history?
What are ?problems? in U.S. history? Provide an example. Note that these are problems of interpretation.
What is a primary source? What is a secondary source? Provide examples of primary and secondary sources from Chapter 1, Cobbs and Gjerde. Discuss the specific challenges faced by students and scholars in dealing with primary and secondary sources.
Are all historical arguments equally valuable? Are all opinions valid? Consider that although there can be multiple right answers, there are most definitely also wrong answers (people who hold anti-historical beliefs—examples include Holocaust deniers and ?birthers.? Note that they hold their opinions despite evidence that disproves them). How does that work? And do be clear that even if people believe lies and factual errors, they remain lies and factual errors.

Reconstruction (50%)

EVERYONE EITHER 3d or 4th EDIION COBBS
Cobbs and Gjerde, Chapter 1, ?Reconstruction?
Black Codes (3), Thaddeus Stevens (4) and McMillan (8) —4th ed
Black Codes (3), Thaddeus Stevens (5) and McMillan (8) —3d ed
Blackmon, ?Re-enslavement of Black Americans, (required),? and Blum, ?Reforging the White Republic (extra credit)? —4th ed
Hahn, ?Black and White Violence required)? and Blight, ?Reconciliation (extra credit)? on rewriting history —3d ed
EXTRA PRIMARY SOURCES
Yawp 15.4 ?Mississippi Black Code, 1865?
Yawp 15.6 ?A Case of Sexual Violence During Reconstruction?
Yawp 15.7 ?Frederick Douglass in Remembering the Civil War?

IF USING YAWP
Chapter 15, ?Reconstruction?

IF USING BOYER
Boyer, Chapter 16, ?The Crises of Reconstruction?
Boyer, Chapter 18, ?Rise of Industrial America?
Boyer, Chapter 20, ?Politics and Expansion?

2. Did Reconstruction fail? Why or why not?
In the aftermath of the Civil War, African Americans fought for and gained political rights and economic power previously denied to them by the white majority of the United States (Cobbs, Reconstruction ?intro? and Boyer). What did they achieve and attain?
Despite these sometimes-impressive gains, Reconstruction was abandoned or defeated in the 1870s, and by the 1880s ex-Confederates had ?redeemed? southern states and subjected African Americans to a level of oppression that resembled the brutality of slavery. What happened?

As the Yawp notes it was a time of ?revolutionary possibility? AND ?violent backlash? and successful essays must address both. They make clear in the section in ?Racial Violence in Reconstruction? and ?End of Reconstruction.?

What does do Douglas Blackmon OR Steven Hahn (Cobbs) argue about how and why this occurred? What were the consequences of the ?collapse of Reconstruction? on the future of the South into the twentieth century (Boyer)?
Extra Credit:
What does Edward Blum in ?White Republic,? argue about how there was for a short time remarkable interracial fraternity. Why, and how, did powerful white Southerners denounce the teachers and missionaries?
OR
David Blight, in ?Reconciliation? (Cobbs) argue about how history was re-written in an effort for re-conciliation so that now ?the war had nothing directly to do with slavery?? Does this help you understand how many people to the present deny that slavery was central to why the south seceded?

The West in Myth and Reality

3. What is the story of the US West (30%)?

Cobbs and Gjerde, Chapter 2, ?The Frontier?
Introduction (both eds)
Severalty (4), Chief Joseph (5), Chinatown (6), Mission Indians (7) and Ex-Slave (9) —3d ed
Severalty (4), Chief Joseph (5), Chinese Immigrants (6), and Ex-Slave (9) —-4th ed
Limerick, ?Conflict? (required—both editions)
Worster, ?Capitalism? and Montoya, ?Global Competition? (extra credit)

IF USING YAWP
Chapter 17, ?The West?

IF USING BOYER
Boyer, Chapter 17, ?Trans-Mississippi West?

At the center of the expansion of the United States in the post-bellum period (after the Civil War) was the invasion of Native American lands by military representatives of the U.S. government and occupation by civilians, leading to the destruction of these Native America nations and peoples and dispossession of ethnic Mexicans (Cobbs and Boyer).
See photo of bison skulls in Yawp, ?Post Civil War Western Migration?
Did all of these invasions, conflicts, negotiations, immigrations and migrations led to increased ?democracy? as claims Frederick Jackson Turner (Cobbs and Boyer)? What does Dr. Patricia Limerick (Cobbs) say about the reality versus myth of frontier individualism and democracy?? In addition, what do events like the attack on Chinatown (Cobbs), or the treatment Chinese immigrants complained about reveal? Or the essay by Helen Hunt (Yawp 17.7) on a ?Century of Dishonor??
Extra Credit:
What does Maria Montoya, ?Frontier,? reveal about how companies and laws on the lives of many people in the West, and how they could both open and/or constrict opportunities?
OR
What does Worcester, in ?Capitalism? (Cobbs) say about how irrigation in the desert led to concentration and not expansion of wealth, therefore reducing democracy, or access?