Analytical Essay one

The best plan is to think about these essays topics as you go through the chapters and lectures. Start making outlines and preparing from day one. It will make your life easier. If you wait until you open the exam to prepare, you will not have enough time to properly construct an essay. 
 
You will be assigned one of the following topics over which to write an analytical essay using historical evidence. Have outlines prepared for all four, or better yet rough drafts of the essays, so you are fully prepared when you open your exam. 
 
You need a thesis statement and you must have specific historical evidence to support that thesis. You cannot simply say: “Ideas about race developed in the Americas during the colonial period.” You will need evidence to prove that. Don’t just give a list of people or events. You must explain who or what they were and how they are connected. 
 
Will there is not a requirement for page length/word count, I would expect you to need at least 3-4 pages double-spaced to cover it/1000 words. Some people are very concise when they write and others are not. I have had great essays that are 2 pages and horrible essays that are 10 pages long!
 
 
1.        Compare and contrast King Philip’s War, Bacon’s Rebellion, and the Stono Rebellion. How did these events shape the development of race ideology in the colonies? You need to use the recorded lectures for this essay
In this essay, look at the three events. You will need to tell me when they happened, who was involved, what events led up to it. And how each event affected/led to ideas about race/racism.
King Philip’s War:
How was the Pequot War and its connection to King Philip’s War? What happened between the Pequot War and King Philip’s War?
Praying Towns (“Christians vs. heathens”)
John Eliot
Metacomet
Deer Island
Bacon’s Rebellion:
Nathaniel Bacon
Gov. Berkley
Pamunkey
What was Bacon trying to accomplish?
How is indentured servitude connected? Think about land availability.
Slavery – enslaved people that joined Bacon
What happens after the rebellion? White privilege laws? Why are rich whites trying to divide poor people? 
 
Stono:
look at Ft Mose and what is happening in Spanish Florida, Menendez
the role of religion in the rebellion (Catholicism)
Jemmy, Angola
What were they trying to accomplish?
How did white colonists react? Negro Act?
How is Georgia connected? Oglethorpe? Why were there no slaves allowed when Georgia was founded?
**Throughout the essay, be sure to connect to your thesis about race ideology – how white colonists began to view race.
 
2.  Discuss slavery from the colonial period through the early years of the new nation. You need to use the recorded lectures on the Stono Rebellion, Ethiopian Regiment, Constitution and Slavery, and the textbook.
In this essay, cover:
African culture
African slave trade
Middle Passage
slavery in Chesapeake
Anthony Johnson
Tobacco, rice, and other crops grown during the colonial era
race based slavery
slavery in New York (how was it different from the other colonies?)
what was going on in Georgia?
Stono Rebellion, slavery connected to Bacon’s Rebellion
Opposition to slavery before the American Revolution? Quakers? Benjamin Rush? Freedom Petitions?
Slavery and the American Revolution
Language of slavery and freedom leading up to the Revolution, James Otis, Samuel Johnson etc.
Ethiopian Regiment
Philipsburg Proclamation
Lemuel Haynes
Slavery and the Constitution – 3/5th Clause, Slave Trade Clause, Fugitive Slave Clause
 
You should think about why the colonists/Americans wanted slave labor and also the ways that slaves resisted their bondage.
 
 
3.        How did the Seven Years War/The French and Indian War, impact the coming of the American Revolution? Use the textbook and the lectures on Boston Massacre and Boston Tea Party
You don’t need to cover the actual war, just the aftermath, particularly how the huge debt Great Britain had after the war affected the colonies.
It is important to keep events in chronological order.
 
Things to cover:
Royal Proclamation line 1763,
Sugar Act,
Stamp Act, Stamp Act Crisis
Sons of Liberty,
Committees of Correspondence
“No taxation without representation” – explain what this means
Regulators,
Townshend Acts (how is this connected to the Boston Massacre?)
Boston Massacre, Crispus Attucks
Tea Act/Boston Tea Party/(Intolerable Act)Coercive Acts,
Loyalists/Patriots
First Continental Congress
Battles of Lexington and Concord
Make sure your thesis connects the war debt to the taxes and reactions of the colonists. Do not say the colonists rebelled because of high taxes, because that is incorrect.
 
4.  Discuss the War of 1812. Use the lectures on Native Americans and the War of 1812 and your textbook.
Your thesis should include both the Native American part of the war and the “white people” part of the war.
How did the Napoleonic wars in Europe impact the US? Blockade, impressment, the Chesapeake?
Embargo Act,
James Madison’s policy, Macon’s Bill No. 2
War Hawks
the war in Canada,
in the Great Lakes area,
Burning of DC,
Ft. McHenry
Battle of New Orleans,
Treaty of Ghent.
What happened to the Federalist Party after the war?
 
Native American conflict:
Tecumseh, Tenskwatawa, Prophetstown, William Henry Harrison
Sauk
Black Hawk
Ft. Detroit
Battle of the Thames
Red Stick Creek
Benjamin Hawkins, assimilation
Battle of Burnt Corn, Ft. Mims
Battle of Horseshoe Bend, Jackson (and Jackson into Florida)
Treaty of Ft. Jackson
What did the US hope to gain from this war and what did the British want?
**Why was the Native American part of the war so important? Especially for cotton land in places like Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi…