Your understanding of early Americans' expectations versus their lived experiences?

Read, Think, and Write  

Read  American Yawp Chapter 11 and Chapter 12. 

Primary Sources

Images

· Nebraska Sketches, 21 May 1859, Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper

· Lewis Miller's watercolor

· Puget Sound & Mt. Rainer, 1854

· Charles Deas,  The Death Struggle , 1854

· Forcing Slavery down the throat of a Free Soiler, 1856, Harper's Weekly

Documents

·  Pacific Railroad Survey, Northern Route, 1853

· Horse Market in Sonora, in Frank Maryatt, Mountains and Molehills, or Recollections of a Burnt Journal (London, 1855), p. 273

· E. T. Austin to S. F. Perry, 5 Mar. 1852, James Franklin Perry and Stephen Samuel Perry Papers, Barker Texas History Center, University of Texas at Austin

· Who May be Citizens of the United States, 15 May 1858, Harper's Weekl

· Mary Ballou, “This Muddy Place,” 1852 

· H. H. Spaulding to Stephen Prentiss, 6 Apr. 184

· Excerpts from the United States vs. Telokite et al

· Petition to Sue for Freedom, Dred Scott, filed April 6, 1846, Dred Scott Case Collection 

· Maria Perkins to Richard Perkins, 7 Oct. 1852

· Robert Harney to Samuel McDowell Reid, 22 Dec. 1827, and Reid’s reply

· Virginia Slave Hire Agreement, 31 Dec. 1846

· Georgia Slave Sale Agreement, 1 Nov. 1836

· Excerpt of a letter from a North Carolina Slave Trader, 11 Feb. 1828

Once you have read this week's chapter in American Yawp  and analyzed the primary sources listed in the links above, consider again the question the theme of expectations and outcomes. How do this week's readings shape your understanding of early Americans' expecations versus their lived experiences? Do this week's readings support your earlier argument? Do they make you rethink it? Revise your big argument as necessary (again, underline your thesis statement) and add to your essay using at least 2 images and 2 documents listed under primary sources above. Use your textbook for context.

As you analyze this week's sources and textbook chapter, consider the following:

· Many Americans relished the thought of pushing national boundaries ever further outward.  Every step seemed to open up new opportunities. Yet, not every American was enamored with the idea of westward expansion, and many early supporters soon became discouraged, too.

· The domestic commerce in enslaved people played a critical role in American expansion. 

· Images often tell us one story while documents tell us another.