Sources for Of the People Volume I: To 1877

Edited by Maxwell Johnson, this two-volume companion sourcebook includes approximately eighty primary sources, both textual and visual. Chapter introductions, document headnotes, and study questions provide learning support. Expertly edited for clarity and pedagogical utility, the sources range from letters, political tracts, memoirs, and fiction, to essays, speeches, and photographs. Affordable and flexible, Sources for Of the People makes for an ideal companion to Of the People.

How to Read a Primary Source

Chapter 1. Worlds in Motion, 1450-1550
1.1 Letter of Christopher Columbus on His First Voyage to America (1492)
1.2 Ponce De León's Royal Patent (1511)
1.3 Bartoleme de las Casas, excerpt from A Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies (1552)
1.4 Letter written by Juan de Oñate from New Mexico (1599)
1.5 Contrasting Views of the Spanish Conquest of Tenochtitlán

Chapter 2. Colonial Outposts, 1550-1650
2.1 Royal Patent from Queen Elizabeth I to Walter Raleigh (1585)
2.2 John White Recounts his Journey to Roanoke (1590)
2.3 Samuel de Champlain's Account of Native American Warfare (1609)
2.4 Selection from Robert Juet's Journal of Henry Hudson's 1609 Voyage
2.5 Thomas Morton, excerpt from The New English Canaan (1637)

Chapter 3. The English Come to Stay, 1600-1660
3.1 John Smith, "A True Relation of Such Occurences and Accidents of Note, As Hath Hapned in Virginia" (1608) and "The General Histories of Virginia" (1624)
3.2 John Winthrop, "A Model of Christian Charity" (1630)
3.3 Roger Williams, excerpted from A Key Into the Language of America (1643)
3.4 John Winthrop, "Remarks on Liberty" (1645)
3.5 William Bradford, excerpt from Of Plymouth Plantation (1651)

Chapter 4. Continental Empires, 1660-1720
4.1 John Eliot, "A Brief Narrative of the Progress of the Gospel Amongst the Indians in New England" (1670)
4.2 Nathaniel Bacon, "The Declaration" (1676)
4.3 Ann Cotton, excerpt from "An Account of our Late Troubles in Virginia" (1676)
4.4 Don Antonio de Otermín, Letter on the Pueblo Revolt (1680)
4.5 Excerpt from The Salem Witchcraft Papers

Chapter 5. The Eighteenth-Century World, 1700-1775
5.1 Excerpt from "A Brief Account of the Establishment of the Colony of Georgia" (1735)
5.2 Benjamin Franklin Describes George Whitefield (1739)
5.3 Jonathan Edwards, "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" (1741)
5.4 Adam Smith, excerpt from The Wealth of Nations (1776)
5.5 Thomas Jefferson, excerpt from Notes on the State of Virginia (1783)
5.6 Mercy Otis Warren's Revolutionary-Era Letters

Chapter 6. Conflict in the Empire, 1713-1774
6.1 Excerpt from The Memoir of Lieutenant Dumont, 1715-1747
6.2 Text from the Albany Plan of Union (1754)
6.3 "The Declaration of Rights of the Stamp Act Congress" (1765) and Suffold Resolves Text (1774)
6.4 George Robert Twelve Hewes, excerpt from Traits of the Tea Party (1835)

Chapter 7. Creating a New Nation, 1775-1788
7.1 First Continental Congress, Negotiations With George III (1774-1776)
7.2 Continental Congress, Tory Act (1776)
7.3 "The Sentiments of an AMERICAN WOMAN" (1780)
7.4 Thomas Jefferson and George Washington on Shays' Rebellion (1787)
7.5 James Madison, excerpt from Federalist 10 (1787)
7.6 Joseph Plumb Martin, Excerpts From Narrative of Some of the Adventures, Dangers and Sufferings of a Revolutionary Soldier (1830)

Chapter 8. Contested Republic, 1789-1800
8.1 Connecticut Slaves' Petition for Freedom (1779) and Massachusetts Slaves' Anti-Taxation Petition (1780)
8.2 Hector St. John De Crèvecoeur, excerpts from Letters From an American Farmer (1782)
8.3 Alexander Hamilton, excerpt from Opinion on the First National Bank (1791) and Thomas Jefferson, excerpt from Opinion on the First National Bank (1791)
8.4 Translated text of Haitian Declaration of Independence (1804)
8.5 James Fenimore Cooper, excerpt from The Pioneers (1823)

Chapter 9. A Republic in Transition, 1800-1819
9.1 George Gleig, "A British Account of the Burning of Washington" (1814)
9.2 John Marshall, Majority Opinion in Gibbons v. Ogden (1824)
9.3 Nathaniel Hawthorne, excerpt from "The Canal Boat" (1835)
9.4 Harriet Hanson Robinson, "Characteristics of the Early Factory Girls" (1898)

Chapter 10. Jacksonian Democracy, 1820-1840
10.1 James Monroe, "Seventh Annual Message" (Monroe Doctrine) (1823)
10.2 Elias Boudinot, "An Address to the Whites" (1826)
10.3 "Address of the Cherokee Nation to the People of the United States" (1830)
10.4 John C. Calhoun, "Exposition and Protest" (1828)
10.5 John Marshall, Majority Opinion in Worcester v. Georgia (1832)
10.6 Harriet Jacobs, excerpt from Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861)

Chapter 11. Reform and Conflict, 1820-1848
11.1 Robert Owen, "An Address to the Inhabitants of New Lanark" (1816)
11.2 William Lloyd Garrison, "To the Public" (1831)
11.3 Seneca Falls Convention, Minutes and Declaration of Sentiments (1848)
11.4 Charles Finney, excerpt from Lectures on Revivals of Religion (1853)
11.5 "The Tree of Intemperance" (1855)
11.6 Rebecca Harding Davis, excerpt from Life in the Iron Mills (1861)

Chapter 12. Manifest Destiny, 1836-1848
12.1 Excerpt from Autobiography of Black Hawk (1833)
12.2 Texas Declaration of Independence (1836)
12.3 Martin Van Buren, Inaugural Address (1837)
12.4 James K. Polk, Speech on War with Mexico (1846)
12.5 Frederick Douglass on War in Mexico (1848)
12.6 William Walker, excerpt from The War in Nicaragua (1860)

Chapter 13. The Politics of Slavery, 1848-1860
13.1 Frederick Douglass, "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?" (1852)
13.2 George Fitzhugh, excerpt from Sociology For the South (1854)
13.3 Hinton Rowan Helper, excerpt from The Impending Crisis of the South (1857)
13.4 Charles Sumner, "The Crime Against Kansas" (1856)
13.5 John Brown, Speech to the Court at his Trial (1859)
13.6 Excerpts from Confederate States' Secession Statements (1861)

Chapter 14. A War for Union and Emancipation, 1861-1865
14.1 "John Brown's Body" Lyrics and Original Broadside (1861)
14.2 Abraham Lincoln, "Gettysburg Address" (1863)
14.3 Walt Whitman, "The Great Army of the Sick" (1863)
14.4 Louisa May Alcott, excerpt from Hospital Sketches (1863)
14.5 Four Civil War Photographs
14.6 Sarah Morgan Dawson, excerpt from A Confederate Girl's Diary (1913)

Chapter 15. Reconstructing a Nation, 1865-1877
15.1 Jourdon Anderson, Letter to His Former Slaveowner (1864)
15.2 Abraham Lincoln's Last Public Address (1865)
15.3 Freedmen's Bureau Bill Text (1865)
15.4 Andrew Johnson Defends Passive Reconstruction Policies (1866)
15.5 Thaddeus Stevens' Speech on Reconstruction (1867)
15.6 Ulysses S. Grant, "Use of the Army in Certain of the Southern States" (1876)