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1st Colony Established
The first colony out of the thirteen colonies to be established was Virginia. It was established by John Smith and other colonists backed by the London Company, at Jamestown. -
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Colonies and literature
- Colonial American Literature emerged from the original U.S. colonies and was influenced by British writers.
- Colonial American literature is characterized by the narrative.
- Religion is prominent in colonial American literature, it helped spread the message of God.
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The Age of Faith - Colonial Period
Historical Context:
- Puritans and Pilgrims: separated from the Anglican Church of England; religion dominated their lives and writings.
- Work ethic: belief in hard work and simple, no-frills living.
Genre/Style:
- Sermons, diaries, personal narratives, slave narratives
- Instructive
- Plain style -
Period: to
The thirteen colonies
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Start of Slavery
- The White Lion brought 20 African slaves ashore in the British colony of Jamestown, Virginia.
- European settlers in North America turned to African slaves as a cheaper, more plentiful labor source than indentured servants.
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Slavery and Abolition
Throughout the 17th and 18th centuries people were kidnapped from the continent of Africa, forced into slavery in the American colonies, and exploited to work as indentured servants and labor in the production of crops such as tobacco and cotton. -
2nd Colony Established
Massachusetts was the second colony to be established out of the thirteen colonies. It was established in 1620 by John Winthrop and other Puritans in Massachusetts Bay. -
Pilgrims Aboard the Mayflower Sight Land
- After reorganization, the final sixty-six day voyage was made by the - Mayflower alone, leaving from a site near to the Mayflower Steps in - Plymouth, England on September 6/16.
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Mayflower
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Signing of the Mayflower Compact
- The Mayflower Compact was the first governing document of the Plymouth Colony.
- The Mayflower Drops Anchor at the Tip of Cape Cod.
- The intended destination was an area near the Hudson River, in "North Virginia".
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3rd Colony Established
New York was the second colony to be established out of the thirteen colonies. It was established in 1626 by the Duke of York and other colonists on Manhattan Island. -
4th Colony Established
The 4th colony to be established out of the thirteen colonies is Maryland. It was established by George Calvert, Lord Baltimore, and other colonists in Baltimore. -
5th Colony Established
Rhode Island was the fifth colony to be established out of the thirteen colonies. It was established by Roger Williams and other colonists, such as Anne Hutchinson in Providence. -
6th Colony Established
Connecticut was the sixth colony out of the thirteen colonies to be established. It was established in 1636 by Thomas Hooker, and other colonists, at Hartford. -
7th Colony Established
New Hampshire was the seventh colony to be established out of the thirteen colonies. It was established in 1638 by Captain John Mason and John Wheelwright. -
8th Colony Established
The eighth colony to be established was Delaware in 1638. It was established by Peter Minuit and New Sweden Company. -
9th Colony Established
The ninth colony to be established out of the thirteen is North Carolina. It was established in 1653 by the Virginia colonists. -
10th Colony Established
The tenth colony to be established out of the thirteen is South Carolina in 1663. It was established by eight British nobles with a Royal Charter from King Charles the ll. -
11th Colony Established
The eleventh colony to be established out of the thirteen was New Jersey. It was established in 1664 by Lord Berkeley and Sir George Carteret. -
12th Colony Established
The twelfth colony to be established out of the thirteen is Pennsylvania in 1682. It was established by Quaker William Penn and other colonists. -
13th Colony Established
The thirteenth and last colony established out of the thirteen is Georgia. It was established in 1732 by James Oglethorpe and other colonists. -
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The Age of Reason - Revolutionary Period
Historical context:
- American Revolution; growth of patriotism
- Development of American character/democracy
- Use of reason as opposed to faith alone, Deism
Genre/Style:
- Political pamphlets, essays, travel writing, speeches, documents
- Instructive in values; highly ornate writing style -
The Townshend Acts passed by Parliament
- Imposing duties on various products imported into the British colonies had raised such a storm of colonial protest and noncompliance.
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African American Literature
The earliest African American writers sought to demonstrate that the proposition “all men are created equal” in the Declaration of Independence required that black Americans be extended the same human rights as those claimed by white Americans. -
"Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral" by Phillis Wheatley
It provided a powerful argument against the proslavery contention that the failure of African peoples to write serious literature was proof of their intellectual inadequacies and their fitness for enslavement. -
Boston Tea Party
- Americans were protesting both a tax on tea and the perceived monopoly of the East India Company. 342 chests of tea belonging to the British East India Company were thrown from ships into Boston Harbor by American patriots.
- Parliament passed a Tea Act designed to aid the financially troubled East India Company by granting it a monopoly on all tea exported to the colonies, an exemption on the export tax, and a refund on duties owed on certain surplus quantities of tea in its possession.
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Period: to
American Revolution
- 13 of Great Britain’s North American colonies won political independence and went on to form the United States of America, this historical event was called the American Revolution.
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American Revolution became an international war.
- France and Spain had joined against Britain.
- The Netherlands was engaged in its own war against Britain.
- Americans fought the war with the Continental (national) Army and the state militias.
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Abolition movement.
The movement was chiefly responsible for creating the emotional climate necessary for ending the transatlantic slave trade and chattel slavery. -
"The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano; Or, Gustavus Vassa, The African" by Olaudah Equiano
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Rational thought and science were the new themes, replacing God.
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Indiginous citizenship act
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"Freedom’s Journal" - African American Newspaper
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"Appeal, in Four Articles; Together with a Preamble, to the Coloured Citizens of the World" by David Walker
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Period: to
The Romantic Period
Historical context:
- Expansion of book publishing, magazines, newspapers.
- Industrial Revolution.
- Abolitionist movement.
Genre/Style:
- Short stories, novels, poetry.
- Imagination over reason; intuition over the fact.
- Focus on inner feelings.
- Nature, journey as personal growth, distrust of civilization, nostalgia for pas, hero as an innocent, supernatural. -
Possibility to run indiginous reservations
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"Young Goodman Brown" by Nathaniel Hawthorne
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"Productions of Mrs. Maria W. Stewart" by Maria W. Stewart
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"The Fall of the House of Usher" by Edgar Allan Poe
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"The murders in the Rue Morgue" by Edgar Allan Poe
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"The Raven" by Edgar Allan Poe
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"The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Written by Himself" by Frederick Douglass
It established him as the leading African American man of
letters of his time. -
"The Cask of Amontillado" by Edgar Allan Poe
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Years of Growth
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"The Scarlet letter" by Nathaniel Hawthorne
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"The house of the Seven Gables" by Nathaniel Hawthorne
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"Moby Dick" by Herman Melville
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Growth in population
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"Clotel" by William Wells Brown
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"Walden" by Henry David Thoreau
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"Leaves of Grass" by Walt Whitman
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"My Bondage and My Freedom" by Frederick Douglass
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"The escape" by William Wells Brown
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"Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl" by Harriet Jacobs
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Period: to
American Civil War
- Civil war due to slavery
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Abraham Lincoln's path of office as presidente of the United States
- Intention of making southern states stay in the union.
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Confederacy loses
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Lincoln's assassination
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Andrew Johnson as president
- Goal: to reunite the south with the rest of the nation
- "black codes" in the confederate's states
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Period: to
Reconstruction
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Period: to
Realism
Historical context:
- Civil War brings demand for a "truer" type of literature that doesn't idealize people or places
- People in society are defined by "class"; materialism
- Reflect ideas of Darwin and Marx.
Genre/Style:
- Realism: a reaction against romanticism; told it like it was; anti-materialism; rejected the new "class" system; view of nature as a powerful and indifferent force beyond man's control
- Naturalism: a darker view of the world; the universe is unpredictable. -
The Legacy of Slavery
- The 13th Amendment officially abolished slavery.
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14th amendment by the congress
- It gave blacks full rights of citizenship, including the right to vote
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Centennial Exhibition.
- President Ulysses S. Grant travelled to Philadelphia to open the centennial exhibition for the 100th birthday of the United States
- Railroads
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Period: to
Inventors and industries
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Segregation
- Terrorist racist groups such as KKK
- Jim crow laws as a response in the confederate states
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Railroads and cattlemen
- six major lines crossing the continent to link the mississippi valley with the pacific coast
- Easier trade
- Homestead act
- Free farms, any head of each family could claim one
- Difficulty to live and access resources
- Overproduction
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The golden door
- The statue fo liberty by the French to the United States
- The importance of immigrants for America's rapid growth throughout the years
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Indigenous people left their reservations to fight for their land - they lose
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Indigenous people left their reservations to fight for their land - they lose
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Period: to
The Amerindians’ Land and their last stand
- Conflicts between native's beliefs and white people's interests (usage of gold/land/etc.)
- Natives's are sent to 'reservations' (useless land that white people didn't want)
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American industries growth
- Production of coal and iron (biggest industrial raw materials in the 19th century)
- Henry Ford (automobiles)
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Period: to
The Moderns
Historical context:
- Overwhelming technological changes
- World War I first war of mass destruction
- Grief over the loss of past; fear of eroding traditions
- Rise of youth culture
Genre/Style:
- Dominant mood: alienation/disconnection
- Writing highly experimental: use of fragments, stream of consciousness
- Writers seek to create a unique style
III. Major writers -
Indiginous citizenship act
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possibility to run indiginous reservations
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Period: to
Contemporary
Historical context:
- Media saturated culture: people observe life as media presents it rather than experiencing life directly
- Insistence that values are not permanent but only "local" or "historical";
- Post WWII prosperity
- Social protest
Genre/Style:
- Lines of reality blurred; a mix of fantasy and nonfiction
- No heroes/Anti-heroes
- Concern with individual in isolation
- Detached, unemotional, usually humorless
- The emergence of ethnic and women writers