List of illustrations 
Preface 

EXPLORATION AND THE COLONIES, 1492-1791
Virginia and the South 
New England 
Timeline: Exploration and the Colonies 


NATIVES AND EXPLORERS 
NATIVE LITERATURE: THE ORAL TRADITION
A Tale of the Sky World 
The Chief’s Daughters 
Coyote and Bear 
Twelfth Song of the Thunder 
The Corn Grows Up 
At the Time of the White Dawn 
Snake the Cause 
The Weaver’s Lamentation
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS (1451–1506)
[Report on the First Voyage]
GIOVANNI DA VERRAZZANO (1485?–1528)
From Verrazzano's Voyage: 1524
ALVAR NÚÑEZ CABEZ DE VACA (c. 1490–c. 1557)
From The Narrative of Cabeza de Vaca
Chapter 12: The Indians Bring Us Food 
Chapter 16: The Christians Leave the Island of Malhado
RICHARD HAKLUYT (1552–1616)
From The Famous Voyage of Sir Francis Drake
[Nova Albion]
SAMUEL DE CHAMPLAIN (c. 1567–1635)
From Voyages of Samuel de Champlain: The Voyages of 1604–1607
Chapter 8: Continuation of the discoveries along the coast of the Almouchiquois, and what we observed in detail 


THE COLONIES 
JOHN SMITH (1580–1631)
From The General History of Virginia, New England, and the Summer Isles 
From The Third Book: The Proceedings and Accidents of the English Colony in Virginia
Chapter II: What Happened till the First Supply
From The Fourth Book: The Proceedings of the English after the Alteration of the Government of Virginia
John Smith's Relation to Queen Anne of Pocahontas (1616)
From The Sixth Book: The General History of New England
The Description of New England
WILLIAM BRADFORD (1590–1657)
From Of Plymouth Plantation, Book I
Chapter IX: Of Their Voyage, and How They Passed the Sea; and of Their Safe Arrival at Cape Cod 
Chapter X: Showing How They Sought Out a Place of Habitation; and What Befell Them Thereabout
From Of Plymouth Plantation, Book II
[The Mayflower Compact (1620)] 
[Compact with the Indians (1621)] 
[First Thanksgiving (1621)] 
[Narragansett Challenge (1622)] 
[Thomas Morton of Merrymount (1628)]
THOMAS MORTON (c. 1579–1647)
New English Canaan 
From The First Book: Containing the Original of the Natives, Their Manners, and Customs, with Their Tractable Nature and Love towards the English
Chapter IV: Of Their Houses and Habitations 
Chapter XV: Of Their Admirable Perfection in the Use of the Senses
From The Third Book Containing a Description of the People That Are Planted There, What Remarkable Accidents Have Happened There Since They Were Settled, What Tenants They Hold, Together with the Practice of Their Church
Chapter XIV: Of the Revels of New Canaan 
Chapter XV: Of a Great Monster Supposed to be at Ma–re Mount and the Preparation Made to Destroy It
JOHN WINTHROP (1588–1649)
From A Model of Christian Charity
Chapter 1, A Model Hereof
ROGER WILLIAMS (1603?–1683)
From The Bloody Tenet of Persecution for Cause of Conscience
Preface 
Chapter XCIII
Letter to the Town of Providence 


PURITANISM 
ANNE BRADSTREET (1612?–1672)
The Prologue 
The Flesh and the Spirit 
Contemplations 
The Author to Her Book 
Before the Birth of One of Her Children 
To My Dear and Loving Husband 
A Letter to Her Husband, Absent upon Public Employment 
Another [Letter of Her Husband, Absent upon Public Employment] 
In Memory of My Dear Grandchild Elizabeth Bradstreet, Who Deceased August, 1665 Being a Year and a Half Old 
Upon the Burning of Our House, July 10th, 1666
MICHAEL WIGGLESWORTH (1631–1705)
From The Day of Doom
MARY ROWLANDSON (1636?–1711?)
From A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson
SAMUEL SEWALL (1652–1730)
From The Diary of Samuel Sewall
[Customs, Courts, and Courtships]
EDWARD TAYLOR (1642?–1729)
The Preface 
Meditation 1, First Series 
Upon Wedlock, and Death of Children 
The Experience 
Huswifery 
Meditation 8, First Series 
Upon a Spider Catching a Fly 
A Fig for Thee Oh! Death 


CROSSCURRENTS: Puritans, Indians, and Witchcraft 
WILLIAM WOOD (FL 1628–1635)
[Native Religion]
JOHN WINTHROP (1588–1649)
[The Trial of Margaret Jones]
COTTON MATHER (1663–1728)
[Indian Powaws and Witchcraft]
MARY TOWNE EASTY (1634?–1692)
[The Petition of Mary Easty]
SAMUEL SEWALL (1652–1730)
[A Witchcraft Judge’s Confession of Guilt] 


COTTON MATHER (1663–1728)
From The Wonders of the Invisible World
Enchantments Encountered 
The Trial of Bridget Bishop, alias Oliver, at the Court of Oyer and Terminer, Held at Salem, June 2, 1692 
A Third Curiosity
From Magnalia Christi Americana
The Life of John Winthrop
From Bonifacius: Essays to Do Good
On Internal Piety and Self–Examination
SARAH KEMBLE KNIGHT (1666–1727)
From The Journal of Madam Knight
[New England Frontier] 
[Connecticut] 
[New York City] 


THE SOUTH AND THE MIDDLE COLONIES 
WILLIAM BYRD (1674–1744)
From The History of the Dividing Line
[The Marooner] 
[Lubberland] 
[Indian Neighbors]
JOHN WOOLMAN (1720–1772)
From The Journal of John Woolman
1720–1742 [Early Years] 
1749–1756 [On Merchandise] 
1757 [Evidence of Divine Truth] 
[Slavery] 
1755–1758 [Taxes and Wars]
ST JEAN DE CRÈVECOEUR (1735–1813)
From Letters from an American Farmer
What Is an American? 
Description of Charles–Town; Thoughts on Slavery; On Physical Evil; A 
Melancholy Scene
From Sketches of Eighteenth Century America
Manners of the Americans
WILLIAM BARTRAM (1739–1823)
From Travels through North and South Carolina, Georgia, East and West Florida
[Alligators] 
[The Amazing Crystal Fountain] 


REASON AND REVOLUTION, 1725-1800
The Enlightenment and the Spirit of Rationalism 
From Neoclassical to Romantic Literature 
Timeline: Reason and Revolution 
JONATHAN EDWARDS (1703–1758)
Sarah Pierrepont 
From A Divine and Supernatural Light 
Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God 
Personal Narrative
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN (1706–1790)
From The Autobiography 
From Poor Richard's Almanack
Preface to Poor Richard, 1733 
The Way to Wealth: Preface to Poor Richard, 1758
The Speech of Polly Baker 
An Edict by the King of Prussia 
From Information to Those Who Would Remove to America 
Letter to Ezra Stiles [Here Is My Creed] 
Speech in the [Constitutional] Convention, at the Conclusion of Its Deliberations
THOMAS PAINE (1737–1809)
From Common Sense
Thoughts on the Present State of American Affairs
The American Crisis 
From The Age of Reason
[Profession of Faith] 
[Of Myth and Miracle] 
[Christian Revelation and Nature] 
[First Cause: God of Reason] 
[Recapitulation]
JOHN ADAMS (1735–1826) and ABIGAIL ADAMS (1744–1818)
Letters
THOMAS JEFFERSON (1743–1826)
The Declaration of Independence 
First Inaugural Address 
From Notes on the State of Virginia
[A Southerner on Slavery] 
[Speech of Logan]
Letter to Dr Benjamin Rush [The Christian Deist] 
Letter to John Adams [The True Aristocracy]
OLAUDAH EQUIANO (1745?–1797?)
From The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano
Chapter 2 [Horrors of a Slave Ship] 
Chapter 3 [Travels from Virginia to England] 
Chapter 7 [He Purchases His Freedom]
PHILLIS WHEATLEY (1753?–1784)
To the University of Cambridge, in New-England 
On Being Brought from Africa to America 
On the Death of the Reverend Mr. George Whitefield 
An Hymn to the Evening 
To S. M. a Young African Painter, on Seeing His Works 
To His Excellency General Washington
THE FEDERALIST (1787–1788)
The Federalist No. 1 [Alexander Hamilton] 
The Federalist No. 10 [James Madison]
PHILIP FRENEAU (1752–1832)
To Sir Toby 
To the Memory of the Brave Americans 
On Mr. Paine's Rights of Man 
The Wild Honey Suckle 
The Indian Burying Ground 
On the Universality and Other Attributes of the God of Nature
JOEL BARLOW (1754–1812)
The Hasty–Pudding
ROYALL TYLER (1757–1826)
The Contrast
SUSANNA HASWELL ROWSON (1762–1824)
From Charlotte Temple: A Tale of Truth
Preface 
Chapter I A Boarding School 
Chapter VI An Intriguing Teacher 
Chapter VII Natural Sense of Propriety Inherent in the Female Bosom 
Chapter IX We Know Not What a Day May Bring Forth 
Chapter XII 
Chapter XVIII Reflections 
Chapter XX 
Chapter XXXIII Which People Void of Feeling Need Not Read 
Chapter XXXIV Retribution
CHARLES BROCKDEN BROWN (1771–1810)
From Edgar Huntly
Chapter XV 
Chapter XVI 


THE ROMANTIC TEMPER, 1800-1870
Regional Influences 
Nature and the Land 
The Original Native Americans 
Timeline: The Romantic Temper 
RED JACKET (c. 1752–1830)
[The Great Spirit Has Made Us All]
TECUMSEH (1768–1813)
[The White Men Are Not Friends to the Indians]
WASHINGTON IRVING (1783–1859)
From The Sketch Book
The Author's Account of Himself
Rip Van Winkle 
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow 


CROSSCURRENTS: Romanticism and the American Indian 
SIR WALTER SCOTT (1771–1832)
[The Novel and the Romance]
WASHINGTON IRVING (1783–1859)
*Traits of Indian Character
JANE JOHNSTON SCHOOLCRAFT [BAMEWAWAGEZHIKAQUAY] (1800–1842)
*Invocation: To My Material Grandfather on Hearing of His Descent from Chippewa Ancestors Misrepresented
WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS (1806–1870)
[The American Romance]
LYDIA MARIA CHILD (1802–1880)
*The Lone Indian
LYDIA HOWARD HUNTLEY SIGOURNEY (1791–1865)
The Indian’s Welcome to the Pilgrim Fathers 
Indian Names 
JAMES FENIMORE COOPER (1789–1851)
From The Pioneers, or The Sources of the Susquehanna
Chapter I 
Chapter III 
Chapter IV 
Chapter V 
Chapter VII 
Chapter XVII 
Chapter XVIII 
Chapter XXII 
Chapter XXIII 
Chapter XXIV 
Chapter XXVI 
Chapter XXVII 
Chapter XXVIII 
Chapter XXX 
Chapter XXXI 
Chapter XXXIII 
Chapter XXXV 
Chapter XXXVI 
Chapter XXXVII 
Chapter XXXVIII 
Chapter XXXIX 
Chapter XL 
Chapter XLI
CATHERINE MARIA SEDGWICK (1789–1867)
From Hope Leslie, or Early Times in Massachusetts
Chapter II 
Chapter III 
Chapter IV 
Chapter V 
Chapter VI 
Chapter VII
WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT (1794–1878)
Thanatopsis 
The Yellow Violet 
Inscription for the Entrance to a Wood 
To a Waterfowl 
A Forest Hymn 
To Cole, the Painter, Departing for Europe 
To the Fringed Gentian 
The Prairies 
The Poet 
The Death of Lincoln
HENRY ROWE SCHOOLCRAFT (1793–1864)
Manabozho or, The Great Incarnation of the North
CAROLINE STANSBURY KIRKLAND (1801–1864)
From A New Home: Who'll Follow?
Chapter I 
Chapter II 
Chapter V 
Chapter VI
FRANCIS PARKMAN (1823–1893)
From The Oregon Trail
Chapter XXIV: The Chase 


*CROSSCURRENTS: Nature and the Environment in a New World 
FRANCIS HIGGINSON (1586–1630)
From New England’s Plantation
WILLIAM BARTRAM (1739–1832)
From Travels through North and South Carolina, Georgia, East and West Florida
[Indian Corn, Green Meadows, and Strawberry Fields]
JOHN JAMES AUDUBON (1785–1851)
*From The Ornithological Biography
Kentucky Sports
FRANCIS PARKMAN (1823–1893)
*From The Oregon Trail
Chapter VII: The Buffalo
JANE JOHNSTON SCHOOLCRAFT [BAMEWAWAGEZHIKAQUAY] (1800–1842)
*On Leaving My Children John and Jane at School, in the Atlantic States, and Preparing to Return to the Interior 


ROMANTICISM AT MID-CENTURY 
EDGAR ALLAN POE (1809–1849)
Romance 
Sonnet—To Science 
Lenore 
The Sleeper 
Israfel 
To Helen 
The City in the Sea 
Sonnet—Silence 
The Raven 
Ulalume 
The Bells 
Annabel Lee 
Ligeia 
The Fall of the House of Usher 
*The Tell-Tale Heart 
The Purloined Letter 
The Cask of Amontillado 
The Philosophy of Composition
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE (1804–1864)
My Kinsman, Major Molineux 
Young Goodman Brown 
The Minister's Black Veil 
The Maypole of Merry Mount 
The Birthmark 
Rappaccini's Daughter 
Ethan Brand 
Preface to The House of the Seven Gables 
Preface to the Second Edition of The Scarlet Letter 
The Custom-House 
The Scarlet Letter
HERMAN MELVILLE (1819–1891)
From Hawthorne and His Mosses 
Bartleby the Scrivener 
Benito Cereno 
The Portent 
The March into Virginia 
A Utilitarian View of the Monitor's Fight 
The College Colonel 
An Uninscribed Monument 
The Maldive Shark 
Lone Founts 
Art 
Billy Budd, Sailor 


TRANSCENDENTALISM 
RALPH WALDO EMERSON (1803–1882)
Nature 
The American Scholar 
The Divinity School Address 
Self-Reliance 
The Over-Soul 
The Poet 
Concord Hymn 
Each and All 
The Rhodora 
The Snow-Storm 
Hamatreya 
The Apology 
Ode (Inscribed to W. H. Channing) 
Brahma 
Days
MARGARET FULLER (1810–1850)
From Woman in the Nineteenth Century 


CROSSCURRENTS: Transcendentalism, Women, and Social Ideals 
ELIZABETH PEABODY (1804–1894)
[Labor, Wages, and Leisure]
CHARLES DICKENS (1812–1870)
From American Notes
[The Mill Girls of Lowell]
ELIZABETH CADY STANTON (1815–1902)
Declaration of Sentiments [Seneca Falls, 1848]
SOJOURNER TRUTH (C 1797–1883)
[Ar’n’t I a Woman?]
FANNY FERN (1811–1872)
Aunt Hetty on Matrimony 
The Working–Girls of New York 


HENRY DAVID THOREAU (1817–1862)
Walden 
Civil Disobedience 
Life without Principle 


THE HUMANITARIAN SENSIBILITY AND THE INEVITABLE CONFLICT, 1800-1870
Democracy and Social Reform 
Inevitable Conflict 
Timeline: The Humanitarian Sensibility and the Inevitable Conflict 


CROSSCURRENTS: Slavery, the Slave Trade, and the Civil War 
BRITON HAMMON (fl 1760)
From Narrative of the Uncommon Sufferings, and Surprizing Deliverance of Britton Hammon, a Negro Man
WILLIAM CUSHING (1732–1810)
[Slavery Inconsistent with Our Conduct and Constitution]
ALEXANDER FALCONBRIDGE (1760–1792)
*From An Account of the Slave Trade, on the Coast of Africa
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW (1807–1882)
The Witnesses 
The Quadroon Girl
LYDIA MARIA CHILD (1802–1880)
[Reply to Margaretta Mason]
SARAH MORGAN (1842–1909)
From The Civil War Diary of Sarah Morgan
SARAH MORGAN BRYAN PIATT (1836–1919)
*Army of Occupation 


HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW (1807–1882)
A Psalm of Life 
The Arsenal at Springfield 
From The Song of Hiawatha
III Hiawatha's Childhood 
IV Hiawatha and Mudjekeewis 
V Hiawatha's Fasting 
VII Hiawatha's Sailing 
XXI The White Man's Foot
The Jewish Cemetery at Newport 
My Lost Youth 
Divina Commedia 
The Tide Rises, the Tide Falls 
The Cross of Snow
JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER (1807–1892)
Massachusetts to Virginia 
First-Day Thoughts 
Telling the Bees 
Laus Deo 
Snow-Bound
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES (1809–1894)
Old Ironsides 
The Last Leaf 
My Aunt 
The Chambered Nautilus
ABRAHAM LINCOLN (1809–1865)
Farewell Address at Springfield 
Reply to Horace Greeley 
Address at the Dedication of the Gettysburg National Cemetery 
Second Inaugural Address
HARRIET BEECHER STOWE (1811–1896)
From Uncle Tom's Cabin; or Life among the Lowly
Chapter VII: The Mother's Struggle 
Chapter XIX: Miss Ophelia's Experiences and Opinions, Continued 
Chapter XL: The Martyr 
Chapter XLI: The Young Master
From Oldtown Folks
Miss Asphyxia
HARRIET JACOBS (1813–1897)
From Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
VI: The Jealous Mistress 
XVII: The Flight 
XVIII: Months of Peril 
XIX: The Children Sold
FREDERICK DOUGLASS (1817?–1895)
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL (1819–1891)
From A Fable for Critics 
From The Biglow Papers, First Series
No I: A Letter
From Ode Recited at the Harvard Commemoration
REBECCA HARDING DAVIS (1831–1910)
Life in the Iron-Mills 


CROSSCURRENTS: Faith and Crisis 
HERMAN MELVILLE (1819–1981)
*From Moby-Dick, or, The Whale
From Chapter 41, Moby-Dick
SARAH MORGAN BRYAN PIATT (1836–1919)
*No Help
EMILY DICKINSON (1830–1886)
*338 [I know that He exists] 
376 [Of course—I prayed—] 


PIONEERS OF A NEW POETRY, 1855-1892
WALT WHITMAN (1819–1892)
Preface to the 1855 Edition of Leaves of Grass 
Song of Myself 
Once I Pass'd Through a Populous City 
Facing West from California's Shores 
For You O Democracy 
I Saw in Louisiana a Live-Oak Growing 
I Hear It Was Charged Against Me 
Crossing Brooklyn Ferry 
Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking 
As I Ebb'd with the Ocean of Life 
When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer 
The Dalliance of the Eagles 
Beat! Beat! Drums! 
Cavalry Crossing a Ford 
Vigil Strange I Kept on the Field One Night 
A March in the Ranks Hard-Prest, and the Road Unknown 
A Sight in Camp in the Daybreak Gray and Dim 
The Wound-Dresser 
Reconciliation 
When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd 
There Was a Child Went Forth 
To a Common Prostitute 
The Sleepers 
A Noiseless Patient Spider 
To a Locomotive in Winter 
So Long! 
Good-bye My Fancy! 
From Specimen Days
Abraham Lincoln 
The Million Dead, Too, Summ'd Up
EMILY DICKINSON (1830–1886)
49 [I never lost as much but twice] 
67 [Success is counted sweetest] 
130 [These are the days when Birds come back—] 
214 [I taste a liquor never brewed—] 
241 [I like a look of Agony] 
249 [Wild Nights—Wild Nights!] 
252 [I can wade Grief—] 
258 [There's a certain Slant of light] 
280 [I felt a Funeral, in my Brain] 
285 [The Robin's my Criterion for Tune—] 
288 [I'm Nobody! Who are you?] 
290 [Of Bronze—and Blaze—] 
303 [The Soul selects her own Society—] 
320 [We play at Paste—] 
324 [Some keep the Sabbath going to Church] 
328 [A Bird came down the Walk—] 
341 [After great pain, a formal feeling comes—] 
401 [What Soft—Cherubic Creatures—] 
435 [Much Madness is divinest Sense—] 
441 [This is my letter to the World] 
448 [This was a Poet—It is That] 
449 [I died for Beauty—but was scarce] 
465 [I heard a Fly buzz—when I died—] 
511 [If you were coming in the Fall] 
556 [The Brain, within its Groove] 
579 [I had been hungry, all the Years—] 
585 [I like to see it lap the Miles—] 
632 [The Brain—is wider than the Sky—] 
636 [The Way I read a Letter's—this—] 
640 [I cannot live with You—] 
650 [Pain—has a Element of Blank—] 
657 [I dwell in Possibility—] 
701 [A Thought went up my mind today—] 
712 [Because I could not stop for Death—] 
732 [She rose to His Requirement—dropt] 
754 [My Life had stood—a Loaded Gun—] 
816 [A Death blow is a Life blow to Some] 
823 [Not what We did, shall be the test] 
986 [A narrow Fellow in the Grass] 
1052 [I never saw a Moor—] 
1078 [The Bustle in a House] 
1082 [Revolution is the Pod] 
1100 [The last Night that She lived] 
1129 [Tell all the Truth but tell it slant—] 
1207 [He preached upon "Breadth" till it argued him narrow—] 
1263 [There is no Frigate like a Book] 
1304 [Not with a Club, the Heart is broken] 
1463 [A Route of Evanescence] 
1540 [As imperceptibly as Grief] 
1587 [He ate and drank the precious Words—] 
1624 [Apparently with no surprise] 
1732 [My life closed twice before its close—] 
1760 [Elysium is as far as to] 
Letters 
[To Recipient Unknown, about 1858] 
[To Recipient Unknown, about 1861] 
[To Recipient Unknown, early 1862?] 
[To TW Higginson, 15 April 1862] 
[To TW Higginson, 25 April 1862] 
[To TW Higginson, 7 June 1862] 
[To TW Higginson, July 1862] 
[To TW Higginson, August 1862] 


Historical-Literary Timeline 
Bibliography 
Acknowledgments