disunited states historiography

democracy a central concept, the creators of the constitution were ANTISLAVERY, two DEMOCRACIES emerged (free-labour democracy of the North and the slaveholders’ democracy of the South)

sean wilentz

1619 project - the US founded as a SLAVEOCRACY

nikole hannah-jones

the land is central, US mythologised as terra nullius before occupation, violence as central to settler-colonial aims

roxanne dunbar-ortiz

early disunity was central - THE DIVERSE CLIMATES, LANDSCAPES, ETHNICITIES, AND CLASSES IN TEH VAST UNITED STATES SEEMED TO DEFY UNIFICATION IN ONE SUPER-REPUBLIC

alan taylor

micro-dynamics of debate over the Constitution’s nature/purpose/qualities

jonathan gienapp

DISAGREES WITH WILENTZ, ‘property in man’ element of the Constitution enables and bolsters slavery. the growth of the institution of slavery between 1789 and 1860 demonstrates this

nicholas guyatt

need to revise the idea of the US as a ‘nation of immigrants’. federalists wanted to establish an explicitly homogenous American national citizenship

douglas bradburn

emphatic of the federalists’ requirement for immigrants to have moral training/conditioning to be fit for the US

Scot Zentner and Michael LeMay

enslaved women’s VIOLENT resistance - enslaved women reinterpreted violence for their own use. they were not passive victims. RESISTIVE CULTURAL LANDSCAPE

erin shearer

reproductive labour of enslaved women was essential to the logic of inherited slavery

tamika nunley

RIVAL GEOGRAPHY, truancy (christian worship, party-going, relationships), enslaved women were the targets of violence from all sides (enslaved men, enslaving men/women), enslaved women’s bodies as sites of resistance

stephanie camp

original concept of day-to-day resistance

Raymond Bauer and Alice Bauer

enslaved people already symbolically married to their enslavers, difficulty of chosen relationships (though these were important examples of resistance)

tera hunter

history of enslaved emotions difficult to trace but demonstrates the different more personal forms of resistance enslaved people could do

rebecca fraser

charity bryant and sylvia drake, ‘female husbands’ and ‘sapphic slashers’ (fears of lesbians in popular culture), IMPOSSIBILITY of same-sex marriage

rachel hope cleves

marriage as a CONTRACT fundamental to normative american society

nancy cott

‘transing gender’, societal punitiveness towards ‘female husbands’ and female-born people who lived as men/male-presenting

jen manion

INDIGENOUS polities were essential to the mexican-american war through how they remade the ground upon which the war was fought. comanche and apache attacks on northern mexicans prior to 1846. TEXAN CREATION MYTH NEGATES THIS

brian delay

texas’s foreignness/majority anglo population - the US was once a vibrant settler nation ripe with opportunity but had been degraded/lost direction. texas moment (independent from mexico in 1836) provided space / opportunity / etc

thomas richards jr

de facto indigenous slavery, need to diffuse the mythologised idea of california as the bastion of freedom and opportunity

stacey smith

gold rush imperialism

elliott west

non-coercion of chinese migrant labourers in california

erika lee

black people were legally free in california but did not have the social standing to claim their rights as free workers

jean pfaelzer

both republicans and democrats focused on the propaganda value of the kansas-nebraska issue going forward

james mcpherson

CONDITIONAL UNIONISM, spectrum of southern nationalism, white southerners shaped their identities around the language of affection, brotherhood, romance

paul quigley

for southerners, secession was both an end and a beginning. the PEOPLE and the CITIZENRY were WHITE and MALE

stephanie mccurry

during secession/ the 1850s - there were MANY SOUTHS not a homogenous region by any means

david blight

KNOW NOTHINGISM - lyman beecher wanted to bring evangelical protestantism to the west (to be the seat of America’s growing empire). know nothingism aided the connection between anti-catholic and xenophobic traditions

erika lee

influence of know nothings on immigration control in new york and massachussetts - under the know nothings’ influence, new york became a deportation state like massachussetts

hidetaka hirota