You should be able to identify the following:
q Iroquois Creation Story—try to keep in mind the details of the story of a woman falling from the sky, giving birth to warring twins who create the world and "real people"; think of ways in which the twins represent the dual nature of good and evil.
q Winnebago Trickster Cycle—pay attention to the various characters of the Trickster and what the characters seem to say about change in life and how lessons are learned.
q Samson Occom—pay attention to what is between the lines of Occom's narrative—his recognition of what the European Americans want from Native Americans (that they convert to Christianity, live in houses, farm, keep livestock and so on); notice Occom's feelings regarding the justice of the pay he receives for the work of a minister.
q Benjamin Franklin, "Remarks Concerning the Savages of North America"—keep in mind the obvious irony Franklin uses in discussing the Native American people as they relate to the European Americans; through his explanation of the Native American's "savage" perspective, Franklin is able to question and comment upon white education, the role of women in society, social characteristics such as speaking and interrupting, manners, hospitality and so on.
q John Adams and Abigail Adams—remember that theirs is an intimate human relationship reflected in emotions revealed and details of daily life discussed; at the same time, however, remember that both are intimately connected to the founding of a new nation in the revolutionary age at the end of the eighteenth century; be conscious of how they attempt to keep a marriage alive and well during the birth pains of revolution.
You should be able to identify and discuss the important ideas found in the following:
q Thomas Jefferson, draft of the Declaration of Independence and Notes on the State of Virginia—understand Jefferson's draft of the Declaration as a rational document for a rational world, an "enlightened" document that makes no effort toward saying who or what is American. Also keep in mind what Jefferson has to say about religious tolerance in Notes.
q J. Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur, Letters from an American Farmer—be familiar with the definition of an American according to Crèvecoeur, as well as his ideas about America as a great melting pot of humanity (or at least the part of humanity that comes from Europe); notice also what mode and location of life he identifies as the best in the New World.
q The Cherokee Memorials—Keep in mind the contradictory treatment discussed, of the Cherokee (Native Americans) as 1) subjects under the government of the United States (“tenants at will”) and 2) independent people of a separate nation. Remember that the Cherokee did a great deal in order to modernize and Christianize themselves—building roads, houses, developing farms, maintaining a newspaper, creating a national constitution—but their efforts were not enough. The Indian Removal Act of 1830 was passed and enacted anyway.
q William Cullen Bryant, "The Prairies"—The speaker of Bryant's poem admires the vastness of the American landscape with the sensibility of a Romantic observer. But for new Americans, the physical grandeur of their country had no historical or cultural match. Thinking of the relatively few years the United States had been in existence, Bryant, like others, searches for a usable past and finds it in a mystical, ancient race of people who, he suggests, once lived on the American continent but were practically wiped out by the violent "red man." Bryant doesn't seem to recognize the irony inherent in the fact that, as he condemns the Native Americans of his day and age for having wiped out this ancient (imaginary) race, his own people—now the "white man"—are wiping out those Native Americans in the same way.
q William Apess, "An Indian's Looking-Glass for the White Man"—Apess points out the racism obvious in all the white man's actions. And he shows how shallow that racism is. The looking-glass—his text—that he holds up allows the white man to see a true reflection of himself: "By what you read," Apess writes, "you may learn how deep your principles are. I should say they were skin-deep" (1084). The writer boldly points out that white men can make all sorts of claims related social superiority and religious mission, but at bottom their racism is based on nothing more than skin color, nothing more than outward appearances.
q Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature—Emerson believed that the Americans of his day lived too much in the past—or, to put it another way, lived life in the "now" according to ideas and principles established in the past. He wanted his fellow citizens to live according to their own ideas and beliefs instead of those passed down by tradition and history. The world was just as interesting, just as open to exploration, in the middle of the nineteenth century as it was in the eighteenth or seventeenth. Emerson also believed that we are part of Nature, that we can find God in Nature, that we can understand the spark of divinity within ourselves through the study of Nature. All things in the world work together to "nourish man." But man does not necessarily stand outside Nature and simply be served. The spirit of Nature is part of us and we of it; we are part of the circle. People of all times and places should develop their own "original relation to the universe" and not relate to life around them as they have been told to by parents, grandparents, and books; that was the only way there could be true progress.
q Harriet Jacobs—Jacobs offers an exploration of the female trapped within the institution of slavery. Pay attention to the lengths she must go to in order to avoid the sexual advances of Dr. Flint. What means did she have to resist him? Legal means? Humanitarian means? Religious means? What does freedom mean to her when it comes without property or education or status?
q Henry David Thoreau, "Resistance to Civil Government"—Thoreau is something of an exception among his contemporaries. Many of them avoided direct reference to American society and politics, but Thoreau tackles real, concrete issues in a personal voice addressing a common reader. He speaks for the power and independence of the individual, who is above the government. The individual ought to be allowed to think for himself and decide if he wants to support some action the government is taking. If he decides not to participate—by paying a certain tax, for example—he should be allowed to do so without punishment, because the individual is "a higher and independent power" (1807). The idea that must be understood before this type of action can be realized is that a person should be an individual first and a citizen second. He should think for himself, not let the government think for him.
q Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass—Douglass's autobiography is an indictment of society, and he speaks for all Americans on behalf of America's highest ideals. Remember the "turning-point"—FD's fight with Covey—and consider how it led FD to stand on his own. Narrative of the Life emphasizes the collective over the individual; it is an inclusive vision meant to bring blacks and whites together. It is, furthermore, an attempt to bring all Christians together by forcing the white slaveholders to see the conflicts between their professed religious beliefs and their often inhuman practices. FD knew that blacks would never be free without white cooperation, and his profoundly patriotic work represents his attempt to appeal to the white community for the justice and equality promised to all in the Declaration of Independence.