This collection of primary sources includes both classic and lesser-known documents describing the rich mosaic of American life from the pre-contact era to the present day. The sources, both public and private documents–ranging from letters, diary excerpts, stories, novels, to speeches, court cases, and government reports–tell the story of American history in the words of those who lived it.

Table of Contents:
Preface I. NORTH AMERICAN FOUNDERS 1. First Founders Christopher Columbus, Letter to Luis de Sant’ Angel (1493) Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca, “Indians of the Rio Grande” (1528-1536) Bartolome de Las Casas, “Of the Island of Hispaniola” (1542) Jacques Marquette, from The Mississippi Voyage of Joliet and Marquette (1673) Thomas Mun, from England’s Treasure by Foreign Trade (1664)   2. European Footholds on the Fringes of North America, 1600—1660 John Smith, “The Starving Time” (1624) The Laws of Virginia (1610-1611) John Winthrop, “A Model of Christian Charity” (1630) Excerpt from the Trial of Anne Hutchinson (1637) 3. Controlling the Edges of the Continent, 1660—1715 Bacon’s Rebellion: The Declaration (1676) William Penn, from "Frame of Government of Pennsylvania" (1682)  Trial of Elizabeth Clawson, Stamford, Connecticut (1692)    II. A CENTURY OF COLONIAL EXPANSION TO 1775 4. African Enslavement: The Terrible Transformation William Byrd II, Diary (1709) Olaudah Equiano, The Middle Passage (1788) Alexander Falconbridge, The African Slave Trade (1788) James Oglethorpe, Establishing the Colony of Georgia (1733) William Bull, Report on the Stono Rebellion (1739) 5. An American Babel, 1713—1763 Benjamin Franklin, “Upon Hearing George Whitefield Preach” (1771) Jonathan Edwards, from “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” (1741) Gottlieb Mittelberger, The Passage of Indentured Servants (1750) Elizabeth Sprigs, Letter to Her Father (1756) 6. The Limits of Imperial Control, 1763—1775 John Dickinson, from Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania (1768) Address of the Inhabitants of Anson County to Governor Martin (1774) Patrick Henry, “Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death” (1775) III. THE UNFINISHED REVOLUTION, 1775—1803 7. Revolutionaries at War, 1775—1783 Royal Proclamation of Rebellion (1775) The Virginia Declaration of Rights (June 12, 1776) John Adams to John Sullivan, 26 May 1776 Letter of a Revolutionary War Soldier (1776) 8. New Beginnings: The 1780s Michel-Guillaume-Jean de Crevecouer, from Letters from an American Farmer (1782) George Washington, The Newburg Address (1783) Publius (James Madison), Federalist Paper #10 (1788) George Mason, Objections to This Constitution of Government (1787) 9. Revolutionary Legacies, 1789—1803 George Washington, Farewell Address (1796) The Alien and Sedition Acts (1798) Marbury v. Madison (1803) "Petition for Access to Education" (1787) Molly Wallace, Valedictory Oration (1792) Benjamin Banneker, Letter to Thomas Jefferson (1791) Judith Sargent Murray, “On the Equality of the Sexes” (1790) IV. EXPANDING THE BOUNDARIES OF FREEDOM AND SLAVERY, 1803—1848 10. Defending and Expanding the New Nation, 1803—1818 Meriwether Lewis, Journal (1805) Tecumseh, Letter to Governor William Henry Harrison (1810) The Harbinger, Female Workers of Lowell (1836) Mary Paul, Letters Home (1845, 1846) 11. Expanding Westward: Society and Politics in the “Age of the Common Man,” 1819—1832 Andrew Jackson, First Annual Message to Congress (1829) “Memorial of the Cherokee Nation” (1830) Henry Clay, Speech Opposing President Jackson’s Veto of the Bank Bill (1832) Davy Crockett, Advice to Politicians (1833) Nat Turner, Confession (1831) Charles Finney, “Religious Revival” (1835) 12. Peoples in Motion, 1832—1848 Dorothea Dix, Appeal on Behalf of the Insane (1843) William Lloyd Garrison, from The Liberator (1831) Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Declaration of Sentiments (1848) Elizabeth Dixon Smith Greer, Journal (1847-1850) Chief Seattle, Oration (1854) John L. O’Sullivan, “The Great Nation of Futurity” (1845) Thomas Corwin, Against the Mexican War (1847)   V. DISUNION AND REUNION 13. The Crisis over Slavery, 1848—1860 The Ostend Manifesto (1854) Benjamin Drew, Narratives of Escaped Slaves (1855) Harriet Beecher Stowe, from Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852) Dred Scott v. Sanford (1857) Frederick Douglass, Independence Day Speech (1852) George Fitzhugh, “The Blessings of Slavery” John Brown, Address to the Virginia Court (1859)   14. “To Fight to Gain a Country”: The Civil War James Henry Gooding, Letter to President Lincoln (1863) Jefferson Davis, Second Inaugural Address as President of the Confederate States of America (1862) Clara Barton, Medical Life at the Battlefield (1862) Theodore A. Dodge, from Civil War Diary (1863) Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg Address (1863)   15. In the Wake of War: Consolidating a Triumphant Union, 1865—1877 Abraham Lincoln, Second Inaugural Address (1865) Mississippi Black Codes (1865) A Sharecrop Contract (1882) Congressional Testimony on the Actions of the Ku Klux Klan (1872) Civil Rights Cases (1883) Credits