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Homelands and Empires: Multi-national competition for territorial control in North America, 1650–1776 (Second in the 250th- Anniversary Series, “The Shot Heard ’Round the World”)

This course first explores the competition for space that pitted Indigenous peoples, imperial forces, and settlers against each other in northeastern North America before the British conquest in the Seven Years’ War of 1763. The conflict far to our north in the Canadian Maritimes in the 18th century was not unique to that region. Earlier attempts by English settlers to establish settlements from New England south to the mid-Atlantic colonies resulted in persistent strife and deadly confrontations over land, cultural practices, trade, and resources with the Indigenous tribes who had occupied those lands for thousands of years. We will examine the causes and outcomes of the Pequot War, the Beaver Wars, King Philip's War, and other conflicts. We will then look at the crucial period between 1760 and 1776, during which British occupiers increasingly clashed with the residents of Boston, New York, and Philadelphia. The settlers’ growing dissatisfaction with rule from across the sea motivated a handful of notable men—Jefferson, Franklin, John and Samuel Adams, Thomas Paine, and Patrick Henry—to speak out eloquently against indignities and infringements on their rights. Their protests provoked actions that would soon bring on America’s Revolutionary War.

Instructors: Jeffers Lennox and Richard Friswell

4 Thursdays, 6:30–8:30 Oct. 23 & 30, Nov. 6 & 13, Wasch Center