University of Maryland
College Park
HONR239A:
Constructing and De-Constructing the Colonial Chesapeake
Spring 2015
Syllabus
Meeting Time and Place:
Wednesday 2:00-4:30PM
ARCH 1117
Instructor:
Dennis J. Pogue, PhD
Telephone (cell): 703-314-6485
[email protected]; [email protected]
Office Hours: By appointment
Course Overview:
Over the span of the last four decades scholars from a number of related disciplines have
banded together to make the study of the Chesapeake Bay region (Maryland and
Virginia) during the colonial era one of the most fertile fields of early American history.
Including two of the first permanent English settlements in the New World, the Colonial
Chesapeake was marked by the dynamic interactions of Native American, African, and
English peoples. The culture and society that emerged was a hybrid formed from these
varied demographic strands and shaped by the shared experience of the New World
environment. As the largest and most populace region in early America, the Chesapeake
assumed a prominent place in the development of the emerging nation, and thus its study
has particular relevance to today’s world.
Historians, archaeologists, architectural historians, and museum curators and other
material culture specialists have joined forces to gather evidence from a variety of
sources to bring to bear in studying this time and place. Students will have the
opportunity to adopt those roles in gathering, manipulating, and interpreting primary data
-- both on-site and online -- to address a number of topics related to the development of
Chesapeake culture and society.
Two field trips will be scheduled to visit historic sites and/or museums in the region; the
historic Bostwick house, in Bladensburg, MD, will serve as an on-site laboratory for
studying the architectural correlates of various cultural dynamics; class will take place at
Bostwick house as needed.
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Learning outcomes – students will:
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Obtain a clearer understanding of how scholars study and interpret the past;
Become adept at critically examining and deconstructing scholarly interpretation;
Become familiar with interpreting sets of primary data derived from
archaeological sites, probate inventories, personal documents, and standing
structures;
Become well versed in the history of the Colonial Chesapeake;
Appreciate the roles played by diverse groups in the formation of Chesapeake
culture and society;
Understand the role of the Chesapeake region in the development of America and
in the founding of the nation;
Improve skills in written and oral presentation.
Grading Policies:
Students are expected to attend every class, contribute actively to discussion, and lead the
seminar in discussing a selected topic. There will be a number of in-class exercises as
well, dealing with different types of primary evidence to explore relevant topics and
issues. Each unexcused absence from class will result in reducing the class
participation grade by 10%. The University of Maryland’s “Code of Academic
Integrity” will serve as the basis for student behavior:
www.inform.umd.deu/JPO/AcInteg/code_acinteg2a.html.
The following grading scale will apply:
A+
A
AB+
B
B-
97-100%
94-96%
90-93%
87-89%
84-86%
80-83%
C+
C
CD+
D
D-
77-79%
74-76%
70-73%
67-69%
64-66%
60-63%
Assignments:
Class Participation
(15% of final grade)
Written Assignment #1 (15% of final grade)
Written Assignment #2 (20% of final grade)
Written Assignment #3 (20% of final grade)
Written Assignment #4 (30% of final grade)
Assignments are due to the instructor by the beginning of the class period on the date
specified; no late assignments will be accepted without the prior consent of the
instructor.
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Class Schedule:
Week 1: January 28
Introduction: The Lay of the Land
Reading:
 Philip Morgan, “Conclusion: The Future of Chesapeake Studies,” in Early
Modern Virginia: Reconsidering the Old Dominion (2011), pp. 300-332.
 Martha Howell and Walter Prevenier, From Reliable Sources: An Introduction to
Historical Methods (2001), pp. 1-33, 43-87.
Week 2: February 4
Before the Beginning: The Native Chesapeake
Readings:
 Stephen Potter, Commoners, Tribute, and Chiefs: The Development of Algonquian
Culture in the Potomac Valley (1993), Chapter 1: The Algonquian Country on the
Great River, 1608, pp. 7-47.
 Martin Gallivan, “Reconnecting the Contact Period and Late Prehistory,” in
Indian and European Contact in Context (2004), pp. 22-46.
 Robert Beverley, The History and Present State of Virginia (1720), Book III: Of
the Indians; firsthand accounts www.virtualjamestown.org
 Paspehegh Indian Village (44JC308) www.virtualjamestown.org
Week 3: February 11
NO CLASS
Students are expected to visit the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of the
American Indian on their own to view the exhibition, “Return to a Native Place:
Algonquian Peoples of the Chesapeake,” in time to complete the associated written
exercise due February 18. A series of directed questions will be distributed that students
will be expected to reflect upon and answer when they visit the exhibition.
Week 4: February 18
At the Beginning: Contact, Conflict, and Settlement
Readings:
 Seth Mallios, “Exchange and Violence at Ajacan, Roanoke, and Jamestown,” in
Indian and European Contact in Context (2004), pp. 126-148.
 Norman Barka, “The Archaeology of Piersey’s Hundred, Virginia, within the
Context of the Muster of 1624/5,” Archaeology of Eastern North America: Papers
in Honor of Stephen Williams (1993), pp. 313-335.
 Laura Mielke, “A Tale both Old and New: Jamestown at 400,” American
Quarterly 60, No. 1 (March 2008):173-182.
 Comparative Archaeological Study of Colonial Chesapeake Culture
www.chesapeakearchaeology.org
Week 5: February 25
Only the Dead and Dying
Readings:
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Carville Earle, “Environment, Disease, and Mortality in Early Virginia,” in The
Chesapeake in the Seventeenth Century (1979), pp. 96-125.
Lorena Walsh, “ ‘Till Death Us Do Part’: Marriage and Family in SeventeenthCentury Maryland,” in The Chesapeake in the Seventeenth Century (1979), pp.
126-152.
Written in Bone: Forensic Files of the 17th Century Chesapeake
www.anthropology.si.edu/writteninbone/index.html
Assignment #1 Due
Week 6: March 4
Adaptation and Innovation I: The Virginia House
Readings:
 Henry Forman, Virginia Architecture in the Seventeenth Century (1957).
 Fraser Neiman, “Domestic Architecture of the Clifts Plantation Site: The social
Context of Early Virginia Building,” in Common Places: Readings in American
Vernacular Architecture (1986), pp. 292-314.
 Dell Upton, “Vernacular Domestic Architecture in Eighteenth-Century Virginia,”
in Common Places: Readings in American Vernacular Architecture (1986), pp.
315-335.
 Virginia Gazette ads for houses for sale www.research.history.org
Week 7: March 11
Reading Buildings: Bostwick house
Class will be held at Bostwick house, 3901 48th St., Bladensburg, MD.
Readings:
 Edward Chappell, “Looking at Buildings,” Fresh Advices: A Research
Supplement (1984), pp. 1-7.
 Mark Wenger, “The Central Passage in Virginia: Evolution of an EighteenthCentury Living Space,” in Perspectives in Vernacular Architecture, II (1986), pp.
137-149.
Week 8: No Class -- Spring Break
Week 9: March 25
Adaptation and Innovation II: Foodways
Readings:
 Henry Miller, “An Archaeological Perspective on the Evolution of Diet in the
Colonial Chesapeake, 1620-1745,” in Colonial Chesapeake Society (1988), pp.
176-199.
 Anne Yentsch, “Minimum Vessel Lists as Evidence of Change in Folk and
Courtly Traditions of Food Use,” Historical Archaeology 24(3):24-53 (1990).
 York County Inventories www.research.history.org
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Week 10: April 1
NO CLASS
As a group we will be visiting Historic Londontown, an archaeological site and museum
located near Annapolis, MD; the field trip will take place either the weekend prior to or
the weekend following the regular class date.
Week 11: April 8
Standards of Living
Readings:
 Lois Carr and Lorena Walsh, “The Standard of Living in the Colonial
Chesapeake,” William and Mary Quarterly 45(1988):135-159.
 Anna Hawley, “The Meaning of Absence: Household Inventories in Surry
County, Virginia, 1690-1715,” in Early American Probate Inventories (1987), pp.
23-31.
 Holly V. Izard, “Random or Systematic?: An Evaluation of the Probate Process,”
Winterthur Portfolio 32.2/3(1997):147-167.
 Comparative Archaeological Study of Colonial Chesapeake Culture
www.chesapeakearchaeology.org
Assignment #2 Due
Week 12: April 15
Gendered Chesapeake: Add Women and Stir
 Walsh, “ ‘Till Death Do Us Part’ ” [review]
 David Hackett Fischer, “Virginia Gender Ways” and “Virginia Sex Ways,” in
Albion’s Seed: Four British Folkways in America (1989), pp. 286-306.
 Terri Snyder, “ ‘To Seeke for Justice’: Gender Servitude, and Household
Governance in the Early Modern Chesapeake,” in Early Modern Virginia (2011),
pp. 128-157.
 York County Inventories www.research.history.org
Week 13: April 22
The World They Made Together
Readings:
 L. Daniel Mouer, “Chesapeake Creoles: The Creation of Folk Culture in Colonial
Virginia,” in The Archaeology of 17th-Century Virginia (1993), pp. 105-166.
 Barbara Heath, “Space and Place within Plantation Quarters in Virginia, 17001825,” in Cabin, Quarter, Plantation: Architecture and Landscapes of North
American Slavery (2010), pp. 156-176.
 Dell Upton, “White and Black Landscapes in 18th-Century Virginia,” in Material
Life in America, 1600-1860 (1988), pp. 357-369.
 Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Data Base www.slavevoyages.org
 The Geography of Slavery, runaway slave ads www.vcdh.virginia.edu
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Week 14: April 29
Gentility and Consumer Behavior
Readings:
 Karin Calvert, “The Function of Fashion in Eighteenth-Century America,” in Of
Consuming Interests: The Style of Life in the Eighteenth Century (1994), pp. 252283.
 Rodris Roth, “Tea-Drinking in Eighteenth-Century America: Its Etiquette and
Equipage,” in Material Life in America, 1600-1860 (1988), pp. 439-462.
 Anne Smart Martin, “Common People and the Local Store: Consumerism in the
Rural Virginia Backcountry,” in Common People and their Material World
(1995), pp. 39-53.
 Probing the Past: Virginia and Maryland Probate Inventories, 1740-1810
http://chnm.gmu.edu/probateinventory/index.php
Assignment #3 Due
Week 15: May 6
Student Presentations
Assignment #4 is due to the instructor via e-mail by 5:00PM on May 13
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