Week 4 · Readings & resources

Week 4 — Readings & Resources

U.S. History to 1877 Free sample edition

Your primary reading is Chapter 4 (in this module). Everything below is the optional, go-deeper layer — pick what helps, skip the rest.

How to use this page

This page has 11 items (5 readings and 6 videos). Allow 101–124 minutes for everything. Each group points back to the matching chapter section and class-session segment, so use the full menu when you want more, or take the quick path below.

Every video here has captions: turn them on with the CC button in the player. The chapter covers the same ideas in text. One video describes frontier killings in plain terms; take it at your own pace.

Pick-one quick path (17–22 min total)

① A war for empire on many fronts

Chapter 4, Section “Place the Seven Years' War” · Session 1, Segment 2, “One war, many fronts” · Remember: the Seven Years' War was Britain against France for empire, and Native nations fought on both sides for their own aims.

The 1758 Battle of Carillon & the American Revolution — Fort Ticonderoga — the museum at the fort tells how a French army behind a barrier of felled trees threw back a much larger British and American force in 1758, and how officers on both sides in 1775 carried the memory of that defeat into the new war. This builds on Week 1's sourcing move: notice the carved powder horns it shows, primary sources made by soldiers who survived the battle. It follows the armies only and leaves out the Native nations who fought in the war, so pair it with the next group's readings. The video gives its own dates and casualty figures, and the course keys none of them. (video, 7 min) (captions: creator)

② The new empire, seen from Native nations

Chapter 4, Section “See the new empire from the side of Native nations” · Session 1, Segment 4, “War vs. proclamation” · Remember: the Royal Proclamation is the Crown's account of its own policy, not the Native nations' own view.

Obwandiyag (Pontiac) — The Canadian Encyclopedia — a reference entry on the Odawa leader whose alliance of Odawa, Wyandot, Potawatomi, and Ojibwe warriors besieged Fort Detroit in 1763, and on how the war pushed Britain to change course. It names more forts and dates than the chapter does; read it as corroboration of the chapter's account, not as material to memorize. (reading, 8–12 min)
The Royal Proclamation of 1763 — the Avalon Project — the full text of the king's proclamation. Skip the long boundary descriptions of Quebec, the Floridas, and Grenada at the top, and read the later paragraphs that reserve western lands to the Native nations, order settlers off them, and require land to be bought only by the Crown at a public meeting. Ask who is speaking and whose view is missing. (reading, 10–15 min)
Attack! at Michilimackinac - Colonial Michilimackinac — Mackinac State Historic Parks — a short documentary from the state historic park at the Straits of Mackinac on the Ojibwe and Sauk attack on the British post there in 1763, during the lacrosse game. It explains why the nations of the Great Lakes did not see themselves as defeated, how the British commander's end to gift-giving and the spread of new posts and settlers fed the war, and how the Odawa later brokered the release of the British captives. Actors voice a trader's diary and the words of Native leaders from period accounts, and the diary uses the harsh language of its time, so treat those passages as primary sources read aloud, not as the narrator's view. (video, 13 min) (captions: automatic)

③ Consent, the Stamp Act, and a congress of nine colonies

Chapter 4, Section “Source the Stamp Act Congress declarations” · Session 2, Segment 6, “The wrong congress” · Remember: the Stamp Act Congress met in 1765, and the Continental Congress first met in 1774.

Coming of the American Revolution: The Stamp Act — Massachusetts Historical Society — a short account, linked to letters, diaries, and broadsides in the society's collections, of how the Stamp Act passed, how crowds in Boston and New York forced stamp officers to resign, and how delegates from nine colonies met in New York City. Use it while completing the Week-4 module overview. (reading, 10–15 min)
Stamp Act Stamp: Timeline of the American Revolution — Museum of the American Revolution — the museum's chief historian holds up one of the embossed stamps the act required, a piece of blue paper under two inches on a side, and explains that colonists objected not to the stamp but to a tax laid by a Parliament in which they had no representatives. (video, 2 min) (captions: creator)
Acts of Rebellion: Stamp Act and Townshend Acts with Patrick Henry and John Dickinson (revised) — US National Archives — costumed interpreters play two colonial lawyers: one recites Virginia's resolves of 1765 against the Stamp Act, and the other explains why he thought Parliament could regulate trade but not tax the colonies for revenue. The words are a script written for the program, so treat what the characters say as interpretation, not as a document you can quote. (video, 18 min) (captions: creator)

④ From boycotts to Lexington and Concord

Chapter 4, Section “Close the road at Lexington and Concord” · Session 2, Segment 8, “From tea to gunfire” · Remember: resistance moved from petitions and boycotts to the Coercive Acts and the first fighting in 1775.

Coming of the American Revolution: Non-consumption and Non-importation — Massachusetts Historical Society — an account of the Townshend duties of 1767 and the boycotts that answered them, from merchants' agreements to homespun cloth and spinning parties, with the society's own evidence that not every merchant kept the pledge. (reading, 10–15 min)
The Intolerable Acts! — US National Archives — an interpreter playing the British commander in North America explains the Coercive Acts from the Crown's side, and then a voice actor reads a letter from Boston's leaders asking Philadelphia to stand with the town after its port was closed. Two sides of one crisis, both performed, so ask what each speaker wanted you to believe. (video, 10 min) (captions: creator)
Shot Heard 'Round the World — Museum of the American Revolution — a museum educator shows gun flints that Massachusetts militiamen dropped near the North Bridge at Concord and reads a historian's account of the fight there in 1775, a secondary source read aloud inside a museum video. Stop here before independence; next week takes that up. (video, 5 min) (captions: creator)

Optional one-stop reference (free online reference)

Declarations of the Stamp Act Congress — the Avalon Project — the full text of the week's workshop document, kept by the Avalon Project under a page title that names the Continental Congress; find the declaration on consent the course quotes, count the declarations, and check the page title against the body that adopted them. (reading, 8–12 min)

Heads-up (links rot): these point to outside sites that occasionally move or rename pages. If a link ever fails, tell your instructor and use the reference above in the meantime.

Provenance: Built with The Course Maker · samples.thecoursemaker.com