HIST554 The American West

This course explores the history of the trans-Mississippi

West from the 16th century to the present. Included are
historical issues associated with the region, including
cultural contact and conflict, economic development,
visions and meanings of the West, human interaction
with nature and the environment, the relationship
between western states and the federal government,
tourism, the growth of sunbelt cities, and the shifting
nature of race, class, gender, and power in the region.

Required Course Textbooks

Robert V. Hine and John Mack Faragher, The American
West: A New Interpretive History (New Haven,
Connecticut: Yale University Press, 2000).
William Cronon, Natures Metropolis: Chicago and the
Great West (New York, New York: W.W. Norton & Co.,
1992).
Erika Lee and Judy Yung, Angel Island: Immigrant
Gateway to America (New York: Oxford University Press,
2010).

Learning Objective One

Examine the major themes and issues in the History of
the American West and the historical forces that have
shaped them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJzhTEMpB04
Historian Richard White specializes in the American West,
Native American History and Environmental History,
three related fields.

Week One Learning Objectives

Form a Learning Community
Examine the major themes and issues in the History of
the American West and the historical forces that have
shaped them.
Distinguish the racial and cultural diversity of the West.
Deconstruct the variety of historical interpretation.

Week One Readings

Hine and Faragher, Introduction, Chapters 1 3
Chapter One A New World Begins
Chapter Two Contest of Cultures
Chapter Three The Struggle of Empires
The Maps of Exploration: Novus Orbis: Images of the New World
Historiography
Ancient Migration
United States History Map: Indians
The West

Topic: Collision of Cultures

A New World Begins Spanish explorers and indigenous
encounters
Columbus and Cortes
Bartolome de Las Casas
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWNXpgBGpGU
(This hour long video is a lecture by Dr. Ned Blackhawk
(Western Shoshone) on his new book, Violence Over the
Land: Lessons from the Early American West with an
Introduction by Dr. Simon Ortiz (Acomo Pueblo).
Sponsored by the Simon Ortiz and Labriola Culture
Center on Indigenous land, culture, and community at
Arizona State University and presented at the Heard

Timucua chief and French Hugenot in Florida. Watercolor

by Jacques le Moyne, 1564 (New York Public Library)

Francisco Vasquez de Coronado in the Southwest

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGM6i-1ozPk

The Spaniards arrive in the Southwest. Navajo pictogram,

Canyon del Muerto, Arizona, c. eighteenth century. Photograph
by Helga Teiwes, Arizona State Museum, University of Arizona.

Spanish conquest of the Pueblos

Contest of Cultures
French and Dutch explorers

Canadian Indian drawing by Louis Nicolas from

Codex Canadiensis, c. 1700. The Thomas
Gilcrease Institute of American History and Art,
Tulsa, OK.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xeEsNH3w604
Mini biography of Jacques Cartier

Champlain joins the Hurons in battle against the Mohawks, 1609. From Samuel de Champlain, Les Voyages de la Novelle France Occidentale(Paris, 1632), Beinecke.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Ei6ZcP4WQ8
Mini biography of Samuel Champlain

The Struggle of Empires

Tsar Peter the Great commissioned Danish-born naval

officer Vitus Bering to explore eastern lands for valuable
furs.
Bering discovered the Aleutian Islands in 1741. Once
sea otters were sent back to Russia, this began a rush of
Russian independent fur trappers and traders to the
Aleutian chain.
Native resistance was quickly crushed by 1766 and
Russians began trading with the Aleuts.

Russians trade with the Aleuts.

European Settlements in the Eighteenth Century

Learning Objective Two

Distinguish the racial and cultural diversity of the West
and how this shaped the West and the nation.

Learning Objective Three

Analyze the validity of both primary and secondary
source material.

Learning Objective Four

Deconstruct the variety of historical interpretation

Learning Objective Five

Analyze the image of the "Old West" in popular culture
versus historical reality.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPjWCpzpXxE