HIST 366

North Carolina History to 1865

Harry Watson

THEMES.  This is a course on North Carolina from the earliest Indian settlements through the Civil War.  We will examine leading events of the state's history, and how they were shaped the actions of individuals and by larger historical movements.  Specific topics will include North Carolina’s Native Americans, the Lost Colony, the Lords Proprietors, the introduction of slavery, the Regulator War, the com­ing of the American Revolution, North Carolina and the federal union, slavery, antebellum society and politics, and the experience of the Civil War.  We will also be looking at the ways historians examine evidence, form conclusions, and put their thoughts into writing.  In other words, the course ought to provide some specific knowledge about the history of our state and also a contribution to your general education.

REQUIREMENTS.  The usual format of the class will be two lectures and one discussion sec­tion every week.  There will be lectures on most Mondays and Wednesdays and discus­sion sec­tions on most Thursdays or Fridays.  

Written work will include a midterm test, a final exam, and two short papers (about 5 pages) based on the reading assign­ments.  Grading will be based on a ten-point scale and all tests will consist of essay-type questions.  The papers and the midterms will each count twenty percent of the final grade, class participation will count ten percent, and the final exam will count thirty percent.  The final exam will be cumulative.

An assignment sheet for the short papers will contain three topics.  Every­one is required to write on topic 1. You may choose to write on either topic 2 or topic 3, or you may write on them all and we will count the two highest grades. 

LECTURES.  Since there is no overall textbook for the course, lectures are needed for basic background and continuity.  Lecture outlines are available at the “Blackboard” site, but the lec­ture content is not, so regular attendance is extremely important. 

DISCUSSION SECTIONS.  Students will meet in small groups with a teaching assistant nearly every week.  The sections will be used to go over the week’s reading, answer questions about unfamiliar material, and to explain the requirements for exams and paper assignments.  Each teaching assistant will also be the grader for the students for his or her students

COURSE PACK.  Most of the reading assignments will consist of primary sources that offer eyewit­ness accounts of North Carolina's past.  They include explorers' reports, colonial wills, protest pamphlets, slave narratives, plantation diaries, and similar materials.  These materials will be found in the course pack, available from Student Stores.

Most of the weekly discus­sion sections will be devoted to analyzing and interpreting the meaning of the documents assigned for that particular week.  Sources like these are the raw materials from which historians construct their accounts of the past; reading them will give you a chance to be your own historian of North Carolina week by week. 

Some assignments may be difficult and must be studied carefully, but they should repay the effort you put into reading them.  Prepare for each discussion section by reading and analyzing its reading assignment very carefully.   Use the study questions at the end of each chapter in the course pack to guide your thinking, and work out your own answers in advance.  In the discus­sion section, you may be asked these questions, or others like them, like “What was the main idea of this passage?” You should not have to look at your notes to find the answer!