Assignments (OLD)
First Term Assignments
NOTE: In addition to the weekly lessons and forums, as well as two end-of-module quizzes, there are two sets of assignments in Term 1. Each assignment has different dues dates. See the "Course at a Glance" for an overview of all Term 1 activities. More details are below.The two assignments for Term 1 together are worth 15 points (7.5 each) of your overall final grade.
Term 1, Assignment 2
- For the second assignment this term, there are two options. You will choose just 1 of the 2.
- The due date for both options is the same: ...
OPTION a -- Text Analysis: An eighteenth-century historian describes New England
Amos Adams, A concise, historical view of the difficulties, hardships, and perils which attended the planting and progressive improvements of New-England (Boston, Dilly, 1770).In our forum, we read an excerpt of from Amos Adams; here you'll use Voyant-tools as a way to explore the full-text.
In this exercise, we want you to read a primary source related to colonial-era North America. It's a source by an 18th-century historian Amos Adams that we just discussed in our Forum on the Columbian Exchange.
But in this assignment we want you to read it in a particular manner. You should already have read the excerpt in our forum. We now want you to do three things:
- First "pre-read" the book, using only the titles, publication information and your now developing general knowledge.
- Second continue pre-reading using text-mining software (Voyant) as a way to examine the patterns of topics and ideas present in the text. In particular, can these "pre-reads" allow you to hypothesize about these texts? That is, can you develop questions by which you might approach reading the text?
- Then, finally, read the actual book. Do so with an eye to both reading it critically and intelligently (as you alway would) but also to testing the impressions/hypotheses you made in your pre-read.
The object here is to say something analytical about the book and how how Voyant might help that analysis. Have a look at this video for quick pointers on using Voyant.
750 words, due May 30th
Option 2 - Critical Map Reading, I:
Early Modern maps of Africa
An exercise in critical cartography: maps are not neutral data - they have points of view. Explore three maps' viewpoints.
We love maps, especially but not only historical maps. And while we love google maps and all the GIS-based tools we have at our fingertips these days, we also still own map books. Prof Samson still carries road atlases in his car because while Google offers great directions the broader map allows him to see more context, to have a physical sense of where we're going, where we are, where we should be, what’s nearby, how did we get lost?
Historical maps are packed with data. They give us a view of landscapes, territory, communication networks, political relationships – in short, views of the political and spatial organization of societies. The image link to this text is a detail from the Cantino planisphere, a Portuguese map made in 1502 outlining Europe, Africa, and the then newly discovered islands of the Caribbean. The detail shows Elmino castle, a large Portuguese trading centre and military installation in what is today Ghana. The size of the castle is obviously not to scale, and may never have been meant to be. Its size and style suggests it was meant to symbolize Portuguese power in Africa. But this unusual representation raises the question of what's meant to be accurate and what's meant to be symbolic - and for that matter if there's a difference. At minimum it asks us to read this map critically and carefully.
It's clear that maps can give us good, hard data. But it's also true that we tend to assume that such data is objective: that these lines and objects marking places/spaces are real and beyond any substantial degree of interpretation. Over the past few years, historians and geographers have demonstrated that in fact maps are, like most texts, social constructs and thus can be read in different ways. They typically bear a relationship to power and are thus historically situated in particular political, economic, and social worlds. Maps, the geographer J.B. Harley reminds us, make claims to truth, but they almost always betray that they are constructions designed to support claims to truth, more than simply "true" in any objective sense.
Maps are representations of space but because they often bear a powerful resemblance to concrete geographic features of the planet, we tend to think they are factual, or true. As we've seen, they do contain real concrete facts. But they also contain interpretations; the map makers often made choices in what to represent and how to represent it. This human process of interpreting and selecting data adds complexity to how we must understand maps as sources and ask the same critical questions we'd ask of any sources. Are maps biased? Of course they are, but so is all human-produced data. Almost all maps contain elements that are objective, as well as elements that are subjective. The trick is to read it carefully, and critically. How then do we "read" historical maps as data?
There's lots to look for. Some maps have a lot of textual data in addition to the basic details of names and locations. Look, for example, at this detail from John Mitchell's famous map of the territory Britain and France claimed in North America on the eve of the Seven Years War. Here we're looking at a tiny section of the map which includes the area east and north of Lake Huron. The map is exquisitely detailed, but also contains over 3000 words of text (not including place names!) referring to history, territorial claims, navigation routes, distances, and much else. Such information was useful, practical information for someone (one might ask for whom?); it was also felt to add credibility, additional proof of its careful and accurate research. But is the information accurate? This text points to a real event - the Mississauga people were defeated in a war with the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) in the 17th century, but neither they nor any other peoples ever became "the eighth nation" of the Iroquois League. Does this matter? Does it matter that this information is only partly true, or misleading at best? Would it have mattered to an eighteenth-century observer? What inferences might such an observer have about this and similar information on the map? Think too about its production. Remember that maps are authored, like any text, and are usually intended for a particular audience.There were literally 100s of maps of North America available in this period. Why commission another one? Why one with this level of detail? Who would have wanted such a map? Why? Why was this map produced when it was produced? What about that moment made this information important?
Look, too, beyond the geographic features of the map itself. The legend, for example, often contains important information that can be helpful in understanding the map: what it records, where, when and by whom it was made. Legends are often inside more elaborate and artistic renditions that are called a cartouche. A cartouche is usually a frame or image designed both to add additional information - often the publication information or a legend - as well as artistic embellishments. Some are more ornamental than others, but all contain potentially useful information. One can often see themes being represented in the cartouche: a kind of key to thinking about the map. The planisphere on our header was one of the first to depict the North And South America in relation to Europe and Africa. At this point, only the Portuguese were actively venturing along the western coast of Africa and thus this map presents knowledge more or less completely new to other Europeans. It's also worth noting however that Portuguese explorers had travelled as far south as modern-day Ghana, but had gone no more than a mile or two inland - the rest is pure imagination. But these images shouldn't be dismissed as mere flights of fancy. They very often offer symbolic clues to how the mapmakers understood their subjects and the purposes of these maps.
The Newberry Library offers a nice overview of questions and important issues for when approaching historic maps as primary sources.
The assignment: Write an 750-word essay on the following early modern maps of Africa. Devote roughly half of your text to a discussion of one of the maps, and the other half comparing that map with the other two. They were produced in different times and different places and probably for different purposes. Each sought to show an audience how to see Africa: how it was shaped, who its people were, how they lived and governed themselves, and so on. And yet they also made other claims of knowledge, ones rooted more in their authors and their authors' contexts than in Africa itself. What can these maps tell us about Africa? What can these maps tell us about the early modern Atlantic World?
Resist the urge to dismiss them as all being biased. They are, no doubt, but so are most sources. The real trick is to critically examine these texts so as to find as much useful information as possible. And what is useful information? Well, that depends on what question we're asking. If we're asking about the map's ability to convey accurate geographic information, then we head in one direction. If we're asking how the map tells more about the map makers and their societies, then that sends us in other directions. But if we think those questions are unrelated, then we may be missing a lot.
Here, as in your Forum entries, you will continue to practice the analysis of primary sources. Pay particular attention to the perspectives in each document. Just as historians have different interpretations of the same questions, so too did people in the past have different interpretations of their worlds. You can consider questions such as:
- When was the map made and by whom and for whom? i.e. who was the author? what economic or social or religious or political interests did that person serve?
- When did the cartographer create the source? Is there a broader historical context? (The Mitchell map above was made on the eve of the Seven Years War, after decades of political-military struggles over North America - that context informs much of the information Mitchell included, and what he didn't include.)
- What is the source about and what did the author think about that subject?
- What information did the author wish to communicate?
- We're speaking of "an author" here by which we mean the mapmaker, or cartographer. Who that individual was, matters. But you shouldn't imagine that these maps are like a book that this mapmaker thought he'd make up on a Tuesday afternoon [and sadly the vast majority are "he"]. All these maps were commissioned. That is, someone hired this mapmaker to make this map. That's not always the case. Sometimes, particularly in some of the bigger more famous firms, they would produce something believing there to be a market for such a map. In either case, you should be thinking about that context - and why there would be a demand for, or a market for, that map - i.e. a map that portrays that place in this particular way.
- Finally, two hints: (i) most of you will assume that the map reflects the mapmaker's personal knowledge: that the person surveyed that territory and produced this map. Sometimes that's true (and in a map we'll look at later in the course, that is true), but usually it's not. And in the case of these African maps, it's absolutely clear that none of these mapmakers had ever been to Africa. Thus, you should think about how the mapmakers knew what they put to paper. (ii) many of you will also assume that the maps will become more accurate with time. Sometimes that's true; sometimes that's not. Just don't assume that's true.
You can probably think of other general questions that will help you to think about the perspective in any source.
Are you required to do any outside research? The short answer is some, but not a lot and not fancy research. We're not giving you much outside resources to work with. What you'll need, you'll have to determine. Basic online googling, will get you a fair distance: be sure to cite what you use, and choose websites that don't appear random. Wikipedia's fine for many things. But try the library. There are lots of guides and handbooks that often contain quick high-quality information. But, to be clear, most fo your discussion should focus on the maps themselves.
Tip: the images included here are fairly high quality, but the links take you to much better high-quality scans from the Library of Congress. Close reading of some of the details on the high-quality scans may be very helpful.
John Senex, Africa: corrected from the observations of the Royal Society at London and Paris (London, 1725). Source: Library of Congress.
Aaron Arrowsmith, Africa: to the committee and members of the British association discovering the interior parts of Africa this map is with their permission most respectfully inscribed. London: A. Arrowsmith, 1802. Source: Library of Congress.
Emanuel Bowen, A new & accurate map of Negroland and the adjacent countries (London,1747).
(i) Submit only one attachment
(ii) Only use file types: Word (docx), PDF, HTML, RTF, or plain text.
(iii) Always include the file extension (.docx etc).
Assignment 2
Critical Map Reading (dueWe love maps, especially but not only historical maps. And while we love google maps and all the GIS-based tools we have at our fingertips these days, we also still own map books. Prof Samson still carries road atlases in his car because while Google offers great directions the broader map allows him to see more context, to have a physical sense of where we're going, where we are, where we should be, what’s nearby, how did we get lost?
Historical maps are packed with data. They give us a view of landscapes, territory, communication networks, political relationships – in short, views of the political and spatial organization of societies. The image link to this text is a detail from the Cantino planisphere, a Portuguese map made in 1502 outlining Europe, Africa, and the then newly discovered islands of the Caribbean. The detail shows Elmino castle, a large Portuguese trading centre and military installation in what is today Ghana. The size of the castle is obviously not to scale, and may never have been meant to be. Its size and style suggests it was meant to symbolize Portuguese power in Africa. But this unusual representation raises the question of what's meant to be accurate and what's meant to be symbolic - and for that matter if there's a difference. At minimum it asks us to read this map critically and carefully.
It's clear that maps can give us good, hard data. But it's also true that we tend to assume that such data is objective: that these lines and objects marking places/spaces are real and beyond any substantial degree of interpretation. Over the past few years, historians and geographers have demonstrated that in fact maps are, like most texts, social constructs and thus can be read in different ways. They typically bear a relationship to power and are thus historically situated in particular political, economic, and social worlds. Maps, the geographer J.B. Harley reminds us, make claims to truth, but they almost always betray that they are constructions designed to support claims to truth, more than simply "true" in any objective sense.Maps are representations of space but because they often bear a powerful resemblance to concrete geographic features of the planet, we tend to think they are factual, or true. As we've seen, they do contain real concrete facts. But they also contain interpretations; the map makers often made choices in what to represent and how to represent it. This human process of interpreting and selecting data adds complexity to how we must understand maps as sources and ask the same critical questions we'd ask of any sources. Are maps biased? Of course they are, but so is all human-produced data. Almost all maps contain elements that are objective, as well as elements that are subjective. The trick is to read it carefully, and critically. How then do we "read" historical maps as data?
There's lots to look for. Some maps have a lot of textual data in addition to the basic details of names and locations. Look, for example, at this detail from John Mitchell's famous map of the territory Britain and France claimed in North America on the eve of the Seven Years War. Here we're looking at the tiny section of the map which includes the area east and north of Lake Huron. The map is exquisitely detailed, but also contains over 3000 words of text (not including place names!) referring to history, territorial claims, navigation routes, distances, and much else. Such information was useful, practical information for someone (one might ask for whom?); it was also felt to add credibility, additional proof of its careful and accurate research. But is the information accurate? This text points to a real event - the Mississauga people were defeated in a war with the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) in the 17th century, but neither they nor any other peoples ever became "the eighth nation" of the Iroquois League. Does this matter? Does it matter that this information is only partly true, or misleading at best? Would it have mattered to an eighteenth-century observer? What inferences might such an observer have about this and similar information on the map? Think too about its production. Remember that maps are authored, like any text, and are usually intended for a particular audience.There were literally 100s of maps of North America available in this period. Why commission another one? Why one with this level of detail? Who would have wanted such a map? Why? Why was this map produced when it was produced? What about that moment made this information important?
Look, too, beyond the geographic features of the map itself. The legend, for example, often contains important information that can be helpful in understanding the map: what it records, where, when and by whom it was made. Legends are often inside more elaborate and artistic renditions that are called a cartouche. A cartouche is usually a frame or image designed both to add additional information - often the publication information or a legend - as well as artistic embellishments. Some are more ornamental than others, but all contain potentially useful information. One can often see themes being represented in the cartouche: a kind of key to thinking about the map. The planisphere on our header was one of the first to depict the North And South America in relation to Europe and Africa. At this point, only the Portuguese were actively venturing along the western coast of Africa and thus this map presents knowledge more or less completely new to other Europeans. It's also worth noting however that Portuguese explorers had travelled as far south as modern-day Ghana, but had gone no more than a mile or two inland - the rest is pure imagination. But these images shouldn't be dismissed as mere flights of fancy. They very often offer symbolic clues to how the mapmakers understood their subjects and the purposes of these maps.
The Newberry Library offers a nice overview of questions and important issues for when approaching historic maps as primary sources.
The assignment: Write an 800-word essay (approximately three double-spaced pages) on the following early modern maps of Africa. Devote roughly half of your text to a discussion of one of the maps, and the other half comparing that map with the other two. They were produced in different times and different places and probably for different purposes. Each sought to show an audience how to see Africa: how it was shaped, who its people were, how they lived and governed themselves, and so on. And yet they also made other claims of knowledge, ones rooted more in their authors and their authors' contexts than in Africa itself. What can these maps tell us about Africa? What can these maps tell us about the early modern Atlantic World?
Resist the urge to dismiss them as all being biased. They are, no doubt, but so are most sources. The real trick is to critically examine these texts so as to find as much useful information as possible. And what is useful information? Well, that depends on what question we're asking. If we're asking about the map's ability to convey accurate geographic information, then we head in one direction. If we're asking how the map tells more about the map makers and their societies, then that sends us in other directions. But if we think those questions are unrelated, then we may be missing a lot.
Here, as in your Forum entries, you will continue to practice the analysis of primary sources. Pay particular attention to the perspectives in each document. Just as historians have different interpretations of the same questions, so too did people in the past have different interpretations of their worlds. You can consider questions such as:
- When was the map made and by whom and for whom? i.e. who was the author? what economic or social or religious or political interests did that person serve?
- When did he or she create the source? Is there a broader historical context? (The Mitchell map above was made on the eve of the Seven Years War, after decades of political-military struggles over North America.)
- What is the source about and what did the author think about that subject?
- What information did the author wish to communicate?
You can probably think of other general questions that will help you to think about the perspective in any source.
Are you required to do any outside research? See the "Planning Tip" below the images of the maps.
Due Friday November 6th, 5 p.m. NEW: extended to Sun., Nov. 8 at the very end of the day
John Senex, Africa: corrected from the observations of the Royal Society at London and Paris (London, 1725). Source: Library of Congress.
Aaron Arrowsmith, Africa: to the committee and members of the British association discovering the interior parts of Africa this map is with their permission most respectfully inscribed. London: A. Arrowsmith, 1802. Source: Library of Congress.
Emanuel Bowen, A new & accurate map of Negroland and the adjacent countries (London,1747).
Planning tip: in the weeks before this is due, we'll do lessons on European Expansion and Early Modern Africa, two topics that will both be useful for you in thinking about these maps and their construction. The story of these maps are very much related to their context in European expansion, Early Modern African politics, the slave trade, and the broader development of markets in the Atlantic World. And no need for bibliographies, footnotes, etc - you're not doing any additional research (just looking at these maps). If you make direct use of the Newberry Library piece noted above, or materials from the course, just say so.
* * *
Assignment 3
Comparing historiographical interpretationsSo far, each of the assignment options has required you to focus your attention on a kind or type of source used by historians: the first option, Wikipedia articles, a kind of tertiary source; and the second option, digital reproductions of early modern maps, a kind of primary source. This third option focuses your attention on interpretations by historians, and it is thus about secondary sources.
In the lesson on the British Agricultural Revolution, we introduced you to historiographical thinking, and you will get to practice it in this assignment. When we talk about historiographical thinking, we mean the way that historians (and you) make sense of primary sources from the past in lectures, essays and books. This activity of making sense of sources from the past is an essential part of what historians do, since the past and sources that have survived from it do not have any clear and undisputed meaning on their own. Before they write histories, historians have to first decide on a subject, discover sources that can help answer questions about that subject, then choose which sources to focus on (since there are often too many) and how to analyze them. All of these actions shape the kinds of answers that historians develop to the questions about the past that they ask. And even if two historians ask many of the same questions and use many of the same sources to answer them, it is unlikely that they will come up with exactly the same answers, or shape those answers in the same way.
The reason for these apparent disagreements, and for the multiplicity of histories about the same subjects, is not that historians are biased. Sure, people have preconceptions and motivations that might shape their views of the world, and historians are no exception. As we've highlighted in the instructions for the map analysis and other feedback and advice in this course, reducing differences and disagreements to authorial "bias" is not helpful. You should avoid this simplistic view -- for this assignment, and in the course overall.
The disagreements are not a weakness or problem about historiography that should trouble us. Quite the contrary! Pay attention when historians disagree, because their competing views can help you see the same subjects or questions about the past from new perspectives. Think about historiographical differences and disagreements in these terms: Authors have to make choices when they write essays and books about history, since the past is far too vast and complicated to be summarized in any single account; therefore, we can and should think about each new, different and even competing historiographical interpretation as an attempt by the author to shed some new and important light on a "past" that might otherwise remain dark to us. This way of thinking about each historiographical interpretation as a new perspective on the past does not mean that all interpretations are equally good or important or strong. Some historians might propose ways of thinking about Jesuit history in New France that are incompatible with other histories of the subject. If you run across these kinds of disagreements, the best step that you can take is to try to better understand the disagreements. When you learn to do this well, you will be learning how to make better sense of other complex social, political, and historical issues.
Your task: For this assignment option, write an essay of about 800 words (approximately 3 double-spaced, typed pages) comparing the ways three of the historians below interpret the role of Jesuit missions to Natives in New France in the 17th century. Devote about half of your paper to a close analysis of the interpretation of one of the historians, and then use the remainder of your paper to compare that historian's work to the other two (with approximately equal attention to each). Your task is not to decide which historian is right or "the best." Your task, instead, is analyze as clearly as possible about what is distinctive about one scholar's historiographical views, and then to compare and contrast that scholar's views with two others.
Here is an important tip: Do NOT think about your essay's subject as though it were about early modern Jesuits. This is kinda, sorta, almost your subject. However, you should be clear with yourself and in your writing that your main subject is the ways that particular historians interpret the actions, motivations, beliefs, etc., of early modern Jesuits. What does Blackburn argue? Which primary sources does Seeman use, and how does he use them? How does McShea respond to the arguments of earlier historians? These are examples of just a few of the kinds of questions that you will be thinking about and trying to answer for this option. When you think in these kinds of terms, you will be practising historiographical thinking. You will be writing about historians' ideas about the past.
You will notice that the lesson on missionaries that rounds out Module 2 is the basis for this assignment. In that lesson you learn about the relationship between Jesuit missionaries and Indigenous peoples in New France. You should review that lesson, and the sources in it (including the primary sources), before you start writing your essay. In that lesson you either read a chapter on this subject by Carole Blackburn and Erik Seeman. By contrast, for this assignment you have a choice of three chapters from a list of four. One of these four choices will the the main focus of your essay, and you will compare that text with two others from the list.
The lesson on missionaries provides you with questions to help you think about the sources. But remember: Your purpose in this assignment is to write about the work of historians. This means that you have to turn all questions about primary sources into questions about how Blackburn, Clair, McShea, or Seeman would read, use, interpret, etc., those primary sources.
In your analysis you should be as specific as possible about what each of the authors argues about Jesuit-Indigenous relations, and how their interpretations compare and contrast with each other. The following list of questions are among the kinds of questions that you should think about as you plan your paper:
- Who is the author? Be clear about the author, title, date of publication and the larger collection (either the book from which a chapter comes, or the journal in which an essay was published) in which the text is found.
- The dates of publication are important, since earlier authors cannot respond to works published after their work.
- How does each author define the subject, and what does each author argue about that subject? What is most important and significant about this argument for understanding the subject of Jesuits in New France?
- No argument is good without evidence and reasons? How does that author's argument use primary sources as evidence? What reasons or methods does the author provide for choosing that evidence or reading / using it in a particular way?
- You know some of the primary sources from our lesson on missionaries. Even if the work you have read from an author does not discuss the particular primary sources you know from our course's lesson, what implications might the author's interpretation have for asking questions about and interpreting primary sources about early modern Jesuits?
- No author makes a historical argument in a vacuum; instead, historians respond to earlier work. Figure out what you can about which / whose earlier arguments a historian is trying to build upon, and which / whose arguments a historian is rejecting.
- What are the benefits or limitations of each approach to the study of early modern Jesuits in New France?
- What are the main issues about which these authors agree and disagree? Why are these agreements and disagreements important historiographically?
Many of the same guidelines and suggestions that applied to the previous two assignments apply to this one, as well. For example, you do not need to include a bibliography or footnotes, as long as you are always clear in your essay about which authors and titles you are writing. You may put references to pages in parentheses, for example. Nonetheless, if you cite additional sources, it is a good idea to list them in bibliographical form.
You also are not required to do extra research, although you may certainly do some background research on each historian or about subjects or terms that you might not understand. If you write about a historian's background (e.g., education, current position, or other publications), make sure you write about what you discover only if you think it is significant for making sense of the similarities or differences of the three historians' interpretations in the assigned texts. This is because your comparative analysis of the texts is what matters the most.
When you write about the historiography (i.e., the historians' texts), try to paraphrase the authors' ideas in your own words. However, you must put quotations in quotation marks and include a page number for them. Try to limit quotations to really, really important phrases or sentences. Avoid quoting long passages, and be sure to clearly introduce and explain the significance of the quotations you do use. You should also introduce and explain the significance of ideas that you paraphrase. If you are not sure of the difference between effective quotations and paraphrases, be sure to look it up.
Here are the four texts, from which you will choose three:
- Carole Blackburn, Harvest of Souls: The Jesuit Missions and Colonialism in North America, 1632-1650 (Kingston and Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2000), 105-28. eBook
- Muriel Clair, "'Seeing These Good Souls Adore God in the Midst of the Woods': The Christianization of Algonquian Nomads in the Jesuit Relations of the 1640s," Journal of Jesuit Studies, vol. 1 (2014), 281-300.
- Bronwen McShea, "Introduction," in Apostles of Empire: The Jesuits and New France (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2019).
- Make sure also to check the endnotes for this attached chapter.
- Erik R. Seeman, The Huron-Wendat Feast of the Dead: Indian-European Encounters in Early North America (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2011), 59-79.