A Student Workbook for Land of Hope: An Invitation to the Great American Story

EPIGRAPH AND INTRODUCTION

ONE LONG STORY

Summary

THE EPIGRAPH AND INTRODUCTION to Land of Hope are reflections on the meaning and value of history, including some initial thoughts about what it means to be a land of hope.

For that reason, we are encouraging teachers and students alike to give close attention to them, especially the epigraph, a quotation from the novelist John Dos Passos. In many books, such quotations are merely decorative in character, but in Land of Hope, the epigraph is a key to the meaning of all that follows. It appears in the book immediately after the dedication page and before the table of contents, but here it is in its entirety, for your convenience:

Document

DOS PASSOS, THE USE OF THE PAST, FROM THE GROUND WE STAND ON: SOME EXAMPLES FROM THE HISTORY OF A POLITICAL CREED

Every generation rewrites the past. In easy times history is more or less of an ornamental art, but in times of danger we are driven to the written record by a pressing need to find answers to the riddles of today. We need to know what kind of firm ground other men, belonging to generations before us, have found to stand on. In spite of changing conditions of life they were not very different from ourselves, their thoughts were the grandfathers of our thoughts, they managed to meet situations as difficult as those we have to face, to meet them sometimes lightheartedly, and in some measure to make their hopes prevail. We need to know how they did it.

In times of change and danger when there is a quicksand of fear under men’s reasoning, a sense of continuity with generations gone before can stretch like a lifeline across the scary present and get us past that idiot delusion of the exceptional Now that blocks good thinking. That is why, in times like ours, when old institutions are caving in and being replaced by new institutions not necessarily in accord with most men’s preconceived hopes, political thought has to look backwards as well as forwards.

Epigraph Questions

Some answers may require more space than provided.

1.  When do we need history? Why?

2.  What do you think Dos Passos means by the idiot delusion of the exceptional Now?

3.  Do the conditions Dos Passos is describing apply today? That is, are old institutions caving in and being replaced by new institutions? Give some examples.

4.  Dos Passos wrote this in 1941. Are our problems today greater or more frightening than then? Do we suffer from the same idiot delusion as did previous times and peoples?

Introduction Questions

1.  What does this book seek to accomplish? What are its guiding intentions? (p. xi)

2.  What does the author mean by citizenship? (p. xi)

3.  We are, at our core, ____________ and ____________ creatures, and are one of the chief ways we find meaning in the flow of events (pp. xi-xii)

4.   ____________ is to civilized society what ____________ is to individual identity (p. xii)

5.  A culture without ____________ will necessarily be barbarous and easily tyrannized, even if it is technologically advanced. (p. xii)

6.  Where do we most reliably find our lives’ meaning?

7.  What aspect of American history does the author emphasize, treating it as the skeleton of the story?

8.  History is the study of through ____________ … but it must be if it is to be intelligible. (p. xiii)

9.  History means again and again. The past does not speak for itself, and it cannot speak to us directly. We must first ask (pp. xiii-xiv)

10.  Hope has both and meanings, ones as well as ones (p. xiv)

11.  What is the danger of having high ideals?

12.  All human beings are , as are all human enterprises. To believe otherwise is to be , and much of what passes for cynicism in our time is little more than naiveté in deep disguise. (p. xiv)

13.  The history of the United States, and of the West more generally, includes the activity of self- as part of its foundational makeup. (p. xiv)

14.  One of the worst sins of the present … is its tendency to toward the past. (p. xiv)

CHAPTER ONE

BEGINNINGS

Settlement and Unsettlement

Questions

Some answers may require more space than provided.

1.  You should assume that the author chose the title and subtitle of the chapter as indicative of its major themes. Look at and read through the portraits and pictures following p. 224 and select the three you believe best embody or exemplify these themes. Consider all the images from the beginning to the present day: which individuals and which pictures most suggest beginnings and settlement and unsettlement?

2.  There are fewer than twenty named individuals in this chapter, of whom two are worldwide religious figures (Christ and Mohammed) and two are modern writers (Mumford and Frost). Excluding those four, which THREE of the remainder seem to you most significant in the story of what will become the United States of America?

3.  In what sense can it be said that America was an idea before it became a reality?

4.  History always begins in ____________ . (p. 3)

5.  What we call history is a ____________ , organized wisely and ____________ .(p.4)

6.  The goal [of the book], in short, is to ‘be full members of a ____________ of which we are already a part.‘ (p. 4)

7.  of Who can truly be called ‘native’ to America? (p. 4) Why?

8.  The lost civilizations of ____________ , and the explorations of the ____________ and ____________ do not play an important role in this book, simply because ____________ . (pp. 5–6)

9.  Name groups that stand outside of the history of the United States but nevertheless point to the presence of America in the world’s imagination as a land of hope and refuge.

10.  We will start our history of America in the ____________ of Europe’s history. (p. 7)

11.  America would be an unusual kind of offshoot: un ____________ , un ____________ , un ____________ (p. 7)

12.  The settlement of America had its origins in the unsettlement of Europe. What did Mumford mean by this?

13.  A great upsurge in fresh energies and disruptions, converging from many different directions at once, was unsettling a great deal of what had become familiar in the older world. What were these fresh energies and disruptions, which were economic, social, religious, technological, and cultural?

14.  How did the Crusades indirectly create economic wants among Europeans? What were the barriers to satisfying these wants?

15.  What technological innovations aided in overcoming the barriers mentioned above?

16.  Trade and exploration empowered but were also enabled by the rise of two new socioeconomic and political groups: a merchant class, who might become merchant-princes, and national monarchies, of which the first four to emerge were ________________________________________________ (pp. 9–10)

17.   ____________ took the lead under the guidance of ____________ What was the goal of this national effort? How, when, and by whom was it achieved? (p.10)

18.  Why did the success of the Portuguese make them less interested in Columbus’s project but the Spanish more interested?

19.  Examine the Martellus map carefully (p. 2). Is the world depicted as mostly land or mostly water? What was Columbus right about? What was Columbus wrong about?

20.  Why is Columbus an example of what Frost means, that America is hard to see? (p.13)

21.  What we ____________ is not always what we were ____________ , and what we ____________ is not always what we ____________ . (p. 13)

Objective Questions

Put in order:

––– Balboa discovers the Pacific Ocean

––– Columbus discovers America

––– Dias discovers the Cape of Good Hope

Match the individual with his nation: (answers may be used more than once or not at all )

Document

COLUMBUS’S LOG OF HIS FIRST VOYAGE, 1492

NOTE: Columbus was interested in everything. In the interest of brevity, what follows has been edited to remove most of the geographic and botanical information. The entire log is much longer.

Thursday, 11 October. At two o’clock in the morning the land was discovered, at two leagues’ distance; they took in sail and remained under the square-sail lying to till day, which was Friday, when they found themselves near a small island, called in the Indian language Guanahani. Presently they descried people, naked, and the Admiral landed in the boat, which was armed, along with Martin Alonzo Pinzon, and Vincent Yanez his brother, captain of the Nina. The Admiral bore the royal standard; this contained the initials of the names of the King and Queen each side of the cross, and a crown over each letter Arrived on shore, they saw trees very green many streams of water, and diverse sorts of fruits. The Admiral called upon the two Captains to bear witness that he took possession of that island for the King and Queen his sovereigns, making the requisite declarations.

Numbers of the people of the island straightway collected together. Here follow the precise words of the Admiral: "As I saw that they were very friendly to us, and perceived that they could be much more easily converted to our holy faith by gentle means than by force, I presented them with some red caps, and strings of beads to wear upon the neck, and many other trifles of small value, wherewith they were much delighted, and became wonderfully attached to us. Afterwards they came swimming to the boats, bringing parrots, balls of cotton thread, javelins, and many other things which they exchanged for articles we gave them, such as glass beads, and hawk’s bells; which trade was carried on with the utmost good will.

But they seemed on the whole to me, to be a very poor people. They all go completely naked, even the women, though I saw but one girl. All whom I saw were young, not above thirty years of age, well made, with fine shapes and faces; their hair short, and coarse like that of a horse’s tail, combed toward the forehead, except a small portion which they suffer to hang down behind, and never cut. Some paint the face, and some the whole body; others only the eyes, and others the nose. Weapons they have none, nor are acquainted with them, for I showed them swords which they grasped by the blades, and cut themselves through ignorance. They have no iron, their javelins being without it, and nothing more than sticks, though some have fish-bones or other things at the ends. They are all of a good size and stature, and handsomely formed.

I saw some with scars of wounds upon their bodies, and demanded by signs the origin of them; they answered me in the same way, that there came people from the other islands in the neighborhood who endeavored to make prisoners of them, and they defended themselves. I thought then, and still believe, that these were from the continent.

It appears to me, that the people are ingenious, and would be good servants and I am of opinion that they would very readily become Christians, as they appear to have no religion. They very quickly learn such words as are spoken to them. If it please our Lord, I intend at my return to carry home six of them to your Highnesses, that they may learn our language. I saw no beasts in the island, nor any sort of animals except parrots." These are the words of the Admiral.

Saturday, 13 October. At daybreak great multitudes of men came to the shore, all young and of fine shapes, very handsome; their hair not curled but straight and coarse like horse-hair, and all with foreheads and heads much broader than any people I had hitherto seen; their eyes were large and very beautiful; they were not black, but the color of the inhabitants of the Canaries, which is a very natural circumstance, they being in the same latitude with the island of Ferro in the Canaries. They were straight-limbed without exception, and not with prominent bellies but handsomely shaped. They came to the ship in canoes, made of a single trunk of a tree, wrought in a wonderful manner considering the country; some of them large enough to contain forty or forty-five men, others of different sizes down to those fitted to hold but a single person. They rowed with an oar like a baker’s peel, and wonderfully swift. If they happen to upset, they all jump into the sea, and swim till they have righted their canoe and emptied it with the calabashes they carry with them. They came loaded with balls of cotton, parrots, javelins, and other things too numerous to mention; these they exchanged for whatever we chose to give them.

I was very attentive to them, and strove to learn if they had any gold. Seeing some of them with little bits of this metal hanging at their noses, I gathered from them by signs that by going southward or steering round the island in that direction, there would be found a king who possessed large vessels of gold, and in great quantities. I endeavored to procure them to lead the way thither, but found they were unacquainted with the route. I determined to stay here till the evening of the next day, and then sail for the southwest; for according to what I could learn from them, there was land at the south as well as at the southwest and northwest and those from the northwest came many times and fought with them and proceeded on to the southwest in search of gold and precious stones.

The natives are an inoffensive people, and so desirous to possess any thing they saw with us, that they kept swimming off to the ships with whatever they could find, and readily bartered for any article we saw fit to give them in return, even such as broken platters and fragments of glass. I saw in this manner sixteen balls of cotton thread which weighed above twenty-five pounds, given for three Portuguese ceutis. This traffic I forbade, and suffered no one to take their cotton from them, unless I should order it to be procured for your Highnesses, if proper quantities could be met with. It grows in this island, but from my short stay here I could not satisfy myself fully concerning it; the gold, also, which they wear in their noses, is found here, but not to lose time, I am determined to proceed onward and ascertain whether I can reach Cipango. At night they all went on shore with their canoes.

Sunday, 14 October. In the morning, I ordered the boats to be got ready, and coasted along the island toward the north- northeast to examine that part of it, we having landed first at the eastern part. Presently we discovered two or three villages, and the people all came down to the shore, calling out to us, and giving thanks to God. Some brought us water, and others victuals: others seeing that I was not disposed to land, plunged into the sea and swam out to us, and we perceived that they interrogated us if we had come from heaven. An old man came on board my boat; the others, both men and women cried with loud voices – Come and see the men who have come from heavens. Bring them victuals and drink. There came many of both sexes, every one bringing something, giving thanks to God, prostrating themselves on the earth, and lifting up their hands to heaven.

It was to view these parts that I set out in the morning, for I wished to give a complete relation to your Highnesses, as also to find where a fort might be built. I discovered a tongue of land which appeared like an island though it was not, but might be cut through and made so in two days; it contained six houses. I do not, however, see the necessity of fortifying the place, as the people here are simple in war-like matters, as your Highnesses will see by those seven which I have ordered to be taken and carried to Spain in order to learn our language and return, unless your Highnesses should choose to have them all transported to Castile, or held captive in the island. I could conquer the whole of them with fifty men, and govern them as I pleased. I returned to the ship, and setting sail, discovered such a number of islands that I knew not which first to visit; the natives whom I had taken on board informed me by signs that there were so many of them that they could not be numbered; they repeated the names of more than a hundred. I determined to steer for the largest, which is about five leagues from San Salvador; the others were some at a greater, and some at a less distance from that island. They are all very level, without mountains, exceedingly fertile and populous, the inhabitants living at war with one another, although a simple race, and with delicate bodies.

Monday, 15 October. About sunset we anchored near the cape which terminates the island towards the west to enquire for gold, for the natives we had taken from San Salvador told me that the people here wore golden bracelets upon their arms and legs. I believed pretty confidently that they had invented this story in order to find means to escape from us, still I determined to pass none of these islands without taking possession, because being once taken, it would answer for all times. We anchored and remained till Tuesday, when at daybreak I went ashore with the boats armed. The people we found naked like those of San Salvador, and of the same disposition. They suffered us to traverse the island, and gave us what we asked of them.

The natives we found like those already described, as to personal appearance and manners, and naked like the rest. Whatever they possessed, they bartered for what we chose to give them. I saw a boy of the crew purchasing javelins of them with bits of platters and broken glass. Those who went for water informed me that they had entered their houses and found them very clean and neat, with beds and coverings of cotton nets. Their houses are all built in the shape of tents, with very high chimneys. None of the villages which I saw contained more than twelve or fifteen of them. Here it was remarked that the married women wore cotton breeches, but the younger females were without them, except a few who were as old as eighteen years. Dogs were seen of a large and small size, and one of the men had hanging at his nose a piece of gold half as big as a castellailo, with letters upon it. I endeavored to purchase it of them in order to ascertain what sort of money it was but they refused to part with it.

Source: http://www.christopher-columbus.eu/logs.htm

Document Questions

Some answers may require more space than provided.

1.  What was Columbus’s first priority? Why?

2.  Assuming that different goals and motives are mentioned in the log more or less in order of importance – is this a reasonable assumption? – what was Columbus’s second priority after claiming the territory for Spain?

3.  What two topics does Columbus consider next?

4.  Were the natives ignorant of war?

5.  Some historians have interpreted the following to mean that Columbus immediately envisioned the natives as slaves: It appears to me, that the people are ingenious, and would be good servants and I am of opinion that they would very readily become Christians, as they appear to have no religion. They very quickly learn such words as are spoken to them. What are some possible interpretations of this passage? Try to think of at least two.

CHAPTER TWO

THE SHAPING OF BRITISH NORTH AMERICA

Questions

Some answers may require more space than provided.

1.  Name the three great dynasties that ruled over England between 1485 and 1776. (For the names and sequence of individual kings and queens, you may wish to consult the Quick and Easy Guide to the English and British Monarchy on page 296 of this Workbook.)

2.  The Reformation was a huge event in world history, bringing to an end the dominant role of ____________ in medieval religious life, reinforcing the rise of the modern nation-state (including national churches, such as the Church of England), and igniting a century and a half of religious wars, mainly in Europe but also worldwide. But the reformers (who came to be collectively termed ____________ ) also divided among themselves. Name the two principal divisions. (pp. 14–18)

3.  What did Calvinists believe? Why did English Calvinists come to be called Puritans? How did Queen Elizabeth settle the tension between Anglicans and Calvinists?

4.  Why and how was Spain the dominant power in the western hemisphere (and indeed in the world) from 1500 to, say, 1588?

5.  What was the single most important factor in the destruction of various indigenous peoples after contact with Europeans? What was the Columbian Exchange? Could the deadly diseases have been avoided?

6.  Sea power trumps land power. The defeat of the ____________ in 1588 changed the course of world history, and especially the history of what became the United States. How? (pp. 21–22)

7.  How were Spanish (and later French) governance and institutions fundamentally different from those of England?

8.  English colonization of the New World was not ____________ (p. 23)

9.  What is a joint-stock company? Why is this form of business organization best for financing risky endeavors? (pp. 23–24)

10.  Why did Jamestown nearly perish? Why did it finally survive?

11.  Who was Nathaniel Bacon?

12.  What is the (only real) difference between the Pilgrims and the Puritans?

13.  What is the social contract?

14.  What was John Winthrop’s vision for Puritan Massachusetts?

15. Be able to contrast the motives and experiences and principles of Virginia and New England. Which do you think has shaped America more? Be prepared to defend your answer in class or in writing.

16.  How did dissidence among the Massachusetts Puritans lead (in two opposite directions) to two new colonies?

17. How did Pennsylvania come to be?

18.  Which was the last colony to be founded? When and why?

19. To what extent were colonies founded in pursuit of high ideals, and to what extent by practical desires like wealth? (p. 30)

20.  Being a land of hope also means, at times, being a land of ____________ (p. 30)

21.  Colonial life was ____________ , and even when ____________ fail, some-thing important is learned from them (p. 30)

Objective Questions

Put in order:

––– Elizabeth I

––– Henry VIII

––– Mary I

Match the individual with the colony: (some answers may not be used)

Document 1

THE MAYFLOWER COMPACT (AGREEMENT BETWEEN THE SETTLERS AT NEW PLYMOUTH), 1020

IN THE NAME OF GOD, AMEN. We, whose names are underwritten, the Loyal Subjects of our dread Sovereign Lord King James, by the Grace of God, of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, King, Defender of the Faith, &c. Having undertaken for the Glory of God, and Advancement of the Christian Faith, and the Honour of our King and Country, a Voyage to plant the first Colony in the northern Parts of Virginia; Do by these Presents, solemnly and mutually, in the Presence of God and one another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil Body Politick, for our better Ordering and Preservation, and Furtherance of the Ends aforesaid: And by Virtue hereof do enact, constitute, and frame, such just and equal Laws, Ordinances, Acts, Constitutions, and Officers, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general Good of the Colony; unto which we promise all due Submission and Obedience. IN WITNESS whereof we have hereunto subscribed our names at Cape-Cod the eleventh of November, in the Reign of our Sovereign Lord King James, of England, France, and Ireland, the eighteenth, and of Scotland the fifty- fourth, Anno Domini; 1620.

Source: https://avalon.law.yale.edu/17th_century/mayflower.asp

Document 1 Questions

Some answers may require more space than provided.

1.  What, in this context, is meant by a covenant or compact?

2.  What is the purpose of the establishment of the Plymouth Colony?

3.  The Pilgrims secured a land patent from the Virginia Company, permitting them to establish an English colony where they could practice their faith freely. Yet they made landfall in 1620 at what is today Cape Cod, which created a problem for the group. What was the problem?

4.  What did the Mayflower Compact do?

5.  What did they believe to be the function of government?

6.  The men who signed the Compact obviously were bound by it. Who else was bound by it?

Document 2

JOHN WINTHROP, A MODELL OF CHRISTIAN CHARITY, 163O (EXCERPTS)

The end [of our actions] is to improve our lives to do more service to the Lord; the comfort and increase of the body of Christ, whereof we are members; that ourselves and posterity may be the better preserved from the common corruptions of this evil world, to serve the Lord and work out our Salvation under the power and purity of his holy ordinances.

For the means whereby this must be effected: they are twofold, a conformity with the work and end we aim at. These we see are extraordinary, therefore we must not content ourselves with usual ordinary means. Whatsoever we did, or ought to have, done, when we lived in England, the same must we do, and more also, where we go. That which the most in their churches maintain as truth in profession only, we must bring into familiar and constant practice; as in this duty of love, we must love brotherly without dissimulation, we must love one another with a pure heart fervently. We must bear one another’s burdens. We must not look only on our own things, but also on the things of our brethren. Neither must we think that the Lord will bear with such failings at our hands as he do the from those among whom we have lived….

Thus stands the cause between God and us. We are entered into covenant with Him for this work. We have taken out a commission. The Lord hath given us leave to draw our own articles. We have professed to enterprise these and those accounts, upon these and those ends. We have hereupon besought Him of favor and blessing. Now if the Lord shall please to hear us, and bring us in peace to the place we desire, then hath he ratified this covenant and sealed our Commission, and will expect a strict performance of the articles contained in it; but if we shall neglect the observation of these articles which are the ends we have propounded, and, dissembling with our God, shall fall to embrace this present world and prosecute our carnal intentions, seeking great things for ourselves and our posterity, the Lord will surely break out in wrath against us; be revenged of such a [sinful] people and make us know the price of the breaches of such a covenant.

Now the only way to avoid this shipwreck, and to provide for our posterity, is to follow the counsel of Micah, to do justly, to love mercy, to walk humbly with our God. For this end, we must be knit together, in this work, as one man. We must entertain each other in brotherly affection. We must be willing to abridge ourselves of our superfluities, for the supply of other’s necessities. We must uphold a familiar commerce together in all meekness, gentleness, patience and liberality. We must delight in each other; make other’s conditions our own; rejoice together, mourn together, labor and suffer together, always having before our eyes our commission and community in the work, as members of the same body. So shall we keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. The Lord will be our God, and delight to dwell among us, as his own people, and will command a blessing upon us in all our ways. So that we shall see much more of his wisdom, power, goodness and truth, than formerly we have been acquainted with. We shall find that the God of Israel is among us, when ten of us shall be able to resist a thousand of our enemies; when he shall make us a praise and glory that men shall say of succeeding plantations, the Lord make it like that of New England. For we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us. So that if we shall deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken, and so cause him to withdraw his present help from us, we shall be made a story and a by-word through the world. We shall open the mouths of enemies to speak evil of the ways of God, and all professors for God’s sake. We shall shame the faces of many of God’s worthy servants, and cause their prayers to be turned into curses upon us till wee be consumed out of the good land whither we are a going.

I shall shut up this discourse with that exhortation of Moses, that faithful servant of the Lord, in his last farewell to Israel, Deut. 30: Beloved there is now set before us life and good, Death and