HIST 303 - Early North America, Pre-contact to 1763 (4)

Examines how interactions between Indigenous peoples of North America, enslaved and free Africans, and Europeans shaped North American cultures and lives from before sustained contact between Indigenous North Americans and Europeans to the end of the Seven Years’ War. Gender, sex, ethnicity, socio-economic status, religion, and many other factors combined to create modes of empowerment and oppression in this era, but race and racial identity form the threads that run throughout the story of European colonization of the “New World.” Students will learn about the interactions among Indian, European, and African peoples and cultures, the rise of the British to a position of political and military dominance on the continent, the institutional development of the British colonies, and the ways that North America’s diverse populations helped to build colonial economies and societies. See department chair.