American Voices, American Lives : W. W. Norton College Books

Part I: Beginnings to 1700
1. The Great Canoe Ride of Diego Méndez
Diego Méndez de Segura
from his "Last Will" (1536)
2. An English Fugitive in Mexico and Spain
Job Hortop
The Travails of an Englishman (1591)
3. Up the James River in the Spring of 1607
[Gabriel Archer?]
"A Relation of the Discovery of Our River" (1607)
4. The Lenni-Lenape Recall Hudson"s Landing
John Heckewelder
from History, Manners, and Customs of the Indian Nations (1819)
5. The Lost Boy of Cape Cod
Anonymous
"A Voyage Made by Ten of Our Men to the Kingdom of Nauset" from Mourts Relation (1622)
6. The Murder of John Sassamon and the Start of "King Philip’s War"
John Easton
"A Relation of the Indian War" (1676)
7. Five Letters from Rensselaerswyck
Maria van Cortlandt
To Ryckert van Rensselaer (Dec. 1675?)
To Stephanus van Cortlandt (Nov.? 1679)
To Oloffe Stevense van Cortlandt (Dec. 1681)
To Stephanus van Cortlandt (Dec. 1681)
To Ryckert van Rensselaer (Nov.? 1683)
8. Hannah Jones and the Stone-Throwing Devil
Richard Chamberlain
from Lithobolia (1698)
9. Two French Boys Adrift in Spanish Territory
The Talon brothers
from "An Account of the Interrogation of the Two Canadians" (1698)
10. The Bloody Escape of Hannah Dustan: A Cultural Reader
The Contemporary Record:
John Pike, Diary, 15 March, 28 April 1697
John Marshall, Diary, April 1697
Samuel Sewall, Diary, 29 April, 1 May 1697
An Eighteenth-Century Echo:
Cotton Mather, "A Notable Exploit: Dux Femina Facti" from Magnalia Christi Americana (1702)
Jonathan Carver, from Travels through America (1778)
Nineteenth-Century Literary Treatments:
John Greenleaf Whittier, "The Mother’s Revenge," from Legends of New England (1831)
Nathaniel Hawthorne, "The Duston Family," from American Magazine of Useful and Entertaining Knowledge (1836)
Henry David Thoreau, from A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers (1849)
Sarah Josepha Hale, "The Father’s Choice" from Woman’s Record (1853)
Part II: 1700-1800
1. A Scots-American on the Southern Frontier
Thomas Nairne
Letter to Robert Fenwick, 13 April 1708, from the Chickasaw Country
2. "We Are Born Free": The Iroquois Answer the French
Cadwallader Colden
from The History of the Five Indian Nations Dependent on the Province of New York, Part 1 (1727)
3. A Quaker Captive in New France
Elizabeth Hanson
God’s Mercy Surmounting Man’s Cruelty (1728)
4. Resistance on a Slave Ship
George Scott
"The Voyage of the Little George" (1730)
5. Ayuba Suleiman Diallo: An African"s Exile and Return
Thomas Bluett
from Some Account of the Life of Job...a Slave...in Maryland (1734)
Francis Moore
from Travels into the Inland Parts of Africa (1738)
6. An English Worker Adrift in America
William Moraley
from The Infortunate: or The Voyage and Adventures of William Moraley (1743)
7. Braddock's Defeat
Charlotte Brown
from her "Journal" (1754–56)
8. The Language of Slavery
Charles Woodmason
A mock slave auction advertisement (ca. 1769)
Letter to John Rutledge (1769?)
9. A Massacre in Boston
The Boston Gazette and Country Journal
News report of the massacre, with list of dead and wounded (12 March 1770)
Captain Thomas Preston
Account of the Boston massacre (13 March 1770)
James Bowdoin, Dr. Joseph Warren, Samuel Pemberton
from A Short Narrative of the Horrid Massacre in Boston (1770)
10. Two Loyalists Take Aim
Jonathan Boucher
from his "Memoirs" (1786–89)
Janet Schaw
from her "Journal" (1774–76)
11. An Ordinary War: Six Nineteenth-Century Pension Application Narratives
Sylvanus Wood (1830)
William Lloyd (1832)
John McCasland (1832)
Jehu Grant (1832, 1836)
Sarah Osborn (1837)
John Suddarth (1839)
12. The Tide Turns at Saratoga
Frederika Charlotte Louise von Riedesel
from Journal and Correspondence of a Tour of Duty (1800)
13. The Humorous Retreat of a Patriot
Sally Wister
from her "Journal" (1777–78)
14. A Black Loyalist's Escape

Boston King
from "Memoirs of the Life of Boston King, a Black Preacher" (1798)

Part III: 1800-1900
1. Four Itinerants in the Land of the Free
Stephen Burroughs
from Memoirs of Stephen Burroughs (1798)
Venture Smith
from A Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Venture, a Native of Africa (1798)
John Robert Shaw
from A Narrative of the Life and Travels of the Well-Digger (1807)
Abigail Abbot Bailey
from Memoirs of Mrs. Abigail Bailey (1815)
2. Judge Cooper of Cooperstown
William Cooper
from A Guide in the Wilderness (1810)
3. The Sons of Liberty and a Son of the Forest
William Apess
from A Son of the Forest (1829)
4. The Return of an American Hero
Auguste Levasseur
from Lafayette in America (1829)
5. A Patriot's Lament
Joseph Plumb Martin
from A Narrative of Some of the Adventures, Dangers, and Sufferings of a Revolutionary Soldier (1830)
6. Revolt in Southampton
Thomas R. Gray, ed.
The Confessions of Nat Turner (1831)
7. The Sac Leader Heads East
Black Hawk
from Life of MA-KA-TAI-ME-SHI-KIA-KIAK or Black Hawk (1833)
8. Four Fourths and Four Declarations 1827: Albany
Rev. Nathaniel Paul
"An Address Delivered on the Celebration of the Abolition of Slavery . . . 5 July 1827"
1829: New York City
George Henry Evans
"The Working Men’s Declaration of Independence"
1848: Seneca Falls
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
"Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions"
1849: Laramie River
Catherine Haun
from "A Woman’s Trip Across the Plains"
1852: Rochester
Frederick Douglass
from "What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?"
1876: Philadelphia
National Woman Suffrage Association "Declaration of the Rights for Women"
1883: Deadwood City
Galiot François Edmond, Baron de Mandat-Grancey
from Cowboys and Colonels (1887)
1895: New York City
Daniel De Leon
"Declaration of Independence by the Socialist Labor Party"
9. A Hardscrabble Boyhood
Henry Conklin
from his "Memoirs" (1891–92)
10. The "Stone Work" of a New England Farmer
Asa G. Sheldon (1862)
from Life of Asa G. Sheldon (1862)
11. Fugitives
William Wells Brown
from Narrative of William Wells Brown, an American Slave (1847)
12. A Woman on the Journey of Death
Susan Shelby Magoffin
from Down the Santa Fe Trail and into Mexico (1846–47)
13. Remembering the Crisis
Ulysses S. Grant
from Personal Memoirs (1885–86)
Mary Boykin Chestnut
from her "Memoirs" (1880s)
Jenny Proctor, Katie Rowe, Mary Grayson
Ex-slave narratives from Lay My Burden Down (1945)
Thomas B. Chaplin
from his "Journal" (1845–86)
14. Immigrant Tales
John Muir, Scotland
"A New World," from My Boyhood and Youth (1913)
Martin Weitz, Germany
Letter to his family, 29 July (1855)
Wilhelm B¸rkert, Germany
Letters to his family, (1875–81)
Lee Chew, China
"The Biography of a Chinaman" from The Independent (1903)
Wilhelmine Wiebusch, Germany
Letters to Marie Kallmeyer, 1884–86
Rocco Corresca, Italy

"The Biography of a Bootblack," from The Independent (1902)
15. The City at Night
Jacob Riis
from How the Other Half Lives (1890)
16. America’s Most Celebrated Tramp
Leon Livingstone
from Life and Adventures of A-No.1 (1910)

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W. W. Norton & Company : College Books

American Voices, American Lives

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