Law and Society 194RL and Asian American Studies 171LS:

Race and Law: American Colonial Law to the Civil War

Professor Park

Fall 2007

Professor Park's office hours are from 10 to 12 in 5050 HSSB on Mondays. The number there is (805) 893 8573; his e-mail address is jswpark@asamst.ucsb.edu. The teaching assistant for this class is Mr. Roger Pryor, and he can be reached at pryorrw@umail.ucsb.edu.

For a copy of the syllabus, please click here.

The following readings from the syllabus are available here:

I. Some Themes from the English Common Law

Myron Noonkester, The Third British Empire: Transplanting the English Shire to Wales, Scotland, Ireland, and America, J. BRIT.STUD. (1997).
Emily Bartels, Too Many Blackamoors: Deportation, Discrimination, and Elizabeth I, STUD. ENG LIT. (2006).
Daniel Hulsebosch, The Ancient Constitution and the Expanding Empire: Sir Edward Coke’s British Jurisprudence, L. & HIST. REV. (2003).

II. Native Americans in the English Colonies

Katherine Hermes, Jurisdiction in the Colonial Northeast: Algonquin, English, and French Governance, AMER. J. LEG. HIST. (1999).
James Springer, American Indians and the Law of Real Property in Colonial New England, AMER. J. LEG. HIST. (1986).
David Lovejoy, Satanizing the American Indian, NEW ENG. QUART. (1994).
James Drake, Restraining Atrocity: The Conduct of King Philip’s War, NEW ENG. QUART. (1997).
Allan Kulikoff, The Colonial Chesapeake: Seedbed of Antebellum Southern Culture? J. SOUTH. HIST. (1979).

James Axtell, Colonial America Without the Indians: Counterfactual Reflections, J. AMER. HIST. (1987). [recommended]
Jill Lepore, Dead Men Tell No Tales: John Sassamon and the Fatal Consequences of Literacy, AMER. QUART. (1994). [recommended]
Mary Rowlandson, The Narrative of the Captivity and the Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson (1682). [recommended]

III. Race, Class, and Status Before the Revolution

Martin Quitt, Immigrant Origins of the Virginia Gentry: A Study of Cultural Transmission and Innovation, WILLIAM & MARY QUART. (1988).
T.H. Breen, A Changing Labor Force and Race Relations in Virginia, 1660-1710, J. SOC. HIST. (1973).
Marcus Jernegan, Slavery and Conversion in the American Colonies, AMER. HIST. REV. (1916).
Carl Degler, Slavery and the Genesis of American Race Prejudice, COMP. STUD. SOC. & HIST. (1959).
Bernard Rosenthal, Puritan Conscience and New England Slavery, NEW ENG. QUART. (1973).

William Wiecek, Somerset: Lord Mansfield and the Legitimacy of Slavery in the Anglo-American World, U. CHI. L. REV. (1974). [recommended]

IV. Developing a Law of Slavery

William Wiecek, The Statutory Law of Slavery and Race in the Thirteen Mainland Colonies of British America, WILLIAM & MARY QUART. (1977).
Arnold Sio, Interpretations of Slavery: The Slave Status in the Americas, COMP. STUD. SOC. & HIST. (1965).
Thomas Morris, “Villeinage…As It Existed in England, Reflects But Little Light on Our Subject”: The Problem of the “Sources” of Southern Slave Law, AMER. J. LEG. HIST. (1988).
Bradley Nicholson, Legal Borrowing and the Origins of Slave Law in the British Colonies, AMER. J. LEG. HIST. (1994).

V. Race and the American Constitution

Bruce Johansen, Native American Societies and the Evolution of Democracy in America, 1600-1800, ETHNOHISTORY (1990).
Edmund Morgan, Slavery and Freedom: The American Paradox, J. AMER. HIST. (1972).
Alexander Boulton, The American Paradox: Jeffersonian Equality and Racial Science, AMER. QUART. (1995).
Robert Spector, The Quock Walker Cases: Slavery, Its Abolition, and Negro Citizenship in Early Massachusetts, J. NEGRO HIST. (1968).
Edward Carter, A “Wild Irishman” under Every Federalist’s Bed: Naturalization in Philadelphia, 1789-1806, PROCEED. AMER. PHIL. SOC. (1989).

Eric Maltz, Slavery, Federalism, and the Structure of the Constitution, AMER. J. LEG. HIST. (1992). [recommended]
Aaron Fogleman, From Slaves, Convicts, and Servants to Free Passengers: The Transformation of Immigration in the Era of the American Revolution, J. AMER. HIST. (1998). [recommended]
Robert Steinfeld, Subjectship, Citizenship, and the Long History of Immigration Regulation, L. & HIST. REV. (2001). [recommended]

VI. Domestic Dependent Nations

Johnson v. McIntosh, 21 U.S. 543 (1823).
Cherokee Nation v. Georgia, 30 U.S. 1 (1831).
Worcester v. Georgia, 31 U.S. 515 (1832).
James Lengel, The Role of International Law in the Development of Constitutional Jurisprudence in the Supreme Court: The Marshall Court and American Indians, AMER. J. LEG. HIST. (1999).
Patrick Minges, Beneath the Underdog: Race, Religion, and the Trail of Tears, AMER. IND. QUART. (2001).

VII. The Science of Race

Edward Lurie, Louis Agassiz and the Races of Man, ISIS (1954).
Louis Menand, Morton, Agassiz, and the Origins of Scientific Racism in the United States, J. BLACKS IN HIGHER ED. (2001).
Reginald Horsman, Scientific Racism and the American Indian in the Mid-Nineteenth Century, AMER. QUART. (1975).
Robert Bieder, The Representations of Indian Bodies in Nineteenth Century American Anthropology, AMER. INDIAN QUART. (1996).
Daniel v. Guy, 19 Ark. 121 (1857).

Ronald Takaki, Aesculapius Was a White Man: Antebellum Racism and Male Chauvinism at Harvard Medical School, PHYLON (1978). [recommended]

VIII. Slavery as a National Crisis

State v. Mann, 13 N.C. 263 (1829).
Kennedy v. Mason, 10 La. Ann. 519 (1855).
Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. 393 (1856).
Ariela Gross, “Like Master, Like Man”: Constructing Whiteness in the Commercial Law of Slavery, 1800-1861, 18 CARDOZO L. REV. 263 (1996).
Wolfgang Mieder, “Do Unto Others as You Would Have Them Do Unto You”: Frederick Douglass’ Proverbial Struggle for Civil Rights, J. AMER. FOLKLORE (2001).

Makungu Akinyela, Battling the Serpent: Nat Turner, Africanized Christianity, and a Black Ethos, J. BLACK STUD. (2003). [recommended]

IX. Mexicans, Asians, and Native Americans Before the Civil War

People v. Hall, 4 Cal. 399 (1854).
Fremont v. United States, 58 U.S. 542 (1855).
Robert Kowner, “Lighter Than Yellow, But Not Enough”: Western Discourse on the Japanese “Race,” HIST. J. (2000).
Philip Laverty, The Ohlone/Costanoan-Esselen Nation of Monterey, California: Dispossession, Federal Neglect, and the Bitter Irony of the Federal Acknowledgement Process, WICAZO SA REV. (2003).

X. Race and Inequality after the Second Constitution

People v. De La Guerra, 40 Cal. 311 (1870).
Ho Ah Kow v. Nunan, 12 F. Cas. 252 (1879).
Strauder v. West Virginia, 101 U.S. 303 (1880).
The Civil Rights Cases, 109 U.S. 3 (1883).
Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U.S. (1886).
Arnoldo de Leon and Kenneth Stewart, Lost Dreams and Found Fortunes: Mexican and Anglo Immigrants in South Texas, 1850-1900, WEST. HIST. QUART. (1983).

Sample Essay Questions, First Midterm

1. Drawing from Myron Nookester's article on the English common law, please explain how English colonists "transplanted" the common law to various colonial possessions abroad. In particular, please explain how English colonists in North America used common law concepts to solve problems and disputes within and around their settlements.

2. Please explain how relations between English colonists and Native Americans fundamentally changed in New England following King Philip's War in 1676.

3. Please discuss at least five distinctive slave codes in the English colonies enacted before 1700.

4. In David Lovejoy's article on Native Americans, he refers to the colonists as having "Satanized" the Indians. What did he mean by this argument?

5. How did the migration of "elites" from England to Virginia from 1680 to 1710 fundamentally change race relations in colonial Virginia prior to the American Revolution? Please explain your answer by drawing from the articles by Martin Quitt and T.H. Breen, as well as materials presented in lecture.

Sample Essay Questions, Second Exam

This exam will cover parts IV, V, and VI of the syllabus, and materials presented in lecture from October 22 to November 14.

1. Please explain "the American paradox," as it was phrased in the separate articles by Edmund Morgan and by Alexander Boulton.

2. Please explain why many Anglo Americans did not consider Irish immigrants as "white." Please also explain the central elements of the Naturalization Act of 1790.

3. Please explain how at least three provisions in the American constitution envision and provide for the existence of slavery.

4. Please explain the central provisions of the Indian Removal Act of 1830.

5. In cases like Cherokee Nation v. Georgia (1831) and Worcester v. Georgia (1832), how did Chief Justice John Marshall explain the legal status of Indian tribes? Did the conception change between the two cases? Please explain.

Sample Essay Questions, Final Exam

This exam is cumulative--study and review everything.

1. How did Dred Scott v. Sandford (1856) try to resolve once and for all the status of African Americans in the United States? Please explain your answer.

2. How were Chinese immigrants racialized differently than the land-owning Mexican elite in California and Texas in the mid 19th century? Please explain your answer by using at least two of the cases assigned for this class.

3. Please explain how leading scientists in the United States the 1820s through the 1850s described racial differences among people in the world. What were some of the political consequences of these theories?

4. According to Robert Beider, how were Indian bodies "viewed" and "theorized" in 19th century studies of anthropology? Please explain the political consequences of these studies.

5. Please explain how and why so many African American slaves were forcibly moved from the Upper to the Lower South in the first half of the 19th century. How did this experience challenge Southern defenses of "traditional slavery," including Southern paternalism?

6. Please explain how slavery--and fear of wage slavery--shaped the political and legal behavior of whites in the West after 1850.