HIST314

This is a course for history majors and non-major (juniors and seniors) who have taken other college-level history courses. It will explore the history of empires in the Americas from the Conquest period to the wars for independence, up to 1830. Students will examine the military, cultural, social, economic, and political policies that monarchs used to establish and govern empires. Students will also consider how different cultures in Africa, Europe, and the Americas made sense of each other in the Age of Empires. Students will then study early independence movements in the Americas, including the American War of Independence, the Haitian Revolution, and the Spanish Wars of Independence. Students will write a major research paper that demonstrates their understanding of the rise and fall of empires in the Atlantic World, and what independence (and dependence) meant to the American peoples.