The Enlightenment and the Great Awakening
Daily Life and the Woman's Sphere
Literacy and Education
Revolution and Confederation
A Nation of Disparate Peoples
From the Plow, to the Sword, to the Book

Settlement and Religion

Sarah Kemble Knight (1666-1727)
The Journal of Madam Knight

Louis Armand de Lom d'Arce, Baron de Lahontan (1666-1715)
from New Voyages to North-America...from 1683 to 1694, in Two Volumes
from Volume I, A Discourse of the Interest of the French, and of the English, in North-America
from Volume II, New Voyages to America, Giving an Account of the Customs, Commerce, Religion and Strange Opinions of the Savages of that Country
from A Short View of the Humors and Customs of the Savages
from An Account of the Amours and Marriages of the Savages

William Byrd II (1674-1744)

from The History of the Dividing Line betwixt Virginia and North Carolina and The Secret History of the Line
Letter to Mrs. Jane Pratt Taylor (October 10, 1735)

Cluster: On Nature and Nature's God

John Locke (1632-1704)
from Essay Concerning Human Understanding
Chapter I, Of Ideas in general, and their Original

Alexander Pope (1688-1744)
from Essay on Man, Epistle I
I [Say first, of God above or Man below]
VII [Far as creation's ample range extends]
X [Cease, then, nor Order imperfection name]

Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758)
from Treatise Concerning Religious Affections

James Otis (1725-1783)
from The Discourse of Nature and Government

Anna Eliza Bleecker (1752-1783?)
On the Immensity of Creation

Philip Freneau (1752-1832)
On the Universality and Other Attributes of the God of Nature

Thomas Paine (1737-1809)
from The Age of Reason
----------- Chapter I, The Author's Profession of Faith

Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758)
from Images of Divine Things
On Sarah Pierrepont
from A Faithful Narrative of the Surprising Work of God
Personal Narrative
Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God

Elizabeth Ashbridge (1713-1755)
from Some Account of the Fore Part of the Life of Elizabeth Ashbridge,...Written by her own Hand many years ago

John Woolman (1720-1772)
from The Journal of John Woolman
from Some Considerations on the Keeping of Negroes

Francisco Palou (1723-1789)
Life of Junípero Serra
from Chapter XXII, The Expeditions Arrive at the Port of Monterey The Mission and Presidio of San Carlos
Are Founded
from Chapter LVIII, The Exemplary Death of the Venerable Father
Junípero

A Sheaf of Eighteenth-Century Anglo-American Poetry

Ebenezer Cook (1667-1733)
The Sot-weed Factor; or, a Voyage to Maryland,

Susanna Wright (1697-1784)
To Eliza Norris-at Fairhill
Anna Boylens Letter to King Henry the 8th
On the Benefit of Labour
My Own Birth Day.-August 4th 1761

Richard Lewis (1700?-1734)
A Journey from Patapsko to Annapolis, April 4, 1730

William Dawson (1704-1752)
The Wager. A Tale

Jane Colman Turell (1708-1735)
Psalm CXXXVII. Paraphras'd August 5th, 1725
[Lines on Childbirth]
On Reading the Warning By Mrs. Singer
To My Muse

Lucy Terry (1730-1821)
Bars Fight

Thomas Godfrey (1736-1763)
from The Prince of Parthia, A Tragedy

Annis Boudinot Stockton (1736-1801)
To Laura
Epistle, To Lucius
A Poetical Epistle, Addressed by a Lady of New Jersey, to Her Niece, upon Her Marriage
The Vision, an Ode to Washington

Elizabeth Graeme Fergusson (1737-1801)
Upon the Discovery of the Planet By Mr. Herschel of Bath...
On a Beautiful Damask Rose, Emblematical of Love and Wedlock
On the Mind's Being Engrossed by One Subject

Nathaniel Evans (1742-1767)
Hymn to May
Ode to the Memory of Mr. Thomas Godfrey
To Benjamin Franklin, Occasioned by Hearing Him Play on the Harmonica

Anna Young Smith (1756-1780)
On Reading Swift's Works
An Elegy to the Memory of the American Volunteers,...April 19, 1775

Sarah Wentworth Apthorp Morton (1759-1846)
from Ouabi: or the Virtues of Nature, An Indian Tale. In Four Cantos By Philenia, a Lady of Boston [Canto One]
Stanzas to a Husband Recently United
The African Chief

Margaretta Bleecker Faugères (1771-1801)
The following Lines were occasioned by Mr. Robertson's refusing to paint for one Lady, and immediately after taking another lady's likeness, 1793
To Aribert. October, 1790

Poems Published Anonymously
The Lady's Complaint
Verses Written by a Young Lady, on Women Born to Be Controll'd
The Maid's Soliloquy

Voices of Revolution and Nationalism

Handsome Lake (Seneca) (1735-1815)
How America Was Discovered

Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)
The Way to Wealth
A Witch Trial at Mount Holly
The Speech of Polly Baker
An Edict by the King of Prussia
The Ephemera, an Emblem of Human Life
Remarks Concerning the Savages of North America
On the Slave-Trade
Speech in the Convention
from The Autobiography
Part One [Twyford, at the Bishop of St. Asaph's, 1771]
Part Two: Continuation of the Account of My Life Begun at Passy, 1784
Part Three [Philadelphia, 1788]

Mercy Otis Warren (1728-1814)
To Fidelio, Long Absent on the great public Cause, which agitated all America, in 1776
The Group
from The Ladies of Castille
from An Address to the Inhabitants of the United States of America

J. Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur (1735-1813)
from Letters from an American Farmer
from Letter I,Introduction
from Letter II,On the Situation, Feelings, and Pleasures of an American Farmer
from Letter III, What Is an American?
from Letter V, Customary Education and Employment of the Inhabitants of Nantucket
from Letter IX, Description of Charles Town; Thoughts on Slavery; on Physical Evil; a Melancholy Scene
from Letter XII,. Distresses of a Frontier Man

Thomas Paine (1737-1809)
from Common Sense
Thoughts on the Present State of American Affairs
from The American Crisis
Number 1
from The Age of Reason
from Chapter II, Of Missions and Revelations
from Chapter III, Concerning the Character of Jesus Christ, and His History
from Chapter VI, Of the True Theology

John Adams (1735-1826) and Abigail Adams (1744-1818)
from Autobiography of John Adams
Letter from Abigail Adams to John Adams, March 31, 1776
Letter from John Adams to Abigail Adams, April 14, 1776
from Letter from John Adams to Mercy Otis Warren, April 16, 1776
from Letters from John Adams to Abigail Adams, July 3, 1776
Letter from Abigail Adams to John Adams, June 30, 1778
Abigail Adams's Diary of Her Return Voyage to America, March 30-May 1, 1788
from Letter from John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, September 2, 1813
from Letter from Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, October 28, 1813
from Letter from John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, November 15, 1813

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)

from Notes on the State of Virginia
from Query VI, Productions, Mineral, Vegetable, and Animal,
Buffon and the Theory of Degeneracy
from Query XI, Aborigines, Original Condition and Origin
from Query XIV, Laws
from Query XVII, Religion
from Query XVIII, Manners...Effect of Slavery
from Letter to James Madison, Oct. 28, 1785
from Letter to James Madison, Dec. 20, 1787
Letter to Benjamin Banneker, Aug. 30, 1791
Letter to the Marquis de Condorcet, Aug. 30, 1791
Letter to Edward Coles, Aug. 25, 1814
Letter to Peter Carr [Young Man's Education]
Letter to Benjamin Hawkins [Civilization of the Indians]
Letter to Nathaniel Burwell [A Young Woman's Education]
from Indian Addresses: To Brother Handsome Lake

Federalist and Anti-Federalist Contentions
The Federalist No. 6 (Alexander Hamilton)
The Federalist No. 10 (James Madison)
An Anti-Federalist Paper, To the Massachusetts Convention

Toussaint L'Ouverture (1744?-1803)
Proclamations and Letters

Cluster: On the Discourse of Liberty

John Locke (1632-1704
from Concerning Civil Government, Second Essay
Chapter II
Chapter VII

Andrew Hamilton (1676-1741)
Closing Argument in the Libel Trial of John Peter Zenger

Hannah Griffitts (1727-1817)
The Female Patriots. Addres'd to the Daughters of Liberty in
America, 1768

Phillis Wheatley (1753-1784)
Letter to Samson Occom

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)
from Autobiography of Thomas Jefferson

Prince Hall (1735?-1807)
To the Honorable Council & House of Representatives for the State of
Massachusetts-Bay. . . . The Petition of a great number of Negroes
who are detained in a state of Slavery in the Bowels of a free &
Christian Country Humbly Shewing

Anonymous (fl. 1795)
Rights of Woman

Fisher Ames (1758-1808)
On the Dangers of Democracy

Patriot and Loyalist Songs and Ballads

"Patriot" Voices
The Liberty Song
Alphabet
The King's own Regulars, And their Triumphs over the Irregulars
The Irishman's Epistle to the Officers and Troops at Boston
The Yankee's Return from Camp
Nathan Hale
Sir Harry's Invitation
Volunteer Boys

"Loyalist" Voices
When Good Queen Elizabeth Governed the Realm
Song, for a Fishing Party near Burlington, on the Delaware, in 1776
Burrowing Yankees
A Birthday Song, for the King's Birthday, June 4, 1777
A Song
An Appeal

Contested Visions, American Voices

Jupiter Hammon (1711-1806?)
An Evening Thought: Salvation by Christ, with Penitential Cries
An Address to Miss Phillis Wheatly, Ethiopian Poetess, in Boston, who came from Africa at eight years of age, and soon became acquainted with the gospel of Jesus Christ

James Grainger (1721?-1766)
from The Sugar-Cane. A Poem. In Four Books
from Book IV, The Genius of Africa

Samson Occom (Mohegan) (1723-1792)
A Short Narrative of My Life
A Sermon Preached by Samson Occom

Briton Hammon (fl. 1760)
Narrative of the Uncommon Sufferings and Surprising Deliverance of Briton Hammon

Prince Hall (1735?-1807)
A Charge, Delivered to the African Lodge, June 24, 1797, at Menotomy

Olaudah Equiano (1745-1797)
from The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African. Written by Himself
from Chapter 1
Chapter 2
from Chapter 3
from Chapter 7
from Chapter 10

Judith Sargent Murray (1751-1820)
Desultory Thoughts upon the Utility of encouraging a Degree
----------- of Self-Compacency, Especially in Female Bosoms
On the Domestic Education of Children
On the Equality of the Sexes
Occasional Epilogue to The Contrast, a Comedy, Written by Royal Tyler, Esq.

Ann Eliza Bleecker (1752-1783)
Written in the Retreat from Burgoyne
from The History of Maria Kittle

Philip Freneau (1752-1832)
The Power of Fancy
A Political Litany
To Sir Toby
The Wild Honey Suckle
from The Country Printer
On Observing a Large Red-streak Apple
The Indian Burying Ground
On the Causes of Political Degeneracy

Timothy Dwight (1752-1817)
from Greenfield Hill
Part II, The Flourishing Village
from Part IV, The Destruction of the Pequods

Phillis Wheatley (1753-1784)
To Mæcenas
Letter to the Right Hon'ble The Earl of Dartmouth per favour ofMr.Wooldridge
To the Right Honourable William, Earl of Dartmouth, His Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for North-America,
Letter to the Rt. Hon'ble the Countess of Huntingdon
On the Death of the Rev. Mr. George Whitefield 1770
On the Death of Dr. Samuel Marshall 1771
On Being Brought from Africa to America
A Farewell to America
To the University of Cambridge, in New England
Philis's Reply to the Answer in our Last by the Gentleman intheNavy
To His Excellency General Washington
Liberty and Peace, A Poem by Phillis Peters

Lemuel Haynes (1753-1833)
Liberty Further Extended: Or Free Thoughts on the Illegality ofSlave-keeping
Universal Salvation

Joel Barlow (1754-1812)
The Prospect of Peace
The Hasty Pudding, A Poem, in Three Cantos
Advice to a Raven in Russia

Royall Tyler (1757-1826)
The Contrast, A Comedy in Five Acts

Hendrick Aupaumut (Mahican) (1757-1830)
from A Short Narration of My Last Journey to the Western Country

Hannah Webster Foster (1758-1840)
from The Coquette; or, the History of Eliza Wharton
Letter I, To Miss Lucy Freeman
Letter II, To the Same
Letter III, To the Same
Letter IV, To Mr. Selby
Letter V, To Miss Lucy Freeman
Letter VI, To the Same
Letter VIII, To Mr. Charles Deighton
Letter XI, To Mr. Charles Deighton
Letter XII, To Miss Lucy Freeman
Letter XIII, To Miss Eliza Wharton
Letter XVIII, To Mr. Charles Deighton
Letter LXV, To Mr. Charles Deighton
Letter LXVIII, To Mrs. M. Wharton
Letter LXXI, To Mrs. Lucy Sumner
Letter LXXII, To Mr. Charles Deighton
Letter LXXIII, To Miss Julia Granby
Letter LXXIV, To Mrs. M. Wharton

Susanna Haswell Rowson (1762-1824)
from Charlotte Temple
from Preface
from Chapter I, A Boarding School
Chapter VI, An Intriguing Teacher
from Chapter VII, Natural Sense of Propriety Inherent in the
Female Bosom
from Chapter IX, We Know Not What a Day May Bring Forth
from Chapter XI, Conflict of Love and Duty
from Chapter XII, [How thou art fall'n!]
from Chapter XIV, Maternal Sorrow

Charles Brockden Brown (1771-1810)
Somnambulism, a fragment