HIS 281 - History of Virginia I
Statement of Purpose:
This course does not aim merely to familiarize the student with the events and personalities of 17th and 18th century Virginia, but to search the experiences of the colony and state for evidence of the promise and the paradox that had come to characterize the larger American experiment. From the early experiments with tobacco cultivation to the emergence of a plantation system based on human slavery; from the first meeting of the House of Burgesses to the emergence of Washington, Henry, Jefferson, and Madison as leaders in the movement for American independence, Virginians displayed much that was best and worst in America. A study of Virginia may also reveal a legacy that survives, for better and worse, in the society we know.