What This Collection Is
This collection arranges American history through the rhythmic accounts of participants and observers, spanning from the Norse arrival in Vinland to the start of the Revolution. It gathers eighty-plus pieces, juxtaposing the works of poets like Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and John Greenleaf Whittier with historical documents. The volume maps the timeline of discovery, settlement, and regional conflict through varied lenses: the Viking voyages, the Spanish arrival in the Caribbean, the establishment of Jamestown, and the life of the Pilgrims. It includes verse on John Cabot’s exploration, Pocahontas’s intervention, and the colonial struggle for Acadia. Readers encounter the shifting borders of New France and the English colonies, concluding with the mounting resistance to royal authority in Massachusetts as the provincial government collapsed.
Figures & speakers
- Leif
Norse explorer who led a crew from Greenland to North America. (in “THE STORY OF VINLAND”)
- Bradford of Austerfield
Plymouth leader who distributed five kernels of corn during a famine. (in “FIVE KERNELS OF CORN”)
- Canonicus
The Narragansett sachem who gave Roger Williams land and friendship. (in “CANONICUS AND ROGER WILLIAMS”)
- James Wolfe
The general who faced the French at the Plains of Abraham. (in “HOW STANDS THE GLASS AROUND”)
What it's really about
- Manifest Destiny
- Poetic framing of exploration as a divinely ordained or inevitable expansion.
- Hardship
- Recurring focus on starvation, icy winters, and the costs of settlement.
Why it's memorable
- The image of starving women standing in doorways while Bradford counts out five kernels of corn.
- A British general singing a drinking song about the business of dying before a battle.
Where it lands
The collection transitions from colonial skirmishes to the drilling of yeomen on village greens, awaiting the first shot of revolution.
For your book club
- How does the inclusion of 'The Norsemen' reflect early 20th-century views on American discovery?
- Contrast the depiction of Pocahontas in Morris's verse with the historical notes provided by Stevenson.