Witches, Rebels, and Prophets: People on the Margins in Early America

Catalog description

This course explores the lost worlds of witches, sexual offenders, rebellious enslaved people, rebellious colonists, and Native American leaders from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries. Using the life stories of unusual individuals from the past, we try to make sense of their contentious relationships with their societies. By following the careers of the troublemakers, the criminals, the rebels, and other non-conformists, we also learn about the foundations of social order and the impulse to reform that rocked American society during the nineteenth century. The lives of these unique “movers and shakers” help us to understand the issues that Americans debated in the years leading up to the Civil War.