Materials . . .

Fifteenth-century chickens

Here is an AP report on the findings of research that describes and dates some chicken bones found in Chile. These chickens suggest Polynesians landed in South America many decades before Columbus made his 1492 voyage of discovery.

Researchers led by Alice Storey at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, report finding evidence that may ruffle some scholarly feathers. They found chicken bones of Polynesian origin at a site in what is now Chile.

Radiocarbon dating of chicken bones at the site on the Arauco Peninsula in south central Chile indicated a range of A.D. 1321 to 1407, well before the Spanish arrival in the Americas.

Like the work of Charles C. Mann, this study illustrates how little we know about the early history of the Americas. The story is always changing.

Portrait of Joseph Hopkinson (1770-1842)

Click on the thumbnail to enlarge. This image file is in the public domain. I created it with a scanner and an out-of-copyright book that I own. Use it as you please. Source of the original image: Edmund Clarence Stedman and Ellen Mackay Hutchinson, eds., A Library of American Literature: From the Earliest Settlement to the Present Time, vol. 4 (New York: Charles L. Webster, 1889) 259.

Portrait of Abigail Adams Smith (1765-1813)

Click on the thumbnail to enlarge. This image file is in the public domain. I created it with a scanner and an out-of-copyright book that I own. Use it as you please. Source of the original image: Edmund Clarence Stedman and Ellen Mackay Hutchinson, eds., A Library of American Literature: From the Earliest Settlement to the Present Time, vol. 4 (New York: Charles L. Webster, 1889) 200.

400-year anniversary of Jamestown landing

National Geographic has this interactive web feature to coincide with the anniversary. In the print issue - the May, 2007 number - Charles Mann (author of 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus) retells his story. This number also includes a pretty interesting map and pictorial essay comparing the East Coast as settled by Native Americans to the East Coast as settled, not much later, by Europeans.

Portrait of Alexander Hamilton (1757-1804)

Click on the thumbnail to enlarge. This image file is in the public domain. I created it with a scanner and an out-of-copyright book that I own. Use it as you please. Source of the original image: Edmund Clarence Stedman and Ellen Mackay Hutchinson, eds., A Library of American Literature: From the Earliest Settlement to the Present Time, vol. 4 (New York: Charles L. Webster, 1889) 110.

Portrait of Susanna Rowson (1762-1824)

Click on the thumbnail to enlarge. This image file is in the public domain. I created it with a scanner and an out-of-copyright book that I own. Use it as you please. Source of the original image: Edmund Clarence Stedman and Ellen Mackay Hutchinson, eds., A Library of American Literature: From the Earliest Settlement to the Present Time, vol. 4 (New York: Charles L. Webster, 1889) 176.

Portrait of Royall Tyler (1757-1826)

Click on the thumbnail to enlarge. This image file is in the public domain. I created it with a scanner and an out-of-copyright book that I own. Use it as you please. Source of the original image: Edmund Clarence Stedman and Ellen Mackay Hutchinson, eds., A Library of American Literature: From the Earliest Settlement to the Present Time, vol. 4 (New York: Charles L. Webster, 1889) 92.

Portrait of Charles Brockden Brown (1771-1810)

Click on the thumbnail to enlarge. This image file is in the public domain. I created it with a scanner and an out-of-copyright book that I own. Use it as you please. Source of the original image: Edmund Clarence Stedman and Ellen Mackay Hutchinson, eds., A Library of American Literature: From the Earliest Settlement to the Present Time, vol. 4 (New York: Charles L. Webster, 1889) frontispiece.

Portrait of William Byrd

Click on the thumbnail to enlarge. This image file is in the public domain. I created it with a scanner and an out-of-copyright book that I own. Use it as you please. Source of the original image: Edmund Clarence Stedman and Ellen Mackay Hutchinson, eds., A Library of American Literature: From the Earliest Settlement to the Present Time, vol. 2 (New York: Charles L. Webster, 1889) 302.

Portrait of Samuel Sewall

Click on the thumbnail to enlarge. This image file is in the public domain. I created it by scanning my copy of the original. Use it as you please. Source of the original image: Edmund Clarence Stedman and Ellen Mackay Hutchinson, eds., A Library of American Literature: From the Earliest Settlement to the Present Time, vol. 2 (New York: Charles L. Webster, 1889) 188.

Slave gravesite on former sugar plantation found

Matt Probasco reports for the Associated Press that "researchers from Denmark and the U.S. Virgin Islands want to unearth up to 50 skeletons" found on private property in St. Croix.

John Ledyard's "Death of Captain Cook" (1783)

Louis J. Slimak prepared this edition of John Ledyard's "Death of Captain Cook" for the Spring 2006 section of Early American Literature.

Ann Eliza Bleecker, Two Poems (1793)

A reading by Lindsay Kennedy for Early American Literature (Spring 2006). This is number 7 in the series. This post contains the full text of this edition, which is also available in an elegant PDF format.

Hugh Henry Brackenridge, “Provincial Honors to an Exciseman” (1807)

A reading by Alex Morris for Early American Literature (Spring 2006). This is number 6 in the series. This post contains the full text of this edition, which is also available in a graceful PDF format.

Thomas Hutchinson and Ezra Stiles on the Regicides (1764, 1794)

An edition by Ethan T. Jordan for Early American Literature (Spring 2006). This is number 5 in the series. This post contains the full text of this edition, which is also available in a more elegant PDF format.

Jeremy Belknap, “The Siege of Louisbourg” (1793)

An edition by Mike Lyndall for Early American Literature (Spring 2006). This is number 4 in the series. Many more to come. As always, this post contains the full text of this edition, which is also available in a more beautiful PDF format.

David Zeisberger, Diary for March 23, 1782

An edition by T.A. Steele for Early American Literature (Spring 2006). This is number 3 in the series. This post contains the full text of this edition, which is also available in a more beautiful PDF format.

Deodat Lawson, “Witchcraft in Salem” (1704)

A reading by Michael Sees for Early American Literature (Spring 2006). This is number 2 in the series. This post contains the full text of this edition, which is also available in a more beautiful PDF format.

Early American Literature, Spring 2006

This spring, I teach a graduate-level seminar in American Litearture to 1800.