Resistance in Early American History

How did Native Americans, enslaved and free African Americans, women, and other marginalized people resist various systems of oppression in vast early America? What were the diverse methods and strategies people used to resist colonization, slavery, and patriarchy from the seventeenth century through the nineteenth century?

This undergraduate course—English 125, taught by U-M History PhD candidate Zoe Waldman—explored multiple facets and scales of resistance. Students learned that resistance in early American history could be one event or a series of everyday actions, small or large, public, private, or intentionally hidden. They examined the ways in which people challenged or refused physical and societal boundaries and how they maintained cultures in the face of erasure. Students saw resistance in joy, reclamation, adaptation, resilience, survivance, and remembrance. 

Based on research at the William L. Clements Library, the class curated a digital exhibit that provides windows into resistance in early American history.