Before all of you folks get crazy about North-South stuff, sonsider the
following.
Southern history is a respectable field of US history taught at most
U.S. universities. Where I did my PhD the most distinguished scholar
held the line in Southern history (John Hope Franklin at Chicago);
Harvard hired David Donald as a "southern historian" and Yale hired C.
Van Woodward for the same purpose. If you count Oklahoma (John Hope's
home) as "southern" then all three were southern born scholars teaching
at major northern universities. I suspect you will not find a chair at
UVA or UNC or any other southern school for "New England History." My
point is that people in the North, as well as the South, take southern
history quite seriously.
The reason Jamestown is ignored (if it is) is because as a setlement it
failed; the only thing that kep Jamestown alive was the constant arrival
of new people to replace those who died; except for hte first year that
was not so true in Plymouth and never true in Mass. Bay. On the other
hand, if you look important work by historians, there is a great deal of
excellent work on early Virginia, such as Ed Morgan's American Slavery,
American Freedom. Jamestown may or may not be ignored (that is an
interesting empirical question which I suppose someone could answer);
but we know very well that early Virginia is key to any history of
colonial America.
Paul Finkelman
--
Paul Finkelman
Chapman Distinguished Professor of Law
University of Tulsa College of Law
3120 East 4th Place
Tulsa, OK 74104-3189
918-631-3706 (office)
918-631-2194 (fax)
paul-finkelma
Walter Waddell wrote:
>Dear Randy,
>
>You are missing only and the only key principle of history: In war: win! The
>winner gets to write the history and hang the losers -- and the history of
>the moment at hand is the only history that matters -- since mankind's
>history is an utter refusal to learn from yesterday.
>
>Of course the counter to that is: the only hope for the future is for the
>youth of today to reject any notion that their fathers got anything right
>except to launch them.
>-------------------------------------------------------------
>What be the worth of knowing yesterday other than to stir the today to shape
>the text of tomorrow.
>
>Regards, Ray
>
>
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Randy Cabell" <[log in to unmask]>
>To: <[log in to unmask]>
>Sent: Wednesday, November 30, 2005 10:26 AM
>Subject: Puzzling :// More Northern Bias?
>
>
>Recently I became aware of an observation/theory that one reason that
>Jamestowne is downgraded by historians in favor of those latecomers
>(Puritans) up in New England, was the Civil War. e.g. Nothing good could
>come out of the South, so the first permanent English settlement in the New
>World is ignored.
>
>This may also explain a puzzle that I found a few years ago when doing a
>booket of our family in the Civil War. On March 9, 1862 the Monitor and the
>Merrimac (aka Virginia) fought their classic battle in Hampton Roads. Every
>account that I have read concludes that it was a draw, each returning to its
>port, of of course some months later the Virginia was destroyed before the
>Union Army could take it. But I found a letter written over a month later,
>an excerpt below......
>
>"....We have just received news from the Merrimac now called the Virginia.
>She left Norfolk this morning at 6 o'clock and returned about one o'clock
>with three Yankee vessels, two brigs and a schooner, one of them heavily
>loaded. This she accomplished without firing a gun. The Monitor kept under
>the protection of the guns at Fortress Monroe, being afraid to meet the
>Virginia." Part of a letter from Robert Brown to his wife, 11 April 1862
>
>To paraphrase Gen. Buck Turgidson in that classic "Dr. Strangelove", I
>hesitate to draw any conclusions before the all the facts are in, but it
>appears that the Virginia emerged at least once, and maybe more, AFTER the
>battle and proceeded to do what it started out to do the day before the
>Monitor appeared on the scene -- wreak havoc among the Union fleet. --AND
>the Monitor did not set forth to stop her. If that is indeed true, then it
>looks like to me that the Virginia deserves a bit more credit. It lived and
>fought another day, returning to the at the site of the battle -- and was
>unchallenged. Of course the letter may be based only on rumors and wishes,
>but am I missing something?
>
>Randy Cabell
>
>
>
>
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