This survey of American Literature from Puritan writing of the 1600s through the turmoil of the 1850s looks at how European settlers, African Americans, and Indigenous people told stories about themselves and the places they lived against a backdrop of colonization, revolution, and imperialism on the continent. By the early nineteenth century, both Indigenous and African American literary traditions had emerged parallel to a self-consciously American literary tradition that was mainly the province of white men of means, as well as some white women.  While the first two were centered on their different struggles for recognition of their humanity and political rights, the third was founded on narratives that specifically excluded Indigenous and African American people from full humanity in order to invent white settlers as "American." The stories that arose out of this ongoing conflict over who was fully human and who was not, and who belonged in America and who did not, will form the substance of our reading. Course requirements will include quizzes on the reading, response papers, and a midterm and final.