Voice of Freedom in each chapters gives a brief summary of the writers and details of their story.

Includes bibliographical references ([A-1]-A-18), Declaration of Independence, The Constitution of the United States and index

List of maps, tables and figures -- About the author -- Preface --

1 A new world : The first Americans -- Indian freedom, European freedom -- The Expansion of Europe -- Contact -- The Spanish Empire -- Voices of freedom: from Bartolomé de Las Casas, history of the indies (1528), and from "Declaration of Josephe" (December 19, 1681) -- The French and Dutch Empire --

2 Beginnings of English America, 1607 - 1660 : England and the New World -- The coming of the English -- Settling the Chesapeake -- The New England way -- New Englanders divided -- Voices of freedom: from "The trial of Anne Hutchinson" (1637), and from John Winthrop, Speech to the Massachusetts General Court (July 3, 1645) -- Religion, politics, and freedom

3 Creating Anglo- America, 1660 - 1750 : Global competition and the expansion of England's Empire -- Origins of American slavery -- Colonies in crisis -- The growth of colonial America -- Voices of freedom: from letter by a Swiss-German immigrant to Pennsylvania (August 23, 1769), and from Memorial against Non-English immigration (December 1727) -- Social classes in the colonies --

4 Slavery, freedom and the struggle for empire, to 1763 : Slavery and empire -- Slave cultures and slave resistance -- An empire of freedom -- The public sphere -- The great awakening -- Imperial rivalries -- Battle for the continent -- Voice of freedom: from the interesting narrative of the life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African (1789), and from Pontiac, speeches (1762 and 1763) --

5 The American revolution, 1763 - 1783 : The crisis begins -- The road to revolution -- The coming of independence -- Voices of freedom: from Thomas Paine, common sense (1776), and from Jonathan Boucher, a view of the causes and consequences of the revolution (1775) -- Securing independence --

6 The revolution within : Democratizing freedom -- toward religious toleration -- Defining economic freedom -- The limits of liberty -- Slaver and the revolution -- Voice of freedom: from Abigail Adams to Jon Adams, Braintree, Mass. (March 31, 1776), and from petitions of slaves to the Massachusetts Legislature (1773 and 1777) -- Daughter of liberty --

7 Founding a Nation, 1783 - 1791 : America under the confederation -- A new constitution -- The ratification debate and the origin of the Bill of Rights -- Voice of freedom: from David Ramsay, the history of the American revolution (1789), and from James Winthrop, anti-federalist essay signed "agrippa" (1787) --"We the people" --

8 Securing the republic, 1791-1815 : Politics in an age of passion -- Voices of freedom: from Judith Sargent Murray, "on the equality of the sexes" (1790), and from Address of the democratic-republican society of Pennsylvania (December 18, 1794) -- The Adams presidency -- Jefferson in power -- The "second war of independence" --

9 The market revolution, 1800 - 1840 : A new economy -- Market society -- The free individual -- Voices of freedom: from Ralph Waldo Emerson, "the American scholar" (1837), and from "factory life as it is, by an Operative" (1845) -- The limits of prosperity --

10 Democracy in America, 1815 - 1840 : The triumph of democracy -- Nationalism and its discontents -- Nation, section, and party -- Voices of freedom: from President James Monroe, annual message to congress (1823), and from John C. Calhoun, "a disquisition of government" (ca. 1845) -- The age of Jackson -- The bank war and after --

11 The peculiar institution : The old south -- Life under slavery -- Voices of freedom: from letter by Joseph Taper to Joseph Long (1840), and from "slavery and the bible" (1850) -- Slave culture -- Resistance to slavery --

12 An age of reform, 1820 - 1840 : The reform impulse -- The crusade against slavery -- Black and white abolitionism -- The origins of feminism -- Voices of freedom: from Angelina Grimké, letter in the liberator (August 2, 1837), and from Frederick Douglass, speech on July 5, 1852, Rochester, New York --

13 A house divided, 1840 - 1861 : Fruits of manifest destiny -- A dose of arsenic -- The rise of the republican party -- The emergence of Lincoln -- Voices of freedom: from the Lincoln - Douglas debates (1858) -- The impending crisis --

14 A new birth of freedom: The civil war, 1861 -1865 : The first modern war -- The coming of Emancipation -- The second American revolution -- Voices of freedom: from letter of Thomas F. Drayton (April 17, 1861), and from Abraham Lincoln, Address at Sanitary Fair, Baltimore (April 18, 1864) -- The confederate nation -- Turning points -- Rehearsals for reconstruction and the end of the war --

15 "What is freedom?" : Reconstruction, 1865 - 1877 : The meaning of freedom -- Voices of freedom: from petition of committee in behalf of the freedmen to Andrew Johnson (1865), and from a sharecropping contract (1866) -- The making of radical reconstruction -- Radical reconstruction in the south -- The overthrow of reconstruction.