This course considers the creation and consolidation of settler colonies in the region known to many as North America. With an eye to the colonial present, the course focuses on the period from the 15th century to the early 20th century. Cultural texts and place-specific cases are used to ground themes and processes that also bear on the wider field of historical geography, including narratives of discovery and possession; ecological imperialism and environmental transformation; the (re)settlement of land and colonial government; enslavement and industrialization; frontiers, borders, and resource extraction; and some of the Indigenous geographies that preceded, were transformed by and transformed, and exceeded the reach of colonial power. Potential field trip.