Latin America I

0-3 Credits · Level: Undergraduate

"The arrival of Europeans in the Caribbean in 1492 kicked off a dramatic exchange of peoples and cultures, plants and pathogens that would have vast global impact. This class focuses on the 300 years of community and life that followed these initial encounters. We begin with the early complex societies of the Americas before turning to the 16th century, as these communities dealt with devastating disease and the extraction of labor and resources that would come with European interests and assertions of power. We will think about how indigenous communities maintained elements of earlier structures and developed new ones in response. We will talk about how many thousands of African men and women were forced across the Atlantic to work as slaves – first in agriculture and mining, and later in many other trades - and how they built lives and communities under constraint. We will look at how European regimes (particularly Spain and Portugal) claimed power over centuries - and we will end the course thinking about how communities now influenced by indigenous, African, and European legacies challenged and resisted that power in the late eighteenth century. The readings will be a mix of primary sources, such as memoirs and letters, and secondary sources across a wide range of Latin American geographies."