Brandeis University Spring Semester 2018
Dr. Timo Schaefer
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Office hours: Tuesday/Thursday, 3:30-4:30
History 71A
Latin American and Caribbean History I: Colonialism, Slavery, Freedom
Tuesdays/Thursdays, 2-3:20 pm
Course Description
The Spanish and Portuguese conquest of Latin America – often understood as the starting point of the modern era in world history – led to a series of dramatic encounters between polities, cultures, technologies, and environments that previously had developed independently for millennia. In this course we will consider the societies that emerged from these encounters and the establishment, consolidation, and collapse of the systems of rule that for three hundred years held them together.We will look at the role of both the Catholic Church and emerging modern systems of rationality in unifying the disparate elements of the Spanish and Portuguese Empires, and we will discuss different interpretive models for understanding the way in which Latin American indigenous people and African slaves and their descendants participated and were made to participate in European colonial projects. Lastly, we will examine the processes that in the eighteenth century began to undermine the coherence of the colonial enterprise and the social and political conflicts that would lead to the formation of independent nation states in Latin America. The history of colonial Latin America was shaped by the rise and fall of two remarkably powerful and long-lasting overseas empires, and throughout this course we willalso reflect on the evolution of strategies of rule and contestation in early-modern systems of power more generally.
Assignments
Two eight-page essayshave to be submitted in class. The first asks you to compare Robert Ricard and Inga Clendinnen’s accounts of the reception of Christianity by New Spain’s indigenous peoples in the sixteenth century, the second to evaluate Ángel Rama’s interpretation of colonial power in the light other class readings.
Take-Home Final Exam
The final exam will consist of two long essay questions that will require you to think critically about the whole of the course content. I give you one of the essay questions at the outset: Compare and contrast Immanuel Wallerstein and Steve Stern’s interpretations of colonial Latin America. How do these approaches measure up against the empirical evidence presented in this course, and which of them do you think is ultimately more successful?
Note: In order to do well on the final exam it is imperative that you take good lecture and reading notes throughout the term. In your essays you are expected to cite the class readings as well as your dated lecture notes.
Attendance and Participation
Informed class participation is crucial for the success of this course: you are expected to come to class having done all assigned readings and ready to talk about them. You will get a grade of 10 out of 10 for regularly participating in class discussions, 8 out of 10 for sometimes participating in class discussions, and 6 out of 10 for almost never participating in class discussions. You are allowed one unexcused absence from class in the semester, but will lose 1 point for each additional unexcused absence. So someone who sometimes participates in class discussions and has one unexcused absence will still get a final grade of 8 out of 10 for attendance and participation, but someone who sometimes participates and has two unexcused absences will get a final grade of 7 out of 10. Students uncomfortable with speaking in class are encouraged to speak to me at the beginning of the term in order to find alternative ways of evaluating their engagement with the readings and with their colleagues’ class interventions.
Evaluation
Participation: 10 percent
Essay 1: 25 percent
Essay 2: 30 percent
Final exam: 35 percent
Reading List
Cheryl Martin and Mark Wasserman (eds.). Readings on Latin America and its People, volume 1. Pearson, 2010.
Inga Clendinnen, Ambivalent Conquests: Maya and Spaniard in Yucatan, 1517-1570, second edition. Cambridge University Press, 2003.
Stuart Schwartz, Sugar Plantations in the Formation of Brazilian Society: Bahia, 1550-1835. Cambridge University Press, 1985.
Sinclair Thomson. We Alone Will Rule: Native Andean Politics in the Age of Insurgency. University of Wisconsin Press, 2002.
Additional shorter texts are available through the library website or will be distributed by the instructor.
Class Schedule
Week 1
Thursday, 11 January: Introduction
Week 2 – Colonial Latin America: Overview
Tuesday, 16 January
Read – Steve Stern, “Feudalism, Capitalism, and the World-System in the Perspective of Latin America and the Caribbean,” and Immanuel Wallerstein, “Feudalism, Capitalism, and the World-System in the Perspective of Latin America and the Caribbean: Comments on Stern’s Critical Tests,”American Historical Review 93/4 (1988).
Week 3 – Discoveries
Tuesday, 23 January
Read –Christopher Columbus’s Journal, excerpts.
Thursday, 25 January
Read – Peter Hulme, Colonial Encounters: Europe and the native Caribbean, 1492-1797, (Methuen, 1986), chapters 1 and 2.
Week 4 – Conquest
Tuesday, 30 January
Read –Clendinnen. Ambivalent Conquests, part 1.
Thursday, 1 February
Read – Martin and Wasserman, “Bartolomé de las Casas on the Conquest of Cuba,” “Antonio de Montesinos sermon on the first Sunday of Lent, Santo Domingo,” and “Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda.”
Week 5 – New World Order
Tuesday, 6 February
Read –Clendinnen, Ambivalent Conquests, part 2.
Thursday, 8 February
Read– Martin and Wasserman, “The Requerimiento” and “Response to the Requerimiento in Panama.”
Week 6 –Religion
Tuesday, 13 February
Movie: The Mission (Roland Joffé, 1986)
Read –Robert Ricard, The Spiritual Conquest of Mexico: An Essay on the Apostolate and the Evangelizing Methods of the Mendicant Orders in New Spain, 1523-1572, (University of California Press, 1966), chapters 2-5.
First essay assignment due
Thursday, 15 February
Read – Excerpts from Antonio de Montoya, The Spiritual Conquest
Week 7 – Ordering the Colonies
Tuesday, 27 February
Read – James Lockhart, “Encomienda and Hacienda: The Evolution of the Great Estate in the Spanish Indies,” Hispanic American Historical Review 49/3 (1969). Robert Keith, “Encomienda, Hacienda and Corregimiento in Spanish America: A Structural Analysis,” Hispanic American Historical Review 51/3 (1971).
Thursday, 29 February
Read – Martin and Wasserman, “The Quito Earthquake of 1582,” “Chimalpahin on the 1611 earthquake in Mexico City,” and “’The Fear of God’: BartoloméArzáns de Ursúa y Vela.”
Week 8 – The Ideology of Empire
Tuesday, 13 March
Read –Angel Rama, The Lettered City, (Duke University Press, 1996), chapters 1 and 2. Lyle McAlister, “Social Structure and Social Change in New Spain,” Hispanic American Historical Review 43/3 (1963).
Thursday, 15 March
Read – Martin and Wasserman, “The questionnaire,” “Relación of Jauja, Peru,” and “Relación of Meztitlan, Mexico.”
Week 9 – Colonial Brazil
Tuesday, 6 March
Read – Schwartz, Sugar Plantations, chapters 1-3. Barbara Sommer, “Colony of the Sertão: Amazonian Expeditions and the Indian Slave Trade,” The Americas 61/3 (2005).
Second essay assignment due
Thursday, 8 March
Read – Martin and Wasserman, “Antonio de Vieira on abuses in Maranhão, Brazil.”
Week 10 – Economy and Society, I
Tuesday, 20 March
Read – Schwartz, chapters 4-8.
Thursday, 22 March
Read –Martin and Wasserman: “Selections from the Tlaxcala cabildo proceedings, 16th century,” “Native lords of Ecuador write King Philip II, 1580-1599,” and “Thomas Gage’s description of an Indian town in 17th century Guatemala.”
Week 11 – Economy and Society, II
Tuesday, 27 March
Read – Schwartz, chapters 9-11.
Thursday, 29 March
Read – Martin and Wasserman, “Antônio de Vieira’s sermon on the treatment of slaves, 1633,” “Domingos de Loreto Cuoto’s description of the Brotherhood of Our Lady of the Rosary, Recife, 1757,” and “Slaves mining for diamonds, Minas Gerais, early 19th century.”
Week 12 – Economy and Society, III
Tuesday, 10 April
Read – Schwartz, Sugar Plantations, chapters 12-14.
Thursday, 12 April
Read –Martin and Wasserman, “A slave rebellion in Bahia, 1789,” “Quilombos inciting revolts in Minas Gerais, Brazil, 1719,” “Thomas Gage on maroons in Guatemala,” and “War and Peace at Palmares, Brazil.”
Week 13 – The Bourbon Reforms
Tuesday, 17 April
Read – Thomson,We Alone Will Rule, chapters 1-4.
Thursday, 19 April
Read –Martin and Wasserman, “Alexander von Humboldt on the progress of the Enlightenment in Latin America,” “Formation of the SociedadPatriótica in Quito, from the MercurioPeruano,” and “Cafes in Lima, from the MercurioPeruano.”
Week 14 – The End of the Colonial Project
Tuesday, 24 April
Read – Thomson,We Alone Will Rule, chapters 5-8.
Thursday, 26 April
Read – Martin and Wasserman, “Appeal to Mexicans to break ties with the royalists, El Despertador Americano, 1811,” and “Excerpt, LucásAlamán, The Alhóndiga.”
Take-Home Final Exam
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