Introduction to Early Latin America

History 255/LAS 251
Fall 2010

Prof. Chad Black
2629 Dunford Hall, 6th Floor
chad.black -at- utk.edu

Office Hours: Mondays, 11:15-12:15 and 2:30-3:30

I’m also often available through the chat widget on the sidebar to the right, or by appointment.

In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue and… discovered, or destroyed, conquered, or civilized the Americas. Sixty years later, in 1552, López de Gómara, the private secretary of Hernán Cortes, wrote, “The greatest event since the creation of the world (excluding the incarnation and death of Him who created it) is the discovery of the Indies [i.e. Americas].” He was, himself, a participant the great conquest of Mexico. From the very beginning, not only the magnitude, but also the meaning of the Conquest of the Americas has been a point of controversy and acclaim. The history of Early Latin America, however, does not begin in October 1492. Indigenous bands and great civilizations inhabited North and South America for more than ten thousand years prior to the arrival of Europeans on the shores of Caribbean islands. Thus, in this class we will concentrate on the pre-Colombian period, the conquest period, and the ensuing three hundred years of Spanish (and to a limited extent) Portuguese rule. The lectures will move both chronologically and topically. We will concentrate on two key geographic areas of examination— central Mexico, home to the highly structured pre-Columbian societies of the Maya and the Mexica, among many others, and later the center of Spanish control in its northern kingdoms as the Viceroyalty of New Spain; and, the central Andes, land of the Inca Empire and its subject polities (among others), and home of the Viceroyalty of Peru, the center of Spanish power in its southern kingdoms. Our class will cover a tremendous breadth of time and territory, and as such the lectures, readings, and discussion sections are designed to draw your critical attention to issues, including ethnicity, gender, slavery, culture, and power, as well as the institutions and structures that patterned native, African, and European experiences of Spanish and Portuguese imperialism. Lectures, discussions, and readings are designed to complement one another. As such, each student is expected to attend all lectures and sections, and to prepare the readings as assigned.
###COURSE OBJECTIVES: 1. To introduce students to the forces, events, and conflicts that defined the process of conquest and colonization of the Americas, including:
  • The histories and cultures of pre-conquest state systems, particularly in central Mexico and the Andes.
  • The historical precedents for Spanish and Portuguese expansion and conquest.
  • The process of conquest and colonization from the perspectives of Iberian, African, and indigenous populations.
  • The fundamental forms of institutional and cultural organization that structured daily life during the three centuries of Spanish rule.
  • The tensions of late colonial society that let to conflict, disorder, and eventually rebellion.
2. To understand and use a variety of sources that provide the core of historical inquiry.
  • Primary written sources, and their particular challenges.
  • Secondary sources, and how to read them critically.
  • Non-written sources (artifacts, DNA, and more).
  • The absence of sources— finding lost voices, and reading against the grain.
3. To be able to identify, understand, and critique historical argument.
  • Historians follow a lose set of epistemological, theoretical, and evidentiary rules in their attempts to recreate the limited past that is accessible to us through our incomplete archival record. At the college level and beyond, it is your task to learn how to identify an author’s central argument and to evaluate it based on its evidence, sources, logic, and narrative.

COURSE ORGANIZATION

In the infinite wisdom of UT scheduling, our first class meets on a Wednesday. This means that your discussion sections meet for the first time following our second meeting, a Monday. In general, our lecture schedule reflects this subversion of the traditional week– ie, I will be lecturing on Wednesdays and Mondays on the topics you will be meeting with your discussion sections between Monday and Wednesday.

TECHNOLOGY

We are going to experiment this semester with using both face-to-face and online lectures, in addition to your discussion sections. Students are responsible for the content of all of the lectures. Online lectures will be posted both on the course website and on iTunes U, where you can subscribe to the podcast and have them delivered directly to you local copy of itunes. Live lectures will not be recorded.

READINGS

Textbook: Mark Burkholder and Lyman Johnson, Colonial Latin America, 6th Ed. (Oxford University Press, 2007).

This is your only required text purchase. There will be voluminous readings posted to the course website.

COURSE REQUIREMENTS AND GRADING

  1. Reading. Each week’s assigned readings must be completed before your discussion section meeting.

  2. history255/contact Form. 5 pts. Each student must fill out the contact information here before their first section meeting.

  3. Participation. 45 pts. Learning is an interactive process that requires your participation! Twenty-five percent of your grade will be derived from participating in your discussion sections. At the beginning of each discussion section, each student will perform a 5-10min guided writing exercise that will be graded on a scale of 0-1-2. The guided writings will test your reading comprehension for that week’s history255/assignments. Your best 10 papers will be averaged for your participation grade. 20 points are available through the weekly writing, and 25 points at the discretion of your section leader based on participation in the discussion and completing the weekly questionnaires.

  4. Exams. 100 pts. There will be two exams (a mid-term and a final), each of which will count for 50 pts each of your final grade.

  5. Paper. 50 pts. Each student will write a critical review of the film, La Otra Conquista, that will include the use and analysis of two primary and one secondary source from course readings. Fuller instructions will be provided later. DUE DATE = November 1.

  6. Attendance. Attendance is required in the discussion sections.

Total points available: 200.

OTHER COURSE POLICIES

Please Note: If any special accommodations are needed to complete the course requirements, please come see me at the beginning of the semester. No make-up exams or incompletes will be given without documentation.

Plagiarism: Plagiarism occurs when someone knowingly or unknowingly presents the words or ides of another persona has his or her own. Any work turned in for this class must meet University standards for academic honesty. Any students unsure about how to apply these rules are urged to consult with me prior to turning in any written work.

Deadlines: history255/assignments that are due in class must be turned in at the start of class. Late submissions will not be accepted without documentation of family or medical emergencies. If you anticipate problems, please history255/contact me before the assignment is due, not after!

Problems and Questions: If you have questions or problems related to grades, history255/assignments, class policies and the like, please ask your TA/Discussion Section Leader first.

Introduction:

Lectures:

8/18: Course Welcome (in class)

8/23: Charting the Earliest Americans (in class)

Readings:

Burkholder and Johnson, Chapter 1.

Mann, Charles C. “1491” The Atlantic Monthly (March 2002).

Stix, Gary. “The Migration History of Humans: DNA Study Traces Human Origins across the Continents.” Scientific American Magazine (July 2008).

Handout on Primary and Secondary Sources.

Early America I:

Lectures:

8/25 Maya Lives (online)

8/30 Mexica Imperialism (in class)

Readings:

Thompson, J. Eric. “The Meaning of Maize for the Maya.” in Gilbert M. Joseph and Timothy J. Henderson, eds., The Mexico Reader: History, Culture, Politics (Durham: Duke University Press, 2002), pp. 86-91.

Anonymous. “The Popul Vuh.” In Joseph and Henderson, eds., The Mexico Reader, pp. 79-85.

Roberts, David, Wolfgang Kaehler, and Anne Bolen. “Secrets of the Maya: Deciphering Tikal.” Smithsonian 35.4 (July 2004): 42-48.

Inga Clendinnen, “The Costs of Courage in Aztec society,” pp. 61-78 in The Mexico Reader.

Burkhardt, Louise M. “Mexica Women on the Home Front: Housework and Religion in Aztec Mexico” in Schroeder, Susan et al. Indian Women of Early Mexico, (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1997), pp. 25-54.

Early America II:

Lectures:

9/1 Inca Imperial Culture (online)

9/6 Labor Day - no class

Readings:

Gordon Brotherson, “Tahuantinsuyu,” Book of the Fourth world. Reading the Native Americans Through their Literature (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992): 193-211.

Irene Silverblatt, “Moon, Sun, Witches”, pp. 34-48 in Starn, et. al, The Peru Reader (Durham: Duke University Press, 1995).

Old World Antecedents:

Lectures:

9/8 From Convivencia to Reconquista (online)

9/13 Projections (in class)

Readings:

“Ibn Abd-el-Hakem: The Islamic Conquest of Spain.”

“Las Siete Partidas: Laws on Jews.”

“King Ferdinand, Marriage Concessions (1469)” in Jon Cowans, ed. Early Modern Spain: A Documentary History (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003): 7-9.

“Surrender Treaty of the Kingdom of Granada (1491)” in Cowans, Early Modern Spain: 15-19.

“Decree of Expulsion of the Jews (1492)” in Cowans, Early Modern Spain: 20-23.

The Early Encounter:

Lectures:

9/15 Caribbean Conquest (online)

9/20 First history255/contacts (in class)

Readings:

Burkholder and Johnson, Chapter 2.

Christopher Columbus’s Log, excerpted in English. Focus on period after Oct. 11.

The Requerimiento

Antonio Montesinos, “Advent Sermon”

“The Relación of Fray Ramón Pane (c. 1494-1496)”

“The Laws of Burgos. 1512-1513”

The Conquest of Native Empires:

Lectures:

9/22 Conquest Myths and Realities I (online)

9/27 Conquest Myths and Realities II (in class)

Readings:

Lockhart and Otte, Letters and People of the Spanish Indies: 16th Century (Cambridge Univ. Press, 1976), selections.

Matthew Restall, et. al., Mesoamerican Voices: Native-Language Writings from Colonial Mexico, Oaxaca, Yucatan, and Guatemala (Cambridge: 2005): Chapter 3.

“The Spaniards’ Entry into Tenochtitlan,” The Mexico Reader, 97-104.

Exam I - 9/29 (in class)

Film: La Otra Conquista - 10/4, 10/6 (in class)

Readings:

“Orders Given to the Twelve (1523)” in Mills, Taylor, and Graham Colonial Latin America: A Documentary History,” (SR Books, 2004): 59-64.

J. Michael Francis. “In the Service of God, I Order these Temples of Idolatrous Worship Razed to the Ground”: Extirpation of Idolatry and the Search for the Santuario Grande of Iguaque (Columbia, 1595)” in Colonial Lives, pp. 39-53.

Bartolomé de Las Casas, Brief Account of the Devastation of the Indies, excerpt.

From Cataclysm to Order:

Lectures:

10/11 Taming the Conquest (in class)

10/13 Institutions of Rule and Religion (online)

10/18 The Inquisition (in class)

Readings:

Burkholder and Johnson, Chapter 3.

Suzanne Alchon, “Colonialism, Disease, and the Spanish Conquest of the Carribbean, Mesoamerica, and the Central Andes,” in A Pest in the Land: New World Epidemics in a Global Perspective (Univ. of NM Press, 2003): 60-82.

“The New Laws”

J.L Phelan, “Authority and Flexibility in the Spanish Imperial Bureaucracy” Administrative Science Quarterly, Vol. 5, No. 1, Special Issue on Comparative Public Administration. (Jun., 1960), pp. 47-65. (Available through the library website.)

Jacqueline Holler, “The Spiritual and Physical Ecstasies of a Sixteenth-Century Beata: Marina de San Miguel Confesses before the Mexican Inquisition.” Colonial Lives, pp. 77-100.

Colonial Economy - Labor and Production

Lectures:

10/20 Tribute, Tax, Labor (online)

10/25 Mining (in class)

Readings:

Burkholder and Johnson, Chapter 4-5.

Woodrow Borah, “The Indians of Tejupan Want to Raise Silk on Their Own,” Colonial Lives, 6-10.

Ward Stavig, The World of Túpac Amaru, Ch. 6.

Slave and Free Africans

Lectures:

10/27 The Atlantic Slave Economy (online)

11/1 Varieties of Slave Experience (in class) {PAPER DUE!!!}

Readings:

Burkholder and Johnson, Chapter 6.

Jane Landers, “Felipe Edimboro Sues for Manumission, Don Francisco Xavier Sánchez contests (Florida, 1794),” in Colonial Lives, pp. 249-268.

Kris Lane, “Captivity and Redemption: Aspects of Slave LIfe in early Colonial Quito and Popoyan,” The Americas 57.2 (2000), 225-246. (Available through the library website.)

Gender and Sexuality

Lectures:

11/3 Prescriptions and Practices (online)

11/8 Marriage and Family (in class)

Readings:

Burkholder and Johnson, Chapter 7.

Patricia Seed, “Marriage Promises and the Value of a Woman’s Testimony in Colonial Mexico,” Signs 13.2 (Winter, 1988): 146-152. (Available through the library website.)

Lavrin, Asunción. “Sexuality in Colonial Mexico: A Church Dilemma.” Pp. 47-95 in, Sexuality and Marriage in Colonial Latin America. Lavrin, ed. Lincoln: Univ. of Nebraska Press, 1992.

Richard Boyer, “Catarina María Compains that Juan Teoia Forcibly Deflowered Her (Mexico, 1693)” in Colonial Lives: 155-165.

Order and Disorder

Lectures:

11/10 An Uneasy Peace (online)

11/15 Bourbon and Pombaline Reforms (in class)

Readings:

Burkholder and Johnson, Chapter 8.

Ann Twinam, “Drinking, Gambling, and Death on a Colonial Hacienda (Quito, 1768)” 156-159 in Colonial Lives.

“José de Gálvez’s Decrees for the King’s Subjects in Mexico (1769, 1778)” in Mills, et. al., Colonial Latin America, pp. 270-273.

Steinar A. Saether, “Bourbon Absolutism and Marriage Reform in Late Colonial Spanish America,” The Americas 59.4 (April 2003): 475-509. (Available through the library website.)

Late Colonial Rebellion

Lectures:

11/17 Death and Taxes (online)

11/22 Pan-Andean Uprisings (in class)

Readings:

Burkholder and Johnson, Chapter 9

Elizabeth Penry, “Letters of Insurrection: The Rebellion of the Communities (Charcas, 1781)” in Colonial Lives: 201-215.

David T. Garrett, “His Majesty’s Most Loyal Vassals”: The Indian Nobility and Túpac Amaru,” Hispanic American Historical Review, 84:4 (2004): 575-617. (Available through the library website.)

Towards Independence

Lectures:

11/24 The Bonaparte Crisis (online)

11/29 An Anti-colonial Revolution? (in class)

Readings:

Burkholder and Johnson, Chapter 10.

12/3 8:00am-10:00am Final Exam