Colonial Latin America, 1492-1800

Catalog description

The course examines Indian cultures, Portuguese and Spanish institutions, and values on the eve of the conquests, including the clash of cultures and interests, and three ensuing centuries of New World dialectics: conquistadores, viceroys, colonists, priests, friars, Indian caciques and peasants, black slaves, and free mulattoes mutually interacting and forming, by 1800, a new civilization composed of varying hybrid cultures from the Rio Grande to Tierra del Fuego. The course also considers the Iberian colonies on the eve of the 19th-century revolutions for independence.