Aztecs, Incas, and Conquistadors: Colonial Latin America, 1492-1820

Catalog description

This course surveys colonial Latin America, and the ways in which the era’s dynamics of plunder and exploitation, as well as societies structured by race, class, gender, and ethnicity, have continued to shape the contours of Latin American society to this day. We begin with the great indigenous societies that existed prior to European "discovery" and how their organizations, structures, and tensions transitioned into European colonial rule. In the colonial period, we will examine in detail the experiences of different groups of people, in particular, the subaltern - women of all social strata, indigenous peoples, enslaved and free people of African descent - to better understand how their perspectives, actions, and sometime resistance shaped relationships of power and domination. This course relies on a combination of primary sources, secondary sources, and textbook readings along with various visual materials to provide a broad view of colonial Latin American history and the connections between global forces and local experiences. As students in this class, you will be expected to integrate the variety of sources to craft your own critical interpretations of Latin American history and the threads that bind its past and present.