Course: History of Colonial Latin America
Call number: 120101
Department: Human Sciences
Term: 2015-II
Mondays and Wednesdays 16:30 to 18:29
Room: B LCUP 303
Professor: Carlos Gálvez-Peña, PhD
Email: CM.GalvezP@up.edu.pe/Cmg2104@gmail.com
I. Course description
This is an introductory survey of colonial Latin American history from
the encounter between Amerindians and Europeans in 1492 up to the
Independence of most of the region in 1824. Lectures will offer a broad
historical portrait of colonial Spanish Latin America with an emphasis on
regional experiences: the Central Andes, Mexico and Colonial Brazil.
Throughout the course we will address issues of colonial administration,
economics, social formation, race, gender and religion in order to
understand how the colonial historical experience shaped modern Latin
American nations. Course meetings include lectures and the discussion
of a document or piece of reading relevant to the topics covered in class.
II. Learning Goals
This survey on the colonial history of Latin America will work on
two levels. By the end of the term the student will master relevant
information to the formation of the historical process of Latin America
from the Age of Discovery to the Independence, connecting the colonial
period with modern and contemporary Latin America. The second level
involves the development of analytical and critical skills that will allow
the student to assess a significant amount of general and specific
historiography on the colonial period with a major stress in
Mesoamerica, the Andes and Brazil. As a consequence of both levels of
learning, the student will be able to produce a critical essay combining
both primary and secondary sources on colonial Latin America History.
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III. Methodology
Although the course has been conceived following the survey
format (lecture type), the instructor will dedicate the first part of the
lecture (roughly one hour and ten minutes) to present the topics due
each week, promoting an active discussion with the students through the
use of suitable and motivating examples. The second and final part of the
class, the instructor will introduce the primary or secondary source to be
discussed. After a brief presentation of the reading by a student, the
instructor will promote the participation of the class in the discussion.
The reading material will be available online posted on Blackboard since
the first week of class. Eventually, further material may be posted or
distributed before class.
Besides bibliography and primary sources, the instructor will use
videos, images and music to motivate the discussion and make the
lecture more interactive.
IV. Assignments
Participation in class
Midterm
Paper (due last day of
classes. 8-10 pages)
Final Exam
Active engagement in
lecture. Critical
reading of documents
and bibliography
proposed for class
discussion
Critical engagement of
bibliography and
lecture information
Study Guide available
a week before.
Engaged and critical
piece of writing on
topic of your choice
(academic format)
Critical and creative
assessment of
bibliography and
lecture information
Study guide available
a week before.
25%
25%
25%
25%
V. Content and schedule
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Week 1 (August 17-21)
Introduction: What is colonial Latin America?
Pre-Columbian Mesoamerica I
Reading for discussion: “Aztec Warfare” and “The Halls of Moctezuma” in
Robert Buffington and Lila Caimari, eds., Keen’s Latin American
Civilization (Boulder: Westview, 2009).
Week 2 (August 24-28)
Pre-Columbian Mesoamerica II
Pre-Columbian Andes I and II
Pre-Columbian Fringes
Reading for discussion: “Two views of the Inca Empire” and “War and
Cannibalism among the Brazilian Indians” in Buffington and Caimari,
Keen’s Latin American Civilization.
Week 3 (August 31-September 4)
Fifteenth Century Spain and Portugal
The birth of the Spanish Empire
Reading for discussion: Silvio Zavala, New Viewpoints on the Spanish
Colonization of America (New York: Russell and Russell, 1968), chapter 2
and Francisco de Vitoria on the Evangelization of Unbelievers, in
Kenneth Mills and William Taylor, eds., Colonial Spanish America, A
Documentary History (Lanham, Boulder, New York: SR Books, 2006).
Week 4 (September 7-11)
The Conquest of Paradise
The Caribbean Phase
Reading for discussion:
Letter from Columbus to the Catholic Monarchs (1493), in Margarita
Zamora, ed., Reading Columbus (Berkeley: University of California Press,
1993) and “A standard conqueror’s report”, in James Lockhart and
Enrique Otte, eds., Letters and People of the Spanish Indies, sixteenth
century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008).
Week 5 (September 14-18)
Native Emperor and European Soldiers
Continental Phase
Reading for discussion: “The meeting of Cortes and Moctezuma” and
“Rendezvous at Cajamarca” in Buffington and Caimari, Keen’s Latin
American Civilization; and Seed, Patricia, “The Requirement”, in
Ceremonies of Possession in Europe’s Conquest of the New World, 14921640, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.
Week 6 (September 21-25)
Early Colonial Rule: Mexico and Peru
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Reading for discussion: “Alarm and drastic remedies: a viceroy’s view of
New Spain” in James Lockhart and Enrique Otte, eds., Letters and People
of the Spanish Indies, sixteenth century and Haring, C.H. “Viceroys and
Audiencias” in The Spanish Empire in America, San Diego, New York and
London: Harcourt Publishers, 1975. Chapter VII.
Week 7 (September 28-October 2)
Early Colonial Economy and Society
Encomienda, Mining, Repartimientos
Reading for discussion: “An encomendero’s opinion” and “The Miner” in
James Lockhart and Enrique Otte, eds., Letters and People of the Spanish
Indies, sixteenth century and Isabel Moctezuma
Week 8 (October 5-9) Midterms
Week 9 (October12-16)
Slavery
Reading for discussion: Mary Karasch, “Zumbi of Palmares” and Alonso
de Sandoval’s Treatise on Slavery (Indianapolis and Cambridge: Hackett
Publishing Co., 2008), Book 4.
Week 10 (October 19-23)
The Colonial Church: A New Kingdom
Readings for discussion:
Nancy van Deusen, “Ursula de Jesus, A seventeenth-century AfroPeruvian mystic,” in Kenneth J. Andrien, The Human Tradition in Colonial
Latin America (Lanham, Boulder and New York: SR Books, 2004) and
Curzio-Nagy, Linda, The Great Festivals of Colonial Mexico City,
Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2004. Chapter 2.
Week 11 (October 26-30)
Colonial Culture: Arts and Letters
Lettered Culture
Schools and Universities
Visual Arts
Reading for discussion: Rolena Adorno, “Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala,
Native Writer and Litigant in Early Colonial Peru” in Kenneth J. Andrien,
The Human Tradition in Colonial Latin America.
Week 12 (November 2-6)
Colonial Women
The World of the Castas
Race and Minorities
Reading for discussion: Solange Alberro, “Beatriz de Padilla: Mistress and
Mother” and Susan Soeiro, “Catarina de Monte Sinay: Nun and
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Entrepreneur” in David Sweet and Gary B. Nash, eds., Struggle and
Survival in Colonial Latin America (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1981).
Week 13 (November 9-13)
Maturity Period: New Directions within the Spanish Empire
The Bourbon Reforms and the Enlightened State
Reading for discussion: “The Bourbon Commercial Reforms”, “The Plan of
Tupac Amaru” and “A Charter of Liberty,” in Buffington and Caimari,
Keen’s Latin American Civilization.
Week 14 (November 16-20)
Late Colonial Brazil and the incorporation of Colonial Fringes
Reading for discussion: Muriel Nazzari, “Jose Antonio da Silva, Marriage
and Concubinage in Colonial Brazil”, in Kenneth J. Andrien, The Human
Tradition in Colonial Latin America and David G. Sweet, “Francisca,
Indian Slave”, in David Sweet and Gary B. Nash, eds., Struggle and
Survival in Colonial Latin America.
Week 15 (November 23-27)
The Road to Independence
The Age of Rights and Representation
Reading for discussion: Jose Maria Morelos, “Sentiments of the Nation”
and “The Argentine Declaration of Independence” in Kenneth Mills and
William Taylor, eds., Colonial Spanish America, A Documentary History;
Pagden, Anthony, “Old Constitutions and Ancient Indian Empires” in
Spanish Imperialism and the Political Imagination, London and New
Haven: Yale University Press, 1990.
http://www.library.vanderbilt.edu/Quaderno/Quaderno2/Q2.C15.Pagde
n.pdf
Week 16 (November 30-December 4)
Final Exams
Essay due
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