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HISTORY 8A
Colonial Latin America

Prof. Ingrid Fey
University of California, Los Angeles
Fall 1998
Office:  Bunche 7272
Email: ifey@ucla.edu
Course Website:
Office Hours: R 11-1
 

 

The conquest of America continues to be the pause of our historical memory, the origin of our intense self-consciousness and of the painful brotherhood between the death of Indian civilizations and the birth of the Hispano-Indian civilizations of the New World.

    -- Carlos Fuentes
Modern Latin American society and identity have evolved from the confluence of three distinctive cultural, ethnic, and racial groups:  Native, European, and African.  The process by which these diverse groups have come together to form new cultures has been sudden and violent, but also gradual and complex.  This introductory course focuses upon this process from the period of these groups' first meeting (1490s) until nationalist movements for independence from European colonialism emerged in the early nineteenth century (1820s).  It was during this period of over 300 years that many of the institutions and social practices that characterize present-day Latin America first appeared.
 
Readings for this course fall into two categories:  primary and secondary sources.  Primary sources are documents that were written close to the time that they describe.  They are written statements from the colonial period that shed light on various aspects of that time.  Primary sources for this course include letters, wills, petitions, court documents, autobiographies, and historical treatises and are translated from Spanish, Portuguese, and several indigenous languages.  These documents are included in Letters and People of the Spanish Indies and in a Course Reader.  Secondary sources are accounts written by historians after the study of primary sources and other written histories.  Secondary sources for this course include scholarly articles, Lockhart and Schwartz's Early Latin America (a textbook), and a book about the life of a Spanish conqueror of Peru who unwittingly became a bigamist, In Good Faith and Truthful Ignorance:  A Case of Transatlantic Bigamy, by Alexandra Parma Cook and Noble David Cook.  Students are encouraged to formulate their own opinions about historical events based upon their critical reading of both primary and secondary sources.  (See "How to Handle Reading Assignments" for more on how to approach specific materials).

Books and Readers:
Early Latin America, Letters and Peoples, and In Good Faith and Truthful Ignorance should be purchased at the UCLA Bookstore.  The Course Reader can and should be purchased at Westwood Copies (1001 Gayley, behind the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf, M-F 8:30 am -8 pm; Sat. 9-5).  All reading assignments are mandatory and should be completed prior to attending section.  Students are expected to bring Letters and Peoples and the Course Reader to section meetings to enable full participation in discussions of the documents and articles.

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Course Requirements: COURSE SCHEDULE

The following course schedule outlines the topics to be discussed throughout the quarter and lists required assignments.  All reading for each week should be completed by your section meeting time.  In some cases, this will put you slightly ahead of the lecture schedule, but this should not pose a problem.
 
10/1 Course Introduction 
Context of Colonial History
Wk. 1 10/6 Indigenous Background 
ELA pp. 31-57 (carefully); L&P 
Preface"; Reader #1
10/8 European and African Background 
ELA pp. 3-30 (carefully) 
"Discovery," and Conquest
Wk. 2 10/13  The Conquests of Central Mexico and Peru 
ELA 59-85 (68-72, 80-83 carefully); L&P #1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8
10/15 European and Native Views of Conquest 
Reader #2 
Settlement and the Emergence of Colonial Society
Wk. 3 10/20  Colonial Institutions 
ELA 86-111 (92-102 carefully); L&P #11, 13, 14, 29
10/22 Colonial Cities and the Countryside 
ELA 122-159 (125-146 carefully); L&P #15-25; Reader #3
Wk. 4 10/27 Indigenous Life under Colonial Rule 
ELA 111-118; 164-177 (all carefully); L&P #26-28, 34-36; 
Reader #4 
10/29 Cultural Syncretism 
Film:  La Ofrenda:  Day of the Dead
Wk. 5 11/3 Midterm Examination
11/5 Africans in Spanish America 
Begin Cook & Cook, Good Faith and Truthful Ignorance, "Preface" and "The Indies" pp. 7-68; Reader #5 
Gender and Colonial Society
Wk. 6 11/10 Gender in Colonial Society 
Good Faith and Truthful Ignorance, pp. 71-153; Reader #6
11/12 The Ethnic Hierarchy 
Colonial Brazil
Wk. 7 11/17 Exploration, Trade, and Settlement 
ELA 181-252 (194-201, 215-221, 233-238 carefully)
11/19 African Slavery and Society in Colonial Brazil 
Reader #7 
Expanding Colonial Frontiers
Wk. 8 11/24 Spanish American Frontiers in the North and South 
ELA 253-304, Reader #8 
*PAPERS DUE IN LECTURE*
11/26 No Class, Thanksgiving Break
Wk. 9  12/1 Colonial Life in Central America 
ELA 118-119, 177-180 
Late Colonial Society
12/3 Tensions in Colonial Society 
ELA 159-164 (carefully), 315-405, Reader #9
Wk. 10 12/8 Independence and Emerging Nations 
ELA 405-426
12/10 Course Conclusions 
Finals Wk 12/17 FINAL EXAMINATION, 8-11 am
 

HOW TO HANDLE READING ASSIGNMENTS
 
Students are expected to arrive at their discussion sections prepared to discuss the reading assigned for the week at hand.  This means that reading for both days must be completed by the time of your discussion.  Failure to come prepared to section will result in a very low section participation grade.  Since your section grade comprises 15% of your overall course grade, lack of preparation can seriously undermine your final grade in the class.
 

There is a great deal of reading for this class; however, not all of the reading needs to be treated equally, nor should it be.  By far the most important reading for your section participation includes In Good Faith and Truthful Ignorance and the primary documents and articles contained in your Reader and in Letters and Peoples.  If you are unable to do all of the reading for the week before section, do try at the very least to have read through these documents.  Your discussions will focus on analyzing these documents historically; if students have not read these documents in advance, your discussion sections will not be fruitful and both exams and the paper assignment will be much more difficult.  Indeed, sections are your opportunity to learn exactly how historians approach their craft and how you must approach the material when writing your essays and exams.
 

When reading primary documents, it is very important not to take them at face value.  In order to fairly evaluate documents it is vital to take into account the context in which that document was produced.  Why was the document written, by whom, and for what ultimate purpose?  When was the document written and at what point in the author's life?  What underlying interests or biases could have colored the document?  How representative are the people or events described in the document of larger historical processes in colonial Latin America?  All of these questions need to be considered when analyzing primary documents.
 

The textbook is, well, a bit dry and perhaps in parts downright boring.  However, it does provide an excellent background to the documents and lectures.  If you are able to read the textbook carefully, you will undoubtedly benefit tremendously - lectures will be easier to follow, primary documents will be more easily analyzed.  If you are like many students and are pressed for time, do your best to skim the textbook, jotting down those concepts, terms, and ideas that seem most important to you.  I have noted in your syllabus those sections that should be read carefully.  The rest should be looked at, but do not feel it necessary to pour over every line.  If you would like help in figuring out how to skim efficiently and fruitfully, ask your TA - graduate students are experts!
 
 

WRITING ASSIGNMENT

The goal of the writing assignment is to have students examine a topic of their interest in greater detail using primary documents assigned for this class as their main source of information.  Relevant documents can be found in the Reader and in Letters and Peoples.  Reference to secondary sources should be limited to providing pertinent historical context.
 

Essays will be evaluated above all for the creativity and expertise that students bring to their interpretation of the documentation.  Reading between the lines, thinking out the implications of chance or fragmentary references, is a necessary part of the historical method.  It is often best to begin your research with an open-ended question or a working hypothesis.  Then analyze the documentation to find an answer to your question or to prove or disprove your hypothesis.  For example, you might start out with the notion that women were subordinated in colonial society.  After looking through the documentation, however, you discover many instances of female assertiveness.  Clearly, you must conclude, the situation of women was not as simple as you first believed.  It is the convincing and subtle use of examples that is important here rather than that some preconceived conclusion should be reached.  On the other hand, the paper should not become a series of detailed examples with little interpretation.  Pick out the crucial aspects.  A useful technique is to point to the similarities in several examples.
 

It is always best when students are able to write on issues that interest them in some way.  If you are contemplating a career in finance, why not examine the structure of business relationships in colonial Latin America or indigenous contributions to the economy?  If you are interested in literature, explore the nature of New World writing as it appears in some of the readings.  There are many documents related to issues of religion, women, and urban life as well.  Whatever you decide, it is best to clear your ideas with your TA.  When you present your idea to your TA, make sure to come with a list of relevant documents that you intend to use as proof for your assertions.
 
A few other requirements:

 GRADING

 All assignments will be graded on a numerical scale.  Below is the number-letter grade equivalencies used in this course.
 

 
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