HIST 235 - Captives, Cannibals, and Capitalists in the Early Modern Atlantic World

Cross-Listed as AMST 235 and LATI 235

This course explores cross-cultural encounters in the Americas that characterized the meetings of Europeans, Africans, and Americans in the early modern world between 1492 and 1763. During this period, the Atlantic Ocean and its adjacent land masses became critical locations for economic, biological, and cultural exchanges. This course focuses on the Americas as sites for discovery, mutual incomprehension, and exploitation. The course explores the ways that conquest, resistance, and strategic cooperation shaped peoples’ “new worlds” on both sides of the Atlantic. It also considers how colonialism framed and was framed by scientific inquiry, religious beliefs, economic thought, and artistic expression. Students interrogate primary sources-written, visual and aural–that emerged from these encounters and the secondary literatures that have sought to make sense of them. Meets the pre-1800 requirement, and can count towards “Colonization and Empire,” or “Race and Indigeneity,” or “Law and Social Justice,” or “Africa and Atlantic World” fields. Offered occasionally. (4 Credits)