University of California, Santa Barbara
History 151A
Hispanic American History: The Colonial Background, 1492-1808
1994
Office Hours: Tues., Wed., 2:15-3:15 Francis A. Dutra
And by appointment. Ellison 5839
E-mail: dutra@humanitas.ucsb.edu
ORIENTATION: 6/20
PART I: IBERIANS, AMERINDIANS, AND AFRICANS
AND THEIR GOVERNANCE IN THE NEW WORLD
I. IBERIAN HERITAGE. 6/20, 6/21
II. AMERINDIANS AND THE COLUMBIAN EXCHANGE. 6/22, 6/23
III. THE AGE OF CONQUEST. 6/27
IV. THE AFRICAN HERITAGE OF SPANISH AND PORTUGUESE AMERICA.
POPULATION AND LABOR IN HISPANIC AMERICA. 6/28, 6/29
V. RULING NEW WORLD EMPIRES. 6/30, 7/5
HOLIDAY: JULY 4 (MONDAY) MIDTERM EXAMINATION: 7/6 (one hour); 7/7 (one hour)
From the discussion questions in Topics I-V at least five questions will be chosen. There will be at least one question from each topic. Students will answer two of these questions (one hour each), one on each day, for 50% of the course grade. Students may not answer more than one question from any one topic.
PART II: IBERIAN SOCIETY, ECONOMY, CULTURE, AND REFORM
IN SPANISH AND PORTUGUESE AMERICA
VI. RELIGION AND CULTURE IN COLONIAL LATIN AMERICA. 7/11, 7/12
VII. LIVING IN AN EMPIRE. 7/13
VIII. WOMEN IN SPANISH AND PORTUGUESE AMERICA. 7/14
IX. URBAN SOCIETY IN SPANISH AND PORTUGUESE AMERICA. 7/18
X. THE SEARCH FOR RICHES: THE AGRICULTURAL, PASTORAL, AND
MINING ECONOMIES AND SOCIETIES OF COLONIAL LATIN AMERICA.
PRODUCTION, EXCHANGE, AND DEFENSE. 7/19, 7/20, 7/21
XI. RATIONALIZATION, REFORM, AND REACTION: THE BOURBON AND
POMBALINE REFORMS IN COLONIAL LATIN AMERICA. HISPANIC
AMERICA ON THE EVE OF INDEPENDENCE. 7/25, 7/26
FINAL EXAM: 7/27 (one hour); 7/28 (one hour)
From the discussion questions in Topics VI-XI at least eight questions will be chosen. There will be at least one question from each topic. Students will answer two of these questions (one hour each), one on each day, for 50% of the course grade. Students may not answer more than one question from any one topic.
Up to three 1500-word review papers may be substituted for up to three of the examination questions. See the last page of the syllabus for details.
Attendance at lecture is required.
NOTE ON EXAMS: During regular terms each exam lasts 90 minutes and
students write for 45 minutes on each of two questions.
PART I: IBERIANS, AMERINDIANS, AFRICANS
AND THEIR GOVERNANCE IN THE NEW WORLD
TOPIC I: IBERIAN HERITAGE
Required Reading:
Mark A. Burkholder and Lyman L. Johnson, Colonial Latin America,
2nd ed., pp. 16-33. Leslie Bethell, ed., Colonial Spanish America, pp. 1-14 Leslie Bethell, ed., Colonial Brazil, pp. 1-5
Supplementary Reading [Required if you do this Topic]:
Angus MacKay, Spain in the Middle Ages: From Frontier to Empire,
1000-1500, pp. 1-212.
OR
Felipe Fernandez-Arnesto, Before Columbus: Exploration and
Colonisation from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic, 1229-
1492.
Discussion Questions (A Guide to the Required Reading):
- Based on lecture and the required reading, discuss and
analyze daily life and society in Spain and Portugal during the late fifteenth century to the middle of the seventeenth century. In your answer, discuss urban and rural living conditions, sexual and family life, the role of the Catholic Church and religion, and the influence of learning and the military on Iberian life.
- Angus MacKay, in Spain in the Middle Ages, argues that "in
dealing with new frontiers and challenges [i.e. in the New World], the Spaniards perforce drew--and drew heavily--on that stock of experiences which they had accumulated during the course of the medieval centuries." Do you agree? Discuss. In your answer analyze the roles that the reconquista, the Iberian frontier, and the development of royal authority played in the overseas expansion of the Iberian kingdoms.
- Fernandez-Arnesto in Before Columbus writes that with few
exceptions "it was western Mediterranean peoples alone-- Iberian and Italian and, of the latter, chiefly Genoese--who explored and settled in the Atlantic in our period [before 1492]." What role did the experience of the Iberian and Italian peoples in the Mediterranean, North Africa, the Canary Islands, the uninhabited Atlantic islands of the Azores, the Madeiras, and the Cape Verdes, and along the western coast of Africa before 1492 have in the European discovery and settlement in the New World after 1492? Discuss.
TOPIC II: AMERINDIANS AND THE COLUMBIAN EXCHANGE
Required Reading:
Mark A. Burkholder and Lyman L. Johnson, Colonial Latin America,
2nd ed., pp. 3-15; 60-67; 98-106. Ross Hassig, Mexico and the Spanish Conquest, pp. 150-158 [On
Reserve]. Leslie Bethell, ed., Colonial Spanish America, pp. 14-40 Leslie Bethell, ed., Colonial Brazil, pp. 1-19
Supplementary Reading [Required if you do this Topic]:
John C. Super, Food, Conquest, and Colonization in Sixteenth-
Century Spanish-America, pp. 1-88. John H. Parry, The Spanish Seaborne Empire, pp. 62-82 [On
Reserve]. Nathan Wachtel, "The Indians and the Spanish Conquest," The
Cambridge History of Latin America, I, 207-248 [On Reserve]. John Hemming, "The Indians of Brazil in 1500," The Cambridge
History of Latin America, I, 119-144 [On Reserve].
Discussion Questions (A Guide to the Required Reading):
- Analyze and describe the sophisticated "Kingdoms of the Sun"
(Aztec, Inca, Maya) which the Spaniards encountered in Mesoamerica and the Andean region. In your answer, show how these Amerindian societies evolved from earlier cultures that rose and fell in their respective areas. How did these societies compare to the other Amerindian groups the Spaniards met and those which the Portuguese encountered in Brazil? How would the Amerindian heritages affect Iberian responses in the New World?
- Discuss and analyze the effect the frontier and abundance had
on Spanish and Portuguese societies and economies in America in the sixteenth century. What effects (both good and bad) did the interchange of plants, animals, and disease have on the Amerindian, the African, and the European.
TOPIC III: THE AGE OF CONQUEST
Required Reading:
Mark A. Burkholder and Lyman L. Johnson, Colonial Latin America,
2nd ed., pp. 35-60. Leslie Bethell, ed., Colonial Spanish America, pp. 1-58, 361-399 Leslie Bethell, ed. Colonial Brazil, pp. 1-38, 145-189
Supplementary Reading [Required if you do this Topic]:
Inga Clendinnen, Ambivalent Conquests. Maya and Spaniard in
Yucatan, pp. 3-207.
OR
Ross Hassig, Mexico and the Spanish Conquest, pp. 1-158.
Discussion Questions (A Guide to the Required Reading):
- Based on lecture, the required reading, and Ross Hassig,
Mexico and the Spanish Conquest, discuss the following quotation: "The Aztecs of Tenochtitlan fought to the end-- bitterly, effectively and valiantly. . . . Mexico was not conquered from abroad but from within. The Spaniards were important . . . [but] it was a war fought overwhelmingly by other Indians, taking full advantage of the Spanish presence, but exploiting their own unique inside understanding of Mesoamerican political dynamics that Cortes could never master."
- Discuss and analyze Inga Clendinnen, Ambivalent Conquests and
what one writer described as "the tragic confrontation between the Yucatan Maya and the Spanish invaders (both military and religious)." Was the experience of the Yucatan Maya under Spanish rule similar to or different from that of other Amerindians in Spanish and Portuguese America?
TOPIC IV: THE AFRICAN HERITAGE OF SPANISH AND PORTUGUESE
AMERICA. POPULATION AND LABOR IN HISPANIC AMERICA
Required Reading:
Mark A. Burkholder and Lyman L. Johnson, Colonial Latin America,
2nd. ed., pp. 106-123. Frederick P. Bowser, "Africans in Spanish American Colonial
Society, The Cambridge History of Latin America, II, 357-380
[On Reserve].
Supplementary Reading [Required if you do this Topic]:
Robert E. Conrad, Children of God's Fire. A Documentary History
of Black Slavery in Brazil, pp. xv-xxviii; 3-23; 48-71; 96-
99; 109-115; 126-134; 140-143; 147-149; 151-192; 201-221;
235-236; 245-256; 287-305; 317-320; 359-384; 394-406.
OR
John Thornton, Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic
World, 1400-1680.
Discussion Questions (A Guide to the Required Reading):
- Discuss and analyze the role and the treatment of those of
African and Native American heritage in Spanish America and Portuguese America during the colonial period. Did they vary from century to century and from region to region? Discuss.
- Discuss and analyze John Thornton, Africa and Africans in the
Making of the Atlantic World, 1400-1680.
TOPIC V: RULING NEW WORLD EMPIRES
Required Reading:
Mark A. Burkholder and Lyman L. Johnson, Colonial Latin America,
2nd ed., pp. 70-83. Leslie Bethell, ed., Colonial Spanish America, pp. 59-111 Leslie Bethell, ed., Colonial Brazil, pp. 39-66
Supplementary Reading [Required if you do this Topic]:
James Lang, Conquest and Commerce, pp. 7-13; 25-45 [On Reserve]. James Lang, Portuguese Brazil. The King's Plantation, pp. 23-73
[On Reserve].
Discussion Questions (A Guide to the Required Reading):
- Discuss and compare Spanish and Portuguese administrations in
America. What were the roles of the following: viceroy or governors; bishops and archbishops; High Court judges [of the Audiencias and the Relacao]; town councils [cabildos and camaras]; corregidor and equivalents; Overseas Councils? How successful were they? How effective were on-the-spot investigations? Residencias? Discuss.
- John Leddy Phelan observed: "The Spanish administration of
her empire overseas can be summed up in a Hegelian formula. The thesis is the wishes of the crown....The antithesis is the complex of local pressures, personified by the colonists.... The synthesis was an eclectic compromise... between the derecho of the royal legislation and the hecho of actual social conditions." Discuss. Do you agree? Can Phelan's observation also be applied to Brazil? Discuss.
PART II: IBERIAN SOCIETY, ECONOMY, CULTURE, AND REFORM
IN SPANISH AND PORTUGUESE AMERICA
TOPIC VI: RELIGION AND CULTURE IN COLONIAL LATIN AMERICA
Required Reading:
Mark A. Burkholder and Lyman L. Johnson, Colonial Latin America,
2nd ed., pp. 83-96; 221-232. Eduardo Hoornaert, "The Catholic Church in Colonial Brazil," The
Cambridge History of Latin America I, 541-556 [On Reserve]. Joseph M. Barnabas, "The Catholic Church in Spanish America, "The
Cambridge History of Latin America I, 511-540 [On Reserve]. Louisa Schell Hoberman and Susan Migden Socolow, Cities and
Society in Colonial Latin America, pp. 137-161; 165-191.
Supplementary Reading [Required if you do this topic]
QUESTION I: Francis A. Dutra, "The Brazilian Hierarchy in the Seventeenth
Century," Records of the American Catholic Historical Society
of Philadelphia 83: 3-4 (Sept.-Dec. 1972), pp. 171-186 [On
Reserve].
A. C. Vann Oss, "Comparing Colonial Bishoprics in Spanish South
America," Boletin de Estudios Latin-americana y del Caribe
24 (June 1978), 27-66 [On Reserve].
QUESTION II Jaques Lafaye, "Literature and Intellectual Life in Colonial Spanish
America" The Cambridge History of Latin America, II,
pp. 663-704 [ON RESERVE]
Damian Bayon, "The Architecture of Colonial Spanish America" The
Cambridge History of Latin America, II pp. 709-746 [ON RESERVE]
J. B. Bury, "The Architecture and Art of Colonial Brazil," The
Cambridge History of Latin America, II pp. 747-770
Robert Stevenson, "The Music of Colonial Spanish America," The
Cambridge History of Latin America, II pp. 771-799 [ON RESERVE]
Discussion Questions (A Guide to the Required Reading):
- Discuss and compare the role of the Catholic Church in
Spanish America and Portuguese America during the colonial period. Did its influence vary from century to century?
- Discuss and analyze the major cultural contributions
(especially, art, architecture, music, and literature) of Spanish America and Portuguese America during the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries. How was Spanish and Portuguese culture in the Americas similar? Different? Discuss.
- Analyze education in Spanish America and Portuguese America.
What was the role of the university in Spanish America? What was the role of the University of Coimbra (in Portugal) for Brazil? What effect did the Enlightenment have on Hispanic America? Discuss.
TOPIC VII: LIVING IN AN EMPIRE
Required Reading:
Mark A. Burkholder and Lyman L. Johnson, Colonial Latin America,
2nd ed., pp. 162-221.
Supplementary Reading [Required if you do this Topic]:
James Lockhart, Spanish Peru, 1532-1560, pp. 3-234.
Discussion Questions (A Guide to the Required Reading):
- Discuss how people in Spanish and Portuguese America secured
an income and got along with each other during the colonial period. What was daily life like? How did race, class, and an urban or rural environment affect life in Hispanic America during the colonial period?
- Discuss and analyze society in Peru, 1532-1560. In your
answer, focus on the following: a) large landowners; b) merchants; c) women; d) professional men; e) people of mixed races; f) artisans; g) small farmers; h) clergymen; i) bureaucrats. Do you feel that Peru was representative of all of colonial Latin America in the sixteenth century? Discuss.
TOPIC VIII: WOMEN IN SPANISH AND PORTUGUESE AMERICA
Required Reading:
Asunsion Lavrin, "Women in Spanish American Colonial Society," The
Cambridge History of Latin America, II, pp. 321-356 [ON RESERVE]
Supplementary Reading [Required if you do this topic]
Asuncion Lavrin, ed., Sexuality in Colonial Latin America.
OR Alexandra Parma Cook and David Noble Cook, Good Faith and
Truthful Ignorance: A Case of Tranatlantic Bigamy
Discussion Question (A Guide to the Required Reading):
- Discuss and analyze the role of women and the family in
colonial Latin America. Did it vary significantly from colony to colony? From century to century? What influence did race and class have? Discuss.
- Based on the book Good Faith and Truthful Ignorance discuss and
analyze sixteenth century marriage practices in the New World and Spain and how various civil and ecclesiastical institutions attempted to regulate marriage.
TOPIC IX: URBAN SOCIETY IN SPANISH AND PORTUGUESE AMERICA
Required Reading:
Louisa Schell Hoberman and Susan Migden Socolow, Cities and
Society in Colonial Latin America, pp. 5-331.
Leslie Bethell, ed., Colonial Spanish America, pp. 165-202 Leslie Bethell, ed., Colonial Brazil, pp. 127-144
Discussion Question (A Guide to the Required Reading):
- Based on lecture and a careful reading of Louisa Schell
Hoberman and Susan Migden Socolow, Cities and Society in Colonial Latin America, discuss and analyze urban society in Hispanic America. In your answer, focus on the roles of the following: a) large landowners; b) merchants; c) bureaucrats; d) clergymen; e) female religious; f) military;
- artisans; h) urban suppliers; i) servants; j) underclass
k) slaves.
TOPIC X: THE SEARCH FOR RICHES: THE AGRICULTURAL, PASTORAL, AND
MINING ECONOMIES AND SOCIETIES OF COLONIAL LATIN
AMERICA. PRODUCTION, EXCHANGE, AND DEFENSE.
Required Reading:
Mark A. Burkholder and Lyman L. Johnson, Colonial Latin America,
2nd ed., pp. 125-160. Leslie Bethell, ed., Colonial Spanish America, pp. 203-360 Leslie Bethell, ed., Colonial Brazil, pp. 67-144
Supplementary Reading [Required if you do this Topic]:
Peter Bakewell, Silver and Entrepreneurialship in Seventeenth-
Century Potosi. The Life and Times of Antonio Lopez de
Quiroga.
Discussion Questions (A Guide to the Required Reading):
- Discuss and compare mining and its effects on the economies
and societies of Spanish America and Portuguese America.
- Discuss how Peter Bakewell's Silver and Entrepreneurialship
in Seventeenth-Century Potosi provides or fails to provide a better understanding of the role mining played in colonial Latin America.
- Discuss, analyze, and compare the role agriculture played in-
-and its effects on--the economies and societies of Spanish America and Portuguese America.
TOPIC XI: RATIONALIZATION, REFORM, AND REACTION: THE BOURBON AND
POMBALINE REFORMS IN COLONIAL LATIN AMERICA. HISPANIC
AMERICA ON THE EVE OF INDEPENDENCE
Required Reading:
Mark A. Burkholder and Lyman L. Johnson, Colonial Latin America,
2nd ed., pp. 234-287; 290-332.
Leslie Bethell, ed., Colonial Spanish America, pp. 112-162 Leslie Bethell, ed., Colonial Brazil, pp. 244-343
Supplementary Reading [Required if you do this Topic]:
Mark Burkholder, Politics of a Colonial Career: Jose Baquijano
and the Audencia of Lima.
OR
6John R. Fisher, Allan J. Kuethe and Anthony McFarlane, eds.,
Reform and Insurrection in Bourbon New Granada and Peru.
Discussion Questions (A Guide to the Required Reading):
- Discuss and anyalyze the major Bourbon and Pombaline reforms
and their effects on Spanish America and Portuguese America.
- Analyze, discuss, and compare the societies and economies of
Spanish America and Portuguese America, 1750-1808.
- Discuss and analyze how Mark A. Burkholder, Politics of a
Colonial Career: Jose Baquijano and the Audiencia of Lima gives a better understanding of the Bourbon period in Peru.
- Discuss and compare New Granada and Peru during the Bourbon
period.
OPTIONAL REVIEW PAPERS: 1500 WORDS EACH
Substitute for Midterm questions:
J. H. Parry, Spanish Seaborne Empire
- W. Lovett, Early Habsburg Spain, 1517-1598.
Steve J. Stern, Peru's Indian People and the Challenge of Spanish
Conquest. Ramon A. Gutierrez, When Jesus Came, the Corn Mothers Went Away
Substitute for Final questions:
Mary Elizabeth Perry, Gender and Disorder in Early Modern Seville. John Lynch, Bourbon Spain, 1700-1808. Colin M. Maclachlan and Jaime E. Rodriguez O., The Forging of the
Cosmic Race Murdo J. MacLeod, Spanish Central America. A Socio-Economic History
General instructions for papers:
- The paper must be at least 1500 words (about 6-7 pages).
- Citations of quotes and non-quoted ideas. You can do this
immediately after the quote or at the end of the paragraph as (e.g. p. 277), or (e.g. pp. 215, 180), or for sources other than the book you are reading (e.g. Bethell, 150). If you use other sources attach a bibliography.
- All papers must be typed, double spaced, and with one-inch
margins. Also use a ribbon which is not designed to accelerate the reader's blindness.
Information provider:
Unit: H-Net program at UIC History Department
Email: H-Net@uicvm.uic.edu
Posted: 10 Jan 1995
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