Jorge Cañizares-Esguerra

We associate slavery with plantations, a rural institution, yet most slaves in the Americas wound up in cities, working as peddlers, artisans, barbers, pilots, healers, soldiers, and a variety of other occupations. Cities afforded slaves relatively more freedoms. In Spanish and Portuguese America it was common for urban slaves to purchase their own freedom through the institution of slave-for-hire, and cities witnessed the development of large free-colored communities.  Although cities enjoyed a larger presence of the government, often entire neighborhood remained outside state control, sheltering maroon communities (runaways slaves). Finally, although port-cities were more connected to the European Atlantic world, they were also connected to the African world. Africa survived in cities just as it did in remote rural plantations. Students will read recent new works on urban slavery in the Portuguese-, Dutch-, French-, British-, and Spanish -American worlds, but also in Africa itself (Sierra Leone, Luanda, Ouida, Anobamo).
 

Texts (a monograph per week) some examples:
 
Karl Jacoby The Strange Career of William Ellis: The Texas Slave Who Became a Mexican Millionaire
Robert Harms, The Diligent: A Voyage Through the Worlds of the Slave Trade
Jon F. Sensbach. Rebecca's Revival: Creating Black Christianity in the Atlantic World
 

Weekly papers: 70% grade
Final paper: 30 % grade

Objects (furniture, textiles, tools, maps, books, guns, kitchen ware, buildings, settlements, monuments, ships, tombs ) often shed more light about past societies than text themselves. This course explores the past of the colonials Americas (from north to south) by paying attention to the objects these societies left behind. We’ll gain new insights on the history of slavery, education, travel, technology, science, architecture, urbanism  in the Americas.

Texts:
Laurel Thatcher Ulrich  The Age of Homespun: Objects and Stories in the Creation of an American Myth

Laurel Thatcher Ulrich  et al. Tangible Things: Making History through Objects

Grading:

3 object analysis (25% each) (three (5) five page essays on three different colonial objects that have to be approved by instructor beforehand)
Participation and class attendance (25%)

We associate slavery with plantations, a rural institution, yet most slaves in the Americas wound up in cities, working as peddlers, artisans, barbers, pilots, healers, soldiers, and a variety of other occupations. Cities afforded slaves relatively more freedoms. In Spanish and Portuguese America it was common for urban slaves to purchase their own freedom through the institution of slave-for-hire, and cities witnessed the development of large free-colored communities.  Although cities enjoyed a larger presence of the government, often entire neighborhood remained outside state control, sheltering maroon communities (runaways slaves). Finally, although port-cities were more connected to the European Atlantic world, they were also connected to the African world. Africa survived in cities just as it did in remote rural plantations. Students will read recent new works on urban slavery in the Portuguese-, Dutch-, French-, British-, and Spanish -American worlds, but also in Africa itself (Sierra Leone, Luanda, Ouida, Anobamo).
 

Texts (a monograph per week) some examples:
 
Karl Jacoby The Strange Career of William Ellis: The Texas Slave Who Became a Mexican Millionaire
Robert Harms, The Diligent: A Voyage Through the Worlds of the Slave Trade
Jon F. Sensbach. Rebecca's Revival: Creating Black Christianity in the Atlantic World
 

Weekly papers: 70% grade
Final paper: 30 % grade

Objects (furniture, textiles, tools, maps, books, guns, kitchen ware, buildings, settlements, monuments, ships, tombs ) often shed more light about past societies than text themselves. This course explores the past of the colonials Americas (from north to south) by paying attention to the objects these societies left behind. We’ll gain new insights on the history of slavery, education, travel, technology, science, architecture, urbanism  in the Americas.

Texts:
Laurel Thatcher Ulrich  The Age of Homespun: Objects and Stories in the Creation of an American Myth

Laurel Thatcher Ulrich  et al. Tangible Things: Making History through Objects

Grading:

3 object analysis (25% each) (three (5) five page essays on three different colonial objects that have to be approved by instructor beforehand)
Participation and class attendance (25%)

We associate slavery with plantations, a rural institution, yet most slaves in the Americas wound up in cities, working as peddlers, artisans, barbers, pilots, healers, soldiers, and a variety of other occupations. Cities afforded slaves relatively more freedoms. In Spanish and Portuguese America it was common for urban slaves to purchase their own freedom through the institution of slave-for-hire, and cities witnessed the development of large free-colored communities.  Although cities enjoyed a larger presence of the government, often entire neighborhood remained outside state control, sheltering maroon communities (runaways slaves). Finally, although port-cities were more connected to the European Atlantic world, they were also connected to the African world. Africa survived in cities just as it did in remote rural plantations. Students will read recent new works on urban slavery in the Portuguese-, Dutch-, French-, British-, and Spanish -American worlds, but also in Africa itself (Sierra Leone, Luanda, Ouida, Anobamo).
 

Texts (a monograph per week) some examples:
 
Karl Jacoby The Strange Career of William Ellis: The Texas Slave Who Became a Mexican Millionaire
Robert Harms, The Diligent: A Voyage Through the Worlds of the Slave Trade
Jon F. Sensbach. Rebecca's Revival: Creating Black Christianity in the Atlantic World
 

Weekly papers: 70% grade
Final paper: 30 % grade

Objects (furniture, textiles, tools, maps, books, guns, kitchen ware, buildings, settlements, monuments, ships, tombs ) often shed more light about past societies than text themselves. This course explores the past of the colonials Americas (from north to south) by paying attention to the objects these societies left behind. We’ll gain new insights on the history of slavery, education, travel, technology, science, architecture, urbanism  in the Americas.

Texts:

Laurel Thatcher Ulrich  The Age of Homespun: Objects and Stories in the Creation of an American Myth

Laurel Thatcher Ulrich  et al. Tangible Things: Making History through Objects

Grading:

3 object analysis (25% each) (three (5) five page essays on three different colonial objects that have to be approved by instructor beforehand)

Participation and class attendance (25%)

We’ll explore recent literature on early-modern Atlantic history, particularly literature that emphasize trans-regional and trans-imperial connections. We’ll identify different models and approaches.

The goal of the seminar is to provide students with the skills to identify the structure and scaffolding of scholarly arguments: how historians build articles and books. The ultimate purpose of this exercise is for students to develop the skills to frame their own arguments as competitive research proposals.

Description
We’ll explore recent literature on early-modern Atlantic history, particularly literature that emphasize trans-regional and trans-imperial connections. We’ll identify different models and approaches.
The goal of the seminar is to provide students with the skills to identify the structure and scaffolding of scholarly arguments: how historians build articles and books. The ultimate purpose of this exercise is for students to develop the skills to frame their own arguments as competitive research proposals.

Requirements:
Students will write weekly reviews of readings and a final research proposal
Readings
Readings last time the seminar was offered:
•    Conrad What is Global History
•    Dubcovsky Informed Power
•    Studnicki-Gizbert Nation upon the ocean sea
•    Anishanslin Portrait of Woman in Silk
•    Van Horn. The Power of Objects in 18th century British America
•    Premo Enlightenment on Trial
•    McKinley Fractional Freedoms
•    Gomez The Experiential Caribbean
•    Schibineger. Secret cure of slaves
•    Thornton & Heywood Central Africans Atlantic Creoles
•    Wheat. Atlantic Africa and the Spanish Caribbean
•    Burnard& Garrigus. The Plantation Machine
•    McNeil. Mosquito Empire
•    Warsh. American baroque
•    Fitz. Our sister republics

Please check back for updates.

Black slavery in the American South was just one type of slavery. It resembled forms of slavery in the integrated sugar plantations of the early- modern and nineteenth-century Caribbean and Brazil. Yet in the American South, plantation slavery did not rely on the Atlantic slave trade. Urban slavery differed from plantation slavery. In Spanish America, for example, Africans were brought as slaves only to become within a generation “settlers” of city-ports (merchants, stevedores, shipbuilders, tailors) and citizens of towns. The first settlers of North America were not Puritans and Pilgrims but Afro American manumitted slaves in places like Florida.  Not all slaves were black Africans. The colonial states of Carolina and Georgia, for example, captured and exported tens of thousands of Native American into the Caribbean as slaves.  In the wake of the epidemiological devastation brought about by European diseases, Native Americans created new communities often by raiding neighboring enemy groups and incorporating outsiders as slaves (or family).  This course will examine the history of the many slave trades in the Americas. We will rely on readings that are primarily biographical in nature.
This is a reading and writing intensive seminar.  You will receive training on how to identify the argument of books and chapters within books. You will improve basic writing skills and develop new ones, particularly on how to organize and justify a research proposal. You will also learn how to use citations appropriately to back up your arguments.
 
Texts (a monograph per week) some examples:
 
Karl Jacoby The Strange Career of William Ellis: The Texas Slave Who Became a Mexican Millionaire
Robert Harms, The Diligent: A Voyage Through the Worlds of the Slave Trade
Jon F. Sensbach. Rebecca's Revival: Creating Black Christianity in the Atlantic World
 
Weekly papers: 70% grade
Final paper: 30 % grade

This course surveys the history of Latin America from the pre-Columbian era through the wars of independence. It examines the European arrival in the Americas in 1492, the consolidation of colonial rule in the ensuing two centuries, and the fall of the Spanish American empire in the early nineteenth century. During the semester we will concentrate on such key themes as discovery, conquest, religion, slavery, race, gender, reform, rebellion and independence. Although we will focus on three key geographic areas – Mexico, Peru and Brazil – of the Spanish and Portuguese empires, we will also pay attention to the Caribbean, Central America and the Southern Cone.

New approaches to the Atlantic Worlds

This seminar focuses on religious ideas that configured the slave trade and slavery in the early modern Atlantic. Will focus on religious ideologies of slavery and the religious experience of the enslaved in several geographical and cultural settings: urban, rural, Africa, Europe, America. This course covers literature on the various Atlantics: British, Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch, French, Dahomeyan, Luandan, Fante, to name only the most representative.

Readings:

Carney and Rosomoff, In the Shadow of Slavery: Africa’s Botanical Legacy in the Atlantic
World
Wheat’s Atlantic Africa and the Spanish Caribbean 1570-1640
Burnard’s Planters, Merchants and Slaves: Plantation Societies in British
Malcolm, Agents of Empire
Dubois’s Avengers of the New World

Requirements:

Students will write weekly reviews of readings and a final prospectus (a research proposal)

Objects (furniture, textiles, tools, maps, books, guns, candles,  kitchen ware, buildings, settlements, monuments, ships, tombs ) often shed more light about past societies than text themselves. This course explores the past of the colonials Americas (from north to south) by paying attention to the objects these societies left behind. We’ll gain new insights on the history of slavery, education, travel, technology, science, architecture, urbanism  in the Americas.

Texts:

Laurel Thatcher Ulrich  The Age of Homespun: Objects and Stories in the Creation of an American Myth

Laurel Thatcher Ulrich  et al. Tangible Things: Making History through Objects 

Grading:

2 object analysis (25% each). Two online museum exhibits on sets of colonial objects (theme of online exhibit to be approved by instructor beforehand)

Participation and class attendance through quizzes  (50%)

Participation and class attendance (25%)

Slavery was prevailing labor institution in the early modern world. It was not associated with race. When the Iberians arrived in the New World, Southern European had slaves of all colors: Greeks, Turks, Moors, Guanches (the natives of the Canary Islands), and Sub-Saharan Africans. This was also true of all Islamic societies in the Mediterranean. The Ottomans and the Mamelukes held white Christians, Russians, and Sub-Saharan Africans as slaves. The word slave, in fact, is a reference to white Slavic captives. Throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries Native Americans became slaves and captives of the Europeans by the hundreds of thousands. Natives themselves enslaved rivals, including Europeans. In this world of generalized, nonracial slavery, however, slaves had some rights to self-manumission and even property.  Many slaves could even become powerful, as in the case of the mameluke troops among the Ottomans. Islam and Christianity  limited the power and sovereignty of masters held over slaves. Religious institutions could intervene and remove slaves from abusive masters.  In the European Mediterranean, blacks were not only considered slaves but also saints, ambassadors, queens, kings, and generals. By the 19^th century, this world of slaveries had been completely transformed. Slavery was now associated exclusively with Africans in America. Blacks became chattel with no rights. The constitution of the independent Republic  of Texas in 1841, for example, held that any black who was manumitted could not reside in the Republic. It was illegal for blacks to be anything other than slaves. This course explores how in the 1700s slavery became racialized and industrialized, leading to legal regimes the world had never witnessed before. This transformation of slavery also triggered new resistance movements, including  abolitionism. By the early 1800, abolitionism, resistance, and revolutions led to the dismantling of the first wave of racialized, industrialized slavery in the Americas and to the end of the Atlantic slave trade. Yet a “Second Slavery” emerged in the 19^th century that thrived in the Age of Abolitionism and the ending of the African trade. It was a form of racial slavery that was brutal as the previous one but that no longer relied on slaves from Africa, but from the displacement of salves within the American continent. This slavery powered the industrial revolution and the transformation of the US into a global power. This course explores this massive changes in the history of slaveries in the Americas and focuses particularly in the racialization and industrialization of slavery.

Texts:

Andres Resendez, The Other Slavery
 Robin Blackburn The Making of New World Slavery

Robin Blackburn, The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery, 1776-1848

Ira BerlinGenerations of Captivity: A History of African-American Slaves

John Thornton Africa and Africans in the Making of the New World

James H. Sweet. Domingos Alvares, African Healing, and the Intellectual History of the Atlantic World 

Linda M. Heywood Njinga of Angola Africa’s Warrior Queen

Laurent Dubois, Avengers of the New World

Grading:

Weekly papers: 60 % grade
Participation-attendance: 10 % grade
Final paper: 30 % grade


This course surveys the history of Latin America from the pre-Columbian era through the wars of independence. It examines the European arrival in the Americas in 1492, the consolidation of colonial rule in the ensuing two centuries, and the fall of the Spanish American empire in the early nineteenth century. During the semester we will concentrate on such key themes as discovery, conquest, religion, slavery, race, gender, reform, rebellion and independence. Although we will focus on three key geographic areas – Mexico, Peru and Brazil – of the Spanish and Portuguese empires, we will also pay attention to the Caribbean, Central America and the Southern Cone.

We’ll explore recent literature on early-modern Atlantic history, particularly literature that emphasize trans-regional and trans-imperial connections. Subjects to cover: Atlantic slavery; borderlands and Indian slavery; religion; trade, smuggling, and piracy; legal cultures; science; imperial projects.
Students will read an average of a book and two articles per week, submit a weekly book review, and write a final research proposal to apply to graduate fellowships

Book List (more to be added):
•             Harms, The Diligent
•             Van Dussen, Global Indios
•             Schwartz, All Can Be Saved
•             Lipman, Saltwater Frontier
•             Watchel. The Faith of Remembrance
•             Reis, Divining Slavery and Freedom
•             Grandin, The empire of necessity
•             Hanna, Pirate Nest
•             Burnard and Gerrigus. The Plantation Machine
•             Mangan, Transatlantic obligations
•             O-Malley, Final Passages

Objects (furniture, textiles, tools, maps, books, guns, kitchen ware, buildings, settlements, monuments, ships, tombs ) often shed more light about past societies than text themselves. This course explores the past of the colonials Americas (from north to south) by paying attention to the objects these societies left behind. We’ll gain new insights on the history of slavery, education, travel, technology, science, architecture, urbanism  in the Americas.

Texts:

Laurel Thatcher Ulrich  The Age of Homespun: Objects and Stories in the Creation of an American Myth 

Laurel Thatcher Ulrich  et al. Tangible Things: Making History through Objects 

Grading:

3 object analysis (25% each) (three (5) five page essays on three different colonial objects that have to be approved by instructor beforehand)

Participation and class attendance (25%)

Not only Africans were forced into slavery in the Americas. Carolina and Georgia exported tens of thousands of Native American slaves into the Caribbean.  In the wake of the epidemiological devastation brought about by European diseases, Native Americans created new communities  often by raiding neighboring enemy groups and incorporating outsides as captives. The “Americas” were formed in the crucible of slavery. This course will examine the history of the many slave trades in the colonial Americas.

Texts:

Michael Guasco Slaves and Englishmen?Human Bondage in the Early Modern Atlantic World

James F. Brooks Captives and Cousins

Slavery, Kinship, and Community in the Southwest Borderlands

Brett Rushforth Bonds of Alliance: Indigenous and Atlantic Slaveries in New France

Grading:

Weekly book reviews (60%)

Participation and attendance (20%)

Final paper (20%)

We associate slavery with plantations, a rural institution, yet most slaves in the Americas wound up in cities, working as peddlers, artisans, barbers, pilots, healers, soldiers, and a variety of other occupations. Cities afforded slaves relatively more freedoms. In Spanish and Portuguese America it was common for urban slaves to purchase their own freedom through the institution of slave-for-hire, and cities witnessed the development of large free-colored communities.  Although cities enjoyed a larger presence of the government, often entire neighborhood remained outside state control, sheltering maroon communities (runways slaves). Finally, although port-cities were more connected to the European Atlantic world, they were also connected to the African world. Africa survived in cities just as it did in remote rural plantations. Students will read recent new works on urban slavery in the Portuguese-, Dutch-, French-, British-, and Spanish -American worlds, but also in Africa itself (Sierra Leone, Luanda, Ouida, Anobamo)

Texts:

Rebecca Shumway, The Fante and the Transatlantic SlaveTtrade (the city port of Anobamo, in Fante-Asante land, currently Ghana)

Robin Law. Ouidah. The Social History of a West African Slaving "Port," 1727–1892. (the city port of Ouidah,  part of the kingdom of  Dahomey, currently in Benin)

Roquinaldo Ferreira, Cross-Cultural Exchange in the Atlantic World Angola and Brazil during the Era of the Slave Trade (the city port of Luanda, in Portuguese Angola)

Mariza de Carvalho Soares, People of Faith: Slavery and African Catholics in Eighteenth-Century Rio De Janeiro (Rio, in Brazil)

James H. Sweet. Domingos Alvares, African Healing, and the Intellectual History of the Atlantic World (covers three cities, two in Brazil and one in Portugal: Recife, Rio, Lisbon)

Grading:

Weekly papers: 80 % grade

Participation-attendance: 10 % grade

Final paper: 10 % grade

This seminar focuses on religious ideas that configured the slave trade and slavery in the early modern Atlantic. Will focus on religious ideologies of slavery and the religious experience of the enslaved in several geographical and cultural settings: urban, rural, Africa, Europe, America. This course covers literature on the various Atlantics: British, Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch, French, Dahomeyan, Luandan, Fante, to name only the most representative.

Requirements:Students will write weekly reviews of readings and a final prospectus (a research proposal) 

From the moment Columbus first landed in America to the time Spain, Britain, and France lost control of their kingdoms in the New World, the Old Testament shaped the cultures of their empires. The Book of Samuel taught kings, priests, and the people the contested foundations of monarchical authority and popular sovereignty. While priests sought to recapitulate the lives of Aaron, Elijah and Jonah, magistrates aspired to be like Moses and Joshua.  Genesis, Exodus, Deuteronomy, Leviticus, and Numbers served out lessons on territorial expansion and colonization and the proper way to design the arks and tabernacles that were local temples. By looking at the history of the Old Testament in these Atlantic empires unusual perspectives emerge: Blacks in late eighteenth century British America created exodus narratives and saw their communities as elect, modern Israels seeking migration to a Promised Land in Sierra Leone;  Indians in Peru presented the silver mines of Potosi (and therefore their labor in the mines) as the “pillars” of the temple of Jerusalem and, therefore, of the Spanish Monarchy; Christian Ascetics sought to become African slaves of the Lord as their individual wills made metaphorical and actual use of the instruments of slavery to control the urges of their bodies; nuns set up cities of God and saw themselves as fully enfranchised citizens of republics, Israelite heroines like Deborah, Judith, and Jael,  wielding swords against powerful occult enemies.

This seminar exposes students to a variety of perspectives on the central role played by the Old Testament in the construction of colonial cultures in the Americas.

Class will be conducted like an experimental workshop. In class, students will be asked to work individually or in groups and answer questions about assignments. To work students need to bring laptops and be connected on line. Assigned readings and images will posted on blackboard.

Grades will be based on two exams and several small assignments.

Sor María de Jesús de Agreda was one the most powerful women of the seventeenth century. While deep in prayer in her monastery in Madrid, she would appear in Texas as the ‘lady in blue’, helping Franciscans convert the natives. More important she acted as a confessor to Philip IV, prompting the king to abolish Indian slavery in the borderlands while spreading the cult of the Immaculate Conception. Agreda was one of the most influential theorists of her century, completing eight stout volumes on the life of Mary. Like much else with the intellectual life of the Spanish Monarchy, her views have been forgotten or cavalierly dismissed. Yet at the time, she shaped countless lives and spaces; her views mutated into places of memory, what are now peculiar shrines to Angels and Virgin Maries scattered all over the world. This is not a seminar on Agreda herself, but on the conceptual categories of time, space, and power that made her views possible and influential worldwide.

Early modern categories of time are alien to us. In the Christian Atlantic, from Angola to Brazil to Boston, time was understood “typologically”, as a fulfillment of events already prefigured in the Old and New Testaments and in the Book of Nature. The learned studied parallel structures in the lives of both societies and individuals and could also predict likely futures. The power of prophecy therefore lay in the correct interpretation of the past: St John of Patmos’ Book of Revelation only made sense in light of the past history of humanity. Space had also structures. Temples, altars, and shrines are what are left of these views in the Catholic world. The Trinity, for example, was not a theological abstraction but a reflection of spatial and power relations on earth. It was also a commentary on the evolution of time: ranging from societies first held by the power of the Law (God Father) to societies then held by Grace (Christ) lastly to societies enjoying growing spiritual illumination (Holy Spirit). In the Spanish Monarchy a tradition developed that saw the growing manifestation of the Spirit through Mary (and through the work of mendicant, apostolic religious orders like the Franciscans and Jesuits). The history of Mary, her apparitions, and her images constituted therefore the history of the Church itself. Mary became just as powerful as Christ in the Trinity. She made herself available through sacred images that were as holy as the body of Christ in the Eucharist. She also was the prime minister of heaven, presiding over ambassadors, the archangels, as the manifestation of the Holy Spirit. She constituted the ideal political ruler.

This is a seminar designed to recover what are now peculiar structures of time, space, and power (both political and gendered) but that once understood transform our interpretation of extant sources such as sermons, hagiographies, church spaces, paintings, chronicles, and more. These were widespread cultural ideas shared by the learned, slaves, Indians, and women, who through the display of  images and their weekly exegesis in sermons formed a community of interpretation. This seminar is therefore also reconceptualization of the meaning of “literacy”.We will read secondary sources on prophecy, apocalypse, Mary, angels, the early modern body, sacred architecture, etc. We will also read primary written document (sermons, hagiographies) and objects (images and churches). Students will write a final paper interpreting the temporal and spatial meanings of an altar, shrine, or temple anywhere in the colonial Americas.

Are you aware that Christopher Columbus wrote a book of prophecies?  Yes, Columbus perused the Bible and identified passages that prefigured his own providential mission in the New World.  He liked to call attention to the prefigurative symbolism of his own name, for “Colomba” in Latin means dove (Holy Spirit) and “Christopher,”  Christum-ferens,  carrier of Christ. To see Columbus as a self-serving biblical scholar is jarring but much closer to the truth than to consider him swashbuckling, romantic adventurer.

One set of lectures, for example, will explore the traditions of political philosophy that established Moses, Aaron, and Joshua as models of rulership. Monarchs, popes, and magistrates drew on Genesis, Exodus, Deuteronomy, Leviticus, and Numbers to figure out the proper role of  (and balance between) civil and religious authorities as well as to discern policies of territorial expansion and colonization.  These sources also became blueprints to design churches and temples as Arks, Tabernacles, and Arks of Noah.

On the same vein, other lectures will discuss the early-modern literature on the Kings of Judah and Israel. The tale of the election of Saul by God, Samuel, and the Israelite, for example, spawned a huge body of commentary on the nature of monarchical power. One tradition (from John Milton to Tom Paine) emphasized God’s opposition to the election of Kings. In the Spanish Monarchy, however, these same texts created among the colonists a discourse that for kings to be legitimate they had to be elected by the “people,” not only God and the Church. Native American intellectuals in Peru, on the other hand, created a powerful critique of colonial rule with these same texts. Hammered out by a vast network of native lords ranging from Lima to Rome, this critique demanded that native nobilities be appointed friars, bishops, and viceroys. The critique cast the Spanish as evil Jews who hated Christ and Christians (the natives). The movement was initiated in the 1700 and culminated in the 1780s with the great uprisings of Tupac Amaru and Tupac Katari in Peru and Bolivia. Same texts, different results.

It should be clear that the Bible hovered over every development in the colonial New World like a ghost. Cities, churches, missions, labor institutions, treatises, and even constitutions were created with the Bible always in mind. This course explores the Biblical roots of the religious and political traditions, architecture and material culture of the various Americas of our forgotten colonial past.

Texts

Students will read primary sources, including sections of the Old and New Testaments and Columbus’ Book of Prophecies.

Grading

Mid term: 30 %

Final 30 %

1 Reading Report 20 %

2 Reading Report: 20 %

From the moment Columbus first landed in America to the time Spain, Britain, and France lost control of their kingdoms in the New World, the Old Testament shaped the cultures of their empires. The Book of Samuel taught kings, priests, and the people the contested foundations of monarchical authority and popular sovereignty. While priests sought to recapitulate the lives of Aaron, Elijah and Jonah, magistrates aspired to be like Moses and Joshua.  Genesis, Exodus, Deuteronomy, Leviticus, and Numbers served out lessons on territorial expansion and colonization and the proper way to design the arks and tabernacles that were local temples. By looking at the history of the Old Testament in these Atlantic empires unusual perspectives emerge: Blacks in late eighteenth century British America created exodus narratives and saw their communities as elect, modern Israels seeking migration to a Promised Land in Sierra Leone;  Indians in Peru presented the silver mines of Potosi as the “pillars” of the temple of Jerusalem and, therefore, of the Spanish Monarchy; Christian Ascetics sought to become African slaves of the Lord as their individual wills made metaphorical and actual use of the instruments of slavery to control the urges of their bodies; nuns set up Cities of God in their convents and saw themselves as fully enfranchised citizens of their republics: Israelite heroines (like Deborah, Judith, and Jael) wielding swords against powerful occult enemies. In addition to a few secondary readings, we will assign every week sets of primary sources to discuss. 

Are you aware that Christopher Columbus wrote a book of prophecies?  Yes, Columbus perused the Bible and identified passages that prefigured his own providential mission in the New World.  He liked to call attention to the prefigurative symbolism of his own name, for “Colomba” in Latin means dove (Holy Spirit) and “Christopher,”  Christum-ferens,  carrier of Christ. To see Columbus as a self-serving biblical scholar is jarring but much closer to the truth than to consider him swashbuckling, romantic adventurer.

One set of lectures, for example, will explore the traditions of political philosophy that established Moses, Aaron, and Joshua as models of rulership. Monarchs, popes, and magistrates drew on Genesis, Exodus, Deuteronomy, Leviticus, and Numbers to figure out the proper role of  (and balance between) civil and religious authorities as well as to discern policies of territorial expansion and colonization.  These sources also became blueprints to design churches and temples as Arks, Tabernacles, and Arks of Noah.

On the same vein, other lectures will discuss the early-modern literature on the Kings of Judah and Israel. The tale of the election of Saul by God, Samuel, and the Israelite, for example, spawned a huge body of commentary on the nature of monarchical power. One tradition (from John Milton to Tom Paine) emphasized God’s opposition to the election of Kings. In the Spanish Monarchy, however, these same texts created among the colonists a discourse that for kings to be legitimate they had to be elected by the “people,” not only God and the Church. Native American intellectuals in Peru, on the other hand, created a powerful critique of colonial rule with these same texts. Hammered out by a vast network of native lords ranging from Lima to Rome, this critique demanded that native nobilities be appointed friars, bishops, and viceroys. The critique cast the Spanish as evil Jews who hated Christ and Christians (the natives). The movement was initiated in the 1700 and culminated in the 1780s with the great uprisings of Tupac Amaru and Tupac Katari in Peru and Bolivia. Same texts, different results.

It should be clear that the Bible hovered over every development in the colonial New World like a ghost. Cities, churches, missions, labor institutions, treatises, and even constitutions were created with the Bible always in mind. This course explores the Biblical roots of the religious and political traditions, architecture and material culture of the various Americas of our forgotten colonial past.

Texts

Students will read primary sources, including sections of the Old and New Testaments and Columbus’ Book of Prophecies.

Grading

Mid term: 30 %

Final 30 %

1 Reading Report 20 %

2 Reading Report: 20 %

This class studies colonial Latin America through "objects" to gain new

insights on the operations of colonial culture. Often objects shed brighter

light on the past than written documents. Most of the objects we will

discuss are religious in nature: paintings, reliquaries, monstrances,

churches. Objects will allow us to reconstruct the complex and often strange

religious worlds of these societies.

This course seeks for you to partake of the excitement of being a scholar

and a historian. It is my goal to give you the tools to learn how to read

sources and books  critically (reading is not an innate skill; it takes time

and training to do it well) and how to reconstruct and understand bygone

cultures using images and texts. These are two basic skills in the

historian's tool-kit that will serve you well the rest of your life,

regardless of the profession you end up choosing.

Texts

The following books might be used

Gauvin Alexander Bailey, Art of Colonial Latin America

Samuel Edgerton, Theaters of Conversion

Barbara Mundy, The Mapping of New Spain 

Grading

Exams:

There are two exams scheduled.  Attendance:

Every three unexcused absences will lower your grade a full-letter grade 

Papers:

Three 4 page papers on the assigned readings to be turned ini at different

times over the course of the semester.

Grades: (100 points)

Paper 1: 20 points

Paper 2: 20 points

Exam 1: 20 points

Paper 3: 20 points

Exam 2: 20 points

Semester: Spring 2010
Title: T C 357 - History of the Early Modern Atlantic - W
Substantial Writing Component: Yes
Unique:  43580
Days:  T
Time:  2:00 PM- 5:00 PM
Bldg/Room: CRD 007A
Instructor: JORGE CANIZARES
Office: GAR 2.140
Office Hours: T: 11:00 2 pm/ by appointment.
canizares-esguerra@mail.utexas.edu
Phone: 475-7694

Course Description:
The history of the European colonial expansion into the New World has lately been changing as scholars question traditional national narratives. US colonial history was more than simply the preface to the foundation of the American nation. The thirteen original colonies were part of a much larger British Empire that included plantations in the Caribbean and Canada and holdings in Africa and India. To understand colonial history we need to understand the British Empire as a whole and its interactions with other empires and continents: Ottoman, Chinese, Japanese, Native American, African, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, and French. This course explores the histories of the peoples whose interactions and struggles shaped colonial history: Native Americans, Africans, Asians, and the various European settlers.

Don’t be put off by the amount of reading in this class. If anything, this class will teach you how to get quickly, accurately, and critically to the argument and structure of books. If you are interested in pursuing a professional or graduate degree, this seminar is cut out for you.  

Grading Policy:
This class is writing intensive and will be conducted as a reading seminar. Students will every week turn in a 1-2 page evaluation of the week's readings (80 %). To get an A, students should clearly identify the argument of the book/article as well as the author's sources and methodology. Students should also bring to class three questions for discussion. Students will write a short, 4 page final paper: a prospectus for future research based on one of the topics tackled by the readings (10%). The remaining 10 % of the grade corresponds to attendance and participation.


Grades:
Weekly papers: 80 % grade
Participation-attendance: 10 % grade
Final paper: 10 % grade

Books:
Most of the following books are available at UT Coop. The books are also available through PCL book reserve (general required readings library use only).

•    Vincent Brown. Reaper’s Garden: Death and Power in the World of Atlantic Slavery (Harvard, 2008)
•    Marcus Rediker, Slave Ship. A Human History (Penguin, 2007)
•    John Thornton,  Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World, 2nd ed (Cambridge, 1998)
•    David Weber, Bárbaros  (Yale, 2005)
•    David Ringrose,  Expansion and Global Interaction (Longman, 2001)
•    Karen O. Kupperman, The Jamestown Project (Harvard, 2007)
•    Jorge Cañizares-Esguerra, Puritan Conquistadors (Stanford, 2006)
•    Jon Sensbach,  Rebecca's Revival (Harvard, 2005)
•    Daniel K. Richter, Facing East from Indian Country: A Native History of Early America (Harvard, 2001)
•    Brian DeLay. War of a Thousand Deserts. Indian Raids and the US-Mexican War (Yale, 2008)
•    Pekka Hamalainen. The Comanche Empire (Yale, 2008)
•    James Brooks, Captives and Cousins: Slavery, Kinship, and Community in the Southwest Borderlands (North Carolina Press, 2002)
•    Allan Greer, Mohawk Saint: Catherine Tekakwitha and the Jesuits (Oxford 2006)
    
Schedule
Jan 19        Intro
Jan 26        Ringrose,  Expansion and Global Interaction
Feb 2        Kupperman. Jamestown
Feb 9         Cañizares-Esguerra, Puritan Conquistadors
Feb 16     Thornton,  Africa and Africans
Feb 23         Rediker, Slave Ship
March 2     Brown, Reaper’s Garden
March 9     Sensbach, Rebecca’s Revival
March 16     Spring Break
March 23     Richter, Facing East
March 30     Weber, Bárbaros  
April 6     Greer. Mohawk Saint
April 13     Instructor out of town
April 20     Brooks. Captives and Cousins
April 27    De Lay. War of Thousand Deserts
May 4        Hamalainen. Comanche Empire Research Proposal due.


Disability:
Students with disabilities may request appropriate academic accommodations from the Division of Diversity and Community Engagement, Services for Students with Disabilities, 471-6259.

We’ll explore recent literature on early-modern Atlantic history, particularly literature that emphasize trans-regional and trans-imperial connections. Subjects to cover: Atlantic slavery; borderlands and Indian slavery; religion; trade, smuggling, and piracy; legal cultures; science; imperial projects.
Students will read an average of a book and two articles per week, submit a weekly book review, and write a final research proposal to apply to graduate fellowships
 
Book List (more to be added):
•             Harms, The Diligent
•             Van Dussen, Global Indios
•             Schwartz, All Can Be Saved
•             Lipman, Saltwater Frontier
•             Watchel. The Faith of Remembrance
•             Reis, Divining Slavery and Freedom
•             Grandin, The empire of necessity
•             Hanna, Pirate Nest
•             Burnard and Gerrigus. The Plantation Machine
•             Mangan, Transatlantic obligations
•             O-Malley, Final Passages
 
Prerequisite: Graduate standing and consent of the graduate adviser.

May be repeated for credit when the topics vary.

We’ll explore recent literature on early-modern Atlantic history, particularly literature that emphasize trans-regional and trans-imperial connections. Subjects to cover: Atlantic slavery; borderlands and Indian slavery; religion; trade, smuggling, and piracy; legal cultures; science; imperial projects.
Students will read an average of a book and two articles per week, submit a weekly book review, and write a final research proposal to apply to graduate fellowships
 
Book List (more to be added):
•             Harms, The Diligent
•             Van Dussen, Global Indios
•             Schwartz, All Can Be Saved
•             Lipman, Saltwater Frontier
•             Watchel. The Faith of Remembrance
•             Reis, Divining Slavery and Freedom
•             Grandin, The empire of necessity
•             Hanna, Pirate Nest
•             Burnard and Gerrigus. The Plantation Machine
•             Mangan, Transatlantic obligations
•             O-Malley, Final Passages
 
Prerequisite: Graduate standing and consent of the graduate adviser.

May be repeated for credit when the topics vary.

We’ll explore recent literature on early-modern Atlantic history, particularly literature that emphasize trans-regional and trans-imperial connections. Subjects to cover: Atlantic slavery; borderlands and Indian slavery; religion; trade, smuggling, and piracy; legal cultures; science; imperial projects.
Students will read an average of a book and two articles per week, submit a weekly book review, and write a final research proposal to apply to graduate fellowships
 
Book List (more to be added):
•             Harms, The Diligent
•             Van Dussen, Global Indios
•             Schwartz, All Can Be Saved
•             Lipman, Saltwater Frontier
•             Watchel. The Faith of Remembrance
•             Reis, Divining Slavery and Freedom
•             Grandin, The empire of necessity
•             Hanna, Pirate Nest
•             Burnard and Gerrigus. The Plantation Machine
•             Mangan, Transatlantic obligations
•             O-Malley, Final Passages
 
Prerequisite: Graduate standing and consent of the graduate adviser.

May be repeated for credit when the topics vary.

We’ll explore recent literature on early-modern Atlantic history, particularly literature that emphasize trans-regional and trans-imperial connections. Subjects to cover: Atlantic slavery; borderlands and Indian slavery; religion; trade, smuggling, and piracy; legal cultures; science; imperial projects.
Students will read an average of a book and two articles per week, submit a weekly book review, and write a final research proposal to apply to graduate fellowships
 
Book List (more to be added):
•             Harms, The Diligent
•             Van Dussen, Global Indios
•             Schwartz, All Can Be Saved
•             Lipman, Saltwater Frontier
•             Watchel. The Faith of Remembrance
•             Reis, Divining Slavery and Freedom
•             Grandin, The empire of necessity
•             Hanna, Pirate Nest
•             Burnard and Gerrigus. The Plantation Machine
•             Mangan, Transatlantic obligations
•             O-Malley, Final Passages
 
Prerequisite: Graduate standing and consent of the graduate adviser.

May be repeated for credit when the topics vary.

We’ll explore recent literature on early-modern Atlantic history, particularly literature that emphasize trans-regional and trans-imperial connections. Subjects to cover: Atlantic slavery; borderlands and Indian slavery; religion; trade, smuggling, and piracy; legal cultures; science; imperial projects.
Students will read an average of a book and two articles per week, submit a weekly book review, and write a final research proposal to apply to graduate fellowships
 
Book List (more to be added):
•             Harms, The Diligent
•             Van Dussen, Global Indios
•             Schwartz, All Can Be Saved
•             Lipman, Saltwater Frontier
•             Watchel. The Faith of Remembrance
•             Reis, Divining Slavery and Freedom
•             Grandin, The empire of necessity
•             Hanna, Pirate Nest
•             Burnard and Gerrigus. The Plantation Machine
•             Mangan, Transatlantic obligations
•             O-Malley, Final Passages
 
Prerequisite: Graduate standing and consent of the graduate adviser.

May be repeated for credit when the topics vary.

Please check back for updates.

Prerequisite: Upper-division standing.

Research Seminar in Latin American History. May be repeated for credit when the topics vary.

Prerequisite: Graduate standing, reading knowledge of Spanish or Portuguese, and consent of the graduate adviser.

Please check back for updates.

Prerequisite: Upper-division standing.