HIST 366 - Transatlantic Encounters: Indigenous Histories of the Gulf South and the Greater Caribbean

Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)

The course is focused on Indigenous history in the Gulf South and the Greater Caribbean from 1492 to the early nineteenth century. Students analyze the ways in which the history of Indigenous peoples on Caribbean islands intersected and overlapped with the history of Native peoples in nearby coastal areas across the Americas. By investigating multiple sites of contact with Europeans, from Florida to Louisiana to New Spain (Mexico) to the Guianas, the course analyzes the ways in which European colonization and slave raiding disrupted Indigenous societies across the region and how many Indigenous peoples resisted and survived the ordeal. Reading scholarly and primary sources to better understand the multitudinous responses of Indigenous individuals and polities to centuries of European colonization, the course analyzes how Native peoples adapted to European colonization by forming new networks and polities, sometimes across vast distances. The course also investigates the creation of Afro-Indigenous communities across the region. Readings for the course include scholarship on methodological and ethical issues pertaining to research and writing about Native American history and the importance of including Native voices in Indigenous histories is highlighted. Noel Smyth.

One 2-hour period.

Course Format: CLS