HIST 255L: Gods & Slaves: Latin America before 1800

This course introduces students to the history and cultures of early Latin America, an area of the world that includes Mesoamerica (Mexico and Central America), South America, and the Caribbean. In this class we will examine the political, cultural, and social dimensions of the major Pre-Columbian civilizations; the causes and consequences of Spanish and Portuguese colonization; the establishment of New World societies and economies in the sixteenth century; and the vastly divergent forms of mature colonial society across the continent in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.