HIST 382C Latin America, Past and Present
This course will begin with an overview of indigenous Latin America, examining the rich and varied history of the people that populated the western hemisphere, including the Muisca, Caribs, and Amazonian peoples of Colombia. We then proceed to the dramatic and tragic events that unfolded after the arrival of Columbus in 1492, from Spanish colonization of the Caribbean to the military conquest of the Aztecs, the Incas, and other indigenous societies. We will then examine the establishment of a colonial and Catholic society across Latin America, paying attention to the ways that indigenous lives and folkways survived despite the violence of conquest. In the second half of the class, we will discuss Latin American independence in the early 19th century, and look at how Simón BolÃvar and other nationalists helped shape the future of Colombia and the rest of the continent. We will then examine the complicated twentieth century, during which an increasingly
powerful United States became ever more influential in the region.