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SPAN 1442 - RACIAL, ETHNIC AND RELIGIOUS DIFFERENCE IN COLONIAL LATIN AMERICAMinimum Credits: 3 Maximum Credits: 3 Indios Chinos, Inca Witches, African Healers, Crypto Jewish, and Old Christians: Racial, Ethnic and Religious Difference in Colonial Latin America Diversity has been a constant of human societies, and so have been the different ways in which people have made sense of it. Colonial Latin America was no exception. After 1492 Indigenous Latin American polities progressively went from independent entities to subordinated units of the Portuguese and Spanish Empires, and large numbers of African and Asian peoples were uprooted and transported to Latin America. During this long, protracted process of transformation Western ideas about difference were put to the test and gave birth to unexpected questions. Was it the stars that made people different? Or was it that the sun was stronger in the tropics? Perhaps it was the mother's imagination, or the Devil messing with it? Were all people descendants of the same act of creation or had there been many? Were the varying degrees of masculinity at the roots of it all? And anyway, how fundamental were the differences? Could skin color be rubbed off? Was the soul the same color as the skin? Was the blood tainted? Would conversion to Christianity solve it all? If the colonizers' plural, often contradictory theories made simple answers difficult, the questions got even more complex as a result of the West's Others' adaptations and resistance. Native peoples of the Americas, Asians and Africans did not simply endure Western theories about difference, they also actively engaged them to build their own identity projects and social selves. At times, they used Western ideas to protect their polities. Aware of the many contradictions between them, Indigenous, Asian and African actors used one theory against the other and pretended to be the best example of a particular theory's results when it was convenient to them, like "playing Indian." At other times, they questioned Spanish and Portuguese classifications and advanced their own arguments. Yet at other times, they rejected Western racial policies flatly and argued that Europeans should go native which they sometimes did, becoming Indigenous witches who joined forces with disguised Jews to subvert the colonial order of things. This course examines this constant process of change in its multiple manifestations as well as the different scholarly views of it. The materials go from European ideas about difference pre-1492 to the end of the colonial period in the 1800s, from Indian and Philippine slaves in Mexico City to Africans in Peru, Brazil, and Colombia, from Jews conspirators in the Andes to Spanish witches in Lima, from transvestites to Inquisitors, from slaves to saints, and from sugar mill owners to Inca activists. We also examine the diverse ways in which current scholars think about difference in colonial times. As it happens, there is no agreement today on the meaning of central concepts like "race" or "ethnicity" perhaps because in colonial times there was no clear consensus either. The goal of the course is, therefore, not to arrive to a fast and sure answer, but to become familiar with the questions and problems that informed and continue to inform past and present conversations about racial, ethnic and religious difference and diversity. Academic Career: Undergraduate Course Component: Lecture Grade Component: LG/SNC Elective Basis Course Requirements: PREQ: SPAN 1250 Course Attributes: DSAS Geographic Region General Ed. Requirement, SCI Polymathic Contexts: Global&Cross Cul GE. Req., Undergraduate Research
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