The course examines the prehistory of the Caribbean from its first colonization and continues into the era of European colonial conquest and after. We will explore a range of themes that pertain to both the prehistoric and historic periods, such as the patterns of cultural diversity and interaction that seem to have been important in both. We will also look interaction and trade throughout the archipelago, migration, and expressions of social and political power. In prehistory particular attention will be on the processes of cultural elaboration leading to the emergence of the Taíno chiefdoms In the post-conquest Caribbean, our focus will be primarily on the African Diaspora in the Caribbean. We will also be concerned with the way histories and prehistories are produced, and the historical and present-day influences on this process.

Readings:

I have ordered two book through the University Coop-- Trouillot's Silencing the Past and the edited volume, The Indigenous People of the Caribbean. I have also prepared a course packet, which is available at Abel's Copies. Copies of the readings for the first two weeks are available on a shelf in the office in case the course packet is not ready.

Bibliography

Recommended Books:

Some of the other books from which readings will be drawn:

Armstrong, Douglas V
1990 The old village and the great house : an archaeological and historical examination of Drax Hall Plantation, St. Ann's Bay,
Jamaica. Urbana: University of Illinois Press

Beckles, Hilary McD.
1999 Centering Woman: Gender Discourses in Caribbean Slave Society. Kingston: Ian Randle, Publishers

Beckles, Hilary McD.
2000 Caribbean slavery in the Atlantic world : a student reader. Kingston, Jamaica : Ian Randle

Deagan, Kathleen and Jose Maria Cruxent
2002 Archaeology at La Isabela : America's first European town. New Haven: Yale Univ. Press.

Deagan, Kathleen and Jose Maria Cruxent
2002 Columbus's outpost among the Tainos : Spain and America at La Isabela, 1493-1498. New Haven: Yale Univ. Press.

Davila, Arlene M.
1997 Sponsored Identities: Cultural Politics in Puerto Rico. Philadelphia: Temple Univ. Press.

Farnsworth, Paul (ed.)
2001 Island Lives: Historical Archaeologies of the Caribbean. Tuscaloosa: Alabama Press.

Gaspar, David Barry
1985 Bondmen and Rebels: A study of Master-Slave Relations in Antigua. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Gaspar, David Barry and Darlene Clark Hine
1996 More than Chattel: Black Women and Slavery in the Americas. Bloomington: Indiana Univ. Press.

Graham, Richard (with chapters by Thomas E. Skidmore, Aline Helg, and Alan Knight)
1990 The Idea of race in Latin America, 1870-1940. Austin : University of Texas Press.

Haviser, Jay B. (ed)
1999 African Sites: Archaeology in the Caribbean. Princeton: Marcus Wiener, Publishers.

Helg, Aline
1995 Our rightful share : the Afro-Cuban struggle for equality, 1886-1912. / Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. F 1789 N3 H45 1995 Benson Latin American Collection / F 1789 N3 H45 1995 Benson Collection Reserves.

Johnson, Howard
1997 The Bahamas from Slavery to Servitude, 1783-1933. University Press of Florida; ISBN: 0813014948. HT 1119 B34 J64 1996 Benson Latin American Collection.

Keegan, William F.
1992 The people who discovered Columbus: the prehistory of the Bahamas. Gainesville : University Press of Florida

Mintz, Sidney W. and Richard Price (eds.)
1992 The Birth of African-American Culture : An Anthropological Perspective. Beacon Pr. ISBN: 0807009172.

Mullin, Michael
1993 Africa in America : Slave Acculturation and Resistance in the American South and the British Caribbean, 1736-1831 (Blacks in the New World). Univ of Illinois Pr. ISBN: 0252018893. E 443 M85 1992 UGL Reserves.

Oliver, Jose R.
1998 El centro ceremonial de Caguana, Puerto Rico : simbolismo iconografico, cosmovision y el poderio caciquil taino de Boriquen
Oxford (England) : Archaeopress, c1998.

Palmié, Stephan (ed.)
1995 Slave Cultures and Cultures of Slavery. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press.

Paquette, Robert L. and Stanley L. Engerman
1996 The Lesser Antilles in the Age of European Expansion. Gainesville, FL : University Press of Florida. F 2001 L48 1996 Benson Latin American Collection.

Price, Richard
1996 Maroon Societies: Rebel Slave Communities in the Americas [third edition]. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Richardson, Bonham C.
1992 The Caribbean in the wider world, 1492-1992. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press.

Rouse, Irving
1992 The Tainos : Rise & Decline of the People Who Greeted Columbus. Paperback Reissue edition (August 1993) Yale Univ Pr; ISBN: 0300056966. F 1619.2 T3 R68 1992 Benson Latin American Collection.