Cultures in Contact
ANT 326L (30410) Spring, 2008
Samuel M. Wilson
– ANT 326 / 30410
– Overview
– Book / Packet
– Requirements
• Exams
• Exercises
– Web site
Overview - European Background
• What in European history prompted its 15th-20th Century colonizing push?
• Long history of dealing with non-Europeans
– Byzantine Empire
– Islamic World
Historical forces after 1000 A.D. that promoted exploration
• Population growth
• Growth of wealth
• Trading classes, growing elite
American Background
• New World diversity in politics, economics, interaction
• Over 2000 distinct languages
• Huge and complex empires to hunter-gatherers
• Cycles of complex society
The Conquest
• Columbus & Co.
• Impact of disease
• Differences and similarities in the ways that the conquest proceeded
Colonial Strategies
• Spanish
• Portuguese
• English
• French
• Dutch, Swedish, German, etc.
African Diaspora in the New World
• Slavery to Freedom
• Competition, cooperation, synthesis
• African - Indian alliances
Emerging Native American policy in the U.S.
• Colonization of the eastern seaboard
• Revolutionary War
• Strategy of “Removal”
• Strategy of forced assimilation
Native American Policy in the 20th C.
• Native American low point
• The Indian New Deal
• The “termination” policy
• Present state of affairs
Major themes of the course
• The way things went was greatly affected by chance and by the decisions of individuals
• In the Americas and the World ethnicity is an extremely powerful component of political and social discourse
QUESTIONS?