BA History

This unit offers an introduction to Latin America’s past by addressing the ways in which subordinate or marginalised groups (particularly indigenous peoples, free and enslaved Africans and Afro-descendants, people of mixed ethnicity, and women) adapted to different systems of oppression and exploitation between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries. The unit focuses on the strategies and mechanisms through which these groups challenged, resisted, negotiated or accommodated Spanish rule and, subsequently, the changes brought about by independence and nineteenth-century Liberalism. By analysing the different means and aims through and for which marginalised groups exercised agency during colonial and post-colonial Latin America the unit explores the role these groups and individuals played in the construction of Iberian imperial rule and of post-independence nations.   

Available on: All programmes with Spanish; Programmes with History.

Medium of language: English; certain readings and seminar materials will be assigned in Spanish but an English alternative will be made available for students who do not read the language. 

• To provide a general overview of the history of Latin America with a particular focus on the different responses of marginalised groups to the challenges created by both Iberian rule and post-independence national governments 
• To provide detailed knowledge of particular areas and periods of Latin American history 
• To develop awareness of the diversity of Latin American experiences and cultures, and of the importance of colonialism, slavery and race in shaping modern Latin American societies 
• To encourage the development of critical thinking
• Hone skills at working with historical primary sources 
• Develop skills in using generative AI to assist the production of factually accurate and critically engaged written work 

Each week, during the lecture, the tutor will provide basic background information and an overview of the week’s topic; in preparation for the seminar, all students will be asked to undertake preparatory reading. Seminars will start with a set activity, working in smaller groups with primary sources; discussion will then focus on the texts read in preparation for class and the week’s topic more generally.

Through seminar discussion and submission of written work, students will improve their written and oral communication skills. Through their engagement with primary sources at the start of each seminar and the oral feedback provided to the group, students will enhance their skills at working with these materials.

Through planning, researching and writing primary source analyses, as well as through researching and critically assessing their AI-assisted essay, and receiving feedback on both activities, students will develop research skills, and familiarise themselves with library resources and ways to access them.

Through generative AI workshops, preparing their generative AI-assisted essay and using generative AI to create presentation slides, students will engage with debates about the use of AI and develop skills to engage with this technology in their own work. 
 

By successfully completing this unit students will be able to:

• Demonstrate a general understanding of the history of Latin America from the encounter to the nineteenth century
• Demonstrate detailed knowledge of particular areas and periods in Latin American history
• Show awareness of the cultural diversity and the complex historical experiences of Latin America
• Show awareness of how subordinate groups contributed to shaping Spanish and Portuguese imperial rule and post-independence nations

By successfully completing this unit students will be able to:

• Understand historiographical debates, identifying and explaining competing historical arguments
• Formulate historical arguments backed by evidence
• Approach historical sources critically, questioning them from a variety of perspectives and with different objectives

By successfully completing this unit students will be able to:

• Plan and deliver a group presentation on a topic of Latin American history
• Gather, organize and deploy evidence and information in forming an historical argument
• Use the library to find appropriate physical and electronic resources and reference them correctly

By successfully completing this unit students will be able to:

• Evince improvement in their ability to communicate both orally and in writing with structure, coherence, clarity and fluency
• Gather, organize and deploy evidence in marshalling an argument

Resit Assessment

• Hassig, Ross, ‘War, Politics and the conquest of Mexico’, in War in the Early Modern World 1450-1815, ed. by J. Black (London: UCL press, 1999), pp. 207-235.
• Baber, Jovita, 'Empire, Indians, and the Negotiation for the Status of City in Tlaxcala, 1521-1550', in Negotiation within Domination: New Spain's Indian Pueblos Confront the Spanish State, ed. by Ethelia Ruiz Medrano and Susan Kellogg (Boulder, CO: University Press of Colorado, 2010), pp. 19-44.
• Smith, Matthew, 'Laboring to Choose, Choosing to Labor: Coercion and Choice in the Potosi Mita', Past Imperfect 10 (2004): 21-44.
• Glave, Luis Miguel, ‘The “Republic of Indians” in Revolt (c.1680-1790)’, in The Cambridge History of the Native Peoples of the Americas, ed. by  F. Salomon and S. Schwartz (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), Vol. III, part 2, pp. 502-57.
• Owensby, Brian P., 'How Juan and Leonor Won Their Freedom: Litigation and Liberty in Seventeenth-Century Mexico', Hispanic American Historical Review 85 (2005), pp. 39-79.
• Lokken, Paul, 'Marriage as slave emancipation in seventeenth-century rural Guatemala', The Americas 58 (2001), pp. 175-200.
• Ducey, Michael, ‘Village, Nation, and Constitution: Insurgent Politics in Papantla, Veracruz, 1810-1821,’ Hispanic American Historical Review 79 (1999), pp. 463-93.
• Sanders, James E., ‘“Citizens of a Free People”: Popular Liberalism and Race in Nineteenth-Century Southwestern Colombia’, Hispanic American Historical Review 84 (2004), pp. 277-313.
• Cowling, Camillia, ‘Negotiating Freedom: Women of Colour and the Transition to Free Labour in Cuba, 1870-1886’, Slavery & Abolition 26 (2005), pp. 377-391
• Deere, Carmen Diana, and Magdalena Leon, 'Liberalism and Married Women's Property Rights in Nineteenth-Century Latin America', Hispanic American Historical Review 85 (2005), pp. 627-678.