HIST 209   The Atlantic World, 1492 - 1800

The events that followed Columbus' accidental arrival in the New World in 1492 shaped the world we live in today. Students explore the formation of the Atlantic communities as the result of interactions between European, African, and Native American peoples, as well as the circulation of diseases, natural products, labor systems, imperial designs, economic policies, and frontier zones in the Atlantic world. Many of the consequences of this process of interaction were unintended. Students explore the configuration of European, African, and Native American societies before contact and the configuration of new communities in the New World; the slave trade and the establishment of the plantation complex from Brazil to South Carolina; the spread of Christianity in the New World; the development of scientific practices in the service of imperial and national states; the establishment of labor systems; and the different strategies of accommodation, resistance, and rebellion of different actors trying to find/protect their place in the Atlantic world. Coursework is intended to provide a regional framework for studying colonial societies in the Western Hemisphere and for studying emerging empires and states in Europe.