Aztecs Abroad? Uncovering the Early Indigenous Atlantic

2020 ◽  
Vol 125 (3) ◽  
pp. 787-814
Author(s):  
Caroline Dodds Pennock
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Native Americans ◽  
Indigenous People ◽  
Atlantic World ◽  
Social Economic ◽  
Native People ◽  
Mexican Origin ◽  
Indian Country ◽  
History Of ◽  
Intellectual Networks

Abstract Indigenous people are often seen as static recipients of transatlantic encounter, influencing the Atlantic world only in their parochial interactions with Europeans, but the reality is that thousands of Native Americans crossed the ocean during the sixteenth century, many unwillingly, but some by choice. As diplomats, entertainers, traders, travelers, and, sadly, most often when enslaved, Indigenous people operated consciously within structures that spanned the ocean and created a worldview that was framed in transatlantic terms. Focusing on purposeful travelers of “Aztec” (Central Mexican) origin, this article uses the distinctive context of the 1500s to rewrite our understandings of the Atlantic world. In the turbulent waters of early empire, we can more easily see Native people as purposeful global actors who created and transformed social, economic, political, and intellectual networks, forging not one but many “Indigenous Atlantics.” This is about more than “looking east from Indian country,” or recovering the transatlantic journeys of Native people, important though both those things are. To find a truly “Indigenous Atlantic,” we must reimagine the history of the ocean itself: as a place of Indigenous activity, imagination, and power.

Deadly Virtue

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heather Martel
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Indigenous People ◽  
Atlantic World ◽  
The Body ◽  
Indigenous Leadership ◽  
Christian Morality ◽  
History Of

Deadly Virtue argues that the history of the French Calvinist attempt to colonize Florida in the 1560s is key to understanding the roots of American whiteness in sixteenth-century colonialism, science, and Protestantism. The book places the history of Fort Caroline, Florida, into the context of Protestant colonialism and understandings of the body, emotion, and identity held in common by travelers throughout the early Atlantic world. Protestants envisioned finding a rich and powerful Indigenous king, converting him to Christianity, and then establishing a Protestant-Indigenous alliance to build an empire under Indigenous leadership that would compete with European monarchies. However, when the colony was wiped out by the Spanish, these Protestants took this as a condemnation from their god for this plan of collaborating with Indigenous people and developed separatist strategies for future Protestant colonial projects. By introducing the reader to the humoral model of the body, this book shows how race, gender, sexuality, and Christian morality came to intersect in modern understandings of whiteness.

Las Yslas de Esperar en Dios: The Jesuit Mission in Moro 1546–1571

1988 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 593-606
Author(s):  
John Villiers
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Social Economic ◽  
Narrative Form ◽  
Society Of Jesus ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Political Conditions ◽  
Jesuit Missionaries ◽  
Mission Field

The numerous and voluminous reports and letters which the Jesuits wrote on the Moro mission, as on all their missions in Asia, are perhaps of less interest to us now for what they reveal of the methods adopted by the Society of Jesus in this remote corner of their mission field or the details they contain about the successes and failures of individual missionaries, than for the wealth of information they provide on the islands where the Jesuits lived and the indigenous societies with which they came into contact through their work of evangelization. In other words, it is not theprimary purpose of this essay to analyse the Jesuit documents with a view to reconstructing the history of the Moro mission in narrative form but rather to glean from them some of the informationthey contain about the social and political conditions in Moro during the forty years or so in the sixteenth century when both the Jesuit missionaries and the Portuguese were active in the regio Because the Jesuits were often in close touch with local rulers and notables, whether or not they succeeded in converting them to Christianity, and because they lived among their subjects for long periods, depending upon them for the necessities of life and sharing their hardships, their letters and reports often show a deeper understanding of the social, economic and political conditions of the indigenous societies and, one suspects, give a more accurate and measured account of events and personalities than do the official chroniclers and historians of the time, most of whom never ventured further east than Malacca and who in any case were chiefly concerned to glorify the deeds of the Portuguese and justify their actions to the world.

The First Calvinist Encounters with New World Religions

2021 ◽  
pp. 252-269
Author(s):  
Mark Valeri
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Native Americans ◽  
Human Nature ◽  
Indigenous People ◽  
New World ◽  
World Religions ◽  
Jean De Lery ◽  
Travel Writings ◽  
Civic Virtues ◽  
Cultural Observation

European Calvinists first encountered Native Americans during three brief expeditions of French adventurers to Brazil and Florida during the mid-sixteenth century. Although short-lived and rarely noted, these expeditions produced a remarkable commentary by Huguenots on the Tupinamba people of Brazil and the Timucuan people of Florida. Informed by Calvinist understandings of human nature and humanist approaches to cultural observation, authors such as Jean de Léry produced narratives that posed European and Christian decadence against the sociability and honesty of Native Americans. They used their experiences in America to suggest that Huguenots in France, like indigenous people in America, ought to be tolerated for their civic virtues whatever their doctrinal allegiances. Huguenot travel writings indicate variations in Calvinist approaches to Native peoples from the mid-sixteenth through the seventeenth centuries.

Algonquian Diasporas

Memory Lands ◽  
2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christine M. DeLucia
Keyword(s):  
Native American ◽  
Native Americans ◽  
New England ◽  
Atlantic World ◽  
Indigenous Populations ◽  
Community Members ◽  
King Philip's War ◽  
Native Communities ◽  
History Of ◽  
Native American Tribes

This chapter examines how King Philip’s War gave rise to a significant but often ignored or misperceived history of bondage, enslavement, and diaspora that took Native Americans far from their northeast homelands, and subjected them to a range of brutal conditions across an Atlantic World. It focuses on Algonquians’ transits into captivity as a consequence of the war, and historicizes this process within longer trajectories of European subjugation of Indigenous populations for labor. The chapter examines how Algonquian individuals and families were forcibly placed into New England colonial as well as Native communities at the war’s conclusion, and how others were transported out of the region for sale across the Atlantic World. The case of King Philip’s wife and son is especially complex, and the chapter considers how traditions around their purported sale into slavery in Bermuda interact with challenging racial politics and archival traces. Modern-day “reconnection” events have linked St. David’s Island community members in Bermuda to Native American tribes in New England. The chapter also reflects on wider dimensions of this Algonquian diaspora, which likely brought Natives to the Caribbean, Azores, and Tangier in North Africa, and propelled Native migrants/refugees into Wabanaki homelands.

College Communities Abroad

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Social Economic ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Migrant Communities ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of

In the early modern period, Catholic communities in Protestant jurisdictions were impelled to establish colleges for the education and formation of students in more hospitable Catholic territories. The Irish, English and Scots Colleges founded in France, Flanders, the Iberian peninsula, Rome and elsewhere are the best known, but the phenomenon extended to Dutch and Scandinavian foundations in southern Flanders and the German lands. Similarly colleges were established in Rome for various national communities, among whom the Maronites are a striking example. The first colleges were founded in the mid-sixteenth century and tens of thousands of students passed through them until their closure in late eighteenth century. Only a handful survived the disruption of the French Revolutionary wars to re-emerge in the nineteenth century. Historians have long argued that these exile colleges played a prominent role in maintaining Catholic structures by supplying educated clergy equipped to deal with the challenges of their domestic churches. This has ensured that the Irish, English and Scots colleges in particular have a rich historiography laid out in the pages of Archivium Hibernicum, the Records of the Scots Colleges or the volumes published under the aegis of the Catholic Record Society in England. Until recently, however, their histories were considered in isolating confessional and national frameworks, with surprisingly little attempt to examine commonalities or connections. Recent research has begun to open up the topic by investigating the social, economic, cultural and material histories of the colleges. Meanwhile renewed interest in the history of early modern migration has encouraged historians to place the colleges within the vibrant migrant communities of Irish, English, Scots and others on the continent. The Introduction begins with a survey of the colleges. It assesses their historiographies, paying particular attention to the research of the last three decades. The introduction argues that an obvious next step is to examine the colleges in transnational and comparative perspectives. Finally, it introduces the volume's essays on Irish, English, Scots, Dutch, German and Maronite colleges, which provide up-to-date research by leading historians in the field and point to the possibilities for future research on this exciting topic.

A misleading source: the fortuna of a sixteenth-century engraving and its impact on the history of Roman baths studies

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 296-335
Author(s):  
Giacomo Savani
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Wall Painting ◽  
History Of ◽  
Roman Baths ◽  
Uncritical Acceptance ◽  
Roman Wall Painting ◽  
Intellectual Networks ◽  
Cutaway View

AbstractIn this article, I follow the mixed fortunes of a woodcut depicting a cutaway view of a set of ancient baths, so far neglected by modern scholarship. First published in a mid-sixteenth-century treatise on balneology and based on a misinterpretation of Vitruvius (5.10.1), it reappeared as a copy of a Roman wall-painting in several eighteenth-century antiquarian works. The remarkable resonance enjoyed by this image in specialist and popular publications until the early twentieth century makes it one of the most influential and controversial sources in the history of Roman baths studies. In exploring the reasons behind the enduring, uncritical acceptance of this depiction, I raise broader questions concerning the nature and extent of intellectual networks in eighteenth-century Europe.

“These Doubtfull Times, between Us and the Indians”

Virginia 1619 ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 215-235
Keyword(s):  
Native Americans ◽  
Native People ◽  
Considerable Time ◽  
Indian Country

The proceedings of the assembly that convened at Jamestown in late July 1619 reflect the delegates’ central concerns. As one might expect, the Burgesses devoted considerable time to topics such as master-servant relationships and the marketing of tobacco. They devoted even more attention—roughly 25 percent of the published proceedings—to Native Americans and Indian traders. Something new and troubling was afoot: as governor George Yeardley warned, these were “doubtful times, between us and the Indians.” Although Yeardley framed this in binary terms, as an issue between Natives and newcomers, most people knew better. These were doubtful times within Indian country as well, for Powhatan’s successor Itoyatin and his external chief Opechancanough faced challenges internally and on the edges of their paramount chiefdom. Yeardley’s “us” also elided significant differences among the Jamestown colonists, centering on the degree and character of their involvement with Native people and their competing visions of how Indians might fit in to the colony’s future.

scholarly journals The History of the Five Indian Nations Depending on the Province of New-York in America

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cadwallader Colden
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Native Americans ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Native People ◽  
Intellectual Life ◽  
Early American ◽  
British America ◽  
History Of ◽  
American Intellectual ◽  
Indian Nations

This book, originally published in 1727 and revised in 1747, is one of the most important intellectual works published in eighteenth-century British America. The author was among the most learned American men of his time, and his history of the Iroquois tribes makes fascinating reading. The book discusses the religion, manners, customs, laws, and forms of government of the confederacy of tribes composed of the Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, and Senecas (and, later, the Tuscaroras), and gives accounts of battles, treaties, and trade with these Indians up to 1697. Since the book was first reprinted in 1958, it has served as an invaluable resource for scholars and students interested in Iroquois history and culture, Enlightenment attitudes toward Native Americans, early American intellectual life, and Anglo-French imperial contests over North America. This new edition features materials not previously included, such as the 1747 introduction, which contains rich and detailed descriptions of Iroquois culture, government, economy, and society. New chapters place the volume in a historical and cultural context and provide a balanced introduction to the historic culture of the Iroquois, as well as their relationship to other Native people.

scholarly journals (Dis)Empowerment of Native Americans in Orson Scott Card’s The Tales of Alvin Maker

2021 ◽  
Vol 74 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Weronika Łaszkiewicz
Keyword(s):  
Native Americans ◽  
Indigenous People ◽  
19Th Century ◽  
Colonial History ◽  
Dominant Culture ◽  
Early 19Th Century ◽  
History Of ◽  
Indigenous Sovereignty

The aim of this article is to analyze the portrayal of Native Americans in Orson Scott Card’s The Tales of Alvin Maker (1987-2003). The series is an alternative history of America in the early 19th century, which allows Card to condemn the country’s colonial history, particularly the institution of slavery and the plight of Native Americans. Nevertheless, in spite of his obvious sympathy for Native Americans, Card does not manage to avoid all of the traps awaiting a non-Native author writing about Indigenous people. The following article examines the series’ portrayal of Native Americans, demonstrating how the author both empowers his Indigenous characters and undermines their empowerment. The framework for the proposed analysis is provided by Gerald Vizenor’s theories regarding the simulation of Native presence in dominant culture, the persistence of stereotypical indians, the concept of survivance, and the possible retrieval of Indigenous sovereignty.

European Empires in the American South

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Native Americans ◽  
Atlantic World ◽  
American South ◽  
Historical Change ◽  
Native People ◽  
The South ◽  
European Expansion ◽  
The American South ◽  
Colonial Encounter ◽  
Scholarly Attention

This multi-authored volume examines the process of European expansion into the Atlantic by focusing on a region that has come to be known as the American South. During the three centuries after Europeans began to cross the Atlantic with confidence, they interacted with one another, with the native people, and with enslaved Africans across the South. The volume's essays offer examples of colonial encounter for those who are curious about how the broad processes of historical change influenced particular people and places. In recent years there have appeared several important studies that address the Atlantic World generally and/or the specific experiences of Spanish, British, and French imperial projects in the South. A key aspect of each of these colonial schemes was finding ways to engage profitably—from the European perspective—with Native Americans. The consequences of Indian encounters with European invaders has long been a principal feature of ethnohistorical research, but during the last long generation scholars of Native Americans in the South have increasingly viewed their subject in an Atlantic World context. With such scholarship as its foundation, the goal of the present volume is to bring together scholars with research linked to each of the three major European colonial powers to draw increased scholarly attention to the South as a significant arena of imperial ambition.

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