304 pages / 6.00 x 9.00 inches / 5 maps
History / Modern / 16th Century | History / Caribbean History | History / Spain & Portugal
The half century of European activity in the Caribbean that followed Columbus’s first voyages brought enormous demographic, economic, and social change to the region as Europeans, Indigenous people, and Africans whom Spaniards imported to provide skilled and unskilled labor came into extended contact for the first time. In Life and Society in the Early Spanish Caribbean, Ida Altman examines the interactions of these diverse groups and individuals and the transformation of the islands of the Greater Antilles (Hispaniola, Puerto Rico, Cuba, and Jamaica). She addresses the impact of disease and ongoing conflict; the Spanish monarchy’s efforts to establish a functioning political system and an Iberian church; evangelization of Indians and Blacks; the islands’ economic development; the international character of the Caribbean, which attracted Portuguese, Italian, and German merchants and settlers; and the formation of a highly unequal and coercive but dynamic society. As Altman demonstrates, in the first half of the sixteenth century the Caribbean became the first full-fledged iteration of the Atlantic world in all its complexity.
Ida Altman is professor emerita of history at the University of Florida.
“Engaging deeply and critically with archival sources, archaeological studies and the Spanish-language historiography, Altman's landmark study offers the first detailed look at the structures of everyday life for the inhabitants of the early Spanish Caribbean. Her attention to Black and Indigenous voices, the experiences of women, and her treatment of themes including violence, coercion, disease, and mestizaje during this dynamic, formative period make Life and Society in the Early Spanish Caribbean an obligatory point of reference and an essential model for students of the sixteenth-century Atlantic world.”—David Wheat, author of Atlantic Africa and the Spanish Caribbean, 1570–1640
“Ida Altman’s account of the early Spanish Caribbean is so detailed and vivid that readers will wonder if she is a time-traveler. Drawing on extraordinary archival research and a deep command of the secondary literature, Altman shines light on the competing interests and actors that gave shape to this earliest arena of sustained Atlantic entanglement. The transformation of landscapes and labor regimes, the constant and violent political wrangling among secular and religious figures, and the stark inequalities experienced by the islands’ European, Indigenous and Black inhabitants are brought to life. This book will be required reading for all scholars of the period.”—Molly A. Warsh, author of American Baroque: Pearls and the Nature of Empire, 1492–1700
“Ida Altman has done it again. With every monograph, she has altered our perception of a topic, time-period, and region of the Spanish American world—thereby gifting us a book that is mandatory reading for scholars and students of the entire field. Life and Society in the Early Spanish Caribbean is no exception. Her stated aim is to “introduce” us to the “dangerous, cruel, and complicated world” of Hispaniola, Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Jamaica in the first half of sixteenth century. But she achieves so much more than that, revealing the grim humanity of unremitting warfare, slaving, and colonialism; and bringing to life—as never before—the many and mixed peoples of European, African, and Indigenous origins who struggled to survive and make sense of this perilous new world.”—Matthew Restall, author of The Maya World, The Black Middle, and Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest
“Ida Altman gives us a different history of the Greater Antilles in the first half of the sixteenth century. On the basis of a substantial immersion in the primary sources and … the existing literature, the narratives of discovery and conquest and the omnipresent figure of Columbus yield here to the construction of a deep and vivid account, inhabited by people who created a new and complex society, matrix of the Spanish colonial world in America.
Taking a creative approach, in which can be distinguished the methods of micro-history and the history of daily life, and incorporating as well the archaeological evidence, a detailed and vibrant picture of the human universe that emerged from the conquest is constructed…. In this world physical, spiritual, and sexual violence not only affected the conquered Indians and enslaved Africans but marked the everyday life and relationships of the colonizers as well. At the same time it also produced extensive ethnic mixing and left space for expressions of connection that reflect the diversity of individual attitudes and the importance of family…. Altman’s book… offers us a humanized history, peopled by diverse, controversial actors.”—Roberto Valcárcel Rojas, author of Archaeology of Early Colonial Interaction at El Chorro de Maíta, Cuba
“Joining a recent burst of scholarship on the early Spanish Caribbean . . . Life and Society in the Early Spanish Caribbean stands apart for its focus on the Spanish settlers on the islands. . . . [It] is an impressive achievement in meticulous archival research that will bring the complexity of early Spanish society in the Americas to the attention of a wider audience. Historians of gender will value Altman’s attention to the lives of Caribbean women, while historians of Spanish colonialism will appreciate the book’s precise study of political and urban development in the Greater Antilles. Finally, the book will be an invaluable resource to Caribbean scholars looking to understand the history of the region in the early sixteenth century on a deeply human scale.”—Hispanic American Historical Review
Found an Error? Tell us about it.
