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Course Info for HIST - 238 - 01, Spring 2022
Class number: 2946 Title: Caribbean History Department: History
Career: Undergraduate Component: Lecture Session: Regular
Instructor's Permission Required: No Grading Basis: Regular Units: 1.00
Enrollment limited to 35 Current enrollment: 33 Available seats: 2
Start date: Monday, January 31, 2022 End date: Monday, May 16, 2022 Mode of Instruction: In Person
Schedule: MW: 2:40PM-3:55PM, SH - N130 Instructor(s): Figueroa, Luis
Prerequisite(s): None
Distribution Requirement: Meets Humanities and Global Requirements
Course Description:
The location of the first encounter, conquest, and colonization of Native American peoples by Europeans, the Caribbean became a center of bitter rivalries between European imperial powers, and later in the 20th century a new, premiere location of the United States’ own imperial thrust. The Caribbean’s strategic location in relation to Atlantic Ocean trade routes and its tropical climate and fertile soils were key factors in shaping these imperial rivalries and the colonial and postcolonial societies that emerged in the region. The vast experience of African slavery, the later “indentured” migration of hundreds of thousands of Asians to some colonies, and the migration of similar numbers of Europeans (especially to the Hispanic Caribbean) have shaped deeply yet unevenly the nature of Caribbean societies since the 16th century, giving the Caribbean a complex multi-ethnic, yet also heavily “Western,” cultural landscape. This course will introduce students to these and other aspects of Caribbean history, from the pre-European era, through the epics of the Haitian Revolution (1791-1804) and the Cuban Revolution of 1959, to the present.