HIST6301: Colloquium on Exploration and Cartography in the Atlantic World, Fall 2011

1. Week 2 Google Earth placemarks; due on Blackboard before 11:59pm 2011-09-07 Wed
2. Week 3 Google Earth and French slave-trading voyage; due on Blackboard before 11:59pm 2011-09-14 Wed
3. Week 4 Google Earth and an historical map; due on Blackboard before 11:59pm 2011-09-21 Wed
4. Week 5 ArcGIS on-line placemarks; due on class ArcGIS account before 11:59pm 2011-09-28 Wed
5. Week 6 ArcGIS on-line measurements; due on Blackboard before 11:59pm 2011-10-05 Wed
6. Week 7 ArcGIS census assignment; due on class ArcGIS account before 11:59pm 2011-10-12 Wed
7. Week 8 ArcGIS external dataset assignment; due on class ArcGIS account before 11:59pm 2011-10-19 Wed
8. Week 9 Inkscape assignment; due on Blackboard before 11:59pm 2011-10-26 Wed
9. Week 11 Inkscape assignment; due on Blackboard before 11:59pm 2011-11-02 Wed
10. Week 10 Inkscape assignment; due on Blackboard before 11:59pm 2011-11-09 Wed

These brief papers [1000 words, plus footnotes and bibliography] are essays, not “book reviews.” Each essay should be a reflection on how this book contributes to this often controversial field. How does this author's perspective complement or contradict that of other historians we have read? I'll be looking for specific discussions of the book's thesis, its organization and content, and the kinds of sources the author uses. Submit the final versions of these essays to me via Blackboard before midnight the day of the class.

• Paper 1, due Week 4, on Blackboard before 11:59pm 2011-09-20 Tue
• Paper 2, due Week 7, on Blackboard before 11:59pm 2011-10-11 Tue
• Paper 3, due Week 12, on Blackboard before 11:59pm 2011-11-15 Tue

There are a total of 16 opportunities; sign up for 2. Ground rules: Make this interesting! You may use PowerPoint but don't throw a lot of bullet points at us. You can distribute a single-page handout but this isn't required. Your presentation grade is based on style as well as content. I'll grade that content on how well you address these three topics:

1. Intellectual biography of the author and his work: Be prepared to speak in class for about 5 minutes on these topics: What articles and books has she published? When and where did he attend graduate school? Which scholars or ideas have most influenced her? What special tools or perspectives does he bring to his work?
2. Important literature in this subfield: list approximately 15 books (or articles) that you believe are important in the genealogy of the book or article we are reading. Be prepared to speak for about 5 minutes on these works in class.
3. Source material: What primary sources are at the heart of this book? Describe five of what you think are the most interesting or important. Then list two of the different archives used by the book or article. Find these archives' home pages on the web anmd include it in your presentation.

This will be a longer paper [15 to 20 pages] in which you address one of the following [list may change] key questions in the field, describing how our authors dealt with these issues. How did Europeans "discover" and conquer the Americas so rapidly in the years 1492-1600? How does the history of cartography help us understand the so-called "Age of Discovery"? How did Europe's encounter with Africa shape its encounter with the Americas? What was Europe's physical and cultural impact on the new world? on Africa? What was Africa's physical and cultural impact on Europe and the New World? What was the New World's physical and cultural impact on Europe? On Africa?

Classroom participation is not optional and simply attending class does not count in this area!

• Read: Fernández-Armesto, Pathfinders, 41-192
• "Set-up" presentation on Fernández-Armesto
• Cartography Homework 1: Google Earth [See tutorials on BlackBoard]
  • Install Google Earth or use it in the University Hall computer lab.
  • Find 5 important locations in the Fernández-Armesto reading
  • For each location, create a placemark with a 3-D view
  • Save the placemarks into a KMZ file and upload to Blackboard

• Read: Fernández-Armesto, Pathfinders, 193-349
• Presentation on Norman Thrower
• Cartography Homework 2: Google Earth
  • Pick a slave voyage from the French pilots archive http://www.culture.gouv.fr/documentation/archim/journaux-de-bord.html
  • Using Google Earth, make placemarks for the beginning and 5 latitudes/longtitudes spread evenly throughout the voyage
  • In each of the six placemarks, provide a properly formatted bibiliographic citation to a book, article, or web-page
  • Save the placemarks into a KMZ file and upload to BlackBoard

• Read: Thrower, Maps and Civilization, 1-124
• Presentation on Brian Harley
• Paper One due before midnight on Blackboard
• Cartography Homework 3: Google Earth
  • Download an historical map from David Rumsey's site
  • Import it into Google Earth and position it as accurately as you can
  • Make a placemark identifying the map using the bibliographical data on Rumsey
  • Save the map as a KMZ file and upload to BlackBoard

• Harley, The New Nature of Maps, 33-82; 150-168
• Presentation on David Abulafia
• Cartography Homework 4: ArcGIS Online
  • Using ArcGISonline.com and log into our class account.
  • Map 5 locations in Fernández-Armesto and save the map to the class

• Read: Abulafia, The Discovery of Mankind, 1-161
• Presentation on Daniel Richter
• Cartography Homework 5: ArcGIS On-line
  • Trace a path in ArcGIS online
  • Find distances in ArcGIS online
  • Find heights in ArcGIS online

• Read: Abulafia, The Discovery of Mankind, 162-313
• Presentation on John Thorton
• Paper Two due before midnight on Blackboard
• Cartography Homework 6: ArcGIS On-line
  • Explore census data in ArcGIS

• Read:
  • Richter, Daniel K. Facing East from Indian Country: A Native History of Early America. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 2001. 1-40l
  • Thornton, John. Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World, 1400-1800.. 2nd ed. Cambridge University Press, 1998. x-xxxvi [maps and notes]; and 13-71.
• Presentation on David Northrup
• Cartography Homework 7: ArcGIS on-line
  • Find an external dataset and bringing it into ArcGIS

• Meet on 6th floor of the library to tour the cartography collection
• Read:
  • Northrup, Africa's Discovery of Europe, 1-106
  • Sidbury, James, and Jorge Cañizares-Esguerra. “Mapping Ethnogenesis in the Early Modern Atlantic.” William & Mary Quarterly 68, no. 2 (April 1, 2011): 181-208.
  • Norton, Marcy. “Tasting Empire: Chocolate and the European Internalization of Mesoamerican Aesthetics.” American Historical Review 111, no. 3 (June 1, 2006): 660-691.
• Presentations on Barbara Mundy and Patricia Galloway
• Cartography Homework 8: Inkscape
  • Install Inkscape
  • Find three historical illustration-maps in a book; scan them
  • Import it into Inkscape
  • Use the program to circle the following 5 basic elements on each of the three maps:
    • Legend, Orientation arrow/compass rose, Title and labels, Scale, Sources
    • Optional elements you may want to identify: inset 'locator' map; neat line, name of cartographer
  • Export from Inkscape to JPEG or PNG

• Read:
  • Harley, J. Brian. “Rereading the Maps of the Columbian Encounter.” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 82, no. 3, The Americas before and after 1492: Current Geographical Research (September 1992): 522-536.
  • Boone, Elizabeth Hill. “Maps of Territory, History, and Community in Aztec Mexico.” In Cartographic Encounters: Perspectives on Native American Mapmaking and Map Use, edited by G. Malcolm Lewis, 111-133. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998.
  • Galloway, Patricia. “Debriefing Explorers: Amerindian Information in the Delisles’ Mapping of the Southeast.” In Cartographic Encounters 223-240. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998.
  • Mundy, Barbara E. The Mapping of New Spain: Indigenous Cartography and the Maps of the Relaciones Geográficas. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996. 1-9 and 61-89.
  • Padrón, Ricardo. “Charting Empire, Charting Difference: Gómara’s Historia general de las Indias and Spanish Maritime Cartography.” Colonial Latin American Review 11, no. 1 (June 2002): 47-69.
• Presentations on Jared Diamond and Jeremy Black
• Cartography Homework 9: Inkscape
  • Find a basemap of a geographical region whose history interests you
    • Use an on-line source like OpenStreetMap.org
    • Think of the illustration map you found most useful
  • Trace that base map in Inkscape, using the layers function
  • Create separate layers for:
    • Background map
    • Basic land shapes, bordered by neatline
    • Administrative/government borders or physical features [rivers, lakes]
    • Population centers
    • Title, Scale, credit lines
  • Save and upload the Inkscape file to BlackBoard

• Read:
  • Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs, and Steel Prologue: Yali' s Question, 13-33; Chapter 3, Collision at Cajamarca 67-82; Chapter 18: Hemispheres colliding, 354-376;
  • Black, Jeremy. “European overseas expansion and the military revolution.” In Technology, Disease, and Colonial Conquests, Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries: Essays Reappraising the Guns and Germs Theories, edited by George Raudzens, 1-30. Boston: Brill, 2001.
  • Raudzens, George. “Outfighting or outpopulating? Main reasons for early colonial conquests, 1493-1788.” In Technology, Disease, and Colonial Conquests, edited by George Raudzens, 31-57. Boston: Brill, 2001.
  • Subrahmanyam, Sanjay. “Holding the World in Balance: The Connected Histories of the Iberian Overseas Empires, 1500–1640.” American Historical Review, 112, no. 5 (December 1, 2007): 1359-1385.
  • Melvin, Karen. “Charity without Borders: Alms-Giving in New Spain for Captives in North Africa.” ,Colonial Latin American Review, 18, no. 1 (April 2009): 75-97.
• Presentations on Inga Clendinnen, Patricia Seed, and Stephen Greenblatt
• Cartography Homework 10: Inkscape
  • Use the basemap you created in Inkscape to illustrate an historical event or situation
  • Put in the 5 basic map elements appropriate labels, legend
  • Produce in black and white; print out and bring to class

• Read:
  • Seed, Patricia, Ceremonies of Possession in Europe's Conquest of the New World, 1492-1640, 1-100
  • Clendinnen, Inga. “‘Fierce and Unnatural Cruelty’: Cortes and the conquest of Mexico.” In New World Encounters, edited by Stephen Greenblatt, 12-47. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993.
  • Townsend, Camilla. “Burying the White Gods: New Perspectives on the Conquest of Mexico.” American Historical Review 108, no. 3 (June 1, 2003): 659-687.

Haskett, Robert. “Dying for Conversion: Faith, Obedience, and the Tlaxcalan Boy Martyrs in New Spain.” Colonial Latin American Review 17, no. 2 (December 2008): 185-212.

• Paper Three due before midnight on Blackboard
• Presentations on Matthew Edney and Benjamin Schmidt

• Read:
  • Edney, Matthew. “Knowledge and Cartography in the Early Atlantic.” In The Oxford Handbook of the Atlantic World, 1450-1850, edited by Nicholas Canny and Philip D. Morgan, 87-112. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011.
  • Schmidt, Benjamin. Innocence Abroad: The Dutch Imagination and the New World, 1570-1670. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006. 1-122
• Presentation on D. Graham Burnett

• Burnett, D. Graham. Masters of All They Surveyed: Exploration, Geography, and a British El Dorado. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000. 1-118

• Burnett, Masters of all They Surveyed, 119-265

All procedures and policies in this course are subject to change in the event of unforeseen circumstances.