Age of the Conquistadors – European Expansion in Latin America and Africa and the

Liberation Movements (Core for History Major and Elective for other SLABS Majors)
Course Code : HIS 302 4 credits

Course Description
The focus of this course is on the early expansion of Europe, process of colonization and its
consequences on the colonized societies, national liberation movements in Latin America and
Africa. The course will also examine the motives for European exploration, the process of
conquest and colonialism; understand how colonization led to the practice of slavery; impact
of slave trading on societies in Africa and Latin America.

Unit I: The Discovery of Americas and the Spanish conquest of America

The Portuguese Empire in the Atlantic, Rise of Plantation Economy and the Slave Trade:
Trade in gold and slaves between Europe and Sub-Saharan Africa, from the end of the 15th
to nineteenth centuries; economy, society and state in Africa; Slaves, slave-ships, piracy and
slave rebellions; Africa’s contribution to the development of European capitalism
Unit II: Imperialism and ‘The Scramble for Africa’

Collaboration, conflict and state formation; The making of colonial economies in Sub-
Saharan Africa -- late 19th Century to 1939 -- cash crops, mining, forced labour ; World War
II and Decolonisation until 1960’s -- Worker protests, peasant rebellions and National
Liberation Movements

Unit III: South Africa and Algeria

Apartheid: The historical roots and meaning and South Africa’s struggle against Apartheid;
The colonial experience of Algeria under the French, and the National Liberation
Movement of Algeria

Unit IV: The Conquest of Latin America

The discovery and colonisation of Central and South America – Spanish and Portuguese:
War and conquest -- agrarian transformation; gold and silver mining; transatlantic
commerce and the modern world system; institutions of state; the advent of Christianity and
evangelization; Creole Nationalism -- resistance, collaboration, survival; new and old
hierarchies; the breakdown of the colonial order and the movements for independence:
social base
Unit V: The Neo-Colonial Regimes and Liberation Movements

Class and state formation, industrialization, immigration, and popular culture, 1830’s to the
1930’s: case studies of Mexico, Argentina, and Brazil; Authoritarian regimes and the
Revolutions; the politics of literature, music and sports 1930’s to the 1960’s
Essential Readings
1. Eric Williams, Capitalism and Slavery, Facsimile Publisher, 2013.
2. Henry Kamen, Empire:  How Spain Became a World Power, HarperCollins, 2002
3. Joshep. E. Inikori, Africans and the Industrial Revolution in England:  A Study in
International Trade and Economic Development, Cambridge University Press, 2002
4. Marcus Rediker, Slave Ship: A Human History, Penguin, 2008
5. Robin Blackburn,  The Making of New World Slavery:  from the Baroque to the  
Modern,  1492-1800, Verso, 1997.