Constructing and Instructing Encounters in the New World

Instructors seeking to introduce students to encounters between Europeans and natives of the New World in the early modern era benefit from a plethora of primary sources, visual, literary, and archaeological, easily accessed from printed and online collections.  Some cities also have museums such as the Bowers in Orange County, California that contain excellent collections on this topic and are accessible and welcoming to students.  More difficult than obtaining the material, therefore, is working with them and in particular instructing and inspiring students to “read” them discursively and subversively rather than as straightforward narratives of events.  The evidence is particularly complex because it derives from encounters between peoples of radically different world views and visual and literary traditions, and in a context of inequalities of power.  Moreover, the creators of these sources were themselves far from immune to the impact of the encounter and yet, especially in the case of European sources, were writing for audiences with no direct experience of the New World or the peoples and cultures described.  Finally, these sources were generated for distinct audiences and for distinct motives, which also shaped the tales they relate.  My presentation will discuss some of the sources I work with to teach the encounters, and the ways in which I use them and encourage students to “read” them in new and deeper ways.  My purpose will be both to acquaint other instructors with sources of which they may not be aware and to initiate a discussion during the session on various ways these materials can be used in teaching.