This course surveys the history of Latin America from early contact in the late fifteenth century to a period of reform in the late eighteenth century. Colonialism is presented as a multiethnic conversation, one that was filled with violence and informed by power relations, but one that also saw all ethnic groups participating in the formation of colonial societies and hence to the general shape of Spanish and Portuguese rule. To test this thesis the interactions between Europeans, Amerindians, and sub-Saharan Africans will be explored by deconstructing Eurocentric ideas of discovery, conquest, and civilization. This multiethnic encounter will also be followed through labour relations, Indian and Spanish acculturation, conversion, popular religion, race, gender relations, and the formation of group identities on the eve of the wars for independence.