This course surveys the history of Latin America from the first period of contact between Europeans and indigenous peoples in the late fifteenth century to the wars for independence in the early nineteenth 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 Africans will be explored by deconstructing Eurocentric ideas of “discovery” and “conquest.” This multiethnic encounter will also be followed through labour relations, Indian and Spanish acculturation, popular religion, race and gender relations, and the formation of group identities on the eve of the wars for independence.