Reading Guide for Intro to Literature to 1700

Reading Guides are used in a Round Robin Forum in Moodle every week. The idea is that we collaborate in an effort to work our way through the questions, one at a time and in order, taking turns giving answers. See the rules for this in the first Moodle.ulm.edu Round Robin.

In addition, the we collaborate on the vocabulary by offering definitions in the Glossary work in moodle.ulm.edu. Pick any word from the lists in the Reading Guide that has not yet been addressed in moodle's glossary and define it given the directions in moodle.

Finally, these questions and vocabulary words are used to build our weekly Reading Checks, so you'd do well to keep track of the progress made in moodle in preparation for our weekly Reading Checks.

 

Intro

Retell the story of Diego Colon.
How many accompanied Columbus on his 2nd voyage?
Name some of the foods introduced by Columbus and his settlers in that 2nd voyage.
What's the difference in the way the natives and the Europeans fought their wars when Columbus and others first arrived?
When did Spain first begin introducing African slaves into the Carribean Islands? Why so quick? How many years after discovery?

What approximate date/year can you put to the Viking's attempt to settle the North American coast?
What was the trouble with Jamestown?

Name the two main reasons the Europeans so effectively and efficiently did away with the Native population.

Note how this quote from David Stannard's American Holocaust(11) compares or contrasts to our introduction:

"In the 1940s and 1950s conventional wisdom held that the [pre-Columbian] population of the entire hemisphere in 1492 was little more than 8,000,000--with fewer than 1,000,000 people living in the region north of present-day Mexico. Today, few serious students of the subject would put the hemispheric figure at less than 75,000,000 to 100,000,000 (with approximately 8,000,000 to 12,000,000 north of Mexico), while one of the most well-regarded specialists in the field recently has suggested that a more accurate estimate would be around 145,000,000 for the hemisphere as a whole and about 18,000,000 for the area north of Mexico" (New York: Oxford UP, 1992).

What were the main reasons the European government policies concerning the natives was ineffective in controlling he colonists? 

What literary movement changed the way we look at Native oratures? What shift in focus which changed the definition of literature did it argue

Know the following dates:
First importation of African slaves to the "new world." When the Native populations began to die in large numbers from imported diseases.
When de las Casas asked the Ferdinand and Isabelle to decree that natives should be treated humanely.
When Roanoke was founded and Sir Walter declared the new lands "Virginia." (Who was the new country named after?).
When Jamestown was founded. (Can you locate Jamestown and Plymouth Bay Colony approximately on a map?).
When the first Africans were brought to Jamestown.
When the Mayflower dropped anchor.
The Pequot War.

Vocabulary
encomienda, monolithic, ahistorical, orature, ethnographic,