Resilient Cultures: America's Native Peoples Confront European Colonization, 1500-1800

For courses in Colonial American History, History of Latin America, Colonial Latin America, and American Indian History. This text provides a comparative perspective of the impact of early European colonization on the native peoples of the Americas. It covers the character of the indigenous cultures before contact, and then addresses the impact of—and creative ways in which they adapted to—the establishment of colonies by the Spanish, Portuguese, French, Dutch, and English. Paying attention to environmental change, the book considers such issues as the nature of military conflicts, the cultural and material contributions of each side to the other, the importance of economic exchanges, and the demographic transformation.

Table of Contents:
1. The Native Societies of the Americas before Contact. 2. The Coming of Humans to the Americas and the Agricultural Revolution. 3. The Conquests and Initial Establishment of Colonies in Latin America. 4. Colonial Spanish America and Its Impact on the Sedentary Imperial Societies. 5. Native Response to Settlement in the East and Southwest in North America. 6. The British and the Indians of Eastern North America. 7. Spanish and Portuguese Interactions with Tribal Peoples. 8. Enduring Connections between the New World and the Old. Bibliography

Review :
"Resilient Cultures is a triumph of multum in parvo. I do not think students will find a better conspectus of the subject." — Felipe Fernandez-Armesto, Queen Mary, University of London, and Faculty of Modern History, Oxford University "In this ambitious and pathbreaking comparative project, John Kicza considers the impact of Spanish, Portuguese, French, Dutch and English colonialism on the diverse indigenous societies of the Americas. He argues that throughout the Americas native peoples responded to the challenges of European colonialism—the precise form it took in any particular region was heavily influenced by the nature of indigenous societies at contact—with creativity and resilience. The emphasis on the significance of Native American societies to the creation of colonial ones within an American-wide comparative context lies at the heart of the innovative and important contribution made by Resilient Cultures. It deserves the attention of every reader interested it) colonialism in the Americas." — Rebecca Horn, University of Utah "There are several aspects to the book's organization that I find very appealing. '1lie effort to incorporate North and South America is laudatory. U.S. historians, in particular. are open to charges of provincialism as we rarely go beyond current United States' borders in our investigation of the past. This book would certainly widen our perspective considerably and integrate material that most of us know nothing about." — Sherry L. Smith, Southern Methodist University "Resilient Cultures addresses issues relating to native peoples representative of most of the Western Hemisphere, and that is what makes this book so attractive. It ignores the artificial political boundaries that divide countries and which arc not necessarily appropriate indicators of actual cultural entities and the peoples themselves ...this is wonderful history, especially because it undoes stereotypes about conquest and native cultural demise." — Susan Schroeder, Tulane University