Unit 2 EXPLORING BORDERLANDS Contact and Conflict in North America Authors and Works Overview Questions Featured in the Video: I What is a mestizo/a? How has mestizo/a iden- Bernal Díaz del Castillo, The True History of the Con- tity and consciousness altered and developed over quest of New Spain (history, exploration narra- the past four centuries? tive) I What kinds of relationships did European Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, The Relation of Álvar explorers and colonizers have with the Native Núñez Cabeza de Vaca (exploration narrative, Americans they encountered in the New World? captivity narrative, hagiography) What stereotypes and conventions did they rely on Americo Paredes, George Washington Gomez to represent Indians in their narratives? (novel), With a Pistol in His Hand: A Border Ballad I How did European colonizers use their narra- and Its Hero (cultural criticism, music history) tives to mediate their relationships with authori- Gloria Anzaldúa, La Frontera/Borderlands: The New ties back in Europe? Mestiza (memoir, poetry, cultural criticism, polit- I How do writings that originated in South ical theory) America, Mexico, the West Indies, and Canada fit into the American canon? Why have writings in Discussed in This Unit: Spanish, Dutch, and French been absent from the Christopher Columbus, letters canon for so long? What responsibilities do we Bartolomé de las Casas, The Very Brief Relation of have as readers when we read these works in the Devastation of the Indies (history, protest lit- translation? erature) I How do concepts of writing and literacy differ Garcilaso de la Vega, The Florida of the Inca (his- among cultures? How did these differences shape tory, folklore) the colonial experience? Samuel de Champlain, The Voyages of Sieur de I How does bilingualism affect mestizo/a narra- Champlain, The Voyages and Discoveries (histo- tives? ries, exploration narratives) I What characterizes a “borderland” or “contact John Smith, The General History of Virginia, New zone”? What boundaries are challenged in a bor- England, and the Summer Isles (history, captivity der region? How have conceptions of borderlands narrative, exploration narrative), A Description and contact zones changed over time? of New England (exploration narrative, promo- I What differentiates assimilation, accultura- tional tract), New England’s Trials (history, explo- tion, and transculturation? Which of these terms ration narrative) seems most appropriate for the colonial experi- Adriaen Van der Donck, A Description of New ences described in the texts for this unit? Netherland (promotional tract) I How did the Spanish, French, Dutch, and English approaches to colonizing the New World differ? How did those differences affect European– Native American relationships in different regions of the Americas? How did differences among native cultures in Mesoamerica, Florida, Virginia, 2 UNIT 2, EXPLORING BORDERLANDS the Middle Atlantic, and New France affect contact its development in America since the sixteenth between Native Americans and colonizers? century; I How did the first European explorers envision 5. identify primary differences among Native the New World? How did their preconceptions American cultures in Mesoamerica, Florida, affect their experiences in the Americas? Virginia, and New France and describe the hall- I Why do early narratives of the New World so marks of their pre-Conquest literary traditions. frequently invoke the language of wonder? What narrative strategies did explorers and colonizers use to describe their experience of wonder? I Most of the texts discussed in Unit 2 can be Instructor Overview characterized as belonging to more than one genre. Why do texts that represent border and con- After the Spanish explorer Álvar Núñez Cabeza de tact experiences so often combine different genres? Vaca was shipwrecked and stranded in the present- What is the effect of this genre blurring? day southwestern United States, he spent years liv- I How are early mestizo texts influenced by the ing among Native American groups while seeking oral tradition and pre-Conquest literary styles? out his own countrymen. When he finally encoun- I What kinds of images of America did the tered a group of Spaniards, he was surprised to European writers featured in Unit 2 construct to realize that they did not seem to recognize him as promote colonization and settlement? What kinds European: “They were dumbfounded at the sight of natural resources and environmental factors did of me, strangely undressed and in company with they extol in their accounts of the New World? Indians. They just stood staring for a long time, not I How did European writers justify taking over thinking to hail me or come closer.” At the same Native American lands and resources? time, he found that his Indian companions refused I How are Native American women character- to believe that he was of the same race as the ized in colonizers’ and mestizos’ narratives? What “Christian slavers,” or Spanish colonists, whom archetypes and legends have developed about rela- they associated with exploitation, cruelty, and tionships between native women and European enslavement. Somehow, in the process of living colonizers? among the Indians and mixing their culture with his own European customs, Cabeza de Vaca had created a hybrid identity for himself that was nei- ther wholly Indian nor wholly European. His Learning Objectives unique experience was a product of the complex culture of the “contact zone,” which scholar Mary After students have viewed the video, read the Louise Pratt has characterized as an “interactive” headnotes and literary selections in The Norton and “improvisational” space where groups geo- Anthology of American Literature, and explored graphically and historically separated from one related archival materials on the American another come into contact and establish relation- Passages Web site, they should be able to ships. As Cabeza de Vaca’s experience makes clear, contact and conquest were not one-way experi- 1. explain the commercial, political, and religious ences in which Europeans simply imposed their structures and goals that underwrote European will on passive Native Americans. Instead, contact colonial ventures in the New World; is always characterized by intersecting practices 2. discuss the effects European colonization had and perspectives, even if power relations are often on Native American populations in North and unequal. As diverse groups of Europeans explored, South America; settled, and exploited the New World of North and 3. describe the differences among the Spanish, South America in the fifteenth, sixteenth, and sev- English, French, and Dutch models of coloniza- enteenth centuries, they came into contact with tion; diverse groups of Native Americans, creating 4. discuss the formation of mestizo/a identity and contact zones from present-day Canada to the UNIT 7, INSTRUCTORSLAVERY AND OVERVIEW FREEDOM 3 Caribbean. The dynamic, fluid cultures that arose regions, as well as the possibility for the formation out of the contact zones were marked by antago- of new identities in these interactive spaces. nism and violence as competing groups struggled In its coverage of these writers and their texts, for power. These contact zones could, however, the video introduces students to the complexity of also give rise to vibrant new traditions forged out the concept of the “border” and of cultural and of cooperation and innovation. racial boundaries more generally. How do the texts Unit 2, “Exploring Borderlands: Contact and in Unit 2 represent the violence and exploitation Conflict in North America,” examines the contact that were part of the European exploration of the zones and colonial experiences of European New World? What kinds of beliefs and expecta- explorers and the Native Americans they encoun- tions did European colonizers bring with them to tered. The unit also pays special attention to the the Americas? How did the sophisticated and var- way the contact zone between present-day Mexico ied cultures of native peoples impact the settle- and the southwestern United States evolved into a ments Europeans created in America? How do hybrid border region that continues to be influ- European writers represent the experiences and enced by the legacies of the different groups who cultures of indigenous peoples? How does gender first struggled there for dominance in the sixteenth complicate power relations in contact zones and century. After hundreds of years of war, intermar- borderlands? How has mestizo identity trans- riage, trade, slavery, and religious struggles, a formed over time? Unit 2 helps answer these ques- complex, syncretic culture has flourished in the tions by offering suggestions on how to connect space that marks the current U.S./Mexico border. these writers to their cultural contexts, to other As conquerors and conquered merged, a new mes- units in the series, and to other key writers of the tizo identity (a blending of Indian, European, and era. The curriculum materials help fill in the African heritage) was created and continues to video’s introduction to contact zones and border- find expression in the work of contemporary lands by exploring the works of writers who artic- Chicano and Chicana writers of the “borderland” ulated other, diverse experiences, such as Samuel region. Unit 2 explores a wide variety of contact de Champlain (who wrote as a French colonist in and border experiences, including narratives by sixteenth- and seventeenth-century