What to read after Life and Society in the Early Spanish Caribbean?

"This book focuses on the connected but distinct large islands of the northern Caribbean: Hispaniola, Puerto Rico, Cuba, and Jamaica. Altman's starting point is Columbus's second voyage of 1493, which initiated what would become sustained European activity and settlement in the islands and larger region, beginning with Hispaniola. Hispaniola played a crucial role in the history of the early Spanish Caribbean: there, Spaniards first established the institutions that would structure society and relations between Europeans and Indians (as Spaniards called the native peoples of the region), in particular the encomienda, which allowed Spaniards to appropriate indigenous labor to support their enterprises. Royal officials and governmental and ecclesiastical institutions were first established in Hispaniola, and the island acted as the launching grounds for expeditions to the other large islands, the isthmian region, and Tierra Firme. The first chapter introduces this early history and addresses the challenges and limitations of using official Spanish administrative and financial records to document the experience of Indians and of the Africans that Europeans introduced into the islands to supplement their labor force. Altman next addresses the hazardous conditions of life in the islands. Disease and health challenges, the threat-and reality-of both internal and external attacks (from Indians, blacks, or French corsairs) and natural phenomena (hurricanes, fire, insects) affected almost everyone in these societies, if not necessarily in the same ways or with the same consequences. It is well known, for example, that the mortality among the Indians of the Greater Antilles was shockingly high; but disease and a harsh work regimen affected Africans brought to the islands, and many Europeans became sick on arriving there as well. The following chapter traces the establishment of an apparatus of government after the Colón family passed from the scene, the relationship among different officials and governmental entities, conflict and corruption in the political arena, and the impact of law and reform. The fourth chapter focuses on the church and clergy, efforts (or lack thereof) to evangelize Indians and blacks, and what is known about religious life in the period. The fifth chapter traces demographic and economic changes that transformed the islands from the 1520s onward, as gold mining declined and an agricultural economy based on sugar production and stock raising expanded and began to account for an increasing percentage of transatlantic exports. It also considers the question of depopulation and the growth of a mixed rural population. The last chapter looks at women and family, focusing in particular on the experiences of three Spanish women whose lives were affected by the opportunities and risks presented by the new societies of the Caribbean. The chapter suggests that, while women of all groups were vulnerable to sexual exploitation and violence, indigenous and black women enjoyed far fewer protections from such abuse than did Spanish women. The book's conclusion emphasizes the international character of the Caribbean, where Portuguese settlers and slave traders were welcomed and Italian and German merchants participated in transatlantic commerce and sometimes invested locally in urban real estate and sugar ingenios. It also considers the novel circumstances of life and society in the islands where Europeans, Africans, and indigenous Americans first came together in a context largely defined by the coercive regime that Europeans imposed on Indians and blacks. The manuscript is based on extensive research in archival and published records. As such it represents the first full-fledged study in English of the large islands of the northern Caribbean based on original research to be written in many decades. It addresses a crucial gap our understanding of the formation of early Spanish America by focusing on the first arena for the unprecedented encounter and mixing of peoples from Europe, Africa, and the Americas. Almost from the outset the island societies studied here were dynamic and complex. They influenced the settlement of the mainland and were of considerable importance to transatlantic and regional trade. Far from an insignificant backwater, the Spanish Caribbean in the first half of the sixteenth century represented the first full embodiment of the Atlantic world and the beginnings of modernity"--