Week 1
Introduction
The idea that indigenous people are not present now allows people to have a negative
perception on the presence of indigenous people today (the idea that everyone is gone)
The class focuses on the Caribbean after 1492 (what happened to indigenous people during
that time)
Useful Concepts
Entanglement: thinking about Caribbean history, Indigenous history and Toronto history –
these histories are connected
Race, Hierarchy
Indigeneity and Force labor in
the America's – Slavery is a known experience in Canada
Indigeneity and Indigeneity survival is a fact in Canada and the Caribbean
The concept of the settler will be debated; take this term and understand what that means –
there is a difference in the Canadian context and the Caribbean context
o Who is a settler? Volunteered (European) or Forced (Slaves)
Article: Exploring Hidden Landscapes
Idea of Appropriation: Erasure
erasure |əˈrāSHər| nounthe removal of writing, recorded material, or data.• the removal of all
traces of something; obliteration: the erasure of prior history.
Toronto was a prominent meeting place which means that the place where Toronto is
(is/was) an important place for Indigenous people
Colonial Erasure makes history not eliminated but making it not as important
Week 2
Geography of the Caribbean
o Caribbean is the physical space and a diaspora
o Diaspora population: ancestral or connection of birth to a particular region that they may not live in
permanently but they may still have a relationship with it (imaginative and physical relationship)
o 8 countries in South America: from Mexico to the Panama Canel
o Guyana (independence in 1966 from England – Guiana), Suriname (Dutch- independent 1895),
French Guiana (still under French rule): do not speak French or Portuguese as their first language
o Colonization was more successful in North America and the Caribbean; not as successful in South
America (trading powers in the colonies were set by indigenous people)
o Thinking about the Caribbean as a place of connection across the islands can be limiting
Near the water; slavery agriculture has allowed that culture to prevail ossoped to being in the
amazon rainforest where that labour could not be as prevellent; innternal experience is
important because it dictates how people relate to the caribbean
Greater Antillies and Lesser Antillies (leeward island and windward island south)
o Kaliago territory (Dominica) - only place considered as a indigenous land that is indigenously
governed
o Colonial Power
Forms the sea as a place of conquest, war and forced migration, marks exile
o Hispaniola
Shared by Haiti (1809 independent )and the Dominican Republic - Santo Domingo [colonial
name] (1844 independent from Haiti) (1865 independent from Spain)
Cindad Trujillo (1930-1961) name of Santo Domingo Capital during that time
French Colony (Saint Dominge) Haiti
, Dominican (Dominica)
Dominicans Dominican Republic
o The Sea is History Poem
Himself of the person from the Caribbean; where is your monuments for the Caribbean - in the
Sea (not tribal memory because the lack of non-indigenous history) with the acknowledgement
violence
The absence of ruins is a sign of lack of indigeneity
o Terminology
Indigenous? Lets think about it but it can mean a number of things
Native people, first people, Aboriginal
Native (by its self): using it a noun - unclear and not ok
Tribe (shown as a community of not primitive people) and Tribal (legal and political term): don’t
use this word
Amerindian and Indian: offensive term
Garifuna
Carib is offensive everywhere but Trinidad and Tobago
o Archeology
The field of Caribbean Archelogy is rich; full of debates (Irving Rouse - term of peopling and re-
peopling)
6000 BCE first know time where there was people in the Caribbean
Sources used: radio carbon dating - essential for proving wrong colonial falsehoods about the
land
Midden: a Garbage heap - domestic waste
Ruins: no monumental architecture in the North Americas but because it is seen in south
America there is assumption of only those places having indigenous history
o Geographic Features
Colonial people had to settle in indigenous people communities or near them because they
were not able to figure out inhabitants for themselves
Colonial settlement is influenced by indigenous ways of settling: the way roads are created, how
to get food etc.
Rock art and cave paintings: which are evidence of indigenous artistry and communicating the
environment around them
Week 3
Cacique
Caribe
Catholic Canine Law; if you did not convert to Christianity you were considered involved for a Just
war against the Spanish
Caribbean becomes the crucible for the new world and what would happen next
Two sides of looking at Hispanic Heritage (Genocide of Indigenous people or infusing language of
indigenous with Spanish)
Mestizo and meshzaje
Key Dates
o Different waves of Human Migration BC; the northern Caribbean had no one that was invading
from the eastern point of Porto Rico (Carib invasion thesis)
Archeological evidence does proves that this didn’t happen (many years of settlement and
settlement in the Caribbean – Peopling) - the fact that this Carib invasion (that is false)
creates a narrative that the Caribbean in Roman law tradition as Terra Nullius (no clear
owner of the land)
Introduction
The idea that indigenous people are not present now allows people to have a negative
perception on the presence of indigenous people today (the idea that everyone is gone)
The class focuses on the Caribbean after 1492 (what happened to indigenous people during
that time)
Useful Concepts
Entanglement: thinking about Caribbean history, Indigenous history and Toronto history –
these histories are connected
Race, Hierarchy
Indigeneity and Force labor in
the America's – Slavery is a known experience in Canada
Indigeneity and Indigeneity survival is a fact in Canada and the Caribbean
The concept of the settler will be debated; take this term and understand what that means –
there is a difference in the Canadian context and the Caribbean context
o Who is a settler? Volunteered (European) or Forced (Slaves)
Article: Exploring Hidden Landscapes
Idea of Appropriation: Erasure
erasure |əˈrāSHər| nounthe removal of writing, recorded material, or data.• the removal of all
traces of something; obliteration: the erasure of prior history.
Toronto was a prominent meeting place which means that the place where Toronto is
(is/was) an important place for Indigenous people
Colonial Erasure makes history not eliminated but making it not as important
Week 2
Geography of the Caribbean
o Caribbean is the physical space and a diaspora
o Diaspora population: ancestral or connection of birth to a particular region that they may not live in
permanently but they may still have a relationship with it (imaginative and physical relationship)
o 8 countries in South America: from Mexico to the Panama Canel
o Guyana (independence in 1966 from England – Guiana), Suriname (Dutch- independent 1895),
French Guiana (still under French rule): do not speak French or Portuguese as their first language
o Colonization was more successful in North America and the Caribbean; not as successful in South
America (trading powers in the colonies were set by indigenous people)
o Thinking about the Caribbean as a place of connection across the islands can be limiting
Near the water; slavery agriculture has allowed that culture to prevail ossoped to being in the
amazon rainforest where that labour could not be as prevellent; innternal experience is
important because it dictates how people relate to the caribbean
Greater Antillies and Lesser Antillies (leeward island and windward island south)
o Kaliago territory (Dominica) - only place considered as a indigenous land that is indigenously
governed
o Colonial Power
Forms the sea as a place of conquest, war and forced migration, marks exile
o Hispaniola
Shared by Haiti (1809 independent )and the Dominican Republic - Santo Domingo [colonial
name] (1844 independent from Haiti) (1865 independent from Spain)
Cindad Trujillo (1930-1961) name of Santo Domingo Capital during that time
French Colony (Saint Dominge) Haiti
, Dominican (Dominica)
Dominicans Dominican Republic
o The Sea is History Poem
Himself of the person from the Caribbean; where is your monuments for the Caribbean - in the
Sea (not tribal memory because the lack of non-indigenous history) with the acknowledgement
violence
The absence of ruins is a sign of lack of indigeneity
o Terminology
Indigenous? Lets think about it but it can mean a number of things
Native people, first people, Aboriginal
Native (by its self): using it a noun - unclear and not ok
Tribe (shown as a community of not primitive people) and Tribal (legal and political term): don’t
use this word
Amerindian and Indian: offensive term
Garifuna
Carib is offensive everywhere but Trinidad and Tobago
o Archeology
The field of Caribbean Archelogy is rich; full of debates (Irving Rouse - term of peopling and re-
peopling)
6000 BCE first know time where there was people in the Caribbean
Sources used: radio carbon dating - essential for proving wrong colonial falsehoods about the
land
Midden: a Garbage heap - domestic waste
Ruins: no monumental architecture in the North Americas but because it is seen in south
America there is assumption of only those places having indigenous history
o Geographic Features
Colonial people had to settle in indigenous people communities or near them because they
were not able to figure out inhabitants for themselves
Colonial settlement is influenced by indigenous ways of settling: the way roads are created, how
to get food etc.
Rock art and cave paintings: which are evidence of indigenous artistry and communicating the
environment around them
Week 3
Cacique
Caribe
Catholic Canine Law; if you did not convert to Christianity you were considered involved for a Just
war against the Spanish
Caribbean becomes the crucible for the new world and what would happen next
Two sides of looking at Hispanic Heritage (Genocide of Indigenous people or infusing language of
indigenous with Spanish)
Mestizo and meshzaje
Key Dates
o Different waves of Human Migration BC; the northern Caribbean had no one that was invading
from the eastern point of Porto Rico (Carib invasion thesis)
Archeological evidence does proves that this didn’t happen (many years of settlement and
settlement in the Caribbean – Peopling) - the fact that this Carib invasion (that is false)
creates a narrative that the Caribbean in Roman law tradition as Terra Nullius (no clear
owner of the land)
