Indigenous Languages and Historical Interpretation in the Atlantic World, 1500-1825

March 28-29, 2009

One of the significant developments in Atlantic historiography over the past few decades has been the quickly expanding knowledge, on the part of historians as well as linguists, of the languages native to the peoples of the Americas.  The purpose of the Conference was to consider the consequences of this knowledge for significant lines of interpretation of the history of the European conquest and exploitation of the Americas.  The presentations and discussions focused on specific languages and regions, chiefly in the colonial period, and considered also what contemporary Europeans actually knew of indigenous languages, how realistic or fanciful their knowledge was.

Saturday, March 28

Bernard Bailyn, Harvard University - Welcome: Atlantic Perspectives

Gary Urton, Harvard University - Comments To Begin With

 I.  Learning Languages in Anglo-North America

Kathleen Bragdon, College of William and Mary, “Native American Linguists in 17th Century New England”

Edward Gray, Florida State University, “The Atlantic World’s Linguistic Moment, ca. 1600-ca. 1700”

David Silverman, George Washington University, “Using Indigenous Languages to Study American Racial History.”

II.  Linguistic Revelations in Colonial Mexico

Rebecca Horn, University of Utah, “Nahuatl Language Sources and the Rewriting of Mesoamerican History”

Kevin Terraciano, University of California, Los Angeles, “Mixtec Writings and Revelations from Sixteenth-Century Oaxaca, Mexico”

Matthew Restall, Penn State University, “Maya Matters”

Sunday, March 29

 III.  The World of Quechua

Frank Salomon, University of Wisconsin, “Quechua and the Fieldwork of History”

Alan Durston, York University, Toronto, “Quechua for Historians”  

Bernard Bailyn, Harvard University - Closing Remarks