Columbus's outpost among the Taínos [[electronic resource] ] : Spain and America at La Isabela, 1493-1498 / / Kathleen Deagan and José María Cruxent

• Record Nr.: UNINA9910777774303321
• Autore: Deagan Kathleen A
• Pubbl/distr/stampa: New Haven, Conn., : Yale University Press, c2002
• ISBN: 1-281-72260-X; 9786611722609; 0-300-13389-8
• Descrizione fisica: 1 online resource (305 p.)
• Altri autori (Persone): CruxentJosé María
• Disciplina: 972.93/58
• Soggetti: Indians - First contact with other peoples; La Isabela (Dominican Republic) Colonization
• Lingua di pubblicazione: Inglese
• Formato: Materiale a stampa
• Livello bibliografico: Monografia
• Note generali: Description based upon print version of record.
• Nota di bibliografia: Includes bibliographical references (p. [259]-282) and index.
• Nota di contenuto: Machine generated contents note: Columbus and La Isabela i -- 2 The Historical Setting 7 -- 3 Reluctant Hosts: -- The Tainos of Hispaniola 23 -- 4 "Hell in Hispaniola": -- La Isabela, I493-1498 47 -- 5 The Hand of Vandals and the -- Tooth of Time: La Isabela, -- I500-1987 7I -- 6 The Medieval Enclave: -- Landscape, Town, and Buildings 95 -- 7 A Spartan Domesticity: -- Household Life in La Isabela's -- Bohios 13I -- 8 God and Glory i63 -- 9 Commerce and Craft I79 -- I0 Aftermath 2zo -- Ii Destinies Converged 213 -- Appendix 229 -- Note on Historical Sources 233 -- Notes 237 -- References 259 -- Acknowledgments 283 -- Index 287.
• Sommario/riassunto: In 1493 Christopher Columbus led a fleet of seventeen ships and more than twelve hundred men to found a royal trading colony in America. Columbus had high hopes for his settlement, which he named La Isabela after the queen of Spain, but just five years later it was in ruins. It remains important, however, as the first site of European settlement in America and the first place of sustained interaction between Europeans and the indigenous Taínos.Kathleen Deagan and José María Cruxent now tell the story of this historic enterprise. Drawing on their ten-year archaeological investigation of the site of La Isabela, along ; with research into Columbus-era documents, they contrast Spanish expectations of America with the actual events and living conditions at America's first European town. Deagan and Cruxent argue that La Isabela failed not because Columbus was a poor planner but because his vision of America was grounded in European experience and could not be sustained in the face of the realities of American life. Explaining that the original Spanish economic and social frameworks for colonization had to be altered in America in response to the American landscape and the non-elite Spanish and Taíno people who occupied it, they shed light on larger questions of American colonialism and the development of Euro-American cultural identity.