Takes a close look at the relationship between humans and other (non-human) beings that are imbued with cemí power, specifically within the Taíno inter-island cultural sphere encompassing Puerto Rico and Hispaniola Cemís are both portable artifacts and embodiments of persons or spirit, which the Taínos and other natives of the Greater Antilles (ca. AD 1000-1550) regarded as numinous beings with supernatural or magic powers. This volume takes a close look at the relationship between humans and other (non-human) beings that are imbued with cemí power, specifically within the Taíno inter-island cultural sphere encompassing Puerto Rico and Hispaniola. The relationships address the important questions of identity and personhood of the cemí icons and their human “owners” and the implications of cemí gift-giving and gift-taking that sustains a complex web of relationships between caciques (chiefs) of Puerto Rico and Hispaniola. Oliver provides a careful analysis of the four major forms of cemís—three-pointed stones, large stone heads, stone collars, and elbow stones—as well as face masks, which provide an interesting contrast to the stone heads. He finds evidence for his interpretation of human and cemí interactions from a critical review of 16th-century Spanish ethnohistoric documents, especially the Relación Acerca de las Antigüedades de los Indios written by Friar Ramón Pané in 1497–1498 under orders from Christopher Columbus. Buttressed by examples of native resistance and syncretism, the volume discusses the iconoclastic conflicts and the relationship between the icons and the human beings. Focusing on this and on the various contexts in which the relationships were enacted, Oliver reveals how the cemís were central to the exercise of native political power. Such cemís were considered a direct threat to the hegemony of the Spanish conquerors, as these potent objects were seen as allies in the native resistance to the onslaught of Christendom with its icons of saints and virgins.

"In this elegant narrative, celebrated naturalist Ted Floyd guides you through a year of becoming a better birder. Choosing 200 top avian species to teach key lessons, Floyd introduces a new, holistic approach to bird watching and shows how to use the tools of the 21st century to appreciate the natural world we inhabit together whether city, country or suburbs." -- From book jacket.

During the late eighteenth century, Portugal and Spain sent joint mapping expeditions to draw a nearly 10,000-mile border between Brazil and Spanish South America. These boundary commissions were the largest ever sent to the Americas and coincided with broader imperial reforms enacted throughout the hemisphere. Where Caciques and Mapmakers Met considers what these efforts meant to Indigenous peoples whose lands the border crossed. Moving beyond common frameworks that assess mapped borders strictly via colonial law or Native sovereignty, it examines the interplay between imperial and Indigenous spatial imaginaries. What results is an intricate spatial history of border making in southeastern South America (present-day Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay) with global implications. Drawing upon manuscripts from over two dozen archives in seven countries, Jeffrey Erbig traces on-the-ground interactions between Ibero-American colonists, Jesuit and Guarani mission-dwellers, and autonomous Indigenous peoples as they responded to ever-changing notions of territorial possession. It reveals that Native agents shaped when and where the border was drawn, and fused it to their own territorial claims. While mapmakers' assertions of Indigenous disappearance or subjugation shaped historiographical imaginations thereafter, Erbig reveals that the formation of a border was contingent upon Native engagement and authority.

Andrés Canché became the cacique, or indigenous leader, of Cenotillo, Yucatán, in January 1834. By his retirement in 1864, he had become an expert politician, balancing powerful local alliances with his community’s interests as early national Yucatán underwent major political and social shifts. In Maya Caciques in Early National Yucatán, Rajeshwari Dutt uses Canché’s story as a compelling microhistory to open a new perspective on the role of the cacique in post-independence Yucatán. In most of the literature on Yucatán, caciques are seen as remnants of Spanish colonial rule, intermediaries whose importance declined over the early national period. Dutt instead shows that at the individual level, caciques became more politicized and, in some cases, gained power. Rather than focusing on the rebellion and violence that inform most scholarship on post-independence Yucatán, Dutt traces the more quotidian ways in which figures like Canché held onto power. In the process, she presents an alternative perspective on a tumultuous period in Yucatán’s history, a view that emphasizes negotiation and alliance-making at the local level. At the same time, Dutt’s exploration of the caciques’ life stories reveals a larger narrative about the emergence, evolution, and normalization of particular forms of national political conduct in the decades following independence. Over time, caciques fashioned a new political repertoire, forming strategic local alliances with villagers, priests, Spanish and Creole officials, and other caciques. As state policies made political participation increasingly difficult, Maya caciques turned clientelism, or the use of patronage relationships, into the new modus operandi of local politics. Dutt’s engaging exploration of the life and career of Andrés Canché, and of his fellow Maya caciques, illuminates the realities of politics in Yucatán, revealing that seemingly ordinary political relationships were carefully negotiated by indigenous leaders. Theirs is a story not of failure and decline, but of survival and empowerment.

The Mexican Revolution gave rise to the Mexican nation-state as we know it today. Rural revolutionaries took up arms against the Díaz dictatorship in support of agrarian reform, in defense of their political autonomy, or inspired by a nationalist desire to forge a new Mexico. However, in the Gran Nayar, a rugged expanse of mountains and canyons, the story was more complex, as the region’s four Indigenous peoples fought both for and against the revolution and the radical changes it bought to their homeland. To make sense of this complex history, Nathaniel Morris offers the first systematic understanding of the participation of the Náayari, Wixárika, O’dam, and Mexicanero peoples in the Mexican Revolution. They are known for being among the least “assimilated” of all Mexico’s Indigenous peoples. It’s often been assumed that they were stuck up in their mountain homeland—“the Gran Nayar”—with no knowledge of the uprisings, civil wars, military coups, and political upheaval that convulsed the rest of Mexico between 1910 and 1940. Based on extensive archival research and years of fieldwork in the rugged and remote Gran Nayar, Morris shows that the Náayari, Wixárika, O’dam, and Mexicanero peoples were actively involved in the armed phase of the revolution. This participation led to serious clashes between an expansionist, “rationalist” revolutionary state and the highly autonomous communities and heterodox cultural and religious practices of the Gran Nayar’s inhabitants. Morris documents confrontations between practitioners of subsistence agriculture and promoters of capitalist development, between rival Indian generations and political factions, and between opposing visions of the world, of religion, and of daily life. These clashes produced some of the most severe defeats that the government’s state-building programs suffered during the entire revolutionary era, with significant and often counterintuitive consequences both for local people and for the Mexican nation as a whole.

Howard Zinn, author of A People's History of the United States, predicted that the bottom class perspective of history would eventually gain ground, enveloping the old way of narrating history as told by the powerful. Since then, numerous historical events have been redefined through the outlook of common people that were involved from the bottom-up, forever altering how we understand history. No more romantic diatribes glittered in patriotic myths. No more traditional heroes, standardized viewpoints, unquestionable "facts," or generalized falsehoods. Just plain raw truth that is not afraid to stampede powerful governments with the herd of popular outrage. A People's History of Florida follows the People's History tradition, documenting the active involvement of African-Americans, indigenous people, women, and poor whites in shaping the Sunshine State's history.

Describes Hernando de Soto's march of conquest in Florida and other parts of southeastern North America.

Andrés Canché became the cacique, or indigenous leader, of Cenotillo, Yucatán, in January 1834. By his retirement in 1864, he had become an expert politician, balancing powerful local alliances with his community’s interests as early national Yucatán underwent major political and social shifts. In Maya Caciques in Early National Yucatán, Rajeshwari Dutt uses Canché’s story as a compelling microhistory to open a new perspective on the role of the cacique in post-independence Yucatán. In most of the literature on Yucatán, caciques are seen as remnants of Spanish colonial rule, intermediaries whose importance declined over the early national period. Dutt instead shows that at the individual level, caciques became more politicized and, in some cases, gained power. Rather than focusing on the rebellion and violence that inform most scholarship on post-independence Yucatán, Dutt traces the more quotidian ways in which figures like Canché held onto power. In the process, she presents an alternative perspective on a tumultuous period in Yucatán’s history, a view that emphasizes negotiation and alliance-making at the local level. At the same time, Dutt’s exploration of the caciques’ life stories reveals a larger narrative about the emergence, evolution, and normalization of particular forms of national political conduct in the decades following independence. Over time, caciques fashioned a new political repertoire, forming strategic local alliances with villagers, priests, Spanish and Creole officials, and other caciques. As state policies made political participation increasingly difficult, Maya caciques turned clientelism, or the use of patronage relationships, into the new modus operandi of local politics. Dutt’s engaging exploration of the life and career of Andrés Canché, and of his fellow Maya caciques, illuminates the realities of politics in Yucatán, revealing that seemingly ordinary political relationships were carefully negotiated by indigenous leaders. Theirs is a story not of failure and decline, but of survival and empowerment.