Worlds Forever Changed: The Impact of Conflict and Colony in the "New World"

The first contact between non-native foreign colonizers and indigenous peoples of the "New World" unquestionably resulted in permanent and widespread impacts. These impacts varied widely depending on the structure of existing native social organizations, the make-up and motivation of the colonizing groups, and the type or extent of the contacts. This session will explore the effect of, and activities surrounding, some key examples of first contact in the New World. Case studies drawn from a broad geographic range from the American northeast, southeast, and southwest are offered in comparison to other studies from central America and the Andean region. This session will explore indigenous relations, colonizing strategies, and evidence of conflict and resistance. Independent lines of evidence range from changes in subsistence, architecture, various technologies, inter-societal relations, and settlement systems. This session will examine the ultimate outcomes that various regional contacts had on both the affected indigenous groups and their colonizers. Some studies will describe impacts upon less commonly discussed indigenous groups on the margins of contact areas. In particular, the long-lasting consequences of conflict and colonization resulted in profound cultural reorganization and produced effects that still resonate in present-day societies even after a span of nearly 500 years.