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Frank Lewis and Thomas Weiss are organizing a session for the 13th
World Congress of the International Economic History Association,
Buenos Aires, July 22 - July 26, 2002, on the subject of:
ECONOMIC BEHAVIOR OF INDIGENOUS PEOPLES DURING NEW WORLD COLONIZATION
The economic histories of the New World have focused primarily on the
behavior of the Europeans who migrated and colonized the land, and has
ignored almost entirely the economies of the indigenous peoples. The
proposed session will be devoted to exploring the economic behavior of the
indigenous peoples in an attempt to better document the range of economic
tasks in which they engaged, the wide variety of European goods that they
obtained, the extent to which they participated in market-oriented behavior,
the degree of economic success they may have had in the face of demographic
catastrophe, and the impact of their economic behavior on the colonists.
Although much of the research will include descriptive narrative, efforts
will be made to address formally the questions of how extensive was
indigenous market activity and how large was its effect on the life of the
colonists.
Scholarship about the colonial economies in the New World has focused
on the behavior of the colonists if for no other reason than that they were
the agents who came to dominate the New World economies. In the process of
establishing economic hegemony the colonists are seen as having driven out,
or exterminated, or subjugated the indigenous peoples. The indigenous
people are seen almost entirely as victims; and justifiably so. There is
also no question that indigenous peoples throughout the New World suffered
demographic catastrophes as a result of European contact, and scholars have
provided abundant evidence for why this took place. But the tragedies need
not mean that indigenous peoples should be regarded simply as victims in all
regards. True they lost much of their land, and the demographic collapse may
make it appear that their economies were not functioning and sustainable;
but these are hardly reasons for ignoring their economies and excluding
indigenous peoples from depictions of colonial economic development.
It is important that, as historians, we place indigenous peoples in
their proper role as shapers, and not only victims, of the colonial
experience. The unstated , but apparently, consensus view that indigenous
peoples somehow do not fit into prevailing conceptions of economic
development has not emerged from much formal analysis of their economies.
To date, the limited attention to their economic behavior most likely
reflects the fact that they left few documentary records, especially about
economic activities; but historians and economists have long demonstrated
that it is possible to draw meaningful inferences from even fleeting
references and barely intelligible documents. Moreover, recent work
indicates that some data are available, perhaps more than previously
believed, that can enable scholars to measure, with some reliability, many
aspects of the economies of indigenous peoples and how those economies
changed over time.
The session is intended to be a forum for the presentation and
critical discussion of case studies about the economic behavior of
indigenous peoples and their economic interaction with the colonists, as
well as of comparative investigations, based on a broad range of
experiences across the globe.
We have a small number of commitments to present papers, mostly
about case studies in North America. We will have two 90 minute time slots
for this session, so we are looking for additional proposals particularly
on South and Central America and other parts of the world.
Those interested should send an abstract of their proposed paper by
Sept.1st, 2001 to one of the co-organizers listed below.
The complete paper should be sent to us, as an e-mail (Word) attachment
and also on a floppy disk, preferably before February 1, 2002 but in any
case not later than June 1, 2002. Any paper that will be ready in its final
form before February 1, 2002, would be included in the official Congress CD.
We shall inform you in due time about the submission details for inclusion
in this CD.
Co-organizers:
Thomas Weiss Frank Lewis
Department of Economics Department of Economics
University of Kansas Queen's University
Lawrence, KS 66049 Kingston, Ontario K7L 3N6
USA CANADA
phone: (785) 864-2840 613-533-2290
fax: (785) 864-5270 613-533-6668
t-weiss@ku.edu lewisf@qed.econ.queensu.ca
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