Description: "The half-century of European activity in the Caribbean that followed Columbus's first voyages brought enormous demographic, economic, and social change to the region as Europeans, Indigenous people, and Africans whom Spaniards imported to provide skilled and unskilled labor came into extended contact for the first time. In [this book], Ida Altman examines the interactions of these diverse groups and individuals and the transformation of the islands of the Greater Antilles (Hispaniola, Puerto Rico, Cuba, and Jamaica)"--Publisher marketing.
Review Quotes: "Engaging deeply and critically with archival sources, archaeological studies and the Spanish-language historiography, Altman's landmark study offers the first detailed look at the structures of everyday life for the inhabitants of the early Spanish Caribbean. Her attention to Black and Indigenous voices, the experiences of women, and her treatment of themes including violence, coercion, disease, and mestizaje during this dynamic, formative period make Life and Society in the Early Spanish Caribbean an obligatory point of reference and an essential model for students of the sixteenth-century Atlantic world."-- "David Wheat, author of Atlantic Africa and the Spanish Caribbean, 1570-1640"