Hybrid Cultures in the Americas

Culture in the Americas transformed as European culture blended with that of the native peoples and African slaves. Given Europe’s military dominance, Amerindians and Africans adapted more of European culture than the other way around. "Civilizing" Christianity spread to Amerindians and Africans, but became hybridized as it was added to earlier religious conceptions. Colonists adapted as well, eventually becoming prosperous enough to imitate European norms even while maintaining their own unique culture.

Spiritual Encounters

Christian missionaries in the Americas employed military and political force to win converts. Catholic missionaries in particular studied and then attacked local belief systems. Despite missionary efforts, however, conversion generally meant a form of hybridization between Christianity and local beliefs. Amerindians also had some success in converting captives or frontiersmen to local beliefs. Gender imbalances among Europeans on the frontier greatly contributed to a number of European men embracing Amerindian society, producing new hybrid peoples. Amerindianized Europeans and Christianized Amerindians both characterized and brokered the fuzzy boundary between the two groups. Relations between Africans and Europeans produced much of the same. Catholics in particular sought to Christianize slave communities, producing mixed results. Converted slaves drew inspiration from Christian hymns and stories to condemn slavery or revolt against it.

The Making of Colonial Cultures

The creoles, Spanish America’s most successful hybrid culture, wrestled with their subordinate status to the "peninsulars." Discrimination and the spread of Enlightenment ideas led to the growth of creole identity and dissatisfaction with the role of the Spanish and Portuguese crowns. Published materials criticizing court policies in the New World abounded and were embraced by disenfranchised creoles.

In British America, colonists moved to emulate their motherland elites by building huge estates embellished with finery from all over the world. Great numbers of books drew Americans into the Enlightenment craze as both consumers and producers of such works as the Declaration of Independence.

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