Ida Altman

Ida Louise Altman (born 1950) is an American

Altman is noted as a social historian for her primary research into migration patterns and individual migrations in the Spanish colonial period and the effects of source communities in the Old World on the economies and social development of destination communities in the New World, and vice versa.^[2]

Life and education

Ida Altman was born in

Altman followed up Emigrants and Society quickly with her second co-edited and co-authored volume, "To Make America": European Immigration in the Early Modern Period, which broadened the conversation about transatlantic migration.[6]

In her second single-author

In her third major monograph, The War for Mexico's West, Altman brings to an English-speaking readership the story of the Spanish attempts to conquer and settle Western Mexico, a far more complex and lengthy endeavor than the quick and decisive victory which they had gained in Central Mexico with the aid of indigenous allies. This historical study blends narrative history of the early campaigns from both the Spanish and indigenous perspectives, without the benefit of contemporary accounts by the participants. Through the close reading of Spanish-language documentation she has been able to produce a multifaceted picture of the indigenous peoples' response to Spanish conquest, settlement, and attempts to extract labor and tribute where there were no indigenous precedents. Unlike the conquest of central Mexico, the war in the west was protracted and marked by the most serious challenge to Spanish triumphalist expansion in the multi-ethnic region rebellion known in history as the Mixtón War (1541). Altman examines the initial Spanish expeditions to the region, one by a kinsman of Hernán Cortés, and then the more horrific campaign of Nuño de Guzmán.

Altman's examination of the historical dynamics of the Mixtón rebellion is concrete evidence for long-term, complex planning by multiple indigenous groups to expel the Spaniards and regain their autonomy. Her examination of the role of viceroy Don Antonio de Mendoza in putting down the rebellion supports the general picture of Mendoza as a remarkable administrator. In Altman's close examination of Mendoza's end-of-term assessment (residencia) she recounts incidents that show even he had a ruthless and pragmatic side.^[8] Altman's book brings narrative back into history, which is particularly for non-specialists.

In Altman's fourth single-author monograph, Life and Society in the Early Spanish Caribbean: The Greater Antilles, 1493–1550 (2021), she examines the half century of European activity in the Caribbean that followed Columbus’s first voyages. Those brought enormous demographic, economic, and social change as Europeans, Indigenous people, and Africans whom Spaniards imported to provide skilled and unskilled labor came into extended contact for the first time. The book examines their interactions and the transformation of the islands of the Greater Antilles, addressing the impact of disease and ongoing conflict, the Spanish monarchy’s efforts to establish a functioning political system and an Iberian church, the islands’ economic development, and the formation of a highly unequal and coercive but dynamic society. She discusses the work in an author interview with James Boyden.^[9]

With Mexicanist colleagues Sarah Cline and Javier Pescador, Altman co-authored a textbook entitled The Early History of Greater Mexico. It is described in a review as "the best textbook on colonial Mexico to date. It is unrivaled in its breadth of coverage and its insight."

Select publications

• Life and Society in the Early Spanish Caribbean: The Greater Antilles, 1493–1550. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press 2021.
  ISBN 978-0807175781
• "Failed experiments: negotiating freedom in early Puerto Rico and Cuba." Colonial Latin American Review: Vol 29, No 1. April 2020
• ed. with David Wheat. The Spanish Caribbean and the Atlantic World in the Long Sixteenth Century. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press 2019.
  ISBN 978-0803299573
• Contesting Conquest: Indigenous Perspectives on the Spanish Occupation of Nueva Galicia, 1524–1545. Penn State University Press 2017.
  ISBN 978-0-271-07856-4
• "Key to the Indies: Port Towns in the Spanish Caribbean: 1493-1550." The Americas 74:1(Jan. 2017):5-26.
• The War for Mexico's West.
  ISBN 978-0826344939
• "The Revolt of Enriquillo and the Historiography of Early Spanish America," The Americas vol. 63(4)2007, 587-614
• (with Sarah Cline & Juan Javier Pescador), The Early History of Greater Mexico.
  ISBN 978-0130915436
• Transatlantic Ties in the Spanish Empire: Brihuega, Spain, and Puebla, Mexico, 1560-1620.
  ISBN 978-0804736633
• Editor, (with James J. Horn). "To Make America": European Emigration in the Early Modern Period.
  ISBN 978-0520325678
• Emigrants and Society: Extremadura and Spanish America in the Sixteenth Century. Berkeley:
  ISBN 978-0520064942
• Editor, (with
  ISBN 978-0879030360
• "Marriage, Family, and Ethnicity in the Early Spanish Caribbean," William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd ser. 70:2(2013):226-250.