In chapter two, Menchaca discusses Spain's racial formation within Mexican society. After the conquest of Mexico, Spain began to control and implement their way of life within the indigenous communities of Mexico. Many ingenious tribes of Mexico adapted to the social, political, and economic changes brought by the Spanish. The Spanish had developed a new way of structuring society solely based on race. This new structure was a caste system that divided people into different racial categories. For example, Peninsulares (pure blood Spanish) were on the top of the class structure, then criollos (Spanish born in the New World), Mestizos (Mixture of Indigenous and Spanish), Castizo (Mixture of Spanish and Mestizo), African slaves, Indians (Indigenous …show more content…
The Spanish began to import many African slaves because many epidemics were wiping out many of the native indigenous people of Mexico. The Spanish needed a labor force that would be able to work the encomienda's (agricultural estates) and that would be able to fight off epidemics faster. I found this section disturbing and heartbreaking. Many African slaves had to work against their will to work the lands of Mexico. This section of the book reminded me of the video Roots. In the film, the Europeans captured Africans slaves and brought them against their will to work on plantations or other labor fields in the New World. I could imagine the brutality and the tough environmental conditions many slaves endured. This also reminded me of the Encounter Matrix we discussed in class and how the Europeans were always on top the matrix chart and dominated societies with their views and ideologies. They wanted to have personal wealth of land in the New World and needed people to work the lands they acquired. They began to use Indians, but they saw that many were dying and becoming sick to diseases and they turned to African slaves for cheap labor. Overall, this chapter was able to get me thinking and realizing how most mestizos, African slaves, and Indians suffered and continue to suffer till this day racial discrimination. Colonialism has affected many societies around the world and the effects of colonialism can still be seen today in our modern
This makes for a very interesting read. Johnson’s personal writing style does not shine through much due to the way he chose to build narrative around historical sources, but nevertheless he tells an interesting, cohesive story that draws the reader in and exposes some of the insidious history surrounding the trade of slaves in our history. The book is divided into seven sections, ten including the introduction and epilogue, as well as a section dedicated to illustrations of historical documents alluded to in the text. Johnson also includes a section entitled “Notes,” where he has compiled his sources. The “Notes” section is not a straight bibliography. It also includes helpful author notes describing the context of sources that did not fit in the main narrative, and references for those wanting to do their own research. For example, one note includes information on a book by Tadman which contains information on the number of slaves traded. The author includes a summary, including migration numbers and the percentage of those numbers directly related to the trade. This section is helpfully divided and labeled, with the notes referred to in each part of the book labeled by section. Each notation and illustration is referenced within the text by numbers, which coincide with each note or illustration offering more
The first article I have chosen is, “Juncture in the road: Chicano Studies Since: “El plan de Santa Barbara” by Ignacio M. Garcia. I have chosen this particular article for various reasons. One is because reading the first few paragraphs of the article stirred up many emotions within me. I found myself growing angry and once, again, repulsed by the United States discrimination system. The more knowledge I obtain on the United States, on its past and how it develops today, I can finally say that I resent everything it stands for and embarrassed being part of it. I would rather say that I am a country of one…myself. The second reason for choosing this article, was because it was an easy read for me as well as the topic being discussed was intriguing.
The origin tale of the African American population in the American soil reveals a narrative of a diasporic faction that endeavored brutal sufferings to attain fundamental human rights. Captured and forcefully transported in unbearable conditions over the Atlantic Ocean to the New World, a staggering number of Africans were destined to barbaric slavery as a result of the increasing demand of labor in Brazil and the Caribbean. African slaves endured abominable conditions, merged various cultures to construct a blended society that pillared them through the physical and psychological hardships, and hungered for their freedom and recognition.
The history of Africans in Mexico is an oft-neglected facet of the cultural complexities of that country. In 1519, Hernando Cortes brought 6 African slaves with him to Mexico; these individuals served the conquest as personal servants, carriers, and laborers.[1] In the years to come, slavery would become a critical component of the colonial economy with approximately 2,000 slaves arriving each year 1580-1650; it is estimated that a total of 200,000 Africans were brought to Mexico during the colonial period.[2] Given this large number of slaves, the lengthy period of their importation, and the inevitable mixing of races, which took place throughout the colony, the historical and cultural significance of bozales, criollos, mulattoes, and zambos is far-reaching. The colonial period provides an excellent starting place for an examination of the significance of these groups not only because the institution of African slavery was introduced to New Spain at that time, but also because the regular influx of native Africans combined with the close attention paid to color-based castas in official records allows historians to trace the influence of African culture more readily during that period.
In the years following the Spanish conquests, the southwest region of the United States developed into Spanish colonial territory. Indians, Spaniards, and blacks occupied this territory in which the shortage of Spanish women led to the miscegenation of these cultures. The result of mixing these races was a homogenization of the people of various cultures that came to be called mestizos and mulattos who, like present day Mexican Americans, inherited two distinct cultures that would make their culture rich, yet somewhat confusi...
America is undergoing significant social change. While in 1960, white people made up 85 percent of the population, in the latest census it was projected that by 2043, the United States would “be the first post-industrial society in the world where minorities will be the majority” (Deasy, 2012). The 1965 Immigration Act is said to have opened the door to waves of new immigration from Mexico, Latin America and Asia, and the cumulative social impacts have been far reaching. The purpose of this annotated bibliography is to critically review a handful of research papers that explore some of the impacts that immigration has had on the United States, with a particular focus on the research methodologies adopted. It finds that while many papers focus on the use of quantitative research methodologies to measure
Nevertheless, it was quite interesting and very informative regarding the many trials the African slaves had to face in order to obtain their rights. I had always known that slaves were treated horribly, but I had never heard anything of them trying to revolt. I was very fascinated how these slaves rebel against their masters in so many creative ways. Like I mentioned before, I was taught that slaves had a very rough life but my educator never talked about how these people revolted for their rights. They burned down entire field land as to slow down the production of the plantation, thus giving them some time to “rest.” The managed to break or hide working tools to slow the working process and even made their own poison as to poison their master’s food. The white master took these slaves for granted, thinking that they were dumb, but on the contrary, these slaves were far from dumb. If these slaves hardly ever revolt was because of the fear the masters had imposed upon them, with the harsh punishment of the whipping. That was the hard part of reading such literacy piece and the fact that they were taken away from their naïve home and loved ones. The whites showed up all of a sudden and just took them away with them, destroying family after family. I am mother of two young children and honestly I don’t know what I would do if something like that would ever happen to me. I can only imagine the horrible pain they must have went through knowing that they will no longer see their families. I can understand why the community grew so close to one another, because if I had my son in a different plantation than mine, I would have been at least a bit at ease knowing that he is been looked after. Having read this piece by Zinn made me realized that African slaves during the plantation period are one of the most inspiring people I have ever read
The Spanish and English cultures were scarcely similar and notably different because of the interaction with indigenous people and the timing in which the interactions occurred. The Spanish and English were very different in how they interacted with the indigenous people. The Spanish main reason for coming to North America was to spread Catholicism. In the Catholic church if two people were both Catholic then the two people would receive the sacrament of marriage. After marriage the two would create a Catholic of their own. This had created 5 new races of people. The races of humanity was then looked at as social classes. The highest social class was a full white European, then a mestizos, which was a someone who was European and an Indian, followed by Indians, African slaves, and lastly a Zambos,
Mexican American struggles in the United States date back to the Spanish discovery of the New World in 1492. For over five hundred years, Mexicans have endured social injustices and inequalities at the hands of their superiors. The mistreatment of the native people of this land is constantly overlooked for "…the main goals shaping Spanish colonial policy were to maintain and expand political control and to convert Indians to Christianity." (Vargas p.30) With this mindset, the basic nature of relations between the dominant Anglos and the inferior Mexicans was that of suppression, rejection, ignorance and separation as opposed to establishment of ideals that would foster cultural relations and produce the true definition of a "melting pot" society.
The transatlantic slave trade paved the way for mass distribution of the human civilizations strongest labor force. The thought of using other humans as a means of production was first internal only within Africa but as other nations began to witness the degradation of one race, they saw an opportunity to tap into the weakened morals of one race which in turn allowed the Africans to fall into a lower class. Thus began the dispersion of slaves to other nations needing to fill the labor gap. An event that represents the beginning moment of the trans-Atlantic slave trade within the readings arise when Equiano was on watch with one of his sisters and was kidnapped by a group of people. Ever since Equiano was kidnapped, he was sold numerous times through different masters and traveled coast to coast. Equiano also witnessed the first time in his life a slave ship that was filled with black people of every description chained together with dejection and sorrowful expressions, and it was then that he realized the future that awaits him. Through the descriptions and Equiano’s wish for his former slavery in preference to the present condition he was in, we can imagine how awful and dehumanizing the slaves were being treated on shore. According to Equiano, many of the African slaves had the unpleasant personalities and traits that were similar with the white slave owners on the ship because of the close interaction that they had with each other. According to Gomez’s Reversing Sail, the beginning moment of the trans-Atlantic slave trade occurred because “Muslim forces in al-Andalus were never in control of the entire Iberian Peninsula and were continually threatened by Christian enemies during their nearly 800-year rule” (Gomez 59). As a result, “in both Iberia and the
The author goes on to describe antebellum slavery. During this time he describes slavery as a massive expansion. He expresses this knowledge through numbers of slaves and overwhelming facts. At this time cotton boosted the economy of all the slave states, cotton producing or not. Cotton created an intense demand for slave labor and therefore slave prices rose to an all time high. Slave trading was very traumatic for the slaves, being separated from the only thing they knew. Some lived on plantations under a watchful eye and others worked right beside their owners. Slaves on large plantations usually worked in gangs, and there were better positions to work then others. Some gangs were separated into groups of lighter work, consisting of men and woman. Other gangs weren't so lucky and were assigned to hard labor.
Mexicans, as constructed by Menchaca, are a predominantly mestizo population whose mixed ancestry she traces to early Latin American civilizations. In 200 BC the largest city in the Americas, Teotihuacán, was founded. Teotihuacán would one day be the site of Mexico City, and by 650 AD there were between 120,000 and 250,000 inhabitants. (2) Groups that inhabited the region fro...
The slaves and slave owners in the Americas resulted in the concept of white supremacy, consequently causing vast social divisions among the wealthy Caucasians and poor Africans. These seemingly trivial actions to obtain affluence led America into the national issues that still patronize the United States to this day. Furthermore, “The plight and problems of workers today , black and white, may be directly traceable to African slavery in the United States” (Diggs 157). Even though, slavery was legalized during the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, they were eventually slavery becomes a major rationale of the Civil War. Although, through this conflict and the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments, blacks in the United States allowed us to free the slaves they did not gain human rights until after the Civil Rights Act, thirteenth amendment, and the Voting Rights Act in the 1960s were established. The social repercussions of bringing slavery in the United States via Triangular Trade needs to remain heavily embedded in our history courses in order to prevent recurrences of social oppression for future
The text discussed how the first African-Americans were brought by force to serve white colonists of Jamestown, Virginia in 1619. Many Virginians during this time period were in need of labor to grow a sufficient supply of food in order to survive. During 1609-1610, the colony had been faced with starvation, decreasing the original group of five hundred colonists to sixty. They were not able to force Indians to work for them, but blacks who were taken in Africam brought far from their homes and helpless, could be seen as useful. And so slave importing started, with the first twenty blacks brought from the West Indies to Jamestown and constrained in chains. Some historians claim that slaves did not accept their fate. Instead, they did in fact resist in a lot of ways, including physically, as revealed in the documents in the text show.
2 John Bowe, author of Nobodies: Modern Slave Labor and the Dark Side of the New Global Economy said if he could sum up what his book was about it would be “we all seek control. Control equals power. Power corrupts. Corruption makes us blind, tyrannical, and desperate to justify our behavior” (268). He is writing about the slave trade happening in our own Land of the Free. He wants Americans to be aware of the slave trade and recognize that it is not only happening in other countries, but effects items we use in our everyday lives, like the clothes we wear and the food we eat. As he is an immersion reporter, he visits three different sites of slavery: Florida, Tulsa, and Saipan. The stories and facts in this book are all from people who experienced some aspect of the abuses he writes about, whether a victim, a lawyer, or just a witness to the heinous crimes. He is not satisfied with half truths, which seem to fly at him, especially from those who did the abusing he was talking about, he does his research well and I appreciated that while reading this book.