Summaries of Books on Central America

Colonial Latin American society in the Seventeenth Century was undergoing a tremendous amount of changes. Society was transforming from a conquering phase into a colonizing phase. New institutions were forming and new people and ideas flooded into the new lands freshly claimed for the Spanish Empire. Two remarkable women, radically different from each other, who lived during this period of change are a lenses through which many of the new institutions and changes can be viewed. Sor Juana and Catalina de Erauso are exceptional women who in no way represent the norm but through their extraordinary tales and by discovering what makes them so extraordinary we can deduce what was the norm and how society functioned during this era of Colonial

Matthew Restall, a Professor of Latin American History, Women’s Studies, and Anthropology at Pennsylvania State University. He also serves the Director of the university’s Latin Studies. Throughout “Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest,” he discusses many false truths that have been passed down through history. For instance, he discusses, “The Myth of Exceptional Men.” “The Myth of Spanish Army,” and “The Myth of Completion.” For the sake of time, I will discuss three myths that correlate with class lectures and serve as the topic of this paper, “The Myth of Exceptional Men,” “The Myth of the King’s Army,” and the “Myth of the White Conquistador.” It should be noted that Restall speaks to his audience assuring us that his “...his purpose is not to degenerate this technique of historical writing completely...Nor do I mean to create a narrative in which individual action is utterly subordinated to the larger structural forces and causes of social change.” (4). He states that his intentions are to react to more than just the works of Columbus, Pizzaro, and Cortez.

The main ideas of chapter one was the conquest and exploration of the early America’s by the spaniards. Throughout the chapter, it explains the difficulties that the spanish explorers faced when attempting to conquer new lands. The primary problem the explorers faced was with the current inhabitants of the lands they wanted to conquer, especially with the cultural differences between populations. On article that exemplifies the cultural differences between the Native Americans and the Spanish Explorers is the third-person biographical narrative called “The Collision of Cultures.” The narrative gives the reader insight on what the indians and the explorers pre-judgement of one another, based off of what the parties believed with their religion and moral. This article’s reader would be

Convinced of the superiority of Catholicism to all other religions, Spain insisted that the primary goal of colonization was to save the Indians from heathenism and prevent them from falling under the sway of Protestantism. The aim was neither to exterminate nor to remove the Indians, but to transform them into obedient Christian subjects of the crown. To the Spanish colonizers, the large native populations of the Americas were not only souls to be saved but also a labor force to be organized to extract gold and silver that would enrich their mother country. Las Casas’ writings and the abuses they exposed contributed to the spread of the Black Legend-the image of Spain as a uniquely brutal and exploitative colonizer. This would provide of a potent justification for other European powers to challenge Spain’s predominance in the New World.

For this essay I will be talking about the book “A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies” by Bartolomé de Las Casas. Whom wrote this to the King of Spain, Prince Philip II, in 1542 to protest what was happening in the New World to the native people. I will be explaining many things during this essay. The first thing I will go over is what the books tells us about the relationship between Christianity and the colonialism. The second thing I will talk about is if it was enough to denounce the atrocities against indigenous people. Next, if it is possible to

. Capital at Cuzco, which had as many as three hundred thousand people in the late fifteenth century

When Jesus Came, The Corn Mothers Went Away gives an in-depth history of the Pueblo Indians before and after the Spanish conquest. It describes the forced changes the Spanish brought to the Indians, and also the changes brought to the Spaniards who came to “civilize” the Indians. The author's thesis is that the Pueblo Indians and other Indians were treated cruelly by the Spanish, who justified their crime by claiming they were civilizing an

In the 16th century Spaniards Herman Cortes and Christopher Columbus set out on endeavoring journeys in search of new worlds. Christopher Columbus encountered, in the Caribbean islands, a group of extremely simplistic Native Americans. Herman Cortes however encountered a much more advanced Native American group in Meso America; we formally know this area to be Mexico. In my essay I will be comparing and contrasting several aspects between both of these Native American Civilizations including sophistication, technology, housing, weapons, religion and their reaction to the Spaniards. Letters written by Columbus and Cortes will be used to make these comparisons.

During the Spanish conquest of the Incan Empire the role of the Kuraka was crucial in gaining control over the Andean society. The role of the Kuraka could be thought of as “provincial nobility”[1] whose main job was to control the labor and tribute made and delivered from the natives to the state. In order to do this job the Kurakas had to maintain respect from the natives while maintaining good relations with the colonial state. This could be difficult considering that too much affiliation with the state could lead to a loss of status to the natives, and a loss of respect from the natives would make one useless to the state. “The Indian who broke entirely with his own culture

The Black Legend and White Legend: Relationship Between the Spanish and Indians in the New World

During the sixteenth century, the indigenous people of Peru, the Incas, endured the harsh rule of the Spanish. In response to this, an Inca nobleman named Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala created manuscripts in his book El Primer Nueva Corónica y Buen Gobierno (The First New Chronicle and Good Government) in which he illustrated the mistreatment of the Incas. Guaman Poma de Ayala’s book was deliberately created for the King of Spain, Philip III, to show how the intolerable Spanish rule was negatively impacting the Incas (Encyclopædia Britannica). One drawing from the book in particular, Padre Que Haze Tejer Ropa Por Fuerza a Las Yndias (The Parish Priest Threatens the Native Weaver Who Works at His Command), depicts a Spanish conquistador with a weapon standing over a crying indigenous woman as she weaves cloth. The Inca woman in the illustration worked for the Spanish under the system of mita. After the Spanish colonized the Andes, they implemented a labor system in which the Incas were forced to work for the good of the Spanish, earning little in return. In portraying the Spanish so negatively, Guaman Poma de Ayala sought to

Even from our own cultural perspective of the last half of the 20th Century, we have cast a different light on some artifacts of our progress such as the long-term effect of the imposition of the United Fruit Company in the region described in the book or the encounter between Francisco Pizarro and the Inca emperor Athualpa in the Andean highlands.

The late 15th century marked the beginnings of a period of discovery and expansion for Europeans. During these years of discovery, great forces behind drive for expansion existed. The Spanish and Portuguese's main forces included: the lust for the wealth of gold and silver, the acquisition of new lands which brought nobility, and the spread of their Christian based religion. The Spanish and Portuguese conquest of Latin America provides us with insight of these drives in the ultimate search for power. Unfortunately, these motives caused a European-Indigenous syncretism that virtually changed the native peoples way of life. Ultimately, syncretism meant survival for Native Americans in a world where their way of life did not suit the life

Among the great writers of colonial Peru, Guaman Poma stands alone. His First New Chronicle and Good Government, a massive manuscript only recently rediscovered after nearly 300 years, is a unique work that walks the often thin line between text and graphic, Spanish and Quechua, and history and rhetoric. Guaman Poma’s goal in writing his First New Chronicle was twofold: to secure a future for Andean nobility, and a future for Andean customs. These purposes were at odds with each other. On the one hand, securing power for Andean nobles like himself meant presenting Andeans to the Spanish as colonized Catholics capable of self-autonomy, while on the other, preserving Andean customs meant preserving religious traditions that were at odds with

In this essay I am going to explain Viveiros de Castro 's perspectivism and the potential value this may have in regards to understanding the social group the Yąnomamö. I will explore how distinctions between 'nature ' and 'culture ' cannot be necessarily applied to non-Western cosmologies; they are not insubstantial, but how they have different 'status ' within Amerindian cosmologies in relation to perspectivism. The use of the term 'multinaturalism ' (Viveiros de Castro 2012) in relation to the overall view of perspectivism and how this effects the value of using perspectivism in regards to understanding the Yąnomamö. With consideration to understanding the Yąnomamö I 'must be attentive to the slightest detail, however lowly. Resituated in a meaningful context, the plumage of a bird, the revolution of a planet [...] become crucial elements for interpreting social and cultural reality. ' (Descola 1994: xiv).