Since 1492, the year in which Christopher Columbus discovered the New World, the “Native Americans”, or “American Indians”, the original inhabitants of these newfound lands, became a source of dispute and conflict. The terminology of the word ‘Indian’ suggests the cultural and racial unity of all indigenous people, but it was not an idea shared by them. On the contrary, a huge variety of languages, traditions, cultures, lifestyles, existed among the indigenous populations, and had done so for thousands of years. The unifying notion of ‘Indian’ gave a label to all natives, failed to recognise their differences, and became a tool of legitimisation of the Spanish colonisation of these people . After making a claim of these lands, the Spanish …show more content…
Following these philosophical and political ideas gave legitimacy to the categorization of people as inferior and superior races, and therefore the marginalisation of the indigenous people at the expense of the domination of the ‘white’ nation . The Mexican state used this European philosophy to reinforce their claims that the indigenous race was incapable of understanding civilised culture. David Brading describes the indigenous peasant’s lifestyle in the eye of the Mexican ‘white’ or mestizo as that of “industrious ants”, not that of a “free citizens of a liberal republic” , thus reinforcing their primitiveness and backwardness. Due to their closeness to nature, the indigenous people were considered an obstacle to the country’s modernisation .
Indeed, progress and modernity were the goals set in the aftermath of the Mexican Revolution. After most of a decade of armed conflict, national unrest and divisions was born a desire to rebuild the nation based on new ideals in the 1920’s. While previously the country had been divided due to a lack of common history, character, race, and language, where indigenous communities resembled separate countries in which inhabitants did not participate in national life, the Mexican state thought that unity and cooperation among all races would forge a new and stronger nation. As the
Beginning in the sixteenth century, Europeans made the voyage to a “new world” in order to achieve dreams of opportunity and riches. In this other world the Europeans came upon another people, which naturally led to a cultural exchange between different groups of people. Although we commonly refer to European and Indian relations as being between just two very different groups of people, it is important to recognize this is not entirely true. Although the settlers of the new world are singularly referred to as Europeans, each group of people came from a different nation and with different motives and expectations of the new world. Similarly, the Indians were neither a united group nor necessarily friendly with each other. Due to the
In the 17th century, the Native Americans had been living peacefully in their own little world, until suddenly, the British come upon this land. Little did the British know, tribes of natives already lived there. The countenance of the Native Americans did not go over very well. There was tension between the English and the Native Americans. For example, they fought over the land of the “New World”. As expected, the Natives were fearful and angry when foreigners showed up and proposed new religious beliefs. The British and the Native Americans’ relationship changed due to those coming over for religious freedom and economic prosperity.
However, it does not mean that the Mexico profundo does not exist anymore, it demonstrate that people who now formed part of the imaginary Mexico denies or they just decided to erased the culture that have been practice by the indigenous people before the conquest of the Spanish. The people who still practice their indigenous languages, traditions, customs, and identified themselves as indigenous people constitute for Bonfil, the Mexico profundo. Since, the invasion of the Americas Mexican people were treated as minorities leaving the Europeans, as the dominant race. Guillermo said “To the sector that represents and gives impetus to our country’s dominant civilizational program, have given the name “imaginary Mexico” This means that the people who decided to practice the European culture and with the process has denied the validity of Mesoamerican civilization. The dominant groups that form part of the imaginary Mexico have not problems in developing the westernization
In the book “A Glorious Defeat, Mexico and its War with the United States” written by Timothy J. Henderson. Henderson, a professor of History at Auburn University, Montgomery, Alabama, analyses the political and social history of Mexico before and during the Mexican American War of 1846-1848. After the battel with Spain in 1821, the Mexican Government was a disaster, although they manage to be victorious for their independence. The main problem with the Mexican government and its social class was their racial system, for example the higher class will never share power with the lower classes. A small number of Mexicans were educated and most of them were from the upper class, and the lower class were considered to be troublemakers who needed
"the justification of expansion and the subsequent exclusion of "foreign" Mexicans from the way the national community was imagined." (Oboler, 43).
The ethnic- Mexican experience has changed over the years as American has progressed through certain period of times, e.g., the modernity and transformation of the southwest in the late 19th and early 20th century, the labor demands and shifting of U.S. immigration policy in the 20th century, and the Chicano Civil Rights Movement. Through these events Mexican Americans have established and shaped their culture, in order, to negotiate these precarious social and historical circumstances. Throughout the ethnic Mexicans cultural history in the United States, conflict and contradiction has played a key role in shaping their modalities of life. Beginning in the late 20th century and early 21st century ethnic Mexicans have come under distress
The Black Legend and White Legend: Relationship Between the Spanish and Indians in the New World
In the Shadow of the Mexican Revolution by Hector Aquilar Camin and Lorenzo Meyer tells a chronological story of contemporary Mexico from the fall of Porfirio Diaz in 1910 to the July elections in 1989. The time period that Camin and Meyer portray in Mexico is one of corruption, civil war, and failure. While Mexico would undergo an era described as the “Mexican Miracle” where the Mexican country would begin to see a positive output in the country, it would be short-lived and Mexico would continue to fall behind as other countries progressed. While In the Shadow of the Mexican Revolution is comprised of facts throughout history, one cannot help but feel a sense of sympathy for Mexico. While their corruption, political, and economical,
For more than 300 years, since the days of Christopher Columbus and the Spanish Government, an attempt of genocide of the Native American Indian has existed. From mass brutal murders and destruction by Spanish and American armies, to self-annihilation through suicide, homicide, and alcohol induced deaths brought about because of failed internal colonialism and white racial framing. Early Explores used Indigenous inhabitants upon first arriving to the America’s to survive the New World and once they adapted, internal colonialism began with attempts to convert the Indians to Christianity, repressing their values and way of life, forcing them into slavery, and nearly exterminating an entire culture from existence.
II. Thesis Statement: Mexico is an interesting country, with many different and people and customs, as well as major problems.
The prevailing attitude of white supremacy was the justification Americans used to “rescue the wilderness from backwardness, indolence, and disorder”(De Leon 65). Mexico in its earliest days was primarily Indian, but the infusion of both Spanish and black blood made it harder to define Mexicans. White Anglo-Americans believed “their contrast to ‘white’ and salient kindred to ‘black’ and ‘red’ made Mexicans subject to treatment commensurate with the odious connotations whites attached to colors, races, and cultures dissimilar to their own” (De Leon 6).
No written history means much of Native American history is unknown, causing misconceptions and stereotypes about Native Americans to exist. Royal also discusses the name of this group that people label today as “Native Americans.” He questions, “ ‘America’ was a name formed in the wake of another Italian explorer, Amerigo Vespucci. It is difficult to see how being named after an Italian is less Eurocentric than being named after an East Native American” (Royal 46). The discussion about their name shows Europe’s influence on the Americas; it also shows that Native Americans yearn for their own identity without Europe’s input.
The migration of European settlers and culture to North America is an often examined area. One aspect of this, however, is worthy of deeper analysis. The conquest of North America by Europeans and American settlers from the 16th to 19th centuries had a profound effect on the indigenous political landscape by defining a new relationship dynamic between natives and settlers, by upsetting existing native political, economic and military structures, and by establishing a paradigm where the indigenous peoples felt they had to resist the European and American incursions. The engaging and brilliant works of Andres Rensendez and Steve Inskeep, entitled respectively “A Land So Strange” and “Jacksonland”, provide excellent insights and aide to this analysis.
The long history between Native American and Europeans are a strained and bloody one. For the time of Columbus’s subsequent visits to the new world, native culture has
After the people of Mexico freed themselves from Spanish control, they faced difficulties trying to officially establish themselves as a country. Despite their independence, Mexico had to also live with the aftermath of Spanish colonialism. Part of the aftermath included socio-political issues amongst the Mexican people. In an effort to establish themselves as a nation, they first had to free themselves from a Spanish ideology, for Mexico truly was not free after their independence. The socio-political predicaments contribute to the evolution of modern day Mexico.