1 Manifest Destiny Assignment Students Name Institution 2 Question One The manifest destiny was the widespread American belief during the 19th century that the country had every right to expand its territory westwards and take over the continent. This belief sets up a situation, whereby America feels entitled to other countries land, heritage and culture based on the fact that they can conquer them. When acted upon, it could heartily disadvantage America's neighbouring countries as it did Mexico in 1845. Question Two Fortunately for America, the manifest destiny belief served to unify the nation in that they were all in agreement for the betterment of their country. In this regard, there was a lot of cultural diffusion happening in the social sphere, primarily because of the high number of immigrants from Europe. Politically, the country was able to expand its territories by acquiring land, which led to an increase in the country's economic profitability. Question Three Manifest destiny was initially meant to apply to white people. This means that the black people who were former slaves until 1865 when slavery was abolished in the United States. Therefore, the blacks were utterly disadvantaged concerning the rule of law as they had a different standing in the society at the time and were still widely viewed as second class citizens regardless of them being freed and declared legal citizens. 1 Cultural Violence Assignment Students Name Institution 2 The Mexican American war which took place from April of 1846 to February 1848. The main reason behind this war was the annexation of Texas by America in 1845 and a dispute between the two countries over where exactly Texas ended. Ultimately the United States won the battle and acquired about 500,000 square miles of Mexican territory an act which is now considered illegal (Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2019). However much this war may have been about land it was also very much about the culture. Cultural Violence can be defined as "any aspect of culture that can be used to legitimize violence either directly or indirectly" (Galtung, 1990). The fact that Mexicans came from an entirely different culture than the Americans, made it much easier for Americans to devalue them, strip them of their culture, seize their land because they could, and wage war on them. According to Antonia I. Castañeda, this war was about violence – "a violence that did not end once the war or the military phase of the war ended" (2009). In this phrase, she refers to the cultural violence that was very much a big part of this war. Although the war was primarily fought on the battlefield, several acts of violence tore people away from their families, homes, languages and ultimately their cultures. For instance, the creation of a political border in the middle of Mexican territory, made it such that families were torn apart, land and homes were taken away from people, as well as taking away people's connection to their roots and culture. References 3 Galtung, J. (August 01, 1990). Cultural Violence. Journal of Peace Research, 27, 3, 291-305. The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. (2019, December 6). Mexican-American War. https://www.britannica.com/event/Mexican-American-War. Castañeda, Antonia I. (2009) A War of Violence and Violations: The Consequences of Conquest. St. Mary’s University. A War of Violence and Violations: The Consequences of Conquest A Conversation With Antonia I. Castañeda St. Mary's University Date 2009 How did the conflict between Mexico and the United States affect individuals and families during and after the war? The U.S.-Mexican War, like any other war, was fundamentally about violence — a violence that did not end once the war or the military phase of the war ended. The violence and the violations that people experienced were not only in terms of taking away their lands or a taking away their livelihood but, ultimately, was also an effort to take away their language. Families were literally split in half. Families held land and had homes. Then an artificial political border was created and suddenly part of the family was on one side, and the other part of the family was on another side. Suddenly, these families became enemies on opposite sides in a sense, although they didn't see themselves that way. Ostensibly, the war was about territory, continental expansion, access to the ports of the Pacific, and access to and ownership of all of the wonderful minerals and riches that were in the subsoil. The war was about land, labor, and wealth. But it was also about language, culture, race, and religion. It was about way of being. It was about world view. We have to understand that the war between the United States and Mexico was about violence, racism, appropriation and expropriation. The war was about slavery and access to more cotton producing land that would increase the size of the slave population. The war was about labor, acquiring or making wealth, about capitalist development and what that means. The war was about profit for some groups and in that process then there were people who were violated. The violence was not just military, but it was a violence of the soul — a violence of the spirit by those who committed that violence as well as by those who were on the receiving end. How does the war continue to affect us all today? We live with the consequences of that conquest. We all live with the impact and the effects of the acquisition of that land, the displacement of the people on it, the appropriation of their labor at less than livable wages. In fact, in a sense, we continue to fight the war over and over and over. I think that Americans have come to this particular situation because we have not come to terms with our history. We have not come to terms with what it meant to be a conquering nation — what it meant to those who were considered citizens of that nation, and what it meant to those who were on the land base already and were conquered and subjugated. In order to be the dominant power that the United States has become, the process erased the history of those people. In erasing that history, you erase the people and people will not be erased. So, people have struggled, they have resisted, and they have survived. It's still part of that struggle to survive. So, how can we live in these different enclaves without really connecting and knowing each other? How do we live these multiple consequences? We live with them, to some degree, because there has been this historical erasure. That is beginning to change, but it's still in process. Historians are rethinking, looking at documents again and reinterpreting, but that's still principally within an academic realm. Most of us don't know very much about the history of the place where we live and the people we live with. We assume that we all share one national history. We certainly share that national history, but we have lived it in different ways. To think about this war of 1846 to 1848 as only a war between two nations leaves out an entire body of people. The mestizo peoples in Tejas, the Tejanos in Texas; the Nuevo Mexicanos in New Mexico, the Californianos in California and in other parts of what is now Arizona — these people were not claimed by either nation. And so to think of the war only in terms of national histories excludes thousands of people who were already here including indigenous populations that were already here even longer. These peoples are not claimed by the United States or not claimed fully as citizens, and they're lost to Mexico. Where does that leave these people? They've lost their homeland and they don't have a nation because neither claimed them. Where does it leave them? Basically, it erases their existence or subjugates them as less than second-class citizens, which, in fact, happened. The violations then and now are multiple. This was a violation in terms of land. All of a sudden people lost their land through legal and extra legal means — so, what was a homeland is no longer yours. There is a violation and violence in terms of language — what was your language and your forbearers and your ancestors is no longer acceptable so it's illegitimate and, therefore, you're illegitimate. Cultural forms and formulations, sensibilities and aesthetics were demeaned, dismissed, discredited or delegitimized — in other words, were unacceptable. The violence of your labor was to not receive a just wage for very early on there were segmented wages for Mexicans, for Blacks and for Whites. Catholicism for our people who were Catholic was, and still is, a fusion of multiple elements — European, different indigenous cultures, and African. So, even though the American Catholic Church sent new priests and we continued to practice our religion, it was now not necessarily a form we were used to with meaning for us. From my perspective, we still live that violence — it has not healed. We live with the consequences of that violence. For us to go beyond that is to come to terms with it, acknowledge it, and to accept its reality and meaning for all of us. The historical experience since the 19th Century has been an effort to erase our language across time. The land, we still don't own for the most part. The cultural wars that we live daily continue in multiple ways. And so we all live with those realities irrespective of whatever position we occupy in society. For people of Mexican origin or descent, living those realities means consistently affirming their history, their language and culture — individually, as a family, as a collective and as a people. It's a constant daily struggle. We can make an analogy of the end of the United States' war with Mexico as being very similar to the European conquest of the Americas. In fact, it is a continuation of that same process. Lives, cultures, languages, livelihoods, governments, structures and ways of being of the people that occupy those spaces were totally altered, changed, turned upside down within a very short period of time. Everything known was completely altered and changed. One then had to remake, reform, draw upon, recreate, reestablish and reaffirm oneself in the face, and with the weight of institutional, social, political, economic, cultural structures that tried to deny or erase all that once was. We must, I believe, all understand that the war — its aftermath and its continuation that we live with on a daily basis — is about violence and violation. The democracy and freedom that some of us live has been bought and continues to be bought with the violence and subjugation of others. That violence has taken many forms — it wasn't just about military or armed violence. It was also the violence of removing people from their land. It was and is the violence of trying to silence their language. It's the violence of broken treaties, of telling people "You are citizens," then treating them as anything but citizens, by denying them the rights and privileges of full citizenship. It was a violence of demeaning and trying to delegitimize a culture and a way of being. All of those denials, efforts to silence, removals, and displacements are rooted in violence and continue in violence. Perhaps not in physical violence, but there is and continues to be psychic violence, spiritual violence and psychological violence, as well as economic violence. Poverty is a very violent reality. We continue to see these various manifestations of violence, but at the same time we also continue to see people resisting. The resistance that I talked about earlier continues. If we try to gain an understanding of the war, it would not come from a place of judging who was right or who was wrong. I think, from my perspective, what will get us to another place of understanding is a recognition, an acknowledgment, an acceptance of the reality of violence that is rooted in the development and the establishment of democracy and how we all live with the consequences of that violence. That violence dehumanizes both those who perpetuate the violence, as well as those who are on the receiving end of the violence. So in that sense we're all dehumanized. How can we, as people, begin healing the wounds inflicted by the war and its aftermath? I think it's only by finally recognizing the existence and the meaning of that violence in all of our lives, in the lives of our families, in the lives of our communities, and the life of this nation, can we begin to go beyond it. But that's something that I don't think we've necessarily tried to do. Healing is not healing unless it is a healing of a whole body. Part of the body in and of itself cannot be healed — it has to be the whole body. And if we look at the nation as a body then it continues to be diseased — it's not very healthy. We're all interconnected, and this, this nation, this country could not be what it is without all of us. And yet, that connection isn't made or isn't made frequently. I've talked about violence, but beyond that violence, if we could understand how we are all interconnected — even though some of us were subjugated and some of us were the subjugators — we are all interconnected. Your privilege rests on my labor, and my labor rests on somebody else's. We're all connected. We all form part of the fabric that is this country. For me as a teacher and a historian, it's important to provide a basis for students to see and understand those connections. For me, what is healing is to come face-to-face and to confront reality. The idealism that was present at the founding of the nation, and in that magnificent document, the Bill of Rights, and the Declaration of Independence — that idealism was also purchased with someone's labor. And for most of the signers of those documents, it was purchased with slave labor, and with the removal and the genocide of indigenous populations. The idealism that was present is still there. I'm very idealistic, and I think you know, I want to make those principles work. But the reality of that exploitation and oppression and all that goes with it, is also still present. Whoever we are and whatever nation we belong to, whether it's Mexico or the United States or someplace else, we are contradictions of conflicts and contradictions of histories. Our racial, ethnic, and cultural selves are, indeed, an incredible amalgamation of indigenous, of African, of European, of Asian. We are, indeed, all of those elements, and all of those histories at the same time. If we face those realities honestly, from my perspective, we make common cause with others who are different than us, whether that difference is based on race, on gender, on sexual orientation, on income. Whatever those differences are, we begin to see ourselves as part of the human family, and that my actions affect you, and vice versa. It seems to me that humanity is a good basis — a willingness to be humane with each other, whomever the other is, and to see oneself in the other, and wanting to do right by that other person. It seems to me that is the basis for change. It's a basis that will change how we treat the earth. I think we mistreat the earth in much the same way that we have mistreated each other. What do you think is at stake if we don't? What's at stake? A continuation of war, and a continuation of acrimony, anger, rage, distrust and hatred based on the same issues. Maybe recognizing it, acknowledging it won't immediately change it, but I think it offers a greater possibility of change than not. Because, for me, the alternative is to continue the way we have — talking past each other, blaming each other and refusing to accept responsibility. uuuuuuuuu Mexicanos Mexicanos A HISTORY OF MEXICANS IN THE UNITED STATES Third Edition Manuel G. Gonzales Indiana University Press This book is a publication of Indiana University Press Office of Scholarly Publishing Herman B Wells Library 350 1320 East 10th Street Bloomington, Indiana 47405 USA iupress.indiana.edu © 2019 by Manuel G. Gonzales First Edition 1999 Second Edition 2009 Third Edition 2019 All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48–1992. Manufactured in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Gonzales, Manuel G., author. Title: Mexicanos : a history of Mexicans in the United States / Manuel G. Gonzales. Other titles: History of Mexicans in the United States Description: Third edition. | Bloomington, IN : Indiana University Press, [2019] | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2019012422 (print) | LCCN 2019012626 (ebook) | ISBN 9780253041753 (ebook) | ISBN 9780253041715 (hardback : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780253041722 (pbk. : alk. paper) Subjects: LCSH: Mexican Americans—History. Classification: LCC E184.M5 (ebook) | LCC E184.M5 G638 2019 (print) | DDC 973/.046872—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019012422 1 2 3 4 5 24 23 22 21 20 19 uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu To my loving and supportive wife, Cynthia Merrill Gonzales uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu Contents uuu Preface · ix Introduction · 1 1 Spaniards and Native Americans, Prehistory–1521 · 10 2 The Spanish Frontier, 1521–1821 · 33 3 The Mexican Far North, 1821–1848 · 66 4 The American Southwest, 1848–1900 · 95 5 The Great Migration, 1900–1930 · 129 6 The Depression, 1930–1940 · 163 7 The Second World War and Its Aftermath, 1940–1965 · 209 8 The Chicano Movement, 1965–1975 · 245 9 Goodbye to Aztlán, 1975–1994 · 284 10 The Hispanic Challenge, 1994–2008 · 330 11 Mexicanos and the Homeland Security State, 2008–Present · 376 Appendix A: National Association for Chicana and Chicano Studies Scholars of the Year · 405 Appendix B: Hispanic-American Medal of Honor Recipients · 407 Select Bibliography of Chicana/o Studies since 2000 · 409 Index · 447 Illustrations follow page 190. Preface uuu Today Latinos and Latinas represent 18 percent of the US population. Mexicanos, Mexican-origin inhabitants, continue to constitute the majority of this spiraling demographic, and the account offered here is the story of their history and current status, their accomplishments and failures. The field of Latina/o studies, of which the history of Mexicanos is an integral part, has been prospering on college campuses across the country since the turn of the century.1 In the discipline of history, this success reflects not only favorable demographic changes but also the firm foundation established by pioneers such as the historians Rodolfo Acuña, Juan Gómez-Quiñones, and Richard Griswold del Castillo. High academic achievement has continued under their successors, established researchers and teachers like Vicki Ruiz, George J. Sánchez, and Deena González. It is this second generation of professors who today direct the Latina/o studies programs and centers on most college campuses across the country. Now, almost forty years after the birth of ethnic studies, a third generation of historians has emerged in the discipline. Like their predecessors, they continue to do pioneering work in excavating the Hispanic past. They have made many valuable contributions to the field, notably in the study of mujeres. The latest generation of Latina/o scholars is more fully integrated into the academic establishment than their predecessors had been, a positive trend in my view, but one that has drawn occasional criticism.2 For the most part, though, aging minority faculty have embraced their younger colleagues. Indeed, many of the up-and-coming luminaries in the field of history were mentored by older distinguished professors. Albert Camarillo, Antonia Castañeda, and Vicki Ruiz are among the most respected of these mentors. However, a few of the veteranos, older faculty members, fear that the current generation of scholars is gradually abandoning the social activism of the founders—in truth, an argument from the beginning that has never gone away—which may be true. However, Mexican American scholarship has continued to improve, both quantitatively and qualitatively, which is undoubtedly the most compelling reason for the greater acceptance in academe of ethnic studies today than in the past. First published in 1999 and revised ten years later, Mexicanos continues to be required reading in a variety of courses at both the high school and college levels, not only in the American Southwest but also throughout the United States. uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu preface x The book’s widespread popularity in academe mirrors the increasing dispersal of Mexicanos and the interest they have generated throughout the country. This third edition retains the strengths of the previous two editions. Minor revisions have been made throughout to incorporate major new findings in ethnic studies during the past decade and to preserve the narrative flow of earlier editions. Several chapters have been substantially revised, and an entirely new chapter, “Mexicanos and the Homeland Security State,” has been added. Focusing on the impassioned immigration debate surrounding Mexicanos, this concluding section covers the last ten years of their history, a period of great concern to sociologists and political scientists as well as historians, as my updated bibliography illustrates. One of the major strengths of Mexicanos is the bibliography. I have tried my best to keep up with the escalating production of doctoral dissertations in recent years and have insisted on incorporating these monographs into the current edition, which may seem pedantic to some casual observers. However, these dissertation titles are important because they provide readers with an idea of the new avenues of historical investigation that young Mexican American scholars are opening up. And, of course, the sheer number of these dissertations is a testament to the growing popularity of Latina/o studies. Mexicanos is a synthesis based on the works of hundreds of scholars cited in the text. I am indebted to each and every one of them. I also continue to be in the debt of all those friends and colleagues who contributed their time and effort to the book. Several of them should be singled out for special recognition. These include, in no particular order, professors Elizabeth Coonrod Martínez, California State University, Sonoma; Ignacio García, Brigham Young University; Juan MoraTorres, DePaul University; Alexandro Gradilla, California State University, Fullerton; Antonia Castañeda, St. Mary’s University, San Antonio; Armando Alonzo, Texas A&M University; Deena J. González, Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles; Arnoldo De León, Angelo State University; Emilio Zamora, University of Texas, Austin; Lorena Oropeza, University of California, Davis; Lisa Jarvinen, LaSalle University; Benny J. Andrés Jr., University of North Carolina, Charlotte; José Alamillo, California State University, Channel Islands; and Vanna Gonzales, Contra Costa College. I also wish to thank my colleagues in the Department of History at Diablo Valley College, especially Greg Tilles and Jim Rawls, for insights and encouragement that they provided over the years, and Albert Ponce in the Department of Political Science and David Vela in the Department of English, as well, for kindly sharing their expertise. Archivist Lillian Castillo-Speed at the Chicano Studies Library, University of California, Berkeley, and two former archivists, Christine Marín at the Chicano Research Collection, Arizona State University, and Walter Brem at the Bancroft Library at Berkeley, have been extraordinarily helpful on this and many other uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu preface xi occasions. Kathryn Blackmer-Reyes and Julia Curry Rodríguez, stalwarts at the National Association for Chicana and Chicano Studies, provided valuable counsel. I want to express my gratitude, too, to Rogelio Agrasánchez Jr., proprietor of the fabulous Agrasánchez Mexican Film Archives at Harlingen, Texas, for his generosity in providing photographs, and to Lauren Shaw, publications manager at the Migration Policy Institute, for her invaluable assistance in finding and procuring maps. Carlos Larralde, formerly of Golden West College, continues to be a loyal collaborator, a constant source of comfort and goodwill. Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic are other dear friends who have been exceptionally supportive, as was true of the late Edythe M. Cavender. As always, it has been a great privilege to work with the staff at Indiana University Press. I am deeply grateful to my editor, Jennika Baines, and her able assistant, Kate Schramm. Both provided professional guidance and valuable suggestions. This manuscript was significantly enhanced by their efforts. The same can be said for Theresa Marguerite Quill, social science librarian (and cartographer extraordinaire) at the university’s Herman B Wells Library. Special acknowledgment is due to Robert J. Sloan, retired editorial director at Indiana University Press. Despite my affiliation with an obscure two-year college and a modest track record as an author, Robert was willing to take a chance on me way back in 1999, when the first edition of Mexicanos was published, followed by a Mexican American history anthology a year later. I am eternally grateful for that opportunity. The late David J. Weber, my most memorable mentor, remains a model and an inspiration. Unexcelled as a teacher and scholar, David was a formidable presence in the historical profession. Like hundreds of other aspiring scholars, I will be forever in his debt. He did so much for others, and asked so little in return. Finally, I wish to thank my wife, Cindy, for reading and correcting this manuscript, as well as all the others. Her unwavering love, through thick and thin, throughout our fifty years of marriage has meant more to me than words can express. Manuel Gonzales NOTES 1. As early as 2004, cultural historian Ilan Stavans observed, “the field is booming. . . . Professors, students, and administrators recognize Latino studies as the ‘hot’ kid in the neighborhood: Enrollment in courses is growing exponentially, more centers are being established and faculty appointments approved, and—perhaps most evident to the public—scholarly books in the field are providing a healthy bonanza.” “Latino Studies and Black Studies: Bonds and Divergent Paths,” Chronicle of Higher Education, Aug. 8, 2003, uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu preface xii p. B8. Stavans also made the excellent point that unlike many other area studies, Latino studies has grown with little financial support from outside the university. Although history is a crucial component of Latino studies, it is by no means dominant, as the historian María Cristina García makes clear: “The social scientific literature on Latinos far exceeds the scholarship on them in history and the arts, in part,” she adds, “because Latinos are cast as social problems.” “Latino History: An Interchange on Present Realities and Future Prospects,” Journal of American History 97 (Sept. 2010): 436. Dr. García was one of ten distinguished scholars who participated in an online discussion on Latino studies sponsored by the Organization of American Historians in 2010. The others were Adrian Burgos Jr., Donna Gabaccia, Matthew García, Kelly Lytle Hernández, Jesse Hoffnung-Garskof, María E. Montoya, George J. Sánchez, Virginia Sánchez Korrol, and Paul Spickard. 2. An outstanding example of a Latino studies specialist who embraces collaboration is Virginia Sánchez Korrol, who specializes in the history of Puerto Ricans: “I search for opportunities to center Latino history in which I get to work collaboratively with other scholars and historians because such teamwork fosters a rich, comprehensive understanding of the task at hand, whether it be mounting a new museum exhibition, writing a book, or consulting on a research or film project.” “Latino History: An Interchange,” p. 454. uuuuuuuuu Mexicanos ! ! 100 Miles BAJA CALIFORNIA NORTE San xico e l a C ! Me Tij uan xic ali a o Dieg CALIFORNIA SONORA No gal es ! ales Nog ARIZONA ! CHIHUAHUA Ciu Juá dad rez o l Pas E ! NEW MEXICO ! ! Eagle Pass COAHUILA Matamoros ! Brownsville TAMAULIPAS NUEVO LEÓN Nuevo Laredo!! Laredo Piedras Negras TEXAS INTRODUCTION Today the systematic study of Mexicanos in the United States is known as Chicana/o studies (and is increasingly being incorporated into the broader rubric Latina/o studies).1 Its genesis is to be found in the turbulent decade spanning the late 1960s and early 1970s, when Mexican American students at California and Texas high schools, colleges, and universities, inspired by the tenets of Chicanismo, hence calling themselves Chicanos, initiated a search for the historical roots of the movimiento (movement). From its inception, this discipline, like ethnic studies generally, was met with considerable skepticism and resistance in established academic departments across the country.2 Traditionalists were disdainful of the first works in the fledgling field. Among the most vocal of these critics were the historians Arthur Schlesinger Jr., Jacques Barzun, and Diane Ravitch. And, truth be told, these early efforts in the new ethnic scholarship suffered from a number of academic deficiencies. Many pioneering works in Chicano studies lacked a strong theoretical framework. Other early attempts by Chicanos to record the story of their people for the first time were unabashedly celebratory, calling into question their intellectual objectivity. Yet, the mainstream criticisms of these young iconoclastic scholars were often exaggerated and, in many cases, completely misguided. It should be noted, too, that the foundational literature of any new discipline is bound to lack the intellectual rigor others might desire. This was as true of the emerging social sciences in the late nineteenth century as it has been for the plethora of other new disciplines spawned in the 1960s and 1970s. Nevertheless, fair or not, the integrity of the entire discipline was called into question and represented a challenge that needed to be addressed sooner or later. That opportunity came in the late 1990s. In light of a growing xenophobia, with nativist attacks centered on Mexicanos, not only in the community but in universities as well, I felt that it was imperative at this time to embark on a fresh uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu mexicanos 2 path in tracing the history of Mexican-origin communities in the United States, to initiate a new, or at least a different, kind of ethnic history than what was being attempted by Chicano scholars, one that would win the respect of the gatekeepers of academe. Trained in European history, I did not fully identify with the emerging Chicano perspective. This outsider status allowed me to question some of the assumptions of the new wave. However, I had no desire to repudiate the efforts of maligned colleagues but to build on them. What was needed in these studies was a greater degree of objectivity. Ultimately, I wanted to construct a realistic portrait of Mexicans in this country, warts and all. In an effort to win wider credibility for the emerging field of Chicana/o studies, I wished to examine Mexicanos in the same way as other US immigrant communities had been scrutinized by respected scholars in the past; for example, the Jews by Nathan Glazer or the Irish by Kerby Miller. Judging by the number of times Mexicanos has been cited in the bibliographies of mainstream US history textbooks in recent years, it seems reasonable to conclude that these efforts have not been in vain. And, of course, the book’s modest success largely reflects continuing demographic trends, notably the massive immigration from Mexico and other Latin American countries—allowing Latinos to overtake blacks as the country’s leading ethnic group—and, with their increasing presence in the Midwest and the South in particular, the transformation of Mexican Americans from a regional into a national minority. Unlike many other minorities in the United States—blacks and Native Americans, for example—the history of Mexicanos has largely been written by insiders, members of the ethnic community.3 However, this is not completely true. Indeed, the first serious attempt to uncover their history was made by the eminent journalist and civil rights activist Carey McWilliams (1905–1980), whose enormous impact has been so widely recognized by Chicanos themselves that he was selected the initial Scholar of the Year—an honor he shared with the renowned folklorist Américo Paredes—by the multidisciplinary National Association for Chicana and Chicano Studies (NACCS) in 1981.4 Many other non-Latinos have made important contributions to the field of Chicana/o studies. Among historians these include such stalwarts as Leonard Pitt, Matt S. Meier, Sarah Deutsch, Devra Weber, Stephanie Lewthwaite, Julie Leininger Pycior, John Kessell, and David J. Weber, the latter contributing not only as an indefatigable researcher but also as a leading mentor to aspiring minority scholars like myself.5 Moreover, in the United States, with only a few notable exceptions, the early history of Hispanic peoples in North America, the Spanish phase, continues to be the exclusive preserve of non-Latinos.6 Nevertheless, since the advent of ethnic studies in the 1960s, it is Mexicanorigin and other Latino scholars who have dominated the study of Mexicans in the United States. A product of the Chicano Movement, these youths prided themselves uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu Introduction 3 on community involvement; Chicanos saw themselves as scholar-activists. It should be made clear at the outset that most Mexican Americans who currently teach or research Mexican American history do not belong to NACCS.7 In fact, only a small number of them are members of Chicana/o studies departments or centers. In other words, the militant perspective characteristic of these programs is a distinct minority viewpoint among historians who specialize in the study of the Mexican American past. However, it has been these movement scholars who initiated the new academic interest in Mexicanos. Moreover, most of the cutting-edge work in the emerging field of study has emanated from these same scholar-activists. The reason is simple: committed to a multidisciplinary approach, these movement scholars experience and are more open to fresh perspectives, not only within their own umbrella discipline (Chicana/o studies) but also from allied and related fields that challenge “the master narrative,” such as queer studies and women’s studies, as well as programs that focus on other ethnic minorities. The most noteworthy of these pioneering scholars has undoubtedly been Rodolfo (Rudy) Acuña, the quintessential scholar-activist. By 1968, when he earned his PhD in Latin American history, Acuña was heavily involved in the Chicano Movement in southern California,8 and almost immediately became its leading intellectual. Unfortunately, his campus and community activism have often obscured his academic production and impact. Almost single-handedly, Acuña established the main lines of Chicano historical inquiry. His textbook Occupied America, which has gone through numerous revisions, each of them almost completely rewritten, remains “the Bible of Chicano Studies.” His emphasis on victimization and resistance dominated early Chicano historiography and still continues to resonate with many scholars.9 Professor Acuña and his generation created a firm foundation for the study of Chicano history. Influenced by studies in a variety of disciplines, however, the field has become ever more sophisticated. The initial focus on brown working-class Catholic men living in the Southwest has expanded tremendously. By the 1980s, the study of mujeres (women) was well under way, a trend initiated and still dominated by Chicanas themselves. The geographical dimensions were then broadened, first into the Midwest, where a Latino presence was long-standing, and more recently into the South, as Mexican immigrant communities sprang up across the country. Chicano social mobility has sparked an interest in exploring class as a subject of historical investigation. By the turn of the century, too, studies had been initiated into the rise of Protestantism in Latino communities, and there was evidence as well that, at long last, traditional resistance to the study of sexuality had been breached. As the historian Antonio Ríos-Bustamante chronicled in a comprehensive survey of Chicana/o historiography in 2000, movement colleagues, experimenting uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu mexicanos 4 with a wide variety of methodologies and interpretive models, had already produced an impressive body of solid scholarship.10 Since Ríos-Bustamante’s sanguine assessment of their output more than fifteen years ago, Chicano academics have only redoubled their efforts, in the process opening up many more areas of investigation, such as Hispanic participation in sports and the military. At present, cutting-edge scholarship seems to be focused on globalization, coloniality, transnational migration, and diasporic studies, trends amply reflected in dissertation titles and the periodical literature.11 In the 2009 edition of Mexicanos, I singled out the dearth of biographies by my ethnic studies colleagues as the greatest bibliographic failing in the field, a neglect that others too have noted more recently. “Biography may seem passé to young historians today,” the historian Virginia Sánchez Korrol has observed, “though I find it to be among the most challenging of historical writing. It is the one area where Latino history is most lacking.”12 Happily, however, some progress is being made here too.13 As a result, many Chicano scholars have now won wide and well-deserved recognition beyond Chicana/o studies. Richard Griswold del Castillo, Arnoldo De León, Juan Gómez-Quiñones, Mario T. García, Ignacio García, Gilbert González, David G. Gutiérrez, and Dennis Nodín Valdés are among the most renowned of the marquee names who have won the respect of their colleagues in the historical profession. Several of them have been elected to head prestigious historical associations. Félix D. Almaráz Jr. is the former president of both the Texas State Historical Society and the Texas Catholic Historical Society. George J. Sánchez served as president of the American Studies Association (ASA) in 2001. Albert Camarillo presided over the Organization of American Historians (OAH) in 2012. Vicki Ruiz has been elected president of both the OAH, in 2005, and the American Historical Association (AHA), in 2015, the only Hispanic scholar—man or woman—to ever serve in that office. Aside from Professor Ruiz, prominent women in the field include Deena González and Antonia Castañeda, the first Chicanas to receive doctorates in history.14 A cadre of young historians is currently revitalizing the field, joining a talented group of more mature professors now beginning to make their marks on the profession. The latter include Lorena Oropeza, Andrés Reséndez, Miroslava Chávez-García, Stephen Pitti, and a host of others. Several veteran scholars have taken on the important work of cultivating the youth movement. Perhaps the most dedicated and successful of these senior mentors have been Camarillo (at Stanford) and, once again, the hardworking Ruiz (at University of California, Irvine, and other universities). This influx of youth guarantees that Chicano history will continue to be what it has always been: an innovative field characterized by new interpretive frameworks and groundbreaking discoveries. Given the extensive and innovative work produced by this vibrant academic community in recent years, uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu Introduction 5 this edition of Mexicanos, even more than the previous two, is a synthesis and, to a large extent, a celebration of the great strides made by Chicana/o scholarship in history and virtually every other academic discipline. Although I have never been an activist and by temperament am inclined to avoid affiliation with any group, I consider myself a Chicano historian; that is, I experienced the movimiento and it affected me in a positive way. While I sometimes take Chicano colleagues to task, my criticisms have more to do with differences of interpretation than with fundamental principles. I should also make it clear at the outset that my academic training in the history of Western civilization has made me more sensitive to class than to race. As a college student at the University of California, Santa Barbara, I was strongly impacted by Marxism, like many other Chicano scholars who received their education in the 1960s and 1970s. Although I still accept Marxism as my main theoretical model—that people are moved primarily by self-interest is undeniable, in my view—this perspective is a secondary rather than a primary theme in my work.15 What I hope to accomplish is a concise and balanced account of the history of Mexicans in the United States, including background information beginning in the sixteenth century. I propose to incorporate the latest findings on the subject, paying particular attention to the work found in professional journals of history and related disciplines. In keeping with the most recent trends in the discipline, this edition of Mexicanos, like the previous two, tries to be inclusive; as I noted before, even vendidos (“sell-outs”) have a history. As with all scholars, my work is informed by my view of my particular discipline. Not all Chicano historians agree on the nature of history and historical study. Committed to a multidisciplinary approach from its very beginnings in the sixties, Chicano history has been receptive to many innovative approaches both from within and from outside the broader field of Chicana/o studies. External influences come from many academic areas, including but not limited to literary studies, women’s studies, cultural studies, queer studies, and other ethnic studies. As a consequence, Chicano historians have employed a wide variety of theoretical models. The most popular of these have been internal colonialism, world systems analysis, generational approaches, and historical materialism (the model I personally find most useful). A score of others, some of them quite exotic, have appealed to my colleagues in the field from time to time. No one model has been universally acclaimed.16 Theories, of course, are useful because they permit students of the human condition to look at things in new ways. However, it is important to maintain perspective. The study of history, in my view, boils down to asking three essential questions: What happened? Why did it happen? What difference did it make? For students of history, models are uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu mexicanos 6 simply tools to provide answers to these basic questions; they are means to an end, not an end in themselves. In some of the other social sciences, theoretical models have taken on a life of their own. One result is that for laypersons some of these monographs are virtually unreadable. History, though, is not generally a discipline that emphasizes theory, and my work is no exception to the rule. Unencumbered by excessive theoretical baggage, I hope I have related the stories of Mexicanos clearly and concisely. Since I am sometimes critical of what have become mainstream interpretations in Chicana/o studies departments during the past forty years, many of my Chicano colleagues will continue to find my work generally conservative. This perception may not only have something to do with the generation gap but also with the fact that my academic training in modern European and Latin American history has encouraged me to look at Chicano history with a certain sense of detachment. However, as I mentioned, being an outsider has its advantages. Moreover, I believe that there is room in the field for moderate as well as radical interpretations. In fact, there is a good deal of diversity among Chicano historians, a trend that is becoming more pronounced as time goes on. As is true of most thoughtful scholars, some of my views have evolved during the course of my career. One change, in particular, is relevant here: my perception of what constitutes objectivity. When I began my synthesis of Mexican American history in the nineties, reacting to a major deficiency in Chicano historiography, I promised an “objective” study. The reaction was delayed but inevitable. Soon after publication I was taken to task by a few Chicano scholars, who assured me that this goal—noble, at least in the abstract—was impossible.17 While not entirely convinced by their arguments, in retrospect, I must agree that their criticisms were basically sound. Postmodernism has little to offer historians. However, it does provide one very important insight: truth is in the eye of the beholder. As a Marxist, I appreciate this criticism. Karl Marx, after all, had cautioned that ideas were the products of a changing material environment. This healthy skepticism of what constitutes truth is shared by all the major thinkers who have taken a Marxian perspective, from Charles Beard through E. H. Carr to Michael Parenti, my most recent intellectual mentor. Among Chicanos, the Marxian view is best expressed by Professor Acuña, who writes, “Truth is socially constructed, not discovered. Strip away the political and cultural coverings that pass as ‘truth’ in each society and the power of hegemonic interests [is] exposed.”18 My own recent appreciation of this important insight, however, has less to do with intellectual currents than with personal experience. Like most Americans, I was strongly impacted by the events of September 11, 2001, and their consequences. Forced to get involved politically—I have been a staunch supporter of uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu Introduction 7 the antiwar movement—it was not long before I came to realize that many of my friends and colleagues, most of them very intelligent people, disagreed with me on my assessment of the war and the Bush administration. Only then did I come to truly appreciate the subjective nature of historical inquiry. My views of people who disagree with me are less judgmental than before. It follows, then, that I am now more understanding of divergent viewpoints expressed by my colleagues in Chicana/o studies. My expectations of their scholarship are more realistic. This change, too, stems from a better understanding of their work. Moreover, as indicated above, the field itself has evolved, and I propose for the better. There is a much greater degree of professionalism in the discipline, in part a result of better-trained young scholars entering the field. Possibly the single most momentous change during the past fifteen years has been the growing presence of Chicanas in the discipline. When Mexicanos was first published in 1999, I noted the dearth of female scholars in the field, which went a long way in explaining the scant coverage of mujeres in the historical literature. Happily, this deficiency is being addressed. Thus, women loom much larger in historical narratives today. Moreover, this growing literature, while mainly a product of female scholars, has also reflected a growing interest by their male colleagues. Following this trend, this edition of Mexicanos will expand its coverage of mujeres significantly. Finally, a word on terminology is in order. Based on interviews conducted in 1989–1990, the Latino National Political Survey (LNPS), the first nationally representative sample to provide solid empirical evidence about how Latinos see themselves, concluded that the most popular self-referent among people of Mexican background in the United States was Mexican (Mexicano in Spanish). According to Rodolfo O. de la Garza, a respected political scientist at the University of Texas and one of the authors of the study, 62 percent of people of Mexican heritage born in this country preferred this term, as did 86 percent of the immigrant population.19 In light of these surprising findings, many Chicano scholars have abandoned the term Chicano for the term Mexicano in their writings, a practice that I too will employ, especially since I plan to investigate newcomers as well as the native-born. When there is a need to distinguish between native-born and immigrants, I will use Mexican Americans for the former and Mexicans for the latter. To avoid confusion, the term Chicanos (and/or Chicanas) will be employed to specify members of the ethnic community who, during the 1960s and subsequently, endorsed the major tenets of Chicanismo; that is, Mexican Americans who, as the journalist Rubén Salazar defined them, came to embrace a non-Anglo image of themselves. Although Chicano historians generally dislike the term Hispanics, mainly because they feel that it stresses the European legacy to the complete exclusion of indigenous roots, uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu mexicanos 8 I will use the term, which is commonly used by others, interchangeably with the preferred Latinos (and/or Latinas) when referring to Americans of Latin American descent; that is, all Spanish-speaking people in the United States, exclusive of Spaniards and their descendants. Tejanos, Californios, and Hispanos (and/or their feminine forms) will designate native-born Spanish-speaking inhabitants of Texas, California, and New Mexico, respectively. NOTES 1. When I refer to an academic program or center, rather than the ethnic group, I will employ the adjective Chicana/o, which has become standard procedure within the discipline. At present the tendency within the academic discipline, especially among female scholars, is to employ the gender-neutral but grammatically awkward Chicana/os (or Chicano/as) as a term of reference for the ethnic community generally, both men and women. Writing for a boarder audience than just colleagues in academe, I prefer the older self-referent, Chicanos. In my work the term Chicanos should be understood to mean both men and women, unless I indicate otherwise. When I wish to specify males I will use a term like Chicano men; to specify females, I will of course use the term Chicanas. I have also avoided the terms Chicanx and Latinx. The use of these gender-neutral identifiers, in lieu of Chicana/o and Latina/o, is growing in academic circles (and social media platforms) but is not yet common practice. By their nature, ethnic terms are imprecise. In general, their true meaning can be understood by their context. 2. See Rodolfo F. Acuña, The Making of Chicana/o Studies: In the Trenches of Academe (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2011). 3. Deena J. González, Refusing the Favor: The Spanish-Mexican Women of Santa Fe, 1820–1880 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), p. 121. 4. Consult appendix A for a list of annual NACCS Scholar of the Year honorees. 5. Early on, there were Chicanos who resented the encroachment of non-Latinos into what they considered their domain, but this resistance is rapidly dissipating. Historian María Cristina García welcomes the change: “The discourse that Latino studies is only for Latinos—that it is a political project rather than an intellectual one—has been challenged. This wasn’t true fifteen years ago. It helps that non-Latino scholars are writing some excellent studies of Latino history—and whether we like it or not, this conveys openness and gives the field a certain legitimacy.” “Latino History: An Interchange on Present Realities and Future Prospects,” Journal of American History 97 (Sept. 2010): 447. 6. Among the most prominent Latino exceptions are Ralph H. Vigil, Gilbert R. Cruz, and Félix D. Almaráz, the biographer of the pioneer Latino scholar of the Spanish borderlands, Carlos Eduardo Castañeda. While Latino colonialists remain a small minority, their ranks seem to be growing during the last two or three decades. 7. In August 2017, for example, there were only 194 faculty members among 551 dues-paying members of NACCS. Email communication from Kathryn Blackmer Reyes, NACCS spokeswoman, Aug. 6, 2017. Of these academics, 62 were full professors, 58 were associate professors, 47 were assistant professors, and 27 were lecturers. How many of these professors are historians is not known, but since the faculty members represent all academic disciplines, the number of those in the historical profession must be quite small. 8. See Professor Acuña’s revealing interview in José Calderón, “‘We Have the Tiger by the Tail’: An Interview with Rudy Acuña,” Colorlines 2 (Summer 1999): 21. uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu Introduction 9 9. For outstanding examples, see Armando Navarro, Mexicano Political Experience in Occupied Aztlán: Struggles and Change (Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press, 2005); and George Mariscal, Brown-Eyed Children of the Sun: A Study of the Chicano Movement (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2005). 10. See Ríos-Bustamante, “General Survey of Chicano/a Historiography,” in Voices of a New Chicana/o History, ed. Refugio I. Rochín and Dennis N. Valdés (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2000), pp. 245–93, which includes a comprehensive catalogue of virtually all previous historiographic literature on Mexican Americans. For other bibliographies on the twentieth century, see Mexican American Voices, ed. Steven Mintz (St. James, NY: Brandywine Press, 2000), pp. 227–53; and Manuel Gonzales, “Bibliographic Essay,” in En Aquel Entonces: Readings in Mexican-American History, ed. Manuel G. Gonzales and Cynthia M. Gonzales (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000), pp. 271–77. For an update of more recent work on Mexican Americans, see my own bibliography in this volume. Other useful bibliographies can be found in Albert M. Camarillo, “Looking Back on Chicano History: A Generational Perspective,” Pacific Historical Review 82 (Nov. 2013): 496–504; and Carlos Kevin Blanton, ed., A Promising Problem: The New Chicana/o History (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2016), pp. 185–96. 11. For a current survey of Chicana/o scholarship, see Carlos Kevin Blanton, “Looking In while Stepping Out: Growth, Reassessment, and the Promising Problem of the New Chicana/o History,” in A Promising Problem, pp. 1–32. 12. “Latino History: An Interchange,” p. 455. Latina historians María Montoya and María Cristina García were in substantial agreement, pp. 456, 459. 13. See, for example, Andrés Reséndez, A Land So Strange: The Epic Journey of Cabeza de Vaca (New York: Basic Books, 2007); Carlos Manuel Salomón, Pío Pico: The Last Governor of Mexican California (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2010); Carlos Kevin Blanton, George I. Sánchez: The Long Fight for Mexican American Integration (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2014); and Carlos R. Herrera, Juan Bautista de Anza: The King’s Governor in New Mexico (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2015). 14. On Castañeda and her pioneering efforts, see Three Decades of Engendering History: Selected Works of Antonia I. Castañeda, ed. Linda Heidenreich (Denton, TX: University of North Texas Press, 2014). 15. This Marxist orientation informs my work on the New Right, written in collaboration with legal scholar Richard Delgado, The Politics of Fear: How Republicans Use Money, Race, and the Media to Win (Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers, 2006). For a solid Marxian interpretation of the Mexicano experience in the United States, devoid of ideological baggage, see Yolanda Alaníz and Megan Cornish, Viva La Raza: A History of Chicano Identity and Resistance (Seattle, WA: Red Letter Press, 2008). 16. Dennis N. Valdés and Refugio I. Rochín, “The Fruitless Search for a Chicana/o Paradigm,” in Voices of a New Chicana/o History, p. ix. 17. See the lengthy review of Mexicanos by Patricia M. Perea and Héctor A. Torres, Aztlán 28 (Spring 2003): 211–29. For other criticisms of my work by Chicana/o scholars, see the John Chávez review of Mexicanos in The Journal of American History 87 (June 2000): 190–91; and Mariscal, Brown-Eyed Children of the Sun, p. 286n52. 18. Rodolfo F. Acuña, “Truth and Objectivity in Chicano History,” in Voices of a New Chicana/o History, p. 36. 19. Mark McDonald, “Term Limits: Hispanic? Latino? A National Debate Proves No One Name Pleases Everyone,” Dallas Morning News, Jan. 13, 1993. Spaniards and Native Americans Prehistory–1521 1 Mexican American is a term devoid of meaning before 1848. The number of Mexicans residing in the United States before the Mexican Cession was negligible. Yet it would be a mistake to begin this history with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, for the roots of Mexican American history are buried in the distant past. In order to understand the people and their culture it is necessary to go back at least to the sixteenth century. Like most other Latin Americans, Mexicans are predominantly mestizos; that is, they are products of race mixture. When Spaniards invaded the New World in the 1500s and initiated contact with Amerindians in Mexico, the genesis of the Mexican community in the United States began. After a period of political and economic stagnation in the fourteenth century, the Renaissance (1453–1650), centered primarily in Italy, witnessed not only a momentous expansion of Europe’s intellectual and artistic horizons but also an enormous widening of its geographical limits. The Age of Exploration represents the first major expansion of the Europeans, who subsequently came to dominate much of the globe, thanks primarily to their superior technological development. Inspired by God, Gold, and Glory, Europeans pushed their frontiers in all directions, with their most meaningful acquisition being the New World. America was named after an Italian explorer, Amerigo Vespucci, but in the forefront of the process of discovery and conquest were the Spaniards, the chief beneficiaries of this initial wave of Western imperialistic activity. THE SPANIARDS Who were the Spaniards and why were they so successful? Building on the solid foundation laid by such notable twentieth-century giants as Américo Castro, Claudio Sánchez Albornoz, Salvador de Madariaga, and Ramón Menéndez Pidal, uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu Spaniards and Native Americans Prehistory–1521 11 modern-day Spanish scholars have found answers to these crucial questions in their country’s vibrant past. They have discovered that like other Europeans, Spaniards are a product of a multiplicity of cultures. Spanish history can be traced back to the Upper Paleolithic period (35,000 BCE–10,000 BCE), when primitive people dwelling in the Iberian Peninsula began to leave evidence of an emerging culture.1 Cave paintings, like those discovered in the 1890s in Altamira, near the northern port of Santander, illustrate the amazing creativity of these early inhabitants. These ancient pictures, mostly abstract depictions of animal life, have led modern scholars to designate the Upper Paleolithic the Cradle of Art. The following millennia are shrouded in mystery, but the Iberian Peninsula, a natural bridge between two continents, must have attracted a variety of people. Among them were Iberians, “dwellers along the Ebro River,” as they came to be called by the Greeks; Basques, whose origins are still much debated; Celts, who dominated the region, especially north of the Ebro River, in the period 900 BCE–650 BCE; Phoenicians, contemporaries of the Celts, who established colonies from their base in the eastern Mediterranean; and Greeks, who came at around 600 BCE to settle the coastal areas.2 Undoubtedly, however, the most influential of the ancient peoples to arrive were the Romans.3 Victors against Carthage, a Phoenician colony in modern-day Tunis, Roman legions acquired Iberia as a prize in 202 BCE, at the end of the Second Punic War. The Celt-Iberians put up a mighty resistance, but in the end, in 72 BCE, Rome’s famed legions prevailed, and the peninsula was divided into the three provinces of Lusitania, Baetica, and Hispania. Though exploited as colonials, the natives received valuable concessions from the Romans. Eventually, in fact, Hispania, the easternmost province, grew to be the wealthiest region in the Roman Empire. Some of its native sons went on to win fame and fortune as citizens of Rome. Both Seneca, the brilliant Stoic philosopher, and Hadrian, one of Rome’s most powerful emperors, were from Hispania. The cultural contributions Rome bestowed, according to most scholars, far outweighed the material riches it extorted from its conquered subjects. Rome imposed its laws, one of its finest achievements. It contributed Latin, which eventually gave rise to Castilian Spanish, a language so beautiful that reading it is still an emotional experience, as well as Catalán and Gallego. Rome also brought a belief system, Christianity, made the official religion of the Empire in the fourth century and a force second to none in shaping the emerging national character of the people. Increasingly beset by political and economic problems, the Roman Empire weakened after the third century of the Christian era. Overrun by Germanic tribes who administered the coup de grâce, the western half collapsed by the fifth century. Vandals now controlled North Africa, Franks reigned supreme in France, and even Italy found itself occupied, first by Ostrogoths, later by Lombards. The Visigoths, uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu mexicanos 12 following other northern tribes, settled in Spain beginning in 409, establishing their capital in Toledo. However, Germanic ascendancy proved to be short-lived.4 “Africa,” Spain’s detractors are fond of saying, echoing a statement originally attributed to Alexandre Dumas, “begins at the Pyrenees.” In fact, the impact of African culture has been profound on the Spanish psyche, something Spaniards were unwilling to concede until recently. Taking their cue from the eminent philosopher Miguel de Unamuno, Spanish intellectuals in the early part of the twentieth century began to reassess the role of the Moors in their history. Now most Spaniards find the Moorish legacy a source of considerable pride. The distinguished historian Américo Castro felt that Spanish history began with the arrival of the Moors in 711, when Tarik ibn Zizad led seven thousand Berber troops, recent Islamic converts from the mountains of Morocco, on a religious crusade across the Strait of Gibraltar. The campaign was a huge success; beginning with the Visigoth defeat at the Battle of Guadalete, the peninsula was overrun at breakneck speed. The Moors (Berber and Arab Moslems) penetrated into western Europe as far north as modern-day Poitiers or Tours—scholars differ on the precise location—where, with their religious zeal waning and their lines of communication overextended, they were finally stopped by Germanic Franks under Charles Martel. Retreating across the Pyrenees, Moslems began to consolidate their conquest of the Iberian Peninsula, the western frontier of a vast empire. Islamic Spain came to be known as al-Andalus, with Córdoba its capital. As Europe declined during its Middle Ages, the mantle of civilization shifted to the East—to Constantinople, the center of the Byzantine Empire, and to the Islamic world beyond. Moslem strength reached its zenith in the eighth century, when Islamic ships gained control of the Mediterranean, putting the Byzantines on the defensive. The caliphate was transferred in 750 from Damascus to Baghdad, in modern Iraq; and during the next few decades wealth from throughout the far-flung realm poured into that magnificent city, fueling an enormous upsurge of intellectual activity. Thereafter, the Islamic world itself began to weaken, mainly because of internal problems. By the year 1000 there were three caliphates instead of one, as Baghdad was now rivaled by Cairo in north Africa and Córdoba on the Iberian Peninsula. By this time, Moorish Spain, completely independent of Baghdad, had created a brilliant culture. The mosque at Córdoba was now the second most important center of worship in the Islamic world after Mecca itself. Moors occupied the Iberian Peninsula for over 750 years. During this period their influence came to permeate every aspect of life, especially in the south, in today’s Andalucía, where they established their major cities: Sevilla, Córdoba, and Granada. During their heyday in the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth centuries, they developed a civilization that was the envy of their northern neighbors. Moorish scholars not only helped to preserve the classical heritage of the West, but they uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu Spaniards and Native Americans Prehistory–1521 13 also made significant contributions of their own, notably in the arts, literature, mathematics, and philosophy. The most original Moorish man of letters was Ibn Rushd, known to the West as Averroës (1126–1198), an authority on Aristotle and a powerful influence on Christian thinkers during the late Middle Ages. The culture of al-Andalus was also enhanced by Jewish scholars. The diaspora into Iberia, which began as early as the second century CE, had produced a flourishing Jewish community in Moorish Spain, which, though open to exotic elements, largely maintained its own traditions, a freedom conceded by Tarik and his successors. The Jews of Sepharad (the Hebrew word for Iberia) prospered. “Andalusia,” the historian Howard M. Sachar observed, “offered Jews an arena for commerce unparalleled since the glory days of Rome.”5 They established academies in Barcelona, Córdoba, Granada, and Toledo. They translated the Talmud into Arabic. Their men of letters were renowned throughout the realm. Undoubtedly the most celebrated of these Sephardic thinkers, possibly the greatest philosopher Spain has ever produced, was Moses ben Maimon, or Maimonides (1135–1204), who lived in Córdoba, like his contemporary, Averroës. While the Moors enjoyed a happy coexistence with the Jews—at least until 1146, when a fanatical Islamic sect from Morocco, the Almohades, introduced religious intolerance—their relationship with the rest of the conquered population was far more complicated. From time to time the two peoples, colonizers and colonized, got along reasonably well; trade took place and intermarriage occurred. Some Christians, called mozárabes, assimilated Moslem culture. These amiable relations, however, were the exception rather than the rule. For the most part, there was animosity on both sides. From the very beginning of Moslem colonization, a small enclave of resistance emerged in Asturias, in the mountainous northwestern part of the peninsula. Under the leadership of the legendary Pelayo, who defeated the Moors at the memorable Battle of Covadonga in 722, this liberation movement, called the Reconquista (Reconquest) by Spanish historians, was modest at first.6 But as they advanced southward, in the process carving out a half dozen Christian kingdoms, the crusaders slowly seized the momentum, which was confirmed in 1085, when King Alfonso VI of León and Castilla recaptured Toledo. The Moors were now clearly on the defensive, as one by one Moorish strongholds surrendered, but chronic infighting among their Christian rivals staved off a final reckoning. However, the caliphate also was wrecked by internal dissension, which led to the famous victory by King Alfonso VIII of Castilla and his allies at Las Navas de Tolosa in 1212. Córdoba fell twenty-four years later, forcing the Moors to take refuge in Granada and its surrounding area. By now religion had come to play a vital role in Spanish life. Every campaign against the Moors was a holy crusade. Although the Age of the Christian Crusades is generally assumed to have begun in 1095, when Pope Urban II launched the uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu mexicanos 14 first crusade against the Saracens in an effort to regain the holy city of Jerusalem, Spanish knights had a long tradition by this time of warring against their Islamic adversaries under the banner of Santiago (Saint James), their patron saint. As in Ireland after the Protestant Reformation, religion in Spain came to be wedded to nationalism. The result was a profoundly militant form of Catholicism. The Spaniards’ fanatical devotion to their faith, reflected later in the Holy Office of the Inquisition (1479–1812) and in the zeal with which they proselytized Amerindians, is rooted in these early military campaigns. The Moors had a far-reaching impact on Iberian culture, on agriculture, music, and language; but none was more momentous than the deep and pervasive religiosity that they wove into the fabric of life of the Spanish people. Thus, it is generally agreed, “Spain is perhaps the most avidly Roman Catholic country in Europe, both in the sense of its official affiliation with the church in Rome and to the degree that the culture is permeated and uniquely colored by it.”7 Despite their common enemy and a unifying faith, however, the Christian kingdoms were unable to make much progress in establishing political unity among themselves after their successes against the infidels. Moreover, chronic violence, social instability, epidemic disease, famine, and civil war continued to plague Spanish society throughout the Late Middle Ages.8 Under these adverse conditions it proved impossible to dislodge the Moors from their southern strongholds. It was only in the mid-fifteenth century that the time seemed ripe for the final push. The marriage of Prince Ferdinand of Aragón and Princess Isabella of Castilla at Valladolid in 1469, and the union of the two realms five years later, paved the way for the final stage of the Reconquest. Los Reyes Católicos (the Catholic Kings), as they styled themselves, were deeply religious. However, both monarchs were equally absorbed with achieving political ends. Ferdinand, in fact, was later used as a model of the ideal statesman by the great political philosopher Niccolò Machiavelli. And Isabella was even more ambitious than her husband and probably more astute politically as well.9 On January 2, 1492, the mountainous kingdom of Granada, the last Islamic stronghold, was occupied when its inhabitants surrendered and were expelled from the country. Jewish expulsion followed two months later. The unification of Spain was now complete, or so it seemed.10 Both ethnic minorities, it should be added, could avoid expulsion by converting to Catholicism. Moorish moriscos and Jewish conversos, however, were now subject to the dreaded Inquisition, which reached the height of its power under the infamous Tomás de Torquemada, who served as inquisitor general from 1483 to 1498.11 The religious zeal that had resulted in the campaigns against judíos (Jews) and moros (Moors) was soon transferred overseas. In 1492 a New World was discovered with millions of potential converts, and Spain was anxious to propagate the faith. uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu Spaniards and Native Americans Prehistory–1521 15 The Spaniards were ideally situated to play this pioneering role not only because of their early creation of a unified national dynastic state but also because of their geographical position. Jutting out into the Atlantic, the Iberian Peninsula would be the launching pad for the early voyages of exploration. It was the Portuguese, Spain’s Iberian neighbors, who got off the mark first. Up to the twelfth century, Portugal was part of León, one of several provinces that emerged from the lands reclaimed from the Moors. During these years there developed a distinct Portuguese sense of nationalism as well as a separate language. By the end of the twelfth century, a robust dynastic state was competing with those in other parts of the peninsula. The most famous of the Avis, the ruling family that rose to power in the fourteenth century, was the son of King Joao I, Henrique, better known as Prince Henry the Navigator (1394–1460), who is credited with initiating Portugal’s interest in overseas exploration and settlement. This fascination was primarily economic in nature. At first, the Portuguese sought to monopolize trade with West Africa, which was rich in gold reserves. Eventually, as is well known, they became obsessed with the quest for an all-water route to Las Indias (the Indies), a vague geographical area that consisted of Southeast Asia and its offshore islands, the source of the coveted spices that had enriched Indian, Arab, and especially Italian middlemen. The fantastic profits made by the veneziani (Venetians) and genovesi (Genoans) go a long way in explaining the Italian Renaissance. By the mid-fifteenth century, Portuguese mariners trained at Sagres, a maritime academy established by Prince Henry on Portugal’s southernmost cape, were venturing out into the Atlantic. Having some knowledge of Africa’s contours, apparently based on Phoenician sources, the Portuguese felt that by sailing south they could get around the continent, thus arriving on the Indian Ocean, the gateway to the vast riches of the Orient. During the course of these epic fifteenth-century voyages, the Portuguese discovered and laid claim to several valuable islands, the Azores and the Madeiras being the most attractive to mainland entrepreneurs. They also initiated the slave trade in West Africa, the pernicious traffic in human beings that yielded fantastic financial profits to Europeans until its demise in the nineteenth century. A long series of arduous expeditions culminated in 1488 when Bartholomeu Dias rounded the Cape of Good Hope. Ten years later, in what is arguably the greatest maritime voyage of the Age of Exploration, according to the Spanish historian Felipe Fernández-Armesto, Vasco da Gama reached Calicut in India, thus inaugurating Portugal’s short-lived golden age. In fact, this voyage brought about a momentous transformation in the international balance of power. In the aftermath of da Gama’s successful mission, the world’s major theater of commercial activity was rapidly transferred from the Mediterranean Sea to the Atlantic Ocean, an economic shift signaling the decline of Italy, and ultimately its cultural hegemony, and the rise of uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu mexicanos 16 Western Europe. The primary beneficiary of this imperious change, however, was not Portugal, which declined so rapidly during the course of the sixteenth century that it was taken over by the Spanish Hapsburgs for sixty years beginning in 1580, but rather its larger and more powerful neighbor, Spain.12 One of the supreme ironies in history is that the most famous figure in Spanish history, Christopher Columbus (1451–1506), should be an Italian. Cristoforo Colombo was a native of a peninsula with a proud and glorious past but one rapidly eclipsed during his lifetime by his adopted homeland. Though ironic, Columbus’s role is not surprising. The Renaissance was a cosmopolitan period when nationalism was only just emerging—in many parts of Europe, regional allegiances continue to predominate over national sentiments to this day—and movement between emerging nations, while limited by technological and financial impediments, was relatively easy. At a time when maritime skills were highly valued, Italian mariners, the best in Europe at the time, found their services much in demand, and they displayed little temerity in hiring out to foreign employers. Giovanni Caboto, a Venetian who sailed for the English under the name John Cabot, and Giovanni da Verrazano, a Florentine contemporary and one of France’s leading explorers, are prime examples. Columbus himself seemed to have few qualms about settling down in Spain and serving its ambitious rulers. The details of Columbus’s life are vague, but its general outlines are clear enough. The son of a wool weaver, Cristoforo was born in the Republic of Genoa. He spent his youth learning the skills of seamanship, and by his early twenties he was already making regular trips throughout the Mediterranean aboard Italian vessels. Eventually, in 1479, he wound up in Lisbon, where he married Felipa Perestrello e Moniz, daughter of an Italian mariner and a member of one of Portugal’s oldest families. They settled down in Porto Santo, a small island in the Atlantic, part of the Madeira Archipelago, where Columbus went into the chart business. This livelihood was but a means to an end; Columbus dreamed of tapping the enormous wealth of the Spice Islands, known as the Moluccas to the Portuguese. He was aware of Portuguese expeditions moving south along the African coast, but he came to believe that the fabled lands, rich in silks, spices, and gems, could best be reached sailing westward. He initiated a series of petitions in an effort to win financial backing to prove his theories. Upon the death of his wife in 1485, he left for Spain. After an initial rebuke, followed by many trials and tribulations, he convinced Queen Isabella, apparently won over by his charm and bulldog determination, to back the risky enterprise. The Niña, the Pinta, and the Santa María left the port of Palos de la Frontera on August 3, 1492. Taking on supplies at the Canary Islands, the tiny ships then struggled across the Atlantic. Having miscalculated drastically, the admiral was forced to alter his ship log to bolster the flagging morale of his men. On October uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu Spaniards and Native Americans Prehistory–1521 17 12, his crew on the verge of mutiny, Columbus sighted land. He had arrived somewhere in the Bahamas. Sailing southwestward, the expedition came upon Cuba and Española, islands that would later be used as a springboard for exploration in every direction. Columbus returned to Spain, via Lisbon, with a small number of kidnapped natives and just enough gold to convince his patrons of his success and, incidentally, as Alistair Cooke aptly notes, to initiate “the longest, most determined, and most brutal gold rush in history.”13 The Admiral of the Ocean Sea made three subsequent voyages to the New World. Although these expeditions were largely disappointing, since they earned him little fame or fortune, Columbus believed he had reached Asia, a misconception he apparently maintained to his death in Valladolid, Spain, on May 20, 1506. His remains, taken first to Santo Domingo, then to Cuba, eventually were transported back to Spain, to the Cathedral of Sevilla, where they found a permanent resting place. It is not easy to assess Columbus’s role in history. In the past, most historians have agreed with the eminent biographer Samuel Eliot Morison, who saw in Columbus not only a great mariner but also the most remarkable figure of his age. Today, however, the Italian explorer is almost universally denigrated.14 Given the current loss of faith in Carlyle’s great man theory of history, scholars are less impressed by elites than they used to be. More importantly, however, Columbus is currently associated with European imperialism, a discredited and much-maligned phenomenon of the postcolonial world. Critics, especially in societies where multiculturalism has become increasingly popular, charge that the zealous leader, a devout Christian and ruthless entrepreneur, saw Indians as inferior and treated them accordingly. His legacy was not confined to the exploitation of peoples; he is also vilified for initiating the European assault on the virgin environment. Kirkpatrick Sale in his popular 1990 work The Conquest of Paradise: Christopher Columbus and the Columbian Legacy argues trenchantly for this revisionist interpretation. While Columbus was guilty of ethnocentrism and exploitation of peoples and resources, he was, unfortunately, typical of his age. Although the period of the Renaissance and Reformation was an epoch of almost unprecedented artistic and intellectual achievement, it was also an age of barbarism and intolerance. “It was . . . a time much given to terror, war, pestilence, famine, slavery and religious persecution, most emphatically not one to encourage gentleness or ecological concern.”15 While Europeans took advantage of native Americans, it is also true that they routinely victimized each other at home, where warfare was endemic. Nor were the native peoples morally superior. “The innocence of the indigenous Americans,” John Noble Wilford reminds us, “was more imagined than real. To one degree or another, they knew warfare, brutality, slavery, human sacrifice, and cannibalism.”16 Certainly, there was nothing peculiarly European about exploitation; the uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu mexicanos 18 Age of Columbus would not be the first time that the strong would take advantage of the weak nor would it be the last. Finally, it can be argued, if the brutal admiral was no better than his contemporaries, he was certainly no worse. While this era is sometimes called the Age of Titans, few of these so-called titans were noted for their saintly qualities, certainly not Machiavelli, nor even Luther. These remarkable individuals suffice to remind us that greatness is not defined by moral character but by influence. Perhaps the best assessment of the much-maligned explorer is given by Felipe Fernández-Armesto: “The real Columbus was a mixture of virtues and vices like the rest of us, not conspicuously good or just, but generally wellintentioned, who grappled creditably with intractable problems.”17 THE AMERINDIANS “Wherever I go, and people ask where I am from, I tell them I am Purepecha and I have a language and culture and a history.”18 This terse, but eloquent, declaration of identity, expressed by a proud immigrant from Michoacán about to be evicted from his ramshackle trailer park in the southern California desert, reminds us that the indigenous people of Mexico have a long and glorious past; one, moreover, that continues to define Mexicans and Mexican Americans. Although Europeans often saw the Americas as “virgin” territory, at the time of contact, according to current estimates, the two continents were occupied by almost one hundred million inhabitants. Under the mistaken assumption that he had reached Las Indias, Columbus referred to the people as Indios, and the term Indians came to be applied to them. Today, however, many tribal Americans prefer the term Native Americans (Indian and Native American will be used interchangeably in this work). From the very beginning, there was enormous heterogeneity among the native peoples of the Americas; indeed, as the historian Wilcomb E. Washburn has pointed out, there was probably more diversity among Native Americans than there was among the various European ethnic groups who came to colonize the area.19 This diversity belies a common origin. The question of Indian origins is still the leading question of New World archaeology. While it can be stated categorically that Native Americans did not evolve from lower forms of animal life independently in the New World—the genesis of human beings apparently occurred in east central Africa some three to five million years ago—there is much speculation as to their migration. One famous theory, endorsed by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) as well as a few non-Mormon scholars, is that all or most Indians are descended from people who migrated from the eastern Mediterranean basin. The most prominent hypothesis, however, has its origins in 1589 when a Spanish Jesuit, José de Acosta (ca. uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu Spaniards and Native Americans Prehistory–1521 19 1539–1600), guessed that Native Americans were descended from Asian peoples, a notion based on physical characteristics.20 The rise of modern science has tended to substantiate this latter theory, now called the Bering Strait Hypothesis, though in a much more sophisticated form. According to this view, the first nomads entered the Americas via an ice or land bridge connecting modern-day Siberia and Alaska sometime between 50,000 and 10,000 BCE, the end of the last Ice Age. Today this body of water is the Bering Strait, hence the designation of the theory, named after Vitus Bering (1680–1741), a Danish navigator who sailed through the passage during the eighteenth century. The consensus of informed opinion is that the first immigrants were a small band of hunters and gatherers who came in search of large game animals in about 30,000 BCE. They were probably Homo sapiens sapiens (not Neanderthals); that is, anatomically they were identical to humans living today, though scholars are not in agreement here. It appears there were several incoming waves of nomadic hunters, with the Eskimos representing the last large-scale migration, sometime shortly before the time of Jesus Christ. Penetrating south along the slopes of the Rockies, and possibly along the Pacific coast, these nomads eventually diffused in all directions over the course of several millennia, finally arriving at the southern tip of the Americas sometime around 8000 BCE. This theory of Mongolian origin and north-to-south migration is supported by the artifact record, as well as specialized studies of blood types, dental records, and linguistic analysis. When Europeans first encountered them, Native Americans were found everywhere in the Western Hemisphere. However, they were not living uniformly throughout the two continents. Clearly, there was a tendency by these early immigrants to avoid less attractive areas, tropical rain forests and deserts, and to seek healthier environments, preferably in moderate zones, or, when forced into the tropics, in highland areas. When Europeans arrived in the Americas, there were two large centers of population concentration: the Andean altiplano and Mesoamerica. While the tribal peoples of South America are fascinating, they are not essential in explaining the roots of the people of Mexico and their communities in the United States. It is the tribes of Mesoamerica that provide the key to an understanding of the Mexicans’ Indian legacy.21 The heavy population density of Mesoamerica reflected the advent of agriculture. The transition from a nomadic to a sedentary society seems to have occurred first in the highlands of south central Mexico. Certainly it was there, according to studies made by the Canadian anthropologist Richard S. MacNeish in the Tehuacán Valley in the state of Puebla, that corn, or maize, the basis of all Mesoamerican civilizations, was initially cultivated around 5000 BCE. From this source, the cultivation of maize spread both north and south. By the time Europeans arrived in the Americas, corn had been introduced into the uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu mexicanos 20 Southwest and throughout the eastern part of North America via the Mississippi Valley. Amerindians cultivated a variety of crops, including beans, squash, tomatoes, avocados, potatoes, and pumpkins; but it was corn that made possible the emergence of cities, the urban revolution that inaugurates the rise of civilization. The first of the pre-Columbian civilizations of the Americas developed in the lowlands of southern Vera Cruz and Tabasco, near the shores of the Caribbean Sea, not far from the cradle of agriculture on the central plateau. Discovered in the late 1930s by the American archaeologist Matthew W. Stirling, the ruins of these first cities, San Lorenzo and La Venta being the most impressive, have been dated as early as 1200 BCE. Built by a people who came to be called the Olmecs, after a later tribe of the same name, these initial urban clusters were actually ceremonial centers rather than full-fledged cities. The artifact record permits scholars to reconstruct a general outline of Olmec life.22 The economic mainstay of this advanced society, of all pre-Columbian civilizations, was agriculture. In addition to corn, farmers cultivated squashes, peppers, and tomatoes. However, there was also some manufacturing and considerable commerce. Having abandoned a nomadic lifestyle, the Olmecs, like other peoples in similar circumstances, began to develop a stratified society. At the top were priests, who exerted political power, which they shared with the nobility. Since warfare was common—the rise of civilization increases the amount of strife in society wherever it occurs—the nobles were a warrior aristocracy. Merchants and artisans constituted a small percentage of the population, but they had an impact far greater than their modest numbers might indicate, as there is evidence of an extensive trading network. The majority of the people, the commoners, were peasants. They lived on the outskirts of the ceremonial centers and in the surrounding countryside. At the bottom of the social pecking order were undoubtedly slaves, probably war captives from other tribes and Olmec citizens who forfeited their freedom because of mounting debts. The relative affluence of Olmec society permitted the rise of a complex and advanced culture. A rudimentary hieroglyphic writing system (not yet deciphered) evolved, perhaps, as in Mesopotamia and other early civilizations, an innovation introduced by merchants to facilitate commercial transactions. A calendar permitted farmers to keep track of time. Another remarkable element of Olmec culture was their artwork. Some experts have argued that the Olmecs superseded all preColumbian peoples in this regard. Their most prominent artistic creations were massive monolithic stone heads. Made of basalt, most stand about eight feet high. Evidence of a high degree of specialization, these beautiful colossal heads, some students have argued, may reflect an African influence. Undoubtedly, as New World archaeology progresses, scholars will discover that there were many transoceanic uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu Spaniards and Native Americans Prehistory–1521 21 contacts between the Americas and other continents, including Africa, only fifteen hundred miles from the Brazilian coast. The most vital aspect of Olmec culture was religion, which impacted every aspect of life. The Olmecs believed in a variety of deities (polytheism). These gods were highly revered; and there is good reason to believe that they exacted, through their priests, continual sacrifices, including human offerings, one of the outstanding characteristics of virtually all Mesoamerican civilizations. In general, these civilizations displayed amazing similarities, especially, as the Mexican scholar Enrique Florescano has demonstrated, in their religious beliefs, which suggests that they had a common heritage, probably the Olmecs. In the epoch between 300 CE and 900 CE, the classical period of New World civilization, there was an extraordinary flowering of culture in Mexico. During this golden age, a number of remarkable civilizations rose to prominence. One centered on Monte Albán, an elaborate ceremonial citadel discovered in the 1930s in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca. Built by the Zapotecs, the city, high atop an artificially flattened hill, was the focal point of an extensive empire impacted by both Olmecs and Mayas. Dominated by a powerful priesthood, Monte Albán flourished until the ninth century. Occupied thereafter by Mixtecs, a neighboring tribe to the west, the city was eventually abandoned; and, overgrown with jungle, it soon sank into oblivion. In the Valley of Mexico, site of present-day Mexico City, the classical period witnessed the rise and fall of another mighty urban society, Teotihuacán, “the place of the gods,” as the Aztecs later called it, though contemporaries knew it by the name Tollan. With a population that may have reached two hundred thousand at its zenith in 600 CE, it represents the largest metropolis in Mesoamerica up to that time. Its hub was the ceremonial center dominated by two gigantic monuments, the Pyramid of the Sun—its base larger than that of the Pyramid of Cheops in Egypt’s Giza Valley—and the smaller Pyramid of the Moon. Dedicated to commerce, Teotihuacanos—it is not known what they called themselves—extended their economic sway over most of southern Mexico before their sudden and mysterious destruction around 750 CE. The preeminent civilization of the classical period, indeed the most advanced of all New World societies, was the Mayan. Beginning at about 300 CE, a major cultural awakening took place in the inhospitable rainforests of Belize, Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, and neighboring parts of Mexico, where the Mayas established their initial city-states. Tikal, located in the Petén district of Guatemala, was the largest of these. Thought at first to be ceremonial centers like those of the Olmecs, with the population always dispersed in the surrounding area, it now appears that some Mayan sites were true cities. Cultural heirs of the Olmecs, the enterprising uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu mexicanos 22 Mayas carried their inheritance far beyond their predecessors. Given their primitive technology, the advances made in the intellectual realm were truly astonishing. At their height in the eighth century, the Mayas tracked stars, developed the concept of the zero, and had the ability to perform simple brain operations. Their astronomers traced the path of Venus with an error of only fourteen seconds a year. They created the only true writing system in the Americas—their hieroglyphics have recently been deciphered—and an elaborate calendar that was more accurate than that used in Europe before the Gregorian calendar of the late sixteenth century. In addition, Mayan art and architecture, well represented in Mexico City’s renowned National Museum of Anthropology, are extraordinary accomplishments. While they excelled in arts and sciences, the ancient Mayas, like the Greeks in the Old World, were unable to overcome their political differences. Divided into city-states controlled by warrior-kings, among the most celebrated being Pacal of Palenque, Shield Jaguar of Yaxchilan, and Yax-Pac of Copán, they proved incapable of creating a viable empire, as we would define it. Warfare was incessant among them. Scholars since the 1960s have discovered that human sacrifice was at least as characteristic of their society as it was of the Aztecs. Wars may also account for the decline of urban life at about 900, when the Mayas mysteriously abandoned their cities in the southern highlands and migrated to the Yucatán Peninsula, which had been a peripheral area before. While the archaeologist Sir Eric Thompson attributed the mass exodus to peasant uprisings, most scholars today emphasize ecological problems, most notably soil exhaustion. Yucatán witnessed the rise of new centers, including Chichén Itzá, Uxmal, and Mayapán. The northern migration revitalized their culture during the next few centuries, but the Mayas never regained their former eminence. The final decline began after about 1250. When the Spanish encountered the Mayas in the sixteenth century, they were a mere shadow of their old selves, their days of glory practically forgotten. During the postclassic period, from 900 to the Spanish Conquest, there were few intellectual and scientific advances. Physical evidence discovered at cities in Yucatán, especially Chichén Itzá, indicates that during this postclassic era the Mayas were impacted profoundly by some alien culture, possibly that of the Toltecs. Scholars know that this warlike tribe entered central Mexico from the northern arid steppes sometime around the tenth century. Establishing their capital at Tula, north of Teotihuacán, an abandoned city by that time,23 in the modern state of Hidalgo, the Toltecs assimilated the superior culture of the tribes of the Valley of Mexico, whom they came to dominate as they adopted an aggressive expansionist policy. Perhaps it was the opposition by these tribes that eventually forced the Toltecs to forsake Tula in the twelfth century and descend from the highlands to the shores of the Caribbean. They bequeathed a number of impressive aspects of their culture to the people they subjugated, among uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu Spaniards and Native Americans Prehistory–1521 23 them their chief deity, the benign Quetzalcóatl. Often depicted as a plumed serpent, this god was incorporated into the religious beliefs of both Mayas and Aztecs. Like the Toltecs, the Aztecs trace their origins to the northern deserts of Mexico, a term derived from Méxica, which is what they called themselves, though the site of their mythical homeland, Aztlán, continues to be the object of intense speculation.24 Náhuatl speakers, both tribes emerged from the Chichimecs (“the dog people”), a generic name for the wild tribes of the North. The Aztecs appeared in the Valley of Mexico, which they called Anáhuac, sometime in the early thirteenth century. Despised by stronger and more advanced tribes, they were forced to continue a nomadic existence for many years in search of a homeland. According to ancient prophecies, the sight of an eagle perched on a cactus plant with a serpent in its mouth would signal the spot where they were to stop, build a capital, and inaugurate their quest for hegemony. Apparently this event came to pass in 1325— scholars are able to decipher their calendar, which differs significantly from that of the Mayas—for in that year they began to build Tenochtitlán, present Mexico City, in the midst of Lake Texcoco. By the time of the Spanish conquest, according to the Mexican anthropologist Miguel León-Portilla, the city’s population “must have amounted at least to a quarter of a million.”25 Having constructed their capital, the intrepid Aztecs embarked on a series of military campaigns that resulted in the creation of a vast empire at a phenomenal speed. By the end of the fifteenth century, a Triple Alliance, consisting of Tlacopan, Texcoco, and Tenochtitlán, had been forged, but the Aztecs were first among equals.26 When the Spaniards entered their expanding domain in 1519, they encountered a militaristic and theocratic kingdom of more than six million inhabitants stretching throughout southern Mexico. The quest for material wealth and a desire for war captives, dictated by a mystical religion that demanded continuous human sacrifice, seemed to motivate Aztec conquests. The most bloodthirsty of their deities was Huitzilopochtli, their war god. Not all sacrificial casualties were war captives; occasionally, their own citizens were offered up to the gods. “There is no indication of voluntarism among victims,” the Australian historian Inga Clendinnen notes, “although some appear to have acquiesced in their fate.”27 Like the Romans, whom they resemble in many ways, Aztecs were master builders as well as valiant warriors. An extensive system of highways helped consolidate their power. Trade became as pivotal as warfare in spreading Aztec culture. What they contributed to their vassals was not insignificant. Given the massive destruction wrought by the conquest, there are few surviving Aztec relics, but the written records of the conquistadores indicate awesome achievements. Tenochtitl...
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