I found both the lecture video, the youtube video, and Columbus’ journal all to be insightful and important in our quest to define, and understand the varying definitions of Latin America. Prefacing this week’s lesson with the date of October 12th, 1492 being the dividing line between two sections of history in the region, pre-hispanic and post-colonial periods, structures the journey of Christopher Columbus to be a monumental one. Even though as Professor Beasely-Murray points out, the weight of Columbus’ journey was not realized (or, perhaps, created as a narrative,) until long after the date. One of the largest questions raised with October 12th 1492 and the separation of pre- and post-colonial periods in this region is how Columbus’ journey directly set the foundations for Latin America to become an official region of the world.

I believe, based on the videos and the reading, that Columbus’ journey firstly initiated the “formation” of Latin America by bringing the Spanish language, and the Catholic religion. Disregarding the stereotypes of Latin America as a region (and Latin American people,) that would come hundreds of years later, one of the founding principles of Latin America that we stated as a class was the widespread Catholocism and the Spanish language. Both of these founding principles can be traced back to the arrival of Columbus and his men; had they not traveled to the Bahamas, Spanish and Catholicism may or may not have reached the country before another language and religion did. I found it interesting that some of the stereotypes that still exist today about Latin Americans can be seen in an archaeic form in Colombus’ writing. For example, the theme of characterizing the natives as almost animalistic in nature, having “hair like a horses tail” and walking around “as naked as the day they were born”. Though present-day we have (hopefully) learned better than to animalize human beings, there is still the underlying idea of Latin Americans being almost animal-like in their raw passion- the “Latin Lover”, the promiscuous woman, etc. Contrastingly, Columbus refers to the natives as intelligent when he is speaking of them picking up the language, which is very much not a current stereotype or generalization of Latin American people.

All in all, I am eager to hear about how Columbus’ initial journey transformed into the total takeover of the Spanish language in Latin America, and what affects that had in the creation of Latin America as both an idea and as a region.

 

Discussion Questions:

  • Does anyone have more context about the Jews being expelled from kingdoms and territories?
  • What are your (other classmembers) ideas on how Columbus’ visit affected the idea of Latin America? To what extent?
  • Is it even appropriate at all to mark 1492 as the start of “Latin America” and thus the start of post-colonial “Latin American history”?