This week focuses on slavery and the shift of rights & politics in Latin America.

I decided to look at the Political Program of the Partido Independiente de Color since we didn’t really discuss it in class.

I was curious so I did a little research on the Partido Independiente de Color (PIC) and I learned that this Cuban political party was formed in 1908 and it consisted mostly of former African slaves as well as veterans of the Cuban War of Independence against Spain (1895–1898). The text outlines the beliefs of the PIC which include things such as equality among all races, free education, and abolition of the death penalty.

Pertaining to the week’s topic of citizenship and rights in the “New Republics”, this particular reading shines attention on the shift from colonialism and slavery to  more left-leaning politics in the wake of liberation and independence in Latin America.

I had no prior knowledge of the Caudillos before this week’s readings.

It was interesting to learn that despite being brutal and corrupt that people were attracted to them. The peasant understandable favoured the Caudillos as they weren’t distant like the Spanish crown or government officials in the big cities, and the Caudillos promised to help them in exchange for their loyalty; the people wanted someone to make their voices heard and give them respect, and the Caudillos provided that. They were brutal and corrupt but they gained support by helping the dissatisfied peasantry, and because of their impact on political development it is hard to say whether or not they can truly be labelled as bad.

I found the speech by Hugo Chávez to be the most interesting of the the reading this week as it highlighted how many countries in Latin America struggled against the lingering grasp of colonialism. In his speech, he refers to the Simón Bolívar and the Letter from Jamaica (which was written a century ago at the time); though a hundred years had passed, the hopes that Bolívar had for Latin American hadn’t been fulfilled.

Observing the all the readings as a whole, they demonstrate the diversity of Latin American – each countries history and subsequent views/ideologies differing from one another. It’s fascinating how the different the views are throughout the region and how even in one country that ideologies are contested.

I’ve never heard of Catalina de Erauso before reading the excerpt from her memoir.

Her story is interesting and she is undoubtedly a very brave woman but it’s seems far too fantastical to be real; for example, her almost supernatural ability to not be discovered (ie. how her own parents didn’t recognize her), and the reaction of the Catholic Church to her activities disguised as a man (at this time, one would assume that Catalina de Erauso would have been at the least excommunicate but instead the Church allowed her to continue her adventures – albeit under the strange condition that she remained a virgin) do not strike me as realistic .

Her tale is full of action, adventure, and improbably luck that it cannot be seen as anything but fictional from my point of view. Regardless, Catalina de Erauso desired to have the same rights & freedoms as men and she was very brave for acting against prominent values in of her time.

Other than the question of whether or not her story is fact or fiction, there is the matter of whether or not she was a hero or a ‘villain’ – some praise the ‘lieutenant nun’ as a hero yet some of her actions detract from this idealized image.

I guess we’ll never know the real story of Catalina de Erauso.

It was interesting to read through Columbus’ journal entries and see his point of view on his expeditions. One interesting point of focus is his opinion of the natives.  Columbus essentially enslaved and abducted natives for his cause – it’s rather disturbing how he writes in his entries as if he’s doing the right thing and that he was merely acting on “God’s will” (there’s clearly nothing wrong with enslaving and abducting people, quite a holy mission indeed). None of this should come as surprise but it was a bit startling how much deception and romanticizing he does of almost everything that occurred, and from this we can only guess that Columbus most likely left some details out; since there’s no documentation of the natives’ perspective of the events, it’s impossible to figure out exactly how things unfolded.

Some questions:

(1) If the natives acted violently at Columbus’ arrival, would things have turned out differently?

(2) Did any of Columbus’ own crew turn against, or at the least merely disagree, with what he was doing?

(3) Clearly Columbus was not a very good person but why his he idolized (ie. in North America) and why is the darker side of his expedition not really discussed?