Monthly Archives: September 2017

Independence Narratives, Past and Present

Upon Columbus’ arrival to the Americas, he struggled to describe and figure out everything he witnessed in the new continent. Further on, as the colonization process violently continued in Latin America, as racial diversity expanded across the continent. With the increased variety and combinations of the demographics of Latin America, it led to the creation of the Cast Paintings to categorise and classify each ‘family’ into social status. Casta Paintings visually narrated the diverse society Latin America was shaping into. This week, I would like to focus on the narratives of pre and post-independence of Latin America, but with more emphasis on Simon Bolivar.

Inhabitants of the Latin America did not have the political power to control their land, and in fact, the host of the colonies (Western powers) did. Political decisions were made on the other side of the continent, which led the citizens of the United States’ to rebel against the English empire as an example. The American independence movement from the English empire accelerated the Latin American citizen’s indignant feelings towards the host colonies. I believe it also gave confidence to the Latin Americans to rise up against the Spaniards.

Inhabitants of the Latin Americas were questioning if it was correct to hand over political and economic decisions over to the Spaniards instead of themselves who reside in a completely different environment.

Among the American revolution, Jean-Jacques Rousseau stated that “Men are born and remain free and equal in rights”, respectively, slaves in Haiti took action. In 1791, slaves rose up against the plantation owners, which led to the independence of Haiti.

Although Simon Bolivar himself was a creole (Latin American born European), and he disliked the dominant Spanish rule, Haitian revolution was a threat to him. This was because the creole maintained the upper crust on the social pyramid, and the event could’ve destroyed the societal hierarchy.

As I viewed the conversation video with Max Cameron, I was able to have a solid opinion about why Hugo Chavez, (viewed sometimes as a dictator), was able to maintain popular in modern day Venezuela. Chavez followed Boliarianism, where he hailed his charisma and attributes of Bolivar’s leadership. Known as a brilliant tactician, he confronted against the Spaniards and chased away Spanish domination. He eventually faced a problem, that countries in Latin America were in need of a new governing system, but obviously, there were no past models for these young countries to base their models on.

In the search for new governance model, Bolivar looked to France and UK’s traditional governance model. Meanwhile, Bolivar was also turning his back on the indigenous population in Latin America. There are mixed opinions about Bolivar’s accomplishment, as it gave more power to the creole’s who have treated the indigenous and the slaves fiercely than the Spanish born Spaniards.

Chavez wanted to complete the unfinished project of the Bolivar’s where it was to emancipate the Venezuelan citizens from a society where the Western powers do not ‘over-possess’ them.

The Colonial Experience

With the fall of the Granada, Muhammad XII surrendered to the Spanish catholic monarchs, which brought to an end to 800 years of Muslim control. Jews were told to leave the peninsula or force to be converted to Christianity, which is considered in the modern day as an exercise of ethnic cleansing. Since these two major events, Spain gained national solidarity and imperialistic power.

While on the other side of the continent, there were indigenous people who were viewed as natural slaves by the conquistadors. As conquistador’s cruelty continues, ‘Las Casas’ denounced its action and believed that the indigenous population was the potential converts to Christianity.

Spreading diseases from Europe to the Latin Americas led to a depopulation. It also weakened the indigenous resistance towards the Western powers. At the same time, slaves were imported from the Sub-Saharan Africa region through a slave trade and cultivating agriculture.

Latin America’s population by the mid-1800s was truly diverse, where the indigenous, white and black population were close to equal. However, due to inter-racial marriages, there were mestizos (white and indigenous), mulattos (white and black) and so on.

Casta Paintings were made to manage and observe the differences between the pure and inter-racial family image. In more detail, Cast Paintings comprised of scene series of 16 illustrations of families. However, those paintings became more complicated as it proceeded to the later generation, for example, white and mestizo combination. I agree that the Casta Paintings were created to ensure which types of families ended up in which hierarchical social order.

In the United States, anybody who has a black blood is black, but in Latin America, it is different, according to Casta Paintings, there were many complicated hierarchical classes. The lines between the Casta Paintings were needed because it was so blurry; it was purely to identify which families held more power.

My question here is: If it was so obvious to know that the pure white families were the rich, and the more white bloodline remains gain superiority in social class, why was it necessary to make those? Was it really necessary to view and understand for the Spanish and the conquistador to view social hierarchy classes?

The Meeting of the Two Worlds

In the second week of the course, we discussed the Columbus’ discovery of the Americas, and how this interaction between the two different worlds led to the creation of the term ‘Latin America’.

In the previous week, we discussed how vague the term ‘Latin America’ from the past to the present day, because there are social, political, language and geographical factors that draws the line between Latin America and the not Latin America. So, in the upcoming week, we learnt about where this terminology derived from, and how the meeting of the two world’s effected this whole region.

I knew that the Columbus was not the first European to land in the Americas, because I read books about the vikings reaching to the Americas five centuries ago. However, I believe that the Columbus’ ‘accidental’ discovery of the Americas have changed the whole idealism of ‘exploration’ to ‘colonisation’.

I was taught in school that Columbus was the first person to discover the Americas. As a child, I thought he was such a courageous man who left his home for years and sailed off for a tough mission for crown’s fame. Although, since the readings, my perspective towards Columbus have changed.

When Columbus stepped his foot onto the Bahamas in 1492, it is said that it marked the beginning of ‘Latin America’. The word ‘latin’ describes the southern European empires which colonised ‘America’, so I agree about when ‘Latin America’ began.

Streets, cities and countries were named after him to praise his ‘achievement’ for voyaging to a new continent. His ‘achievement’ is the best point to argue and discuss. Would you call a purely accidental discovery an achievement? He was supposed to sail to East Asia and discover so-called India, but ended up in an opposite continent, and mis-naming the natives as Indians.

His constant search for gold made him greedy and there was a feeling of anxiety in him because he had to convince the crowd that it was worth the effort, despite his crucial mistake in his voyages. It was truly a selfish; self-justification for false recognizing a continent, however, I believe he deserves some credit for fostering the European empires.

I wonder how the modern citizens of Latin America feel about Columbus and how they would perceive his achievements. My thoughts have changed after reading Columbus describing this event in his own words. I imagine it would’ve been difficult for him to describe what he witnessed in the new continent because he constantly used similies.

Hi,

My name is Roy and I am fourth-year business student, who specialises in Operations and Logistics. Although I study business, I have a strong interest (probably more than what I study) in learning about history and cultures around the world. Since childhood, I grew up with Brazilians and Peruvians, so I have a strong interest especially in the Latin America region.

On this blog post, I would like to comment on some of the previous student videos that I enjoyed watching.

The War on Drugs by Diane Keyes and Michelle Nzioki

Although I felt that the delivery of the content was sometimes inconsistent, I did enjoy watching this one because the group members were enthusiastic. It was also interesting to hear real life events from one of the group member who came from Colombia. By sharing personal stories like this, it made this video more worthy to view.

Caudillos by Anna Wilmann, Elyse Doyle, Emma Elsner, Isabel Masters, Rachel White

I have never heard of ‘Caudillos’, in my life so, by watching this video, it gave me some insights that there were many dictators in Latin America. The contents in this video was delivered throughout posters and post-it cards with adorable drawings and writings, which made this video fun to watch.

Modernity in Latin America by Thamer Farjo, Nicole Gross, Nicola Cox, Austin Chang, Allysia Lam

I thought this video was difficult to bore me because though simple, when the speaker was talking, images cut in through the scene. It also made it easier for the viewers to understand by having subtitles and by speakers being filmed into the scene. One weak point was the editing of the film, when speakers had different volume while they speak, so I had to constantly change the volume on my computer. By watching this video, I was able to understand that the speakers had great understanding for what they were talking about. There was a lot of takeaways from watching this video for example, learning about how the trade with the Northern Americas prospered the living standards living in the Latin America region by trading precious resources like iron in return. Alternatively, it was also interesting to know about president Diaz, who had mix reputation among the citizens. Diaz pushed the economy by rapidly implementing railroad systems and earning foreign investments. However, due to the rapid foreign investments, lands were owned by investors abroad, which gave no chance to the lower class to own some land. By listening into this video, I was able to understand why the gaps between the social class have widened.

Thank you for reading,

Ryotaro (Roy) Saito