History
Book Club
El Norte: Spain’s Exploration and Colonization
of North America
Wednesday,
September 25, 2019
Mexican-American War 1846-48.
Wednesday,
September 25, 2019: El Norte, the story of Spain’s exploration and colonization
of North America. Often
Americans study the growth of America from the standpoint of English
colonization and the push westward. There’s another, very complex story, of the
exploration of the Caribbean, Mexico, Florida and onward to California by the
Spanish. It’s the story of Conquistadors, Priests and Indigenous peoples who
created the Republic of Mexico, the nations of the Caribbean and Central
America, and made the first cities in Florida, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and
California and more. [Proposed by Sam Coulbourn]
Gibson, Carrie. El Norte: The Epic and
Forgotten Story of Hispanic North America; New York: Atlantic Monthly
Press. 2019.
The traditional way Americans are taught about the history of
America is Columbus discovered the New World in 1492; the Pilgrims landed in
1620. From that grew the 13 Colonies. There was a Revolution, we gained our
independence, people started to head west. Soon we had acquired states all the
way to California and even Hawaii and Alaska.
Early in that history slaves were
brought from Africa to America. Then people came from all over Europe to live
here.
Carrie Gibson, author of El Norte,
tells another story. After 1492 Spanish
explorers—soldiers conquered territory, priests tried to convert the conquered
Indians to Christianity, and civilians began colonies all over South America,
and North America. Mexico City became the capital of New Spain.
Time after time, our leaders have
shown their dislike and distrust for the Indians they encountered as they
traveled over the growing nation, and the same for those brown-skinned people
they encountered as they moved into New Spain, and eventually gained Texas and
New Mexico, Arizona and California to join the United States. And of course,
there were all those black Americans, descendants of those brought here as
slaves.
Gibson starts and ends her
exploration of Hispanic North America in Dalton, Georgia. When she graduated
from high school there, Mexico was coming to that town. Mexicans continued to
come and work in the rug factories there, and today they are the majority in
this city which is 1200 miles from Mexico.
English settlers, and their
descendants, as we swept across the continent, built and maintained a
particular history that centered upon the white man. The Indians we fought,
imprisoned, and drove into reservations.
After the slaves were freed, we worked hard to “keep them in their
place”. When the first American settlers arrived in northern Mexico, then
called Tejas, we accepted Mexican hospitality, then took the land for
America. The same with what is now California, Arizona and New Mexico.
All the time, we Americans taught
our children the history of a white America, with all these red, black and
brown-skinned Americans as kind of “background material”. Dalton lived for 20
years in England, as she worked on research projects involving Hispanic
America. She was alarmed in 2012 at the words white Americans used to refer to
Mexicans, envisioned as “illegals” and “border jumpers”. Then came the populist
movement she saw before the 2016 election, in which Mexicans were seen as a
threat; the chants to “Build the wall!” to keep out “Mexican
murderers and rapists.”
Dalton
quotes Poet Walt Whitman* in 1882 declaring that our history tied to white
Englishmen needed to be exposed to its rich Hispanic roots, and that is exactly
what she seeks to do in this book.
Gibson
begins with the landing in what became “Hispaniola” by Christopher Columbus in
1492. Then in 1508 Ponce de León claimed the island of Puerto Rico for Spain.
He landed in Florida in 1513 and was shot with an arrow by a Calusa Indian and
died in Puerto Rico.
Getting
started in Florida was hard for the Spaniards.
In Mexico Cortez found an established society, and he found gold and
silver. But in Florida the Indians moved
from place to place, the weather was steamy and hot or cold, and there were
plenty of mosquitoes. But no gold. However,
by the early 1600s Florida was firmly in Spain’s orbit, with thousands of
Christian converts; the French had been driven out and the Spanish had
numerous alliances with Indian tribes.
The
Spanish were brutal…there was much killing. But there was Bartolomé de las
Casas. His father had joined Columbus on his second voyage in 1493, and his son
arrived in Santo Domingo in 1502. He saw what was happening with bloodthirsty
soldiers, and he soon became a priest who was influential in turning many away
from brutality against the Indians.
In
1521 Spain conquered Mexica, and the whole territory that is now Mexico,
and on up into what is now California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas became
Nueva España.
In
1525 the first Spanish settlement in North America was established near Sapelo
Sound, GA. This is just north of St.
Simon’s Island and Brunswick, GA. In 1565 Pedro Menéndez de Avilés established
the first permanent settlement in
Florida, called San Augustine.
In
1535 Hernando Cortez sailed to Baja California in search of pearls. In 1602
Sebastián Vizcaino reached Cape Mendocino, CA, naming Monterey and San Diego
along the way.
In
1610 Santa Fe was founded in New Mexico. In 1718 the military presidio, San
Antonio de Bexár was built in south Texas, followed by construction of the
mission San Antonio de Valero, later to be called “The Alamo”.
Lots
of Spaniards were carving out what would become the United States, but white
Spaniards often mated with Indians, and they were living in many places long
before white English-speaking explorers and settlers arrived. If you grew up in
the southwest this is an old story, but somehow the idea that America’s first
class of people are white is one that has been pushed since the days of all
white settlements in the original 13 colonies.
Spaniards
established missions all over California, but after Mexico took over, they were
secularized. When the Americans took over California, they could see that the
missions were quickly disintegrating from neglect, but restoring them would be
very costly. They returned them to the
Roman Catholic Church. Sharp-eyed developers
in the late 19th century saw the value of the missions to help
market this glorious new American land. They turned to re-invigorating missions
San Juan Bautista, Soledad, San Antonio, Miguel and Luis Obispo, and Santa Inez
and Barbara.
In
2019 about 58.9 million people in the U.S. are of Hispanic heritage. That is about 18% of the population. In
California 38.6% are Hispanic and in Texas 38%. There are more Hispanics in New
York state than any other. It is time for
white Americans to recognize that these brown and black people are part of America.
They deserve to climb up the social ladder and to become equal partners in achieving
the American dream.
The
debate about immigration policy needs to take on a different tone. Of course, we cannot throw open our borders
and let all enter, but our policy cannot—must not—center upon fear of people
because of their race or national origin.
Many
of us are not accustomed to looking at our world this way, and it will take adjustment.
* Walt
Whitman has often been quoted in Hispanic writings and has been used to advance
the spirit of democracy, and the spirit of imperialism.
S.W. Coulbourn
HISTORY BOOK CLUB TOPICS FOR 2019
Three charismatic leaders
Wednesday, October 30, 2019: Charismatic leaders in History. What were the keys to Hitler’s, Churchill's, Mussolini's, FDR's successes? Keen perception of public moods? Oratory abilities? Character, firm ideology? Connecting to the people? How did they deploy their charisma? How could Napoleon manipulate the masses without TV ads? Why were people so perceptive to a madman in Germany? Recurring questions. [Proposed by Janos Posfai]
Wednesday,
November 13, 2019 [Two weeks earlier because of Thanksgiving and
another conflict] History of Farming in America. Examine the American Indians and their farming techniques, the
early colonists and the skills they brought from their home countries;
the food discoveries in the New World; Tobacco and Cotton and slavery; Farming
and the Dust Bowl; Government and Agriculture; Modern Agribusiness. [Proposed
by Sam Coulbourn]
NO
MEETING IN DECEMBER
Wednesday,
January 29, 2020. American Foreign Affairs after the Cold War. In the 1990s, America’s global primacy… The Cold War had ended with
Washington and its allies triumphant; democracy and free markets were spreading
like never before. Washington faced no near-term rivals for global power and
influence.. the defining feature of
international politics was American dominance. Then came conflict in former
Yugoslavia, and more turmoil among former Soviet and American middle east
allies. Rise of Terrorism. Osama bin Laden, al Qaeda, ISIS. G.H.W. Bush, Clinton, G.W. Bush,
Obama and Trump. Moscow and Beijing. Libya, Syria, Iran. [Proposed by Bill
Owen and Rick Heuser].
