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This essay focuses on critiquing the Spanish conquest in North America. The articles critiqued in this essay are a collection of works by different writers and are based on varied interpretations of the historical events, the chronology of those events, the factors, and the reasons why the Spaniards successfully establish their colony in North America. The first article “Pueblos, Spaniards, and History” by David Weber, focuses on the controversial relationship between the Pueblos and the Spaniards. “Pueblos, Spaniards, and History” appears in the 2000 Edition of Michael Ornelas’ book “Between the Conquests” published by Kendall/Hunt.
The second article is entitled “The Borderlands in North American History” and is authored by Father Francis Bannon. In “The Borderlands in North American History” Bannon mainly focuses on the concept of boundaries and presents it from a multidimensional perspective. Like Weber’s article, “The Borderlands in North American History” also appears in the 2000 edition of Michael Ornelas’ book “Between the Conquests” published by Kendall/Hunt.
The last article “Sexual Violence in the Politics and Policies of Conquest: Amerindian Women and the Spanish Conquest of Alta California,” is authored by Antonia Castaneda. “Sexual Violence in the Politics and Policies of Conquest: Amerindian Women and the Spanish Conquest of Alta California,” has a gender-based theme, and primarily focuses on the history of sex offenses in North America. Like the other two articles, “Sexual Violence in the Politics and Policies of Conquest: Amerindian Women and the Spanish Conquest of Alta California,” appears in the 2000 Edition of Michael Ornelas’ book “Between the Conquests” published by Kendall/Hunt.
In the article “Pueblos, Spaniards, and History” by David Weber, the author explores the historical perspective of the relationship between the Pueblos and the Spaniards, the tense, controversial, and largely un-understood co-existence between these two communities, and what led to its breakdown. In this article, Weber critically examines the possible mediating factors that led to the breakdown of otherwise peaceful coexistence.
Weber notes that there are both physical and social barriers that separated the two communities. As much as the Pueblos and the Spaniards were separated by distance, they were also separated by culture. According to Weber, there are notable differences and sometimes conflicting cultural elements between these two communities. Additionally, the language was one of the social barriers that marked the difference between these two communities.
Nevertheless, Weber asserts that these two communities had experienced moments of peace and tranquility regardless of the notable differences. As stated earlier, Weber notes that there might have been some mediating factors that catalyzed the pueblo rebellion against the Spanish colonizers. Weber notes that the suppression of the pueblo religion might have triggered the revolt. Despite the prevailing peace between the Pueblos and the Spaniards, the pueblo community harbored inherent hatred for the Spanish.
This emanated from the ban on the pueblo religion by the Spanish and the imposition of forced labor. Weber challenges the reader to examine the importance of the pueblo religious beliefs and practices versus the Spanish Catholicism, especially, how Spanish Catholicism was presented to the pueblos.
According to Weber, pueblo religious practices were very important in their lives than the natural catastrophes, such as drought or constant raids by the Apache Indians, which the Spanish authorities failed to protect them against. As such, the pueblos were largely motivated to revolt by religious suppression against them (Weber 12). This argument presents a new perspective away from the Eurocentric perspective that has largely sought to justify the misgivings of colonialism in their colonies.
To fortify this claim, Weber enumerates certain pieces of evidence. Weber cites several facts and incidents, both preceding and those that followed the revolt, which he believes largely contributed to the revolution. First, there were occasional signs of revolt through certain religious activities.
This occurred in form of traditional dances and other elements of pueblo cultural practices. However, Weber alludes to the fact that the Spanish missed such signs as long as the natives overtly displayed Catholicism. Equally, Weber uses written works on the relationship between the pueblo and the Spanish from other writers and draws personal conclusions. For instance, Weber states that some of these authors had somewhat exaggerated facts, and thus misrepresented reality.
Weber has written numerous articles but “Pueblos, Spaniards, and History” is a fair attempt at describing a complex relationship between the pueblo and the Spanish in 17th century North America. However, citing a series of events and showing a correlation between them and a community’s history portrays this article as his construction of the pueblo-Spanish affair. Additionally, Weber questions some of the scholarly work existing on this subject. He states that the existence of the Spanish Villas is erroneously associated with the Spanish domination of the Amerindians (Weber 13 to 17). By questioning the validity of other scholar implies that he doubts scholarly work. Since his article has been used within scholarly circles implies that it is also subject to criticism.
Father Francis Bannon, in his article “The Borderlands in North American History,” explores the concept of borders from a multidimensional perspective. Bannon presents borders as more than physical boundaries between communities and implies that a border is more of a national phenomenon in which boundaries exist as notions rather than physical attributes. In Bannon’s perspective, in 17th century North America, there were three major barriers through which communities demarcated their differences. Even though Bannon also defines the physical boundaries, there is an intricate pattern of political, economic, and religious boundaries between the communities living in North America.
Bannon goes further and highlights how the European colonialist mediated in the process of marking the physical, economic, political, and religious boundaries. In Bannon’s view, the European colonizers, The Spanish, had a significant influence on the definition of these borders. The inclusion of the Spanish introduced the element of chronology in two ways. To begin with, Bannon describes the chronology of the shifting Spanish borders, and how it mediated the notional boundaries; social, economic, political, and religious frontiers.
Additionally, the element of chronology is also depicted in the manner in which Bannon chronicles the time-based movement of the Spanish masters throughout North America. It is important to note that “The Borderlands in North American History” is presented as a denouement of the Spanish. Every event is related to the 1820s decline of the Spanish rule, and how the concept of borders led to this decline (Bannon 23 to 27).
Bannon fortifies his claims by integrating various pieces of evidence and tries to give “The Borderlands in North American History” a personal touch. Most of the evidence that Bannon uses come from previously existing works by other writers and artists. Bannon quotes the drawings of renowned artists such as José Cardero in which he depicts the confrontation between the Spanish soldiers and the Amerindians. Also, Bannon quotes the stories of legendary Spanish soldiers, who are assumed to have significantly contributed to the expansion of the Spanish frontiers, and whose stories are chronicled in the US government archives of American history.
Additionally, Bannon inherited most of his knowledge from Hebert Bolton, a renowned historian of North America studies. In “The Borderlands in North American History”, Bannon enumerates major works of Bolton, especially Bolton’s interpretation of 18th-century happenings. He also enumerates works of popular scholars such as Junipero Serra, and as Bannon asserts, for their popularity and credibility. Bannon also tries to justify the reason why the Spanish influence diminished at the beginning of the 1820s by asserting that they were not as good farmers as they were stockmen.
The fact that Bannon cites renowned writers such as Serra and Bolton might be contrived to imply that “The Borderlands in North American History” is credible and trustworthy. However, a true scholar ought to understand that most of the works cited by Bannon are likely to have lost meaning through interpretation. Additionally, Bannon uses artistic impressions from artists such as Jose caldera to fortify his facts (Bannon 25). However, when such pieces of evidence are harmonized with works whose original meaning might have been lost during translation, then Bannon’s claims associated with those pieces of evidence are also likely to be questioned.
Moreover, Bannon presents the Spanish as good stockmen and downplays their deficiencies in farming. He connects this piece of evidence with assertions that the diminishing mineral resources in North America might also have contributed to the decline of the Spanish conquest. However, this is likely to create a false impression that the end of the Spanish was naturally determined, and downplays the resilience of the Amerindians. Bannon’s work is not interesting to read as it is poorly organized. Bannon seems interested in highlighting facts from his perspective and thus largely ignores coherence.
In the article “Sexual Violence in the Politics and Policies of Conquest: Amerindian Women and the Spanish Conquest of Alta California,” Antonia Castaneda critically analyses gross sexual violence in the history of California (Castaneda 2000). Castaneda accounts for California sexual violence are almost unheard of to most Americans, and possibly do not exist in American archives, at least not in the way Castaneda presents it.
Castaneda presents the 18th-century Californian society as a system of sex offenders. Castaneda states that the Spanish soldiers went about raping and kidnapping Native American women living near Spanish missions, with reckless abandon, without fear of reprimand from the Spanish priests. Castaneda further asserts that the Native Americans, the Red Indians, had become so fearful of the Spanish soldiers that they usually secretly hid their women and children when the Spanish soldiers came exploring (Castaneda 39). Castaneda asserts that the Spanish priests involuntarily contributed towards the wide spread sexual offenses on the native American women.
The Spanish priests usually complained of the behavior of the soldiers against the Native American women. Nevertheless, the priests were part of the system that encouraged sexual and other forms of violence against Native American women by encouraging forced labor for women, indignifying the role of women in society, and propagating patriarchal ideals. Gradually California transferred its control from the Spanish to the Mexicans and eventually to American. However, despite these significant changes in the way in which the region was governed, the system of forced labor and the suppression of women continued for many years.
To support her claims, Castaneda uses different sources as evidence. Castaneda largely relies on letters from sixteenth-century writers such as Serra Junipero. Castaneda asserts that Serra derived her evidence from dialogues with several priests in the Spanish mission such as Bernal Diaz del Castillo, Father Panagua, Bartolome De Las Casas who was the chief priest as well as letters written to a college father in the name of Rafael Verger. Castaneda’s evidence from Serra to Verger and Bucareli is anecdotal.
This implies that most of what was told to Verger and Bucareli is verbal, and not empirically verifiable. Additionally, Castaneda uses other sources such as the Law of the Indies to reveal deeper gender issues that lay beneath the sexual exploitation of the Amerindian women. Castaneda also quotes studies done by Chicana scholars such as Oakah Jones Jr. in the 19th and 20th century, on the history of the Spanish conquest in California (Castaneda 40 to 44).
Castaneda tries to present the gross sexual violation of the Amerindian women from the 17th century onwards. However, her description falls short of presenting reality as it was. It is worth noting that these letters are undocumented and thus their credibility is seriously questionable. Additionally, while Castaneda uses evidence from the works of modern-day Chicana scholars such as Oakah Jones Jr. to add to the validity of her claims, she negates such works and refers to modern-day scholars as revisionists who fail to capture the real gender issues that affected the Amerindian women in the 17th century California (Castaneda 46).
While this is supposed to strengthen the credibility of her sources, it nevertheless reveals malice, on her part, towards modern-day scholars. The use of other sources such as the Law of the Indies is still questionable since Castaneda’s version slightly varies from existing sources. As such, while Castaneda’s intentions may not be questionable, her work fails to pass the credibility test and might be perceived as indirectly propagating female chauvinism.
The three authors portray North American history, from different perspectives. the difference, however, does not end in the perspectives in which the authors assume. The differences go further than that into how the facts are presented. Weber, in “Pueblos, Spaniards, and History” is intricate in that he weaves the different dimensions from which the term border ought to be perceived. This article presents an interesting read to a scholar interested in how the different aspects of the pueblo-Spanish relationship are interlocked. In contrast to Weber, Bonnan is complicated and is more interested in displaying facts rather than how these facts interrelate.
The article lacks coherence and might also be perceived to be illogical. A reader is likely to be lost in a maze of facts. Castaneda, on the other hand, is more careful. Her article “Sexual Violence in the Politics and Policies of Conquest: Amerindian Women and the Spanish Conquest of Alta California,” is presented in a narrative format. It flows easily and makes an interesting read.
Works Cited
Bannon , Francis. “The Borderlands in North American History.” Between the Conquests. Ed. Michael Ornelas, New Jersey: Kendall/Hunt. 2000. Print.
Castaneda, Antonia. “Sexual Violence and the Policies and Politics of Conquest.” Between the Conquests. Ed. Michael Ornelas, New Jersey: Kendall/Hunt. 2000. Print.
Weber, David. “Pueblos, Spaniards, and History.” Between the Conquests. Ed. Michael Ornelas, New Jersey: Kendall/Hunt. 2000. Print.
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