The White Colonial Project: Legacy of Hate & Conquest of Greater Mexico

1. The White Colonial Project:Legacy of Hate & Conquest of Greater Mexico

2. A Changing Global Order 1823 – Monroe Doctrine 1776 – Euro-American Revolution; Britain kicked out of N. America 1620 – Jamestown English colony est. 1803 – Louisiana Purchase 1763 - Royal Proclamation of 1790 –US passes the Naturalization Act 1521 – New Spain est. 1821 – Mexican Independence with Plan de Iguala

3. Objectives • Contextualize the roots of ‘America’ as a colonial project • Understand the historical reasoning and logic towards United States’ Empire • Critically assess the role of race and capital in creating US Nationhood and citizenship

4. Background • New Spain was a colony of Spain and it was hierarchically established along racial and gendered divisions. • Castas system • As a colony of Spain for 300 years, New Spain did not have basic economic systems: agriculture, ranching, mining. • “Enlightenment thinking and representative constitutionalism” influenced the rising population of the non-Spanish born.

5. Mexico’s Independence (1810-1821) • 1810 - Initiated with Father Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla with los de abajo • 1811-15 - José María Morelos y Pavón takes up arms in 1811 • An indigenous priest with African blood • Guadalupe Victoria and Vicente Guerrero waged guerilla warfare • 1821 - Joining efforts with Agustín de Iturbide, commander of royalist forces, Guerrero and many Creoles sign off on the Plan of Iguala

6. Plan de Iguala • Proclaimed on Feb. 24, but signed off on Aug. 24 of 1821 • Called for Guarantees of: • Religion (Roman Catholicism) • Independence (Mexico self-autonomy) • Union (social equality between the ‘races’)

7. On the other side... • United States’ revolution and construction of a nation-state was established via a white supremacist racial hierarchy and dependent on institutional slavery. • 1803 – US purchases the Louisiana Territory, adding 820,000 square miles to the new nation (p. 40) • 1819 – US acquires Florida, “another 58,664 square miles” • Adam-Onis Treaty: US in “getting Florida” renounces any claim to Texas • 1823 – Monroe Doctrine

8. Colonization “When people from a given country exploit the people and resources of another, subjugating the people they encounter, their culture and political order. The colonizers write histories and produce narratives (cultural production) to normalize their power position. Subjugated peoples, when they rise up, produce counter narratives—or stories and histories to counter the dominant, colonial narratives.” -- Dr. Linda Heidenreich-Zuniga

9. The White Colonial Project • 1787 – 3/5ths Compromise • 1790 – Naturalization Act • “free white men of good character” • 1830 – Indian Removal Act • Trail of Tears • 1830-35 – Sam Houston, Stephen Austin & Anglo-Tejano boys • “For fourteen years I have had a hard time of it, but nothing shall daunt my courage or abate my...object...to American Texas.” (p. 43) • Land Companies

11. Source: http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1199.html

12. Source: John Gast (1872) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manifest_destiny

13. The Invasion of Mexico • By mid-1840s: • US Pop. 17 million European immigrants and 3 million forced African immigrants • Mexico Pop. 4 million indigenous and 3 million mestizo, Afro-mestizo, and European • President James K. Polk desired to perpetuate US economic and political interests through the forced subjugation and takeover of: • Land • Resources • Labor

14. General Scott’s entrance into Mexico City Source: http://www.dmwv.org/mexwar/images/prints/scott3.jpg

15. Source: http://www.dmwv.org/mexwar/images/prints/plaza.jpg

16. History as Propaganda • Walt Whitman (poet) – Leaves of Green • Justin H. Smith (Historian) – The War with Mexico • John C. Calhoun (Politician) • “To incorporate Mexico, would be the very first instance of the kind of incorporating an Indian race for more than half of the Mexicans are Indians, and the other is composed chiefly of mixed tribes. I protest such a union as that! Ours, sir, is the Government of a white race.”

17. Legacies of the Anglo-American War on Mexico “Again, the pride of race has swollen to still greater insolence the pride of country, always quite active enough for the due observance of the claims of universal brotherhood. The Anglo-Saxons have been apparently persuaded to think themselves the chosen people, anointed race of the Lord, commissioned to drive out the heathen, and plant their religion and institutions in every Canaan they could subjugate... Our treatment both of the red man and the black man has habituated us to feel our power and forget right....” (Abiel Abbott Livermore in The War with Mexico Reviewed) p. 48

18. Class Activity • Break up into your ASSIGNED semester class groups • As a group (that means collectively), complete Axis of Analysis worksheet