Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Musical “Conquest”: The Spanish Use Of Music In The Spiritual Conquest Of The Nahua Peoples Of Sixteenth-Century Mexico, John Richardson

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Historians have grown more interested in Spanish Conquest and colonialism in the last century. While earlier historians saw the conquest through a more euro-centric lens, recent historians have tried to take a more nuanced approach to understanding the conquest. Within this research, historians are questioning traditional narratives of the "spiritual conquest," or the conversion of native peoples to Christianity. Scholars have shown that "conquest" is not the best term for this process, as there was much more give and take at play.

My research seeks to strengthen this narrative of religious accommodation through the lens of music. The transmission of …

Forgetting The Mine Wars: Erasing Insurrection In West Virginia History, Samuel Heywood

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This thesis examines the concerted effort in the West Virginia school system to forget a massive labor movement in the early 20^th century. Business leaders and government leaders turned to the classroom to try and control the memory of future generations to ensure a positive perception of the coal industry and avoid any more violent confrontations. After a brief summary of the Mine Wars for context, this thesis uses textbooks to analyze how the authors omitted the conflict and instead used patriotic propaganda to create loyal citizens. Although the Mine Wars have since been included in state history textbooks, …