Latin American History Commons^™

Cultivating Smiles On The Frontier: The Making Of Brazil’S Soybean Capital And Community Building In Sorriso, 1980-2020, Nathalia Francio Cocenza

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation explores the transformation of Sorriso, a small municipality in Mato Grosso, Brazil, into one of the world's leading soybean producers, placing its local history within the broader context of global agricultural and economic shifts from 1980 to 2020. Sorriso represents the unique convergence of local, regional, and international forces that reshaped Brazil's agricultural landscape. This study critically examines the political, environmental, and social dynamics that positioned Sorriso at the forefront of soybean production, illuminating the town's transition from a remote frontier settlement to a global agribusiness hub.

Through a detailed analysis of previously unstudied archival sources, interviews with …

Pilgrimage, Trade And Empire: A Gis Investigation Of Pre-Hispanic Roads In The Ocoña And Chorunga Valleys Of Peru, Geri Evilla

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This research examines Inca imperial expansion into the Ocoña and Chorunga Valleys, through an investigation of precolonial roads and trails. It focuses on the Middle to Late Horizons (700 BCE-1534 CE), with specific attention to the last 100 years, when the region was occupied by the Inca state and experienced a rapid increase in population and architectural development. Data collected in excavations, and pedestrian, and drone surveys were used in geographic information systems, to map pre-Hispanic road systems. A combination of Least Cost Path and viewshed analyses were used to investigate land use patterns and tie this region into the …

Balancing Power And Influence: U.S.-Brazil Foreign Relations In The 20th Century, Thais Russo Goncalves

The Kennesaw Journal of Undergraduate Research

This paper explores the intricate dynamics of U.S. foreign policies directed toward Brazil during the 20th century. The paper examines Brazil’s unique role in Latin America as the only country in the region to actively participate in both World Wars, which led to its emergence as a key ally of the United States. This partnership influenced U.S. foreign policy, particularly in economic and military aid, fostering Brazil’s dependency on the U.S. while simultaneously granting it regional significance. The paper acknowledges four schools of thought: exclusion, reactionary, parental, and economic-political, to analyze the motivations and implications of U.S. policies. The exclusion …

Iberian Origins Of New Mexico's Community Acequias, Jose A. Rivera Ph.D., Thomas F. Glick Ph.D.

Faculty Publications

When Spanish officials first entered the northern region of New Spain in the late sixteenth century, they realized that irrigation would be a necessary development in the establishment of permanent communities. To sustain the early settlements, they built irrigation systems following the Iberian model, itself an extension of Arabo-Berber traditions from north Africa and the Middle East.

The Chumash War Of 1824: Revolution And Counterrevolution In The California Missions Santa Inés, Santa Barbara, And La Purísima, Joseph V. Payne

Master's Theses

In 1824, the Indigenous Chumash of Missions Santa Inés, Santa Barbara, and La Purísima de Concepción went to war against the settler-colonial system that bonded them to the mission lands and forced labor regime demanded by the Spanish Franciscan missionaries and compelled by Mexican military force in Alta California. The conflict lasted months and included violent battles and skirmishes at all three missions, the militant occupation and reclamation of La Purísima, a mass exodus to the interior of the territory, and the subsequent counterrevolutionary collaboration of the Spanish missionaries and Mexican military to return many (but not all) of the …

Land And Sea: Maritime Capitalism, Terrestrial Frontiers And Their Literary Mediations In Nineteenth-Century Argentina, Claudio Aguayo-Borquez Ph.D.

Modern Languages Faculty Publications

This paper grapples with two crucial landscapes of extraction of the Argentine nineteenth century and their mediation through literature: maritime capitalism and primitive accumulation. First, it describes Domingo Faustino Sarmiento's aquatic utopia, focusing on his Americanism, his equation between oceans and plains and the aporias of his Orientalism. Second, this study shows an early displacement towards countryside provincialism in Argentine ideology by analysing José Mármol's novel Amalia. Departing from Etienne Balibar's concept of interior frontiers, this paper shows the emergence of a terrestrial imagination that was crucial for the consolidation of telluric ideologies. This process of ideological displacement coincides with …

Atoms For Agency: How Argentina’S Pursuit Of Nuclear Power Plants Represents International Legitimacy And Autonomy, 1951-1978., Jacob R. Gressin

Binghamton University Undergraduate Journal

Since 1949 Argentina has developed nuclear power plants (NPPs), overcoming political instability and financial barriers, to eventually succeed in the activation of Latin America’s first nuclear power plant, Atucha-1, in 1974. However, given the ample means of electrical production though fossil fuels and hydroelectric power, NPPs in Argentina present a paradoxical means of electrical production. This paper analyzes the history of Argentina’s nuclear power program, from 1951-1978, in order to offer a more holistic understanding of why NPPs were developed. I argue that nuclear power in Argentina was motivated not by a desire for electrical generation or to manufacture …

Hemispheres Of Faith: Mapping The Global Journey Of An Ivory Rosary Bead At The Metropolitan Museum Of Art, Mary M. Thompson

Theses and Dissertations

Hemispheres of Faith reattributes a carved ivory rosary bead in the Metropolitan Museum of Art to the Quito School in 18th-century Ecuador. Through examining the trade history of the Manila Galleons, material analysis, and iconographic study, Hemispheres of Faith challenges the bead's European origins and reveals the object as a product of global exchange, devotional practice, and colonial artistic collaboration within the Spanish Empire.

Recollections Of A Tejana Life, Carolina Yáñez

Art Theses and Dissertations

This thesis encompasses the life of a young woman navigating life in Texas through various political and social barriers. My interdisciplinary practice analyzes the historical context of Mexicans in Texas from its Revolutionary period into current injustices. Through fiber, printmaking, and photography I create a visual diary to illustrate what the political has made personal. These works display the beauty of Tejano culture, but also the power struggles that threaten communities I care for, as well as my own existence that persists against far-right wing agendas.

Current politics and government leadership in Texas have inspired me to make artwork calling …

Industrialization And Immigration: Latino And Hispanic Immigrants In The South Carolina Upstate, Matthew D. Girardeau

All Theses

European investment in the South Carolina Upstate created favorable conditions for Latino immigration. French tire manufacturer Michelin came to the region in the 1970s, and the construction of the largest BMW plant in the world in the 1990s greatly impacted the local economy. The Upstate had a history of outside investment, beginning with Northern industrialists in the textile industry and later European companies that provided equipment for textile mills. The automotive industry did not necessarily employ Latinos, but the money generated by the sector created booming construction and service industries. Latinos built a community in western Greenville County and established …

Imagining Indigeneity: The Construction Of The Indio In The Work Of José Carlos Mariátegui, Shaylee Luedders

History Undergraduate Honors Theses

The main focus of José Carlos Mariátegui’s (1894-1930) abundant literature was the adaptation of Marxist theory to the particular needs of Latin America. He is often considered the first major Latin American Marxist and played a key role in the history of leftism in the region. Among his most significant contributions to Marxism in Latin America is his incorporation of indigenous populations into a Marxist framework. He believed that, due to their history of communal ownership under the Inca, a “communist spirit” was retained in Peru’s indigenous population. In his writing about Peru’s potentially communist future, Mariátegui often touched on …

“África Es Nuestro Corazón, Nuestra Sangre”: Cuban Revolutionary Internationalism In Africa During The Inter-Conference Period, 1966-1979, Nathan C. Sommer

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Cuban foreign policy demonstrated continuity in Africa between the Tricontinental Conference of 1966 and the Sixth Summit of the Non-Aligned Movement in 1979. I look at Cuban involvement in African liberation movements of the mid-1960s to characterize the initial launch of Cuba’s yet-to-be fully developed Africa policy. Next, through the lens of the Ogaden War, I examine at the evolution of Cuban foreign policy in the late 1970s. By the time representatives from 82 countries came to Havana in January 1966, Cuba was heralded by the majority of non-aligned countries for their bravery and selflessness. By the late 1970s, significant …

Defined Places, Contested Memories: An Analysis Of Historical Memory In La Ascensión, Chihuahua, Mexico, Joel Gonzalez Parra

The Agora

La Ascensión, a town in Chihuahua, Mexico, was founded between 1871 and 1872 and represents a unique case of Mexican repatriation after the Mexican-American War. Its settlers underwent a double relocation, first from Doña Ana, New Mexico, in 1850 and again after the Mesilla Riot of 1871. While the Mexican government saw the town’s formation as a strategic emigration to modernize and defend the frontier, historical memory has largely overshadowed this foundational event, favoring the town’s role in the Mexican Revolution of 1910. This paper argues that broader historical narratives and political violence have obscured the town’s original settlers in …

Cuba's Reintegration Into The Inter-American System: The Treaty Of Tlatelolco, The Oas, And The End Of Latin America's Cold War, Isabella M. Stark

Madison Historical Review

This paper situates Cuba's reintegration into the inter-American system through its journey becoming a signatory to the Treaty of Tlatelolco -- the first nuclear weapons-free zone treaty designated to a populated region. The paper first analyzes and historicizes contested definitions of terms such as Latin Americanism vis à vis Pan-Americanism, the inter-American system, and different understandings of when the Cold War in Latin America closed. The paper then places the policies of revolutionary Cuba within the context of Castro's perception of the island as the vanguard of Latin Americanism. The paper concludes with how the collapse of the Soviet Union, …

The Intertextuality Of Father Camilo Torres Restrepo’S Academic Thinking And The Foundation Of The First Sociology Department In Colombia, Catalina Honsowetz

Master of Arts in Classical Studies

Abstract

The Intertextuality of Father Camilo Torres Restrepo’s Academic Thinking And The

Foundation Of The First Sociology Department in Colombia

Catalina Honsowetz

Southeastern University

Born ten years before the start of WWII, Father Camilo Torres Restrepo entered the world in Bogotá, Colombia, at a time riddled with poverty and violence. He belonged to a politically liberal family that never shied away from public service or controversy. Desiring also to serve, Camilo surprised his family and friends with a change in career after starting university. Father Torres abandoned the law to put on priestly robes, hoping to serve his neighbors most …

The Social Life Of Plants: Botanical Representations In Moche Art, Breanna Fae Reiss

Art & Art History ETDs

The Moche were semi-autonomous communities who thrived in the ten fertile riverine valleys of Peru’s northern coast between the late fourth and ninth centuries CE. Phase IV (c. 590–700 CE) Southern Moche ceramics feature intricate fine line visual narrative scenes with many multivalent symbols and motifs. This dissertation intends to understand why plants begin to play a more significant role in the Moche iconographic corpus in this period. I explore the interests of elites, the ecological web interweaving image and environment, and species identification. The local flora was affected on one hand by naturally occurring changes in weather and environment …

Awards For Outstanding Papers Written In 2024

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

No abstract provided.

Failure For Avon, Failure For Labour A Waterworks Project And The Shortcomings Of Left-Wing Groups In Pre-Wwi Aberdeen, Garrett Mast

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

On September 16th, 1909, the Aberdeen Daily Journal ran a single article that encompassed one and a half pages of the ten- page printing. This article did not discuss any national or international news, but rather a town council meeting for the city of Aberdeen in northern Scotland. This meeting was anything but standard procedure, lasting six and a half hours, a record for the council with at least 27 of the 34 councillors participating in the debate. The debate discussed the rather mundane question of from which river the council should seek approval for pumping new drinking water.1 “The …

A Historical And Legal Analysis Of The Life Of Ellett Robinson, Abigail Hilbig

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

To look deeply into the lives of individuals is to begin to understand the intricacies of American life. Ellett Robinson was an African American woman, born at the inception of the twentieth century. Like the century she lived through, Ellett’s life was defined by sociocultural concepts that began long before she came to be. Perceptions of race and the family were being transformed throughout the 1800s and 1900s. Born into this tumultuous time, Ellett was destined to experience the prejudice that existed against African Americans in the South. With slaves having been freed just thirty- six years before Ellett’s birth, …

La Junta Development Of U.S. Opinion And Interaction With Chile, 1970–1981, Carson Cambell

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

It was hot outside in the late afternoon of the seventeenth of September when Charles Horman stepped out of his car. Horman was exhausted from a long day of many futile attempts to contact the United States ambassador in Santiago, Chile. Many hours were spent in the endeavor to secure emergency travels back to the U.S., but thus far there was no success to be found. Carrying such important information regarding the successful coup of the Chilean General, Augusto Pinochet, Horman knew he needed to reach the safety of his home country.11 The American journalist entered his house, and mere …