Latin American History Commons^™

Full Issue: Volume 1, Issue 1, Editorial Board

Swarthmore Undergraduate History Journal

The first issue of the Swarthmore Undergraduate History Journal.

Land Of Abundance: A History Of Settler Colonialism In Southern California, Benjamin Shultz

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

The historical narrative produced by settler colonialism has significantly impacted relationships among individuals, groups, and institutions. This thesis focuses on the enduring narrative of settler colonialism and its connection to American Civilization. It is this process and system of American Civilization (established and reified through institutions and cultural norms) that perpetuates the oppressive impact of settler colonialism on various groups who have resided in Southern California for generations before the settlers arrived. This thesis will also demonstrate that the results of settler colonialism at the turn of the 20^th century in Southern California had massive socioeconomic consequences in the …

Globalizing The Rio Grande: European-Born Entrepreneurs, Settlement, And Mercantile Networks In The Rio Grande Borderlands, 1749-1881, Kyle B. Carpenter

History Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation argues that the borderland region from the Nueces River to the Sierra Madres has been a crossroads of trade since the era of Spanish colonization, and that after Mexico won its independence from Spain, the region became the focus of intense commercial modernization projects initiated by both state agents and individual businessmen from all over Western Europe. These entrepreneurs wanted to transform the Rio Grande and its surroundings from a regional crossroads to a hub of the Atlantic economy. However, their efforts to create rapid change were often stymied by mismanagement, notions of ethnic and cultural superiority, and …

The Face Of Intervention: Military Humanitarianism During The 1965 Dominican Crisis, Wesley Hazzard

Dissertations

On April 28, 1965 the US military intervened in the Dominican Republic’s civil war. This dissertation argues that the military did not deploy to fight a war but to create a favorable environment for the establishment of a pro-US government. The US military relied on humanitarian aid through civic action programs and civil affairs operations to diminish the Dominican populations’ interest in leftist political organizations and platforms. The civil affairs and civic action programs served to both alleviate the hardships of the Dominican people, turn them away from leftist policies, and build support for a US friendly government. The US …

The Guano Age: How Bird Poop From Peru Led To The Imperialistic Expansion Of The United States, Christina Barry

Transformations: Presentation Slides

No abstract provided.

The Drug War Hegemony: The United States In Latin America, Chris Tasker, Chau Kelly

Showcase of Osprey Advancements in Research and Scholarship (SOARS)

International relations are based upon power, the dynamics of these power relations are integral to the interaction of all states. In this regard my work has been focused on examining how the United States and a broader group of Latin American states have had the character of their relations changed by a priority on the “War on Drugs” through the early 1970s, up until the early 2000s. The scope of my study included such works as international treaties, government accounts, accounts from non-government organizations, and works of academia, which were contrasted by the actual actions which participating states took. The …

Peaceful Collaboration: The Truman Administration's Response To The Costa Rican Revolution Of 1948 And The Costa Rica-Nicaragua Crisis Of 1948-1949, James Wilkerson

History Theses & Dissertations

Before, during, and after the Costa Rican Revolution of 1948 and the Costa Rica-Nicaragua Crisis of 1948-1949, the Truman Administration maintained a posture of strict neutrality and helped to isolate, and bring a quick end to, both conflicts. This thesis attempts to revise the historiography of the Costa Rican Revolution by challenging the common view that the United States inaugurated the Cold War in Latin America by facilitating the overthrow of the communist-supported government in Costa Rica. The Truman Administration did not care who won and only wanted the Revolution and Crisis to come to a quick end. The United …

The Question Of Morality In Relations Between The United States And Huerta's Government, Ashley Towle

The Gettysburg Historical Journal

The presidency of General Victoriano Huerta was one of the darker times in the history of the Mexican Revolution. Often described as a ruthless dictator, Huerta went to extreme measures to maintain power, even going as far as to assassinate those who opposed his rule. Senator Belisario Dominguez was one of those men who opposed Huerta's right to the presidency, and was assassinated after speaking out against the dictator. The series of events following the senator's murder did not affect just Mexico; the repercussions of Huerta's actions were felt in Europe and the United States. As a result of Huerta's …

Exhibit Curriculum For Fighting For Democracy: Unit One, Sarah Aponte, Martin Toomajian

Open Educational Resources

Exhibit curriculum for the CUNY Dominican Studies Institute exhibit, Fighting for Democracy: Dominican Veterans from World War II.

Students in Global History and U.S. History courses often spend extensive class time studying World War II. Dominicans were involved in virtually every facet of the U.S. war effort. The Dominican Studies Institute's exhibit highlights Dominican veterans who served in both the European and Pacific theaters, in multiple branches of the U.S. armed forces. These same veterans, like other people of color, faced discrimination as soldiers in the U.S. An exploration of these veterans' experiences would be memorable and valuable for secondary …

Constitutional Reflections Of The People: Representation In The Constitutions Of The United States (1789) And Chile (1833), Zoe E. Nelson

Undergraduate Theses, Professional Papers, and Capstone Artifacts

This paper is a comparative analysis of the American Constitution of 1789 and the Chilean Constitution of 1833, as well as the political writings of major political theorists prior to the making of each constitution. In comparing the historical development and making of Constitutions in post-war, newly independent American nations, this paper seeks to understand the similarities between American and Chilean Constitutional institutions and underlying political theory from a historical perspective. Bearing this purpose in mind, this paper asks, “In what ways were the Constitution making measures of Chile and the United States in 1833 and 1789, respectively, a reflection …

Fresh Studies In Rio Grande Valley History, Milo Kearney, Anthony K. Knopp, Antonio Zavaleta, Thomas Daniel Knight

Studies in Rio Grande Valley Regional History Series

Jim Wells, George Parr, Pepe Martin, and Gene Falcón: the spirit of ‘’El Patrón’’ along the Rio Grande of South Texas / Billy Hathorn -- The other underground railroad / Rolando Avila -- Frank Ellis Ferree, humanitarian / Norman Rozeff -- Chip Dameron's Rio Grande Valley: center of a narrowing universe / Ronny Noor -- Historia de la education superior en la ciudad de H. Matamoros, Tamaulipas / Miguel Sesis Botti y Maria Elena Flores Montalvo -- The quest for a public library for Brownsville / Anthony K. Knopp and Alma Ortiz Knopp -- Las Palomas Wildlife management area: a …

Struggle For Sovereignty: An African-American Colonization Attempt And Delicate Independence In Mid-Nineteenth Century Central America, Matthew D. Harris

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

This thesis uses a series of United States foreign relations documents centered around an 1862 attempt by Abraham Lincoln to colonize parts of Central America with freed African Americans. Traditionally, these communications have been used by historians for U.S. foreign relations or Black resettlement history. Here, instead, this collection is used to display the major threats to Central American sovereignty in the mid-nineteenth century in their own words. The collection reveals that two of the threats were foreign imperialistic thought and racial instability. However, the third, and ultimately most destabilizing threat to the region, was the five nations' rivalry amongst …

Special Relationships: Anglo-American Latin America Policy And The Redefining Of National Security, 1969-1982, Benjamin Jared Pack

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

From 1969–82, the United States and Great Britain redefined national security in a distinctive way, separating the notion of national security from its traditional foundations in realist thought. The way the two powers come to define national security was the result of more than a century of historical interaction with Latin America and their own historical experience with ideology, imperialism, and colonialism. As such, the way the United States and Great Britain perceived their respective special relationships influenced the way they chose to intervene in matters of national security, particularly in Latin America’s Southern Cone countries of Chile and Argentina. …

Seventeenth-Century Spanish Colonial Identity In New Mexico: A Study Of Identity Practices Through Material Culture, Caroline Marie Gabe

Anthropology ETDs

This dissertation explores how seventeenth-century Spanish colonial households expressed their group identity at a regional level in New Mexico. Through the material remains of daily practice and repetitive actions, identity markers tied to adornment, technological traditions, and culinary practices are compared between 14 assemblages to test four identity models. Seventeenth-century colonists were eating a combination of Old World domesticates and wild game on colonoware and majolica serving vessels, cooking using Indigenous pottery, grinding with Puebloan style tools, and conducting household scale production and prospecting. While assemblages are consistent in basic composition, variations are present tied to socioeconomic status. This blending …

Transformational Leadership: Flow, Resonance, And Social Change, Enas Elhanafi

The Journal of Traditions & Beliefs

No abstract provided.

South Africa As A Dynamic Teaching Experience, Robert A. Simons, Christine Dickinson

The Journal of Traditions & Beliefs

No abstract provided.

Policy Memo: Political Violence And Terrorism On The Mexico-Us Border, Terence Garrett

Political Science Faculty Publications

The shooting and mass murder in El Paso that occurred recently is an example of a toxic mix of a number of elements typical of the USA political violence culture – a few of which will be analyzed in this memo. Two elements are permanent features and the third is subject to temporal and spatial limitations. These elements are: (1) extraordinary accessibility by almost anyone to military-grade weapons used in mass shootings; (2) white nationalist ideology and the propensity towards dehumanizing the “other” – or using Giorgio Agamben’s term, homo sacer,1 - those who may be sacrificed without rights, including …

Media Discourses That Normalize Colonial Relations: A Critical Discourse Analysis Of (Im)Migrants And Refugees, Meng Zhao, Jorge Rodriguez, Lilia D. Monzó

Education Faculty Articles and Research

The im(migration) and refugee crisis that are being exacerbated under the Trump administration, is a manifestation of empire-building and the long history of colonization of the Global South. A Marxist-humanist perspective recognizes these as consistent aspects of a clearly racist global capitalism that functions in the interest of multibillion dollar U.S.–based corporations and increasingly transnational corporations. Trade agreements, international economic policy, political intervention, invasion or the threat of these, often secure corporate interests in specific countries and regions. The authors use critical discourse analysis to examine the discourses around Mexican, Central American, and Syrian im(migrants) and refugees as examples of …

Charlie Wilson's First War: Challenging Carter's Human Rights Policy Through His Support For Anastasio Somoza Debayle, 1977-79., Sherman J. Sadler

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this thesis is to examine the support of Congressman Charles Wilson, D-TX, for the Nicaraguan government of Anastasio Somoza Debayle from March 1977 to July 1979. A narrative of Wilson's actions and motivations it relies heavily on his congressional papers for primary sources. This work argues that Wilson was motivated by his personal anti-Communist beliefs to challenge the perceived biased application of the Carter Administration's human rights policy against the Somoza regime. He saw the administration's abandonment of Nicaragua, a traditional Cold War ally after four decades of loyal support, as directly contributing to the rise of …

New England Slave Trader: The Case Of Charles Tyng, Paul J. Michaels

Master's Theses

Charles Tyng has been heralded as an American hero after the posthumous publication of his memoir, Before the Wind: The Memoir of an American Sea Captain, 1808-1833, in 1999. Recent research involving British Treasury report books from the nineteenth century suggest otherwise – that Tyng actively promoted and was engaged in the illicit trade of African captives. A Boston Brahmin, Tyng applied the lessons of his time at sea with Perkins & Company, the opium trading firm, to his occupation as an agent of notorious slave trading firms in Havana. This paper uses as evidence records of the captures …

Us And The Cold War In Latin America, Thomas Field

Publications

The Cold War in Latin America had marked consequences for the region’s political and economic evolution. From the origins of US fears of Latin American Communism in the early 20th century to the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, regional actors played central roles in the drama. Seeking to maximize economic benefit while maintaining independence with regard to foreign policy, Latin Americans employed an eclectic combination of liberal and anti-imperialist discourses, balancing frequent calls for anti-Communist hemispheric unity with periodic diplomatic entreaties to the Soviet bloc and the nonaligned Third World. Meanwhile, US Cold War policies toward …

The Indirect Causes Of Haitian Migration Into The Dominican Republic During The Late Nineteenth And Early Twentieth Century, Porfirio A. Gonzowitz

Theses and Dissertations

The concession system used by the Dominican government in the late nineteenth century led to the introduction of foreign production and manufacturing methods to the country, to which Dominican business owners had no access. This lack of access encouraged Dominican growers and producers to find other means with which to meet the demands of production brought about by fierce competition with American and other foreign capitalists. This paper seeks to illuminate what motivated the Haitian migrations during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and to offer other reasons that may have driven the Haitians into the Dominican Republic.

Becoming Legible: The Racial Making Of The Negro Mascogo/Black Seminole People In The Coahuila–Texas Borderland, Rocío Gil Martínez De Escobar

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This historical ethnography analyzes the making of the Negro Mascogo/Black Seminole people as part of the production of the Coahuila-Texas borderland. In the quest to become legible to improve their living conditions and maintain a sense of dignity, Negros Mascogos/Black Seminoles use history and racialization as tools of negotiation between themselves and the two nation-states where they live: Mexico and the United States. I analyze the Negro Mascogo/Black Seminole people as a case of racialization that illustrates the ongoing mechanisms of settler colonialism (dispossession, exploitation, and elimination via genocide or assimilation), as they play out in specific socio-historical contexts.

The …

"La Llorona": Evolución, Ideología Y Uso En El Mundo Hispano, Raquel Sáenz-Llano

LSU Master's Theses

This thesis studies the evolution, ideology and use of the myth of La Llorona through time in the Hispanic World. Considering this myth as one of the most known traditional narratives of the American continent, I begin by providing visual, ethnohistorical and ethnographical insights of weeping in Mesoamerica and South America and the specific mention of a weeping woman in some Spanish chronicles to say how western values were stablished in “the new continent” through this legend. I suggest that during the postcolonialism the legend did not tell anymore about a mother that cries and search a place for their …

1908 - The Missions And Missionaries Of California, Vol. I, Lower California, Zephyrin Engelhardt

Franciscan Publications

Volume I of the Missions and Missionaries in California was compiled from original sources and was intended to serve as an introduction to the history of what was referred to as Upper or Alta California. This volume addresses the origin of the missions in Lower California, it's discovery, efforts to colonize the lower peninsula, the endeavors to establish a government, learn the language, introduction of agriculture, failure of the Spanish government to adequately fund the missions, establishment of various missions, the Jesuits decline, the Franciscan period; efforts to establish missions in Upper California by Fr. Junipero Serra, Fr. Palóu journey …

John E. Fagg Papers, University Archives And Special Collections, Prescott Memorial Library, Louisiana Tech University

Manuscript Finding Aids

Personal and professional papers of historian Dr. John E. Fagg.

Spanish California Missions: An Economic Success, Lynne Doti

Economics Faculty Articles and Research

Starting in 1769, the Spanish established missions in Alta California. A small band of soldiers, Franciscan priests and volunteers walked from Baja California to San Francisco Bay through semi-arid, scarcely populated land stopping occasionally to establish a location for a religious community. Usually two priests, a few soldiers and a few Indians from Baja California settled at the spot. Their only resources for starting an economy were themselves, a few animals and a nearby source of water. They attracted the local Indians to join the community and perform the work necessary to create a strong economy. After only a few …

Entwined Threads Of Red And Black: The Hidden History Of Indigenous Enslavement In Louisiana, 1699-1824, Leila K. Blackbird

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Contrary to nationalist teleologies, the enslavement of Native Americans was not a small and isolated practice in the territories that now comprise the United States. This thesis is a case study of its history in Louisiana from European contact through the Early American Period, utilizing French Superior Council and Spanish judicial records, Louisiana Supreme Court case files, statistical analysis of slave records, and the synthesis and reinterpretation of existing scholarship. This paper primarily argues that it was through anti-Blackness and anti-Indigeneity and with the utilization of socially constructed racial designations that “Indianness” was controlled and exploited, and that Native Americans …

From Riots To Sovereignty: United States Policy Makers Ideas, Perceptions, And Reactions To The Panamanian Struggle For Sovereignty, William Edward Humphrey

Graduate Theses

After the Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty of 1903 the Panamanian people had to live in an occupied country. The U.S. took control of a ten-mile stretch of land surrounding a canal of immense importance to world trade. The U.S. policy makers ignored the pleas, complaints, and demonstrations of the Panamanian people as they struggled for sovereignty in their country. This thesis will show, through the use of primary sources from the U.S. government that U.S. policy makers refused to see the importance of sovereignty to the Panamanian people until the 1964 Panamanian Flag Riots. After that episode, U.S. policy makers dramatically shifted …

Remembering An Invasion: The Panama Intervention In America’S Political Memory, Dave Nagaji

Senior Theses

In December of 1989, the United States launched Operation Just Cause, a military invasion of the country of Panama, capturing Manuel Noriega and overthrowing his government. This research project examines how Colin Powell, Richard Cheney, James Baker, and George H.W. Bush presented Operation Just Cause in their memoirs. It attempts to determine how these senior leaders’ depictions of this invasion incorporated it into the Bush administration’s overall foreign-policy strategy. The research finds that their general approach was to present the Panama intervention as an isolated incident which had no intentional link to other major events at the time, was not …