Latin American History Commons^™

A Ship Between Worlds: Illicit Trade, Empire, And Enslavement In The Voyage Of The Nuestra Senora De Las Nieves, 1819-1820, Carly Eastham

Master's Theses

This study examines the illicit Spanish transatlantic slave trade to Cuba during the post-abolition era through a microhistorical analysis of the 1819 voyage of the schooner Nuestra Señora de las Nieves. Despite international efforts to suppress the trade following abolition treaties, this voyage illustrates how Spanish traders adapted their practices to continue trafficking enslaved Africans, fueling Cuba’s booming sugar economy amid shifting geopolitical and economic pressures. Drawing on primary documents seized by the British navy and analyzed alongside relevant secondary scholarship, this research situates the Cuban trade within the broader Atlantic world’s complex cultural, legal, and economic transformations.

The case …

The Buzzard In The Abolitionist Sea; An Examination Of Maritime Suppression, Imperial Policy, And The Slave Trade Through The Royal Navy’S Hms Buzzard, 1830s-1840s, Sean Joaquim Coudray-Pereira

Master's Theses

Analysis of the Royal Navy through the microhistory of the HMS Buzzard following the abolition of the slave trade between 1807 and the 1840s by Great Britain offers insight into the moral ambiguities and complexities of the humanitarian mission. The historiography of the slave trade has primarily focused on the moral and economic ideology behind its abolition, pitting one against the other. Applying a micro-historic approach highlights the nuances of both arguments, and through the HMS Buzzard’s crew, captives, disease, voyages, and legal battles accentuates the blend of both argument approaches. The case study of its longevity through all six …

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 …

Jorge Ricardo Masetti: Journalist, Guerrilla, Cold Warrior, Brooks C. Martin Mr.

Master's Theses

The following thesis describes the life and activities of Jorge Ricardo Masetti, an Argentinian journalist who was assigned to interview Fidel Castro, leader of the Cuban Revolution against dictator Fulgencio Batista. Masetti was responsible for broadcasting interviews with Fidel Castro and Ernesto “Che” Guevara to the rest of Latin America for the first time, allowing people to understand what was happening in Cuba through the words of the Revolution’s leaders. Masetti returned to Cuba to found the first international Latin American news agency, Prensa Latina, which still exists today. However, ideological factionalism within Prensa Latina drove Masetti to resign in …

El Nacimiento Del Rock En Español: ¿Cómo Fue Que Este Género De Música Latina Tuvo Éxito?, Alejandro V. Martinez

World Languages and Cultures

This paper titled El nacimiento del rock en español: ¿Cómo fue que este género de música latina tuvo éxito? will cover information regarding the Spanish rock movement. This essay compares what is written in this paper to that of prior scholars to show that although they do bring valid points, there is a lot more than many of us realize. There are various articles and reports written about the movement, but many do not explain the creation of the movement, let alone its survival in the music industry as a new genre that some had never heard of or had …

Todo Sobre América Latina, Kayla Madeline Schwartz

World Languages and Cultures

This project attempts to inform a Spanish-speaking audience about the humanities of Latin America. The format is a blog which solicits more engagement with the embedded research and written text. Colorful photos and informative videos attract the attention of a general public that may otherwise not be interested in learning extensively about history and culture. Such focus is important because Latin American past has great bearing on the lives of much of the Latinx community today—in many regions.

Specifically, this blog contains articles about history, literature, movies and shows, dance, and travelling. The audience can learn about a broad timeline …

Teaching Abortion As A Historical Construct: The Case Of Early Twentieth-Century Brazil And Beyond, Cassia Roth

Feminist Pedagogy

Using open-access primary sources available online, this activity teaches abortion as an unstable category through a specific case study, early twentieth-century Brazil. The one-week module, although specific to one geographic region and chronological period, can serve as a lesson plan for undergraduate history courses, for disciplines that use genealogy methods, and for interdisciplinary courses. The lesson plan helps undergraduates think critically about what we think we know about abortion, and how our current understandings are not fixed but rather contingent on the society in which we live and on who is practicing abortion. Changing understandings of what constitutes an abortion …

The Chumash War: Contested Memories Of Forced Labor, Rebellion, And Counter-Revolution In The California Missions, Joseph V. Payne

History

The Chumash War remains an under-explored flashpoint in California history and the history of the Mission system of Alta California for myriad reasons, which include a lack of contemporary documentation relating the motivations of the Chumash as well as a broader silencing of indigenous voices in state and colonial Spanish and U.S. history. For the hegemonic centers of power present at the time, the Catholic Missionaries and the Mexican Government, the impetus to ignore the grievances of Chumash and enact a counter-revolution couldn’t be clearer—both institutions depended directly on the forced labor and production of the Chumash at Missions Santa …

A Christian World System: Christian Identity And Indigenous Agency In Spanish America, 1521–1810, Hector G. Duenes

Master's Theses

This thesis presents the Spanish Empire as seeking to spread a Christian world system - Christendom on a universal scale. By focusing on Spanish America, this thesis seeks to give evidence that a new Christendom was being established in America, one which was sustained through the collection of ecclesiastical revenues. This approach is taken in order to analyze the identities which were forged by the individuals who participated and who were transformed by this empire. Specifically, I focus on the Indigenous and their mixed raced descendants, the castas. Rather than portraying them as passive figures, I seek to give them …

Forgotten Crime And Cultural Boom: New York And Brazil's Coffee Trading Relationship In The Early Twentieth Century, Collin Green

The Forum: Journal of History

In the United States of America, coffee and its ever-evolving culture has become a focal point of everyday life. However, we did not just stumble upon this phenomenon; the popularity of coffee was carefully calculated by leaders of the wealthiest coffee companies of the early 20th century in America’s biggest city, New York. In this paper, the history of the powerful coffee trading relationship between Brazil and New York is analyzed on two different levels. Firstly, I examine how New York's big coffee companies successfully participated in criminal activity on an international and national level. Secondly, my focus shifts to …

Seeing Through The Illusion: A Critical Look At The Iran-Contra Scandal, Andrew James Mitchell

History

This senior project examines the entanglement of the 1980s Drug War with the Cold War. The project looks at the media manipulation which occurred as part of the Drug War as well as breaks down the Iran-Contra Senate Hearings report. This project's goal is to further the research on the Iran-Contra scandal and the history of CIA interventionism.

Los Zetas, Neoliberalism, And Popular Opposition: A Study In Linkages, Gina R. Lyle

Master's Theses

Los Zetas are considered by security analysts to be a transformative force within transnational criminal organizations (TCO), exporting their unique model throughout Mexico. Los Zetas’ idiosyncratic interventions include their diversification of criminal operations, professionalization of TCO security, sophisticated use of media and technology, extreme forms of violent coercion, and decentralized command structure. This project aims to complicate the narrative that Los Zetas emerged because of top leaders’ sadistic tendencies or due to an inherently violent culture in Mexico by reframing the group’s evolution within historical processes. Moving beyond Los Zetas, this project examines how persons affected by Los Zetas’ indiscriminate …

Urban Palimpsests: Studying Enlightenment Influences In The Post-Earthquake Rebuilding Of Lima And Lisbon, 1746–1765, Emily Chung

The Forum: Journal of History

Urban renewal has long existed as a vessel for the assertion of authority, embodying hierarchy, policy, and culture in the most tangible way with architecture and civic landscaping shaped to accommodate the upper strata of society. Particularly interesting to study through this lens is the latter half of the eighteenth century which marks the turning point between royal absolutism and the emergence of competing forms of power in the European Empire, through the growth of the Enlightenment movement. This paper offers a comparison of two imperial cities, Lima and Lisbon, which due to similarly tragic earthquakes, were provided the opportunity …

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 …

President Jimmy Carter As An Activist?: Understanding President Carter’S Human Rights Policy In El Salvador During 1980 Through A Social Justice Lens, Vanaaisha Das Pamnani

History

During 1980, Salvadoran citizens endured increased violence, torture, and overall suppression of their basic human rights. Many prominent figures were assassinated by either right-wing death squads or leftist insurgents. Then on December 2, 1980 came the murder of four American churchwomen from the Maryknoll Order. Their purpose was to aid the poor within Latin America; El Salvador gave them the opportunity to help the Salvadoran poor in the midst of this violence. However, they were met with suspicion by security forces and, as a result were raped and killed on a dirt road. Within a week, President Jimmy Carter cut …

The Mexican American Vietnam War Serviceman: The Missing American, Teresa Moreno Jimenez

Master's Theses

The Vietnam War brought many changes to society in that it soon became one of the most controversial wars in United States history. There was a tremendous loss of life as well as a rift in the nation with the rise of anti-war protest. Those drafted for the war primarily came from low-income and ethnic minority communities. While all who served deserve to be recognized, there is one group that has gone largely unrepresented in the history of the war. Mexican American serviceman served and died in large numbers when compared to their population. In addition, they also received high …

The Repatriation Of Mexican-Americans To America, Aaron Ziskin

History

Shortly following the onset of the Great Depression America undertook a policy coined as Mexican Repatriation wherein it began encouraging people of Mexican descent to return home in order to free up jobs for 'actual' American citizens. This Policy touched countless people as it was broadly applied to anyone of the Mexican race, however as American influence in World War II increased it began facing a worker shortage. In response to this shortage America and Mexico devised a program which allowed for Mexican laborers to be imported for temporary farm and manual labor positions. The focus of this paper involves …

El Choteo En Cien Botellas En Una Pared Y Raining Backwards: El Gracioso Disfraz De Las Circunstancias Trágicas Durante La Revolución Cubana Y El Período Especial, Kristin Nicole Lisenby

World Languages and Cultures

This project attempts to explore the idea that the combination of tragedy and humor in Cuban and Cuban-American literature is a form of “choteo” or “no tomar nada en serio,” which demonstrates a coping strategy used by Cubans during hard times. In the case of Ena Lucía Portela's Cien botellas en una pared, and Roberto Fernandez's Raining Backwards, I believe that the two authors use his and her own personal insight into a Cuban's life during the Cuban Revolution of the 60's and the Special Period of the 90's, and that those personal experiences are reflected throughout the novels …

El Golpe De Estado En Chile De 1973 Y Como Una Persona Lo Experimentó, James W. Larkin

World Languages and Cultures

El golpe de estado en Chile de 1973 y como una persona lo experimentó

James W. Larkin California Polytechnic State University

The focus of this senior project is to illustrate the societal and political atmosphere surrounding the 1973 military overthrow of the Chilean government and the fascist regime that followed through the personal perspective. The project consists of two parts: The first is a brief synopsis of the events leading to, surrounding and following the overthrow of Salvador Allende’s government. The research provides an adequate understanding of the historic events and context in which they occurred. The second section provides …