History/MAS 141

History is rife with tough questions. You may want to pick one that you do not fully answer, but start as an exploration. The question that puzzles me, and has for a long time, is noted on the syllabus: “Why is it so easy to turn some people into instruments of their own oppression, while others resist?” You’re welcome to lift that, or develop your own.

Here are some ideas for papers/presentations.

• • Why and how did the Aztecs come to dominate what became “New Spain?”

  • Why was it possible for Cortez and the conquistadors to defeat, then rule, so many people? After all, the Aztecs were remarkably sophisticated in many ways: city building, a calendar, mathematics, etc.

  • Who was Cortez? Montezuma (Moctezuma)? Did Cortez really fight for both “God and Gold”?

  • What role did racism play in the Spanish conquest? Religion?

  • How are the Aztecs seen today? By whom?

  • Theory and Practice of the Spanish Inquisition. Implications for today?

  • The Black Legend regarding Spain's imperialism.

  • When you were taught this history (if you were), how were you taught? What were you taught? What do you remember?

  • What elements of the history we study in this period do you see persisting today?

  • The Encomienda system, its history and practice. Perhaps compare to US slavery, and contrast.

  • What was the daily life of most women like in this period. What do you believe they were thinking? How might a woman come to understand her birthright, and try to change it?

  • What is the legacy of Spanish/European racism in Mexico and the US today?

  • Life in Tenchtitlan before the Cortez invasion and conquest---at each stage of the social hierarchy. Or, how did the city begin?

  • How do we explain Santa Ana’s resiliency?

  • “Presentism” suggests that it is an error to judge the past from the values of the present. So, how shall we think about Aztec human sacrifices?

  • What were the Aztec priests thinking? Doing?

  • The Priest Las Casas who fought on the side of the Indians and, eventually sharply opposed slavery.

  • Compare and contrast English domination of what became the US and Spanish domination of “New Spain.”

  • On September 10, 1810, the “Silver Fox,” Hidalgo, a priest, launched a ten year war against the Spaniards, calling for “rivers of blood!” What was his intellectual/practical background that led to this? What might have influenced him that came from the US and France?

  • Iturbide: Who was he and what was his legacy?

  • What are the theoretical and practical underpinnings of “Manifest Destiny?”

  • Why would men like Davy Crockett, Jim Bowie, and Col. Travis fight and die in order to “Win” a slave state at the Alamo?

  • Why was it possible for Santa Ana, after the defeat of the French invaders, to become “His Most Supreme Highness” and live as he did?

  • What was the attitude of US abolitionists and campesinos to the US war with Mexico?

  • Santa Ana returned from Cuba to lead the war with the US. He had an army of more than 20,000, three times the US side. Why did he lose?

• Revolt of the Comuneros

  • What if California’s gold had been Mexico’s?

  • Compare the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, the US Constitution, Mexico’s Constitution of 1837, placing them in their historical context.