HST 327:
History of Mexican Americans
Mexican Struggles in the United States, 1897-1980
Redefinition, Resistance & Accommodation
Introduction to the Course
Brief Course Orientation
 Background Material

– Indigenous America
– Spanish Colonial Society
– Mexican Independence
– Invasion and Conquest of Northern Mexico

Major Themes in Chicano History
Introduction to Chicano History
From Indigenous America to the
Southwest United States,
1500 B.C.-1897 A.D.
Key Questions
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What is the historical meaning of Aztlan prior to 1960?
Who was Malinche?
What were the most important divisions in Spanish Colonial
society?
When and how did Mexico become independent from Spain?
How did settlers from the United States come to be in Tejas?
What tensions existed between the immigrants from the U.S.
and the Mexican government?
After the Mexican American War what views existed about
Mexican people in the U.S.? What was the “All Mexico” lobby?
What is the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo? What were its key
provisions?
North America
The “Aztecs”
Nahuatl
Nahuas
Aztlan
Mexica
Tenochtitlan
The Conquest of Tenochtitlan

Native Allies (Tlaxcaltecas)
 Disease
 Translators (Malinche and Geronimo de Aguilar)
Spanish Expansion
Spanish Colonial Society

Casta System (Peninsulares, Criollos,
Mestizos, Mulatos, Indios & Negros)
 Gente de Razon/Indios Barbaros
 Genizaros
Casta Paintings
Population of Mexico in 1810
Racial Category
Number
Percentage
3,676,281
60
15,000
0.3
1,092,397
18
Mestizos
704,245
11
Mulatos
(Afromestizos)
624,461
10
Negros (Africans)
10,000
0.2
Indians
Peninsulares
(Spanish)
Criollos (Spanish
born in Mexico)
Adapted from Historia Social y Economica de Mexico (1521-1854) by Austin Cue Canovas.
American Expansionism
Mexican Independence
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Grito de Dolores(September 16, 1821)
Father Miguel Hidalgo
Virgen de Guadalupe
Plan de Iguala
Tejas & the Mexican-American War
Tejano
 Anglo
 Texas
Independence
1836-1845
 MexicanAmerican War
1846-1848

Tejas &
The Mexican-American War
American Views
of Mexico
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Manifest Destiny
The Black Legend
Opposition to the War
& the “All Mexico”
lobby
– anti-Slavery
– anti-Mexican
• “an Indian race”
• “mongrel”
• They will not remain
“idle spectators”
Pro-War Pamphlet, 1847
Against the “All Mexico” Lobby
“I know sir we have never dreamt of
incorporating into our Union any but the
Caucasian race-the free white race. To
incorporate Mexico would be the very
first instance of the kind of incorporating
an Indian race . . . I protest against such
a union as that! Ours, sir, is the
Government of the White race. The
greatest misfortunes of Spanish
America are to be traced to the fatal
error of placing these colored races on
equality with the white race.”
-Senator -John C. Calhoun
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo

Mexico ceded 55%
of its territory to the
U.S. and received
15 million dollars.
 Border settled at
Rio Grande.
 Mexican citizens
retain property &
have the right to
become U.S.
citizens.
Major Themes in Chicano
History

The Chicano Movement & Chicanos as a
historical subject.
 Push-Pull Theories of Migration
 Colonial Relationships
– Internal Colonies
– Relationship between the United States and
Mexico

Cultural & Religious Conflict
Presentism & the Role of Immigrants in
the Latino Population
Further Reading
Aguirre, Robert D. Informal Empire: Mexico and Central America in Victorian Culture. Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press, 2005.
Anaya, Rudolfo A, and Francisco A Lomelí, eds. Aztlán: Essays on the Chicano Homeland. Albuquerque,
N.M: University of New Mexico Press, 1991.
Bonfil Batalla, Guillermo. México Profundo: Reclaiming a Civilization. Austin: University of Texas Press,
1996.
Brooks, James. Captives & Cousins: Slavery, Kinship, and Community in the Southwest Borderlands.
Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002.
Chasteen, John Charles. Born in Blood and Fire: A Concise History of Latin America. 1st ed. New York:
Norton, 2001.
González, Deena J. Refusing the Favor: The Spanish-Mexican Women of Santa Fe, 1820-1880. New
York: Oxford University Press, 1999.
Griswold del Castillo, Richard. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo a Legacy of Conflict. 1st ed. Norman:
University of Oklahoma Press, 1990.
Gutiérrez, Ramón A. When Jesus Came, the Corn Mothers Went Away: Marriage, Sexuality, and Power in
New Mexico, 1500-1846. Stanford, Calif: Stanford University Press, 1991.
Howe, Daniel Walker. What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848. Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2007.
Luna, Guadalupe T. Legal Realism and the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo: A Fractionalized Legal Template.
Madison: Law School of the University of Wisconsin, 2005.
Mann, Charles C. 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus. New York: Knopf, 2005.
Taylor, Alan. American Colonies. New York: Viking, 2001.
Van Young, Eric. The Other Rebellion: Popular Violence, Ideology, and the Mexican Struggle for
Independence, 1810-1821. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001.
Victors and Vanquished: Spanish and Nahua Views of the Conquest of Mexico. Boston: Bedford/St.
Martin's, 2000.
Wright, Ronald. Stolen Continents: Five Hundred Years of Conquest and Resistance in the Americas.
Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2005.