Study Guide
Mexicanos, chapter 4 – The American Southwest, 1848-1900
1. “A sad and depressing story . . . that needs to be told”
2. “Gringos” and “Greasers” – the language of discrimination
a. Inevitable?
i. Interethnic peace and solidarity
ii. The case of the Saint Patrick’s Brigade (p. 84)
b. What drives ethnic prejudice and discrimination?
i. Resources
ii. Power
iii. Cycles of hatred/misunderstanding
1. religion
2. ethnicity
3. “race” – use of the terms “blood” and “mixing”
a. Social Darwinism
b. Modern science and genetics
c. Ethnicity and “interethnic marriages”
4. Class
c. The Gold Rush
i. Competition and lynching (p. 85)
ii. Vigilantism and the case of Josefa Segovia (p. 86)
iii. Foreign Miners Tax
iv. Hispanics
v. Chinese Exclusion Act
vi. Native peoples and genocide
d. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
i. Rip off – squatters
ii. Land Act of 1851 – Fraud
iii. Legal fees
iv. Proletarianization
v. Railroad boom of 1880s
1. Cattle
2. Mining
3. Agribusiness
4. Migration
vi. Destruction of the Native Plains peoples
1. Plains Indian Culture
2. Colonel John Chivington and Black Kettle
3. General Custer, Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull
4. The cavalry and Geronimo
e. “Social banditry” (p. 89)
i. Joaquin Murrieta – California (p. 89-90)
ii. White Caps – New Mexico (p. 105)
iii. Juan Cortina (p. 109)
f.
“Cold blooded murder right before your eyes”
i. Texas Rangers (p. 108-109)
ii. Genocide in California
g. Mutual aid societies (p. 98)
3. Capitalist Market Infrastructure
a. The Gadsen Purchase (p. 92)
b. Railroads (p. 95)
c. Mexico under Porfirio Diaz (p.97)
d. Displacement
4. Productive Dynamism of the Market