Quiz #1

Mesoamerican

(AKA Middle America) A region extending south and east from central Mexico to include parts of Guatemala, Belize, Honduras, and Nicaragua. In pre-Columbian times it was inhabited by diverse civilizations, including the Maya and the Olmec. Very diverse and not dominated under the political control of a single power. Most of the diverse people of Mesoamerica were unified under a vast, well-defined world system. An interconnected world that was integrated and events in one place in one social unit affected those in another.

Tenochtitlan

(Current-day Mexico City) It was the capital of the Azteca on an island in Lake Texcoco. Commonly known as Tenochtitlan (Classical Nahuatl: Tenōchtitlan [tenoːt͡ʃˈtit͡ɬan]) was an Aztec altepetl (city-state) located on an island in Lake Texcoco, in the Valley of Mexico. Founded on June 20 of 1325, it became the capital of the expanding Mexican Empire in the 15th century,[1] until captured by the Spanish in 1521.

Population of Mexico and Central America at the time of Spanish Arrival

25-38 Million

Maya

A member of a Mesoamerican Indian people inhabiting southeast Mexico, Guatemala, and Belize, whose civilization reached its height around ad 300-900. The Maya are noted for their architecture and city planning, their mathematics and calendar, and their hieroglyphic writing system.

Texans and Tejanos

A term used to identify a Texan of Criollo Spanish or Mexican heritage.

Gregorio Cortez

A true social bandit who was a border Mexican that worked on ranches. Shot a sheriff who had shot his brother after questioning him about stealing a horse. Considered a hero by the Mexicans and a "sheriff killer" by the whites. Captured in 1901, but pardoned in 1913. A mob of 300 whites attempted to lynch him while his case was on appeal.

Machismo

A word which holds a different meaning than the Aztec term of "Machiyotl." Once used to describe men as protectors, leaders, and supporters, it now dishonors the role of men, and is no longer a badge of honor.

Genocide - 24 Million

After the Spanish Conquest of Tenochtitlan, smallpox & other epidemics spread throughout the countryside, eventually killing 24 million people in what is Mexico (Smallpox, Measles, and Influenza hit hardest in Urban areas because of population density)

Alcoholism

Alcoholism took an additional toll on the destruction of the natives, since the Spaniards distilled native drinks. Before the invasion, pique, which was low in alcoholic content & rich in vitamins, was used for religious purposes. It resembled beer rather than hard liquor. When the Spaniards introduced distilled alcohol, it became an escape & addiction was common.

Women in colonial Mesoamerica

Although there were women such as Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz (1051-1695), an intellectual whose genius was suppressed b/c of her gender. Women from the indigenous classes influenced the society to have luxury of the development of the arts. From the riches extracted from the labor of Indians, colonial society could afford to produce ethnicity & class under Spanish rule, their standing was weakened although Spanish law allowed them to litigate inheritance & land rights in court. Women's rights to property narrowed under colonialism & their participation changed as commercial agriculture put pressures on los de abajo ( the poor & powerless) to abandon or sell their land.

Dr. Rodolfo Acuña

Author of Occupied America: A History of Chicanos, which approaches the history of the Southwestern United States that includes Mexican Americans. It has been reprinted five times since its 1972 debut. Acuña is also an activist and he has supported the numerous causes of the Chicano Movement.

Moctezuma

Aztec Ruler at the time of Spanish Conquest. He fed the greed of the Spanish Conquerors because he thought they would leave if he gave them what they wanted.

The Border Crossed Us

Basically, the USA came into Mexican territory and took their land. So, the border crossed the Mexicans. Fair, right?

Push & Pull factors of Immigration & Emigration:

Bottom line, mistreated natives fled to Mexico because they were, well, mistreated. There was racism and corruption all across Texas and the surrounding areas, and the natives had to escape to avoid being killed or mistreated. However, a good number of Mexicans moved to texas due to the commercialization of Mexican cotton production during the 1880s, as well as the development of commercial agriculture, which demanded great amounts of migrant workers (who were obviously mistreated). They simply had no choice.

American Trinity

Chicano food is a syncretic Spanish-Indian mixture, but corn, beans, and squash still constitute the American trinity

Inventing Whiteness

Even though most of New Mexico's early colonizers were descendants of people recruited from the interior of Mexico and Zacatecas, and they were related to Mexican families in Chihuahua and Sonora. Most did not immigrate to New Mexico directly from Spain. Yet many New Mexicans chose to call themselves Hispanos, or Spanish Americans, rather than Mexicans. They believed that they were descendants of the original settlers, who were Spanish conquistadores, and so they believed that they remained racially pure and were Europeans, in contrast to the mestizo (half-breed) Mexicans.

Chinampas

Floating gardens that surrounded Tenochtitlan; they were farms.

Encomienda, Repartimiento, Hacienda

Forced labor on natives by the Spanish/dominant people. Crops and other items were grown on haciendas, or private estates.

Los Penitentes

Fray J.B. Lemy (a bishop in New Mexico) purged the Holy Brotherhood of Penitenetes, an association popular among the poor of northern New Mexico. (Indeed, confraternities were a part of the culture of the Spanish and then Mexican churches.) Descended from the Third Order of St. Francis of Assisi, it practiced public flagellation and, during Holy Week, imitated the ordeals of Christ. It was a secret society, to which prominent leaders such as Antonio Jose Martinez belonged. Establishment Mexicans like Miguel A. Otero disdained the Brotherhood, seeing it as backward and ignorant. Lamy and his successors persecuted members, denying them the sacraments.

Juan Cortina

Identified with Northern Mexico, and became known as a revolutionary. Allegedly led cattle rustling operations against Euro-Americans. He grew increasingly frustrated at the mistreatment of Mexicans, and became radicalized and was a "gringo hater." Wanted to kill whites. Paranoia spread throughout the Texas government, who wanted him captured/dead. He was very elusive and didn't get caught, but the Texans used him as an excuse to mistreat other Mexicans.

Las Carmelitas

In English, they are a group women who are Carmelites- nuns belonging to a contemplative Catholic order founded at Mount Camel during the Crusades. ← not quite sure of this answer

Revolutionists, outlaws, or social bandits

In the 1850s, an economic depression hit California. Gold was almost nonexistent after the rush, and social banditry was through the roof, yo. Men such as tiburcio Vasquez committed acts such as robbery. (Vasquez would eventually be captured and executed). There was also this guy named Joaquin Murieta...

Mexican Independence Day

Independence Day celebrates the day Miguel Hidalgo is believed to have made the cry of independence (El Grito de la Independencia) in the town of Dolores, in the north-central part of the Mexican state of Guanajuato. Hidalgo was one of the nation's leaders during the War of Independence in Mexico. Wednesday, September 16

Las Gorras Blancas

Las Gorras Blancas (Spanish for "The White Caps") was a group active in the New Mexico Territory and American Southwest in the late 1880s and early 1890s, in response to Anglo-American land grabbers.

Las Soldaderas/Las Adelitas

Las Soldaderas or Las Adelitas were women "fighters" who made significant contributions to both the federal and rebel armies of the Mexican Revolution.

Cuauhtemoc

Last Aztec King; he was tortured & hung by the Spanish because he refused to give more gold.

The Lincoln County War

Long simmering tensions in Lincoln County, New Mexico, explode into a bloody shooting war when gunmen murder the English rancher John Tunstall. Tunstall had established a large ranching operation in Lincoln County two years earlier in 1876, stepping into the middle of a dangerous political and economic rivalry for control of the region. Two Irish-Americans, J.J. Dolan and L.G. Murphy, operated a general store called The House, which controlled access to lucrative beef contracts with the government. The big ranchers, led by John Chisum and Alexander McSween, didn't believe merchants should dominate the beef markets and began to challenge The House.

The Mexican Corridor

Many runaway slaves had escaped to northern Mexico, and this greatly angered Texans, who wanted their slaves back. These Texans marched into Mexico in an attempt to retrieve their slaves, which heightened border tensions, and would play a role in the Mexican American War.

Women's rights and privileges

Mexican women in California could actually own their own property and defend it through the courts. Mission fathers in California relied on women in Mexican California. They could inherit property. Of course, they were subject to domestic violence, rape, and incest.

Article VIII

Mexicans in the territory conquered by the USA could either stay there and become American or remain Mexican, or flee to Mexico. They had to make their decision within one year.

Article IX

Mexicans were supposed to enjoy protection of their liberties, expression of religion, and basic rights without restriction or interference from whites (lol that didn't happen)

Mexico's land-grant policies and the northern frontier

Mexico gave land grants frequently, but the euro-Americans wanted to combat this by instituting the California land act of 1851, which made whites able to challenge Mexican land grants by requiring all owners to prove title and establishing a land court. Basically, they forced Mexicans off their own land and took it. Surprising? Nah.

Telpochcalli

Military & Warrior School

Texas Rangers

Militia "minute companies" formed to protect the interests of the big ranchers in Texas. Very racist groups who threatened/intimidated, killed, mistreated Mexicans. They often crossed into Mexico territory and killed Mexicans. Makes sense, right? Essentially, they were racist paid assassins.

Mutualistas

Mutual aid societies formed by Mexicans in the 1860s and 70s. Formed to help Mexican workers adjust and integrate into society, as well as help cope with mistreatment.

Nahuatl

Native language of the Aztecs. Known informally as Aztec,[3] is a language or group of languages of the Uto-Aztecane language family. Varieties of Nahuatl are spoken by an estimated 1.5 million Nahua people, most of whom live in Central Mexico. All Nahuan languages are indigenous to Mesoamerica.

Myth of Passivity

Native women were anything but passive or invisible, however, by the end of the 18th century, they accounted for ⅓ of the Tenochtitlan workforce. Native women also were far from docile (submissive); legal documents show many examples of resemblance. Throughout the colonial period, women lodged complaints against clergy for sexual improprieties. This was no small feat considering they were appealing to patriarchal structure.

Nomadic & Sedentary Lifestyles

Nomadic people travel from one place to the other and do not make permanent settlements. These people can either belong to hunting and gathering societies or else to pastoral societies. Sedentary lifestyle or else sedentism can be defined as a society or way of life where people are permanently settled in one place, without traveling from one place to the other.

Racist Nativism and Mexican Resistance

Not surprisingly, Euro-American nativists saw Mexicans as inferior "aliens." In the late 1890's, hatred towards Mexicans grew in part because of the Spanish-American war, which spread fear among the whites who thought Mexico would team up with Spain and wreak havoc. Minute men or militias were formed along the border to "protect" themselves. Mexico actually had almost no empathy for Spain, but the whites didn't care, as they used the overall situation as an excuse to kill Mexicans. Another factor worsening racial tensions was the group known as the Texas White Caps. These racists demanded that white planters refuse to rent to Blacks and Mexicans. Basically, exploit workers that aren't white, fire them, kill them, do whatever you gotta do...

Juan de Onate

Once the appointed governor of the territory of New Mexico (1st spanish governor of New Mexico). Led early Spanish expeditions to the Great Plains and Colorado River Valley from Mexico. Founded settlements in the American Southwest.

Article X

Supposed to be land grants to Mexicans, allow them to keep their land. BUT, it wasn't obeyed by the USA because the Mexicans would have legal protection.

Aztec

The Aztec /ˈæztɛk/[1] people were certain ethnic groups of central Mexico, particularly those groups who spoke the Nahuatl language and who dominated large parts of Mesoamerica from the 14th to 16th centuries. The Nahuatl words aztecatl [asˈtekat͡ɬ] (singular)[2] and aztecah [asˈtekaʔ] (plural)[2] mean "people from Aztlan",[3] a mythological place for the Nahuatl-speaking culture of the time, and later adopted as the word to define the Mexica people. Often the term "Aztec" refers exclusively to the Mexica people of Tenochtitlan (now the location of Mexico City), situated on an island in Lake Texcoco, who referred to themselves as Mēxihcah Tenochcah or Cōlhuah Mexihcah.

El Quinto Sol

The Azteca placed their faith in their priests who revealed that the sun & the Earth had been destroyed 4 times; the present era was known as El Quinto Sol, "the 5th sun" the final destruction of which was coming. Only special intervention through Huitzilopochtli (lord of sun & war) would save them.

Concept of the Zero

The Maya, if not the Olmec, were probably the first people to develop the mathematical concept for zero. (Mayan numbering system: dot for 1, line for 5, shell glyph for 0) The Long Count calendar used by many subsequent Mesoamerican civilizations, as well as the concept of zero, may have been devised by the Olmecs. Because the six artifacts with the earliest Long Count calendar dates were all discovered outside the immediate Maya homeland, it is likely that this calendar predated the Maya and was possibly the invention of the Olmecs. Indeed, three of these six artifacts were found within the Olmec heartland. But an argument against an Olmec origin is the fact that the Olmec civilization had ended by the 4th century BCE, several centuries before the earliest known Long Count date artifact.[67]

Los San Patricios

The Saint Patrick's Battalion (Spanish: Batallón de San Patricio), formed and led by John Riley, was a unit of 175 to several hundred immigrants (accounts vary) and expatriates of European descent who fought as part of the Mexican Army against the United States in the Mexican-American War of 1846-8. Most of the battalion's members had deserted or defected from the United States Army.

The Sante Fe Trail

The Santa Fe Trail was a 19th-century transportation route through central North America that connected Franklin, Missouri with Santa Fe, New Mexico. Pioneered in 1821 by William Becknell, it served as a vital commercial highway until the introduction of the railroad to Santa Fe in 1880. Santa Fe was near the end of the El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro which carried trade from Mexico City.

The Nueces, Rio Bravo, and Rio Grande rivers

The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo

Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo

The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (Tratado de Guadalupe Hidalgo in Spanish), officially entitled the Treaty of Peace, Friendship, Limits and Settlement between the United States of America and the Mexican Republic,[1] is the peace treaty signed on February 2, 1848, in the Villa de Guadalupe Hidalgo (now a neighborhood of Mexico City) between the United States and Mexico that ended the Mexican-American War (1846-48).

Manifest Destiny

The belief held by Americans that it was their God given right, or destiny, to expand westward and conquer as much territory as possible. Led to Mexican American war, conquering of nearly half of Mexico.

Indigenous labor

The encomendero received tribute from a village along w/ Indian Labor. In principle, encomenderos would protect the natives under their care & supervise their conversion to catholicism. In reality the conquerors often maltreated & abused the natives, keeping them in a state of serfdom (slavery).

Marrying up

The lighter skinned a woman was, the better she was regarded by whites. White men usually married Mexican women, it was less common the other way around. Whites who married could inherit property from a Mexican father in law.When more white women came to the USA, rates of intermarriage dropped.

Legalized theft, legalizing racism

The overall theme continues. Whites tried to distance themselves from these "inferior" Mexicans. They took land from Mexicans, segregated them, ignored their suffering, and... Well, yeah.

Compadrazgo

The reciprocal relationship between godparents, the godchild, and the parents.

Manifest Destiny

The term manifest destiny originated in the 1840s. It expressed the belief that it was Anglo-Saxon Americans' providential mission to expand their civilization and institutions across the breadth of North America. This expansion would involve not merely territorial aggrandizement but the progress of liberty and individual economic opportunity as well.

Social control and intermarriage

The ultimate goal of controlling Mexicans was to keep order for Euro-American rule. They accomplished this through Texas Rangers, who would shoot Mexicans without a second thought. The Rangers spread fear through the hearts of many Mexicans, who dared not resist (Ya Basta!). As far as intermarriage is concerned, Euro-Americans would identify certain Mexican women as white, when they deemed convenient. The lighter skinned the Mexican women happened to be, the "whiter" they seemed to be, which in the eyes of the whites, was very attractive. However, as more actual white women moved into the area, intermarriage rates dropped.

Californios and becoming a minority

The white euro-American population rose significantly, while the Mexican population only increased slightly. Whites enjoyed prosperity as the items changed, and the Mexicans.... didn't. Mexicans suffered health problems and segregation. They were an isolated minority.

Mexicans, Mexican Americans, conquest, and occupation

These Mexicans (now Mexican Americans after the war of 1846) were citizens by conquest, not by choice. Their own land was occupied and taken by intruders. You've only heard that a thousand times by now..

Anglo-American views of Indians and Mexicans

They hated them.

Chicanos (Mexican Americans) living within newly acquired U.S. territories

They were subject to racism and discrimination. Self help associations were formed to raise money for hospitals and other charitable ventures.

The Sante Fe Ring

Took form after the Civil War through an alliance between elite New Mexicans and Euro-Americans. The ultimate control over the economic and political life of New Mexico was concentrated in the hands of the Santa Fe Ring, which manipulated territorial politics through a number of smaller satellite rings operating at the county levels. In the two decades following the Civil War, the ring members grabbed about 80% of the New Mexico land grants. The power of the Santa Fe Ring rested in its monopoly of the territorial bureaucracy. Through its Washington connections, it influenced the appointment of the governor, who, in turn, influenced the appointment of judges, surveyors, and other officials. Money and influence help the ring centralize control of the territory. The new policies ignored the protections of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo by invalidating Spanish and Mexican land titles. At the direction of the ring, colonial bureaucrats confused land laws and titles to create an environment that legitimized the ring's plunder. Lawyers and speculators, through intimidation, bribery, and fraud, wielded enormous power and made huge profits. The losers were the people.

Calmecac

University Life (philosopher, teacher, humanities, mathematics)

Mestizo

a man of mixed race, especially the offspring of a Spaniard and an American Indian.

Aztlán

is the legendary ancestral home of the Aztec peoples. In Aztec perspective, Aztlan means "Lands to the North" (4 corners). Aztecah is the Nahuatl word for "people from Aztlan". The place Aztlan is mentioned in several ethnohistorical sources dating from the colonial period, and each of them give different lists of the different tribal groups who participated in the migration from Aztlan to central Mexico, but the Mexica who went on to found Mexico-Tenochtitlan are mentioned in all of the accounts. Historians have speculated about the possible location of Aztlan and tend to place it either in northwestern Mexico or the southwest US, although there are significant doubts about whether the place is purely mythical or represents a historical reality.

Olmecs/Olmecas

of or designating a Mesoamerican civilization, c1000-400 b.c., along the southern Gulf coast of Mexico, characterized by extensive agriculture, a dating system, long-distance trade networks, pyramids and ceremonial centers, and very fine jade work.

Women in Tucson society

played a role, being the head of nearly a quarter of households. They worked, mainly at clerical positions. The women with lesser education worked as cooks and maids.

The Friendly Indian

the Pima and tohono o'odham Indians. Farmed in Arizona. Initially allies with the whites, but their land was eventually bled dry due to irrigation canals being dug.