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Aztlan Colonial New Mexico Analysis

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“Aztlan, Cibola and Frontier New Spain” is a chapter in Between the Conquests written by John R. Chavez. In this chapter Chavez states how Chicano and other indigenous American ancestors had migrated and how the migration help form an important part of the Chicanos image of themselves as a natives of the south. “The Racial Politics behind the Settlement of New Mexico” is the second chapter by Martha Menchaca. Menchaca speaks about how unfairly the and about Onate his journey and how his colony was racially mixed. Also how when he passed through villages he greeted the Indian and told them that they have become vassals. She also goes over the colonist’s rebel and the growth of the Spanish colonies. ” Race and Honor in Colonial New Mexico” is …show more content…

Chavez, Chavez speaks about the first migration of Chicano ancestors and the affects the migration had on how Chicanos see themselves. Western Hemisphere is the arrival area for the ancestors of Chicanos and other indigenous Americans. They arrived in the west in small groups they started this journey forty to seventy thousand years ago since human have existed in the old world for millions of year already the discovery of America was actually the finding of the new world. The descendants of the first arrivals spread south from the starting point all the way to South America where they arrived about 11,000 B.C. during this migration countless of groups broke off and went their own way and establish themselves in local area. After taking Mexico City in 1521 the Spanish decided to go north for new lands to conquer and project their own myths onto the unknown region that was to become the southwest. They thought that the north was rich land of warrior women and that in that direction was silver city or something that would lead Europe to wealth. All these myth are what made the general myth of the southwest. The myth of the region as a land of golden promise. This myth was influenced by the Indians both north and in central Mexico. The northern Indians did this so to encourage the Spanish to move onto other area they would agree with the invaders. In central Mexico the Spanish myth of the golden northern land stirred awareness in the legend of Aztlan. According to their own histories the Aztecs had left their homeland in 1168 and journeyed to the lakes where in 1325 where found in Tenochtitlan. By mid-1700’s the Edenic picture of the north had been forgotten in the minds of the authorities in Mexico City. Since most of the settler from the very beginning were Indians and Mestizos and had intermarried with northern natives it wasn’t surprising that eventually saw the border land as their

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