Postborder City

Postborder City
Author: Michael Dear
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 341
Release: 2013-11-12
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1317794036

The postborder metropolis of Bajalta California stretches from Los Angeles in the north to Tijuana and Mexicali in the south. Immigrants from all over the globe flock to Southern California, while corporations are drawn to the low wage industry of the Mexican border towns, echoing developments in other rapid growth areas such as Phoenix, El Paso, and San Antonio. This incredibly diverse, transnational megacity is giving birth to new cultural and artistic forms as it rapidly evolves into something unique in the world. Postborder City is a genuinely interdisciplinary investigation of the hybrid culture on both sides of the increasingly fluid U. S.-Mexico border, spanning the disciplines of art and art history, urban planning, geography, Latina/o studies, and American studies.

The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo

The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
Author: Richard Griswold del Castillo
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
Total Pages: 276
Release: 1992-09-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780806124780

Signed in 1848, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ended the war between the United States and Mexico and gave a large portion of Mexico’s northern territories to the United States. The language of the treaty was designed to deal fairly with the people who became residents of the United States by default. However, as Richard Griswold del Castillo points out, articles calling for equality and protection of civil and property rights were either ignored or interpreted to favor those involved in the westward expansion of the United States rather than the Mexicans and Indians living in the conquered territories.

Fugitive Slaves and Spaces of Freedom in North America

Fugitive Slaves and Spaces of Freedom in North America
Author: Damian Alan Pargas
Publisher: University Press of Florida
Total Pages: 276
Release: 2020-09-08
Genre: History
ISBN: 0813065798

This volume introduces a new way to study the experiences of runaway slaves by defining different “spaces of freedom” they inhabited. It also provides a groundbreaking continental view of fugitive slave migration, moving beyond the usual regional or national approaches to explore locations in Canada, the U.S. North and South, Mexico, and the Caribbean. Using newspapers, advertisements, and new demographic data, contributors show how events like the Revolutionary War and westward expansion shaped the slave experience. Contributors investigate sites of formal freedom, where slavery was abolished and refugees were legally free, to determine the extent to which fugitive slaves experienced freedom in places like Canada while still being subject to racism. In sites of semiformal freedom, as in the northern United States, fugitives’ claims to freedom were precarious because state abolition laws conflicted with federal fugitive slave laws. Contributors show how local committees strategized to interfere with the work of slave catchers to protect refugees. Sites of informal freedom were created within the slaveholding South, where runaways who felt relocating to distant destinations was too risky formed maroon communities or attempted to blend in with free black populations. These individuals procured false documents or changed their names to avoid detection and pass as free. The essays discuss slaves’ motivations for choosing these destinations, the social networks that supported their plans, what it was like to settle in their new societies, and how slave flight impacted broader debates about slavery. This volume redraws the map of escape and emancipation during this period, emphasizing the importance of place in defining the meaning and extent of freedom. Contributors: Kyle Ainsworth | Mekala Audain | Gordon S. Barker | Sylviane A. Diouf | Roy E. Finkenbine | Graham Russell Gao Hodges | Jeffrey R. Kerr-Ritchie | Viola Franziska Müller | James David Nichols | Damian Alan Pargas | Matthew Pinsker A volume in the series Southern Dissent, edited by Stanley Harrold and Randall M. Miller

From Presidio to the Pecos River

From Presidio to the Pecos River
Author: Orville B. Shelburne, Jr.
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
Total Pages: 277
Release: 2020-10-08
Genre: History
ISBN: 0806167920

The 1848 treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo that ended the Mexican-American War described a boundary between the two countries that was to be ascertained by a joint boundary commission effort. The section of the boundary along the Rio Grande from Presidio to the mouth of the Pecos River was arguably the most challenging, and it was surveyed by two American parties, one led by civilian surveyor M. T. W. Chandler in 1852, and the second led by Lieutenant Nathaniel Michler in 1853. Our understanding of these two surveys across the greater Big Bend has long been limited to the official reports and maps housed in the National Archives and never widely published. The discovery by Orville B. Shelburne of the journal kept by Dr. Charles C. Parry, surgeon-botanist-geologist for the 1852 party, has dramatically enriched the story by giving us a firsthand view of the Chandler boundary survey as it unfolded. Parry’s journal forms the basis of From Presidio to the Pecos River, which documents the day-to-day working of the survey teams. The story Shelburne tells is one of scientific exploration under duress—surveyors stranded in towering canyons overnight without food or shelter; piloting inflatable rubber boats down wild rivers; rising to the challenges of a profoundly remote area, including the possibility of Indian attack. Shelburne’s comparison of the original boundary maps with their modern counterparts reveals the limitations of terrain and equipment on the survey teams. Shelburne's book provides a window on the adventure, near disaster, and true accomplishment of the surveyors’ work in documenting the course of the Rio Grande across the Big Bend region.

Alone in Mexico

Alone in Mexico
Author: Karl Bartolomeus Heller
Publisher: University Alabama Press
Total Pages: 304
Release: 2007-10-05
Genre: History
ISBN:

When the United States invaded Mexico in 1846-47 conditions became chaotic, and the enterprising botanist was forced to flee.

The Life and Adventures of Joaquín Murieta

The Life and Adventures of Joaquín Murieta
Author: John Rollin Ridge
Publisher: Graphic Arts Books
Total Pages: 111
Release: 2021-06-01
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1513288431

The Life and Adventures of Joaquin Murieta (1854) is a novel by John Rollin Ridge. Published under his birth name Yellow Bird, from Cheesquatalawny in Cherokee, The Life and Adventures of Joaquin Murieta was the first novel from a Native American author. Despite its popular success worldwide—the novel was translated into French and Spanish—Ridge’s work was a financial failure due to bootleg copies and widespread plagiarism. Recognized today as a groundbreaking work of nineteenth century fiction, The Life and Adventures of Joaquin Murieta is a powerful novel that investigates American racism, illustrates the struggle for financial independence among marginalized communities, and dramatizes the lives of outlaws seeking fame, fortune, and vigilante justice. Born in Mexico, Joaquin Murieta came to California in search of gold. Despite his belief in the American Dream, he soon faces violence and racism from white settlers who see his success as a miner as a personal affront. When his wife is raped by a mob of white men and after Joaquin is beaten by a group of horse thieves, he loses all hope of living alongside Americans and turns to a life of vigilantism. Joined by a posse of similarly enraged Mexican-American men, Joaquin becomes a fearsome bandit with a reputation for brutality and stealth. Based on the life of Joaquin Murrieta Carrillo, also known as The Robin Hood of the West, The Life and Adventures of Joaquin Murieta would serve as inspiration for Johnston McCulley’s beloved pulp novel hero Zorro. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of John Rollin Ridge’s The Life and Adventures of Joaquin Murieta is a classic work of Native American literature reimagined for modern readers.

The U.S. War with Mexico

The U.S. War with Mexico
Author: Ernesto Chavez
Publisher: Macmillan Higher Education
Total Pages: 273
Release: 2018-12-05
Genre: History
ISBN: 1319242790

The U.S. war with Mexico was a pivotal event in American history, it set crucial wartime precedents and served as a precursor for the impending Civil War. With a powerful introduction and rich collection of documents, Ernesto Ch‡vez makes a convincing case that as an expansionist war, the U.S.-Mexico conflict set a new standard for the acquisition of foreign territory through war. Equally important, the war racialized the enemy, and in so doing accentuated the nature of whiteness and white male citizenship in the U.S., especially as it related to conquered Mexicans, Indians, slaves, and even women. The war, along with ongoing westward expansion, heightened public debates in the North and South about slavery and its place in newly-acquired territories. In addition, Ch‡vez shows how the political, economic and social development of each nation played a critical role in the path to war and its ultimate outcome. Both official and popular documents offer the events leading up to the war, the politics surrounding it, popular sentiment in both countries about it, and the war’s long-term impact on the future development and direction of these two nations. Headnotes, a chronology, maps and a selected bibliography enrich student understanding of this important historical moment.

The Civil War on the Rio Grande, 1846–1876

The Civil War on the Rio Grande, 1846–1876
Author: Roseann Bacha-Garza
Publisher: Texas A&M University Press
Total Pages: 354
Release: 2019-01-24
Genre: History
ISBN: 1623497191

2020, Texas Historical Commission's Governor's Award for Historic Preservation was awarded to the Community Historical Archaeology Project with Schools (CHAPS) at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. This book grew out of the CHAPS program. Runner-up, 2019 Texas Old Missions and Forts Restoration Book Award, sponsored by the Texas Old Missions and Forts Restoration Association (TOMFRA) Long known as a place of cross-border intrigue, the Rio Grande’s unique role in the history of the American Civil War has been largely forgotten or overlooked. Few know of the dramatic events that took place here or the complex history of ethnic tensions and international intrigue and the clash of colorful characters that marked the unfolding and aftermath of the Civil War in the Lone Star State. To understand the American Civil War in Texas also requires an understanding of the history of Mexico. The Civil War on the Rio Grande focuses on the region’s forced annexation from Mexico in 1848 through the Civil War and Reconstruction. In a very real sense, the Lower Rio Grande Valley was a microcosm not only of the United States but also of increasing globalization as revealed by the intersections of races, cultures, economic forces, historical dynamics, and individual destinies. As a companion to Blue and Gray on the Border: The Rio Grande Valley Civil War Trail, this volume provides the scholarly backbone to a larger public history project exploring three decades of ethnic conflict, shifting international alliances, and competing economic proxies at the border. The Civil War on the Rio Grande, 1846–1876 makes a groundbreaking contribution not only to the history of a Texas region in transition but also to the larger history of a nation at war with itself.

Peasants, Politics, and the Formation of Mexico's National State

Peasants, Politics, and the Formation of Mexico's National State
Author: Peter F. Guardino
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Total Pages: 340
Release: 1996
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780804741903

This is a study of the important but little-understood role of peasants in the formation of the Mexican national state--from the end of the colonial era to the beginning of La Reforma, a moment in which liberalism became dominant in Mexican political culture. The book shows how Mexico's national political system was formed through local struggles and alliances that deeply involved elements of Mexico's impoverished rural masses, notably the peasants who took part in many of the local regional, and national rebellions that characterized early nineteenth-century politics. These rebellions were not battles over whether or not there was to be a state; they were contests over what the state was to be. The author focuses on the region of Guerrero, whose peasantry were deeply involved in the two most important broadly based revolts of the early nineteenth century: the War of Independence of 1810-21, and the 1853-55 Revolution of Ayutla, the rebellion that began La Reforma. The book's central contention is that there are fundamental links between state formation, elite politics, popular protest, and the construction of Mexico's modern political culture. Various elite groups advanced different models of the state, which in turn had different implications for, and impacts on, the lives of Mexico's lower classes. Contesting elites formed alliance with segments of Mexico's peasantry as well as the urban poor and these alliances were crucial in determining national political outcomes. Thus, the participation of wide sectors of the population in politics for varying reasons--and the subsequent learning of tactics and elaborations of discourse--left an enduring mark on Mexico's political system and culture.

Line in the Sand

Line in the Sand
Author: Rachel St. John
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 296
Release: 2012-11-25
Genre: History
ISBN: 0691156131

Line in the Sand details the dramatic transformation of the western U.S.-Mexico border from its creation at the end of the Mexican-American War in 1848 to the emergence of the modern boundary line in the first decades of the twentieth century. In this sweeping narrative, Rachel St. John explores how this boundary changed from a mere line on a map to a clearly marked and heavily regulated divide between the United States and Mexico. Focusing on the desert border to the west of the Rio Grande, this book explains the origins of the modern border and places the line at the center of a transnational history of expanding capitalism and state power in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Moving across local, regional, and national scales, St. John shows how government officials, Native American raiders, ranchers, railroad builders, miners, investors, immigrants, and smugglers contributed to the rise of state power on the border and developed strategies to navigate the increasingly regulated landscape. Over the border's history, the U.S. and Mexican states gradually developed an expanding array of official laws, ad hoc arrangements, government agents, and physical barriers that did not close the line, but made it a flexible barrier that restricted the movement of some people, goods, and animals without impeding others. By the 1930s, their efforts had created the foundations of the modern border control apparatus. Drawing on extensive research in U.S. and Mexican archives, Line in the Sand weaves together a transnational history of how an undistinguished strip of land became the significant and symbolic space of state power and national definition that we know today.