1. Impact of the French and Haitian Revolutions
1.1. Abolition of Slavery
1.2. Revolutionary Wars
1.3. Racial Struggle
1.4. Setting the path for abolition of slavery in other parts of the world.
1.5. Questions
1.5.1. What relationship does David Brion Davis argue existed between the French Revolution and the Haitian Revolution?
1.5.1.1. The relationship is the abolition of slavery. The French emancipation decree of 1794 was a crucial precedent, successfully defended by the blacks of Saint-Domingue against Spanish, English, and then Napoleon's best French troops; this abolition of slavery was embodied in constitution of Haiti.
1.5.2. What role did race play in the Haitian Revolution and the reaction to this revolution?
1.5.2.1. Race was a major role in the revolution. The dividend of races and the subjugation of blacks is what led to the war. The reaction was an abolitionist movement that freed Haiti from France.
1.5.3. What are the differences between the US and Haitian revolutions?
1.5.3.1. The Haitian revolution was conquered as a right. The people fought for it. Whereas the American revolution was led by political heads that already had the knowledge of "personal and political freedom".
2. Racism Revolution, and Indigenismo
2.1. Racism
2.2. Identity of mestizaje/indigenismo
2.3. Mexican nationality
2.4. Racist Behavior
2.5. Prejudice
2.6. Questions
2.6.1. What does Knight mean when he writes about the “subjective nature of Indian/mestizo status” (pg 74).
2.6.1.1. He talks about the wide range of characteristics that make up the status. In fact these attributes are what keep the division going. Someone might look mestizo in one culture and not in t he next.
2.6.2. Why could we argue that the term “Indian” is meaningless?
2.6.2.1. It became meaningless because Spanish blood gave way for the creation of a new "race" the mestizos.
2.6.3. How does Knight describe indigenismo?
2.6.3.1. He describes the beginnings as "The European created the Indian". He states that indigenismo came to be after many views and doctrines of race changed over time.
2.6.4. Explain how the Porfirian administration reinforced racism in Mexico.
2.6.4.1. The administration did not change the "colonial pattern of reciprocal definition". Linguistic differences were still a barrier even up to the revolution period.
2.6.5. Did the Mexican Revolution of 1910 end this racist view with their use of indigenismo? Why? Why not?
2.6.5.1. Change didn't happen right away. "The very essence of the revolution is based upon the vindication of the Indian and he Indian community". However, it was believed that integration could occur without "de-Indiniazation".
2.6.6. Knight argues that mestizaje and nationhood were equated in the post-Revolutionary period. What does this mean?
2.6.6.1. It means that "Mexico could achieve demographic growth without recourse of immigration; the population could become a 'nationality'; and that nationality could 'establish with precision it't own concept of patriotism."
2.6.7. How did indigenismo deal with Asian and African peoples and their descendents in Mexico?
2.6.7.1. Racist tendencies manifested themselves. Negative implications for other races developed in light of the reaction to Porfirian prejudices.
3. Racial ideas and Social Policy in Brazil
3.1. Slavery
3.2. Racial construct
3.3. Immigration
3.4. Authority
3.5. Questions
3.5.1. Why did the discussion on race and miscegenation differ in Brazil than most of the Americas?
3.5.1.1. The topic of slavery was the predominant force in Brazil. Race and color were strongly overlooked given that Brazil had always been a racially mixed country. Abolitionists had plenty of views on race. It was believed that miscegenation would eventually whiten and improve the Brazilian population.
3.5.2. How did Brazilian intellectual look at immigration?
3.5.2.1. They believed that European immigrants were "the solution to the postablotion labor problem".
3.5.3. Explain Brazilian rejection of racist ideas.Discuss the whitening thesis
3.5.3.1. Brazilian revolts "against racist thought was directly related to the gradual discrediting of racist theories among Europeans and North American scientists". Foreign theory became a contradictory and ambiguous concept. And so, the antiracist Brazilians could pick their own evidence to support the refutations of the racists. The idea behind the whitening theory was that Portuguese "enjoyed an uncanny ability to whiten the darker peoples with whom they mixed". It was believed that Brazil's "color problem would eventually disappear". "This whitening ideology, which accepted the mulatto but not the black, had one advantage...it was a compromise with racist determinism".
4. Race in Argentina and Cuba
4.1. Racial Identity
4.2. Indigenous Eradication
4.3. Political Policies
4.4. Race to Immigration
4.5. War
4.6. Questions
4.6.1. Helg looks at the writings of Sarmiento, Bunge, and Ingenieros to explore racial theorizing in Argentina. What conclusions did she reach?
4.6.1.1. Characteristics of the superior race (white) were becoming predominant through intermarriage. The Argentinians were becoming a new variety of the European white races.
4.6.2. What shifted the debate from race to immigration in Argentina?
4.6.2.1. The need to eliminate the aborigines in order to direct new European immigrants to the exploitation of interior lands.
4.6.3. How did some Argentinean intellectuals deal with the immigration issue?
4.6.3.1. By replacing it with education. The idea was that through compulsory public education both the rural areas and immigrants could be integrated into the supposedly true Argentina.
4.6.4. How did the Cuban intellectuals Figueras and Ortiz Fernandez deal with race?
4.6.4.1. Figueras tried to prove their racial incapacity to form an independent republic. Ortiz Fernandez denounced the concept of race as unscientific. However both, perpetuated a negative image of the Afro-Cuban.
4.6.5. After independence, discuss Cuban racial policies.
4.6.5.1. Two major concessions were made to non whites: the Constitution of,1901 gave them equality (without specifying race, sex, place of birth, or religion) and universal male suffrage. Many policies were directly aimed at segregating blacks.
4.6.6. Explain the meaning of the “Little War of 1912."
4.6.6.1. It was argued that the Creole elite should continue to run the country. Massive white immigration and prohibition of black immigration was the solution imposed. The war led to Afro-Cubans standing divided. The black congressmen signed a manifesto in July 1912 that denied the existence of racial discrimination in Cuba and called for national unity.
4.6.7. Why did the racial histories of Argentina and Cuba differ?
4.6.7.1. Argentina had succeeded and Cuba had failed. Intellectuals worked hard to integrate Latin immigrants into a newly created Argentinean culture that was a complex combination of Spanish language, Hispanic tradition, Catholicism, Argentinean history. They went as far as rehabilitating the mestizo gaucho and the savage Indian. Cuba remained a biracial society and could not move forward. The African heritage was not acknowledged as a whole, nor as a constructive component of a still very Hispanic Cuban culture.