By THÉRÈSE MARGOLIS During the 300 years of Spanish rule following Hernán Cortés’ conquest of Tenochtitlán in 1521, the people of Mexico suffered the indignities of imported smallpox epidemics, forced labor and imposed religious conversions. The disenfranchised indigenous Mexica, Maya, Zapotec and Toltec civilizations were stripped of their heritage and land, and what properties were not claimed by the
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By MATT SEDDON Rector of Christ Church Mexico City In 1514, five years before Hernán Cortés arrived on the shores of what is now México, the first Spanish priest ordained in the Americas, Bartolomé de las Casas, realized something was terribly wrong. He had benefited from the Spanish colonial encomienda system, which granted the labor of natives to the Spanish.
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By RICARDO CASTILLO Who’s behind the letter President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) sent to the king of Spain earlier this week demanding an apology for the atrocities against Mexican natives committed on orders of the king’s Borbón predecessors during 300 years of colonial rule from 1521 through 1821? The simple answer is, his wife, Beatriz Gutiérrez Müller. Did she really
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By RICARDO CASTILLO On March 6, Pulse News Mexico published an article offering a retrospective on the arrival of Hernán Cortés to Cozumel island. (It was the first incursion of a European army into the American continent with an intent to conquest.) It happened in 1519. Actually, the intent of that article was to set up an observation point from
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By RICARDO CASTILLO The question is not if (since it will surely happen), but how well will the conquest of Mexico’s Aztec Empire fare in the celebration of its 500th anniversary by Hernán Cortés? The truth is that, half a millennium later, Mexicans are split over how they feel about Cortés, the ensuing 300 years of colonial rule and the brutality
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By THÉRÈSE MARGOLIS During the 300 years of Spanish rule following Hernán Cortés’ conquest of Tenochtitlán in 1521, the people of Mexico suffered the indignities of imported smallpox epidemics, forced labor and imposed religious conversions. The disenfranchised indigenous Mexica, Maya, Zapotec and Toltec civilizations were stripped of their heritage and land, and what properties were not claimed by the viceroys
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By RICARDO CASTILLO Nowadays, the big news in México is full of announcements about the shape of things to come for the 2018-2024 administration of President-elect Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO). But the one item that really grabbed public attention this past week as the future president appointed his cabinet was the place where their offices will be: the National Palace. “They will all have
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By BOB SCHULMAN (†) “Know that on the right hand of the Indies there is an island called California … and it is peopled by black women, without any man among them, for they live in the manner of Amazons.” So wrote Spanish author Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo of a fictional paradise ruled by a black super-woman he called Queen
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