DOCSLIB.ORG

The Ecological Origins and Consequences of Cattle Ranching in Sixteenth-Century New Spain Andrew Sluyter Louisiana State University, [email protected]

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
The Ecological Origins and Consequences of Cattle Ranching in Sixteenth-Century New Spain Andrew Sluyter Louisiana State University, Asluyter@Lsu.Edu Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons Faculty Publications Department of Geography & Anthropology 1996 The ecological origins and consequences of cattle ranching in sixteenth-century New Spain Andrew Sluyter Louisiana State University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/geoanth_pubs Recommended Citation Sluyter, Andrew, "The ce ological origins and consequences of cattle ar nching in sixteenth-century New Spain" (1996). Faculty Publications. 61. http://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/geoanth_pubs/61 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Department of Geography & Anthropology at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Faculty Publications by an authorized administrator of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. The GeographicalReview VOLUME 86 April1996 NUMBER 2 THE ECOLOGICALORIGINS AND CONSEQUENCES OF CATTLERANCHING IN SIXTEENTH-CENTURY NEW SPAIN* ANDREW SLUYTER ABSTRACT. Despite the dramatic landscape changes Mexico has undergone due to the introduction of cattle ranchingby the Spaniardsin the earlysixteenth century,the ecological origins of that pastroecosystemhave remained obscure. About 1521,Gregorio de Villalobos implanted an Andalusian-derivedherding ecology in the Gulf Coast lowlands that involved seasonal movement of cattle between wetlands and hill lands. Land-grantrecords demon- stratethat as the colonial economy expanded,the transhumantmodel proliferatedand came into conflict with those native settlements that had survived the pandemics of the early sixteenth century. In circumventing viceregal laws meant to protect native cultures and ecologies, ranchersprevented their recovery;the consequences persist to the present. Key- words:cattle, landscape ecology, native depopulation, New Spain, Veracruz. The two most importantthings to knowabout Mexico still are thepatterns of life that existedbefore the comingof the white men and the changesthat were introducedduring thefirstgeneration or two of the Spanishperiod. -Carl 0. Sauer,"The Personality of Mexico,"1941 Livestock have occupied the Mexican scene since the sixteenth-centurybirth of New Spain, early and pervasivelycontributing to the ecological upheaval of "the Columbianexchange" (Crosby 1972; Butzer 1992; Turner and others 1995).The Span- iardsbrought livestockboth largeand small.Along with those cattle,horses, mules, donkeys,sheep, goats, and pigs arriveda suite of ecologicalinstitutions that haveleft decisive imprints on the landscape.The landscape,reciprocally, has left its imprint on institutions.An associationof herdersorganized the transhumantroutes bywhich * WilliamE. Doolittleand Alfred H. Siemenshave long and generously shared their enthusiasm for the Mexican landscapeand given freely of theirknowledge and interpretive skills. The staffs of theArchivo General de la Naci6n andthe Benson Latin American Collection of theUniversity of Texasat Austin as well as the people of Veracruzhave made researchin archiveand field as pleasantas it is intellectuallyrewarding. Funding from the National Aeronauticsand Space Administration and the Universityof Texasat Austinmade this research possible. 0fi DR. SLUYTERis an assistantprofessor of geographyat the PennsylvaniaState University, University Park,Pennsylvania 16802. The GeographicalReview 86 (2): 161-177, April 1996 Copyright ? 1996 by the American Geographical Society of New York This content downloaded from 130.39.62.90 on Sat, 6 Sep 2014 20:42:05 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 162 THE GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW sheep moved between seasonal pastures along hundreds of kilometers of stone- walled trails,or caniadas.The estancias,or land grants,gridded the landscapeleague by league,accumulating space for Spaniardsand marginalizingnatives. The pastures burned each long, dry winter,incrementally altering the vegetation. Yetdespite a deep and broadimprint on the Mexicanlandscape, cattle ranching's sixteenth-centuryecological origins have remainedobscure. An orthodox literature long emphasizedSpain's semiarid plateau-often, specifically,Estremadura-as the Old Worldhearth of New Spain'sranching ecology (Bishko1952; Brand 1961; Rouse 1977).Supposedly,a fullydeveloped ecologyand economy involvingmounted herders and transhumancediffused southward with the Reconquistainto Andalusiaand, ul- timately,throughSeville and across the AtlantictoNew Spain.More recently, revision- ists have combined archivaland field researchto hypothesize that cattle ranching involvingmounted herdersreached its Old Worldapogee along the lower Rio Gua- dalquivirof Andalusia,in the seasonallyinundated marshes known as LasMarismas, and from therediffused to New Spain (Doolittle 1987;Butzer 1988; Jordan 1993). To date, contrasts between the sixteenth-centurylivestock ecologies of Estre- madura and Andalusia provide the main support for the revisionist hypothesis. Sheep predominated on the semiarid plateau, and the image of mounted Estre- maduransherding cattle across sparse, semiarid grasslands is as much myth as icon. In contrast, cattle predominatedin Andalusia,and as the floodwaters of the Rio Guadalquivirreceded each spring,herders drove their stock into LasMarismas (Fig- ure 1). Largelyuntended during the long dry season, isolated among a labyrinthof sloughs, the animals became semiferal.Solanos blowing out of Africa parched the oak-pine savannasof the surroundinghills, which the ranchersset ablaze in late summer (FernandezAls, Martin,and Merino 1995,366).As the rainsreturned each October,herders required horses to round up the semiferalstock before the Gua- dalquivirflooded and drivethem up to the fresh regrowthof the hill pastures. The Andalusianprovenance of the originalconquistadores, the four hundredor so who sailedwith Cortes,further supports the revisionisthypothesis. Nearly a third of the conquistadoreshailed from the provinces borderingLas Marismas-Seville, Huelva,Cadiz-and knew its transhumantpulse (Boyd-Bowman1964, xli). Having witnessed the fecundity of the cattle Columbus had introducedinto Hispaniolain 1493,those Andalusiansextended the diffusion to New Spain during the sixteenth century (Sauer1966; Watts 1987). In a few decades,the lowlandplains along the Gulf of Mexico, an environmentalhomologue to coastalAndalusia, had become the do- main of vast cattleherds (Simpson 1952; Butzer and Butzer1995). By 1580the viceroys had grantedsixty-two cattle estancias in the lowlandenvirons of the port of Veracruz alone, and the reportof the alcaldeclaims 150,000cows and mares (JGI, xxv-8, f. 5; Sluyter1995). Understandingof the ecological processes and consequences involved in that cataclysmiclandscape change, particularlyits initial stage, remains as incipient for Veracruzas for Mexicoas a whole (Butzerand Butzer1995). Yet the Veracruzlowlands hold particularrelevance for understandingthe ecologicalchanges that ensued from This content downloaded from 130.39.62.90 on Sat, 6 Sep 2014 20:42:05 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions CATTLE RANCHING IN NEW SPAIN 163 . .. .. .. ... ... ... ..........................................1..............96?00SS------. 1- - ,_- --- - - - -1- ZL't Jerezde la Frontera E] active/paleodunes |5_ 0|ioees2 | j coastal plain L f 1 1 o leagues 4 l FIG.i-The lowlandsof Veracruzand Andalusia, with relevant settlements of circa1525. Sources: Gran atlasde Espafla 1989; Jordan1993. thecolonization of Mesoamerica.The region formed the beachhead for the invasion and becamethe entrepotfor the subsequentcolony, bearing the firstbrunt of the war,the disease,and the livestock.That prominence makes the brevityof thelitera- tureon sixteenth-centurylandscape changes in thoselowlands all the more inexpli- cable(Melgarejo Vivanco 1943, 1975; Kellyand Palerm1952; Gonz6lezJacome 1988; Siemens 1995; Sluyter1995). Despitethe relativepaucity of previousresearch, the revisionist hypothesis of an Andalusianrather than an Estremaduranhearth suggests that the first herds of New Spainwould have followed a seasonalrhythm analogous to thetranshumance of Las Marismas,ranging between the marshesand hills of the GulfCoast lowlands. Al- thoughthose first cattle have left no morethan a fewarchival tracks, some data do supportthat hypothesis by confirmingdiffusion of open-rangeranching from the Guadalquivirlowlandto the environs of theportof Veracruz.More specifically, those datareveal how a Spaniardnamed Gregorio de Villalobosfirst adapted the transhu- mantecology of LasMarismas to the GulfCoast lowlands as well as its relationship to nativesettlement and ecology. THEFIRST CATTLE Sometimeand somewhere during the anarchistic1520S, well before the firstviceroy beganto quellthe unrulyconquistadores with landgrants during the 1540S,cattle This content downloaded from 130.39.62.90 on Sat, 6 Sep 2014 20:42:05 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 164 THE GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW ranchingbegan in New Spain.Yet the provenanceof those firstherds remains vague. A brief,anonymous testimonial of 22 October1554, preserved in the ArchivoGeneral de Indias in Seville,posthumously recounts the biographyof one Gregoriode Vil- lalobos and yields a solitary,equivocal reference to the first cattle to reach New Spain-a long-recognizedbut previously uninvestigatedclue (Brand 1961).Some- time during or soon after1521, Villalobos shipped calvesfrom the Antilles to some- whereon the GulfCoast: " [A]fter the pacificationof the Cityof Mexico [on 13August 1521]and the otherprovinces of this New Spain,the said Gregoriode
Load more

Recommended publications
  • N El Último Tercio Del Siglo XVIII, España Se Embarcó En Una Serie
    RELACIONES 110, PRIMAVERA 2007, VOL. XXVIII EL REY REVILLAGIGEDO Y LA DEFENSA DEL PUERTO DE VERACRUZ, 1789-1794 Martín González de la Vara* EL COLEGIO DE MICHOACÁN El puerto de Veracruz siempre fue en un punto nodal del sistema de- fensivo novohispano, pero su importancia estratégico-militar se acen- tuó en la segunda mitad del siglo XVIII debido el involucramiento del Imperio Español en constantes conflictos internacionales y a la crea- ción de un ejército profesional en sus colonias americanas. Durante el régimen virreinal del conde de Revillagigedo (1789-1794) se vivió en Nueva España un estado de casi-guerra durante el cual se puede cons- tatar cómo la institución militar iba adquiriendo mayor poder políti- co. Veracruz se convirtió en un pequeño escenario donde lo militar adquiría cada vez más relevancia. Pese a que el puerto no fue atacado entonces, confluyeron en él un creciente presupuesto militar, una or- ganización bélica cada vez más compleja y una gran cantidad de cuer- pos de ejército que nos permiten vislumbrar la militarización de la po- lítica local y de algunas áreas de la vida cotidiana de Veracruz. (Veracruz, vida cotidiana, Revillagidedo, Juan Vicente de Güemez Pa- checo conde de, Nueva España, institución militar, militarización) n el último tercio del siglo XVIII, España se embarcó en una serie constante de conflictos bélicos internaciona- E les en los que comprometía seriamente la seguridad y tranquilidad de sus colonias americanas. En la Nueva España, el gasto militar creció de manera desmesurada hasta convertirse en el primer renglón de egresos de su Real Hacienda. Este sacrificio fiscal, pagado por los novohispanos, resultó ser parcial- mente inútil en el sentido de que el virreinato nunca fue atacado directa- mente por alguna nación enemiga, aunque las costosas diligencias para su defensa se creían entonces indispensables.
    [Show full text]
  • Andalucía Flamenca: Music, Regionalism and Identity in Southern Spain
    Andalucía flamenca: Music, Regionalism and Identity in Southern Spain A thesis submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Ethnomusicology by Matthew Machin-Autenrieth © Matthew Machin-Autenrieth 2013 Tables of Contents Table of Contents i List of Plates iv List of Examples iv List of Figures v Conventions vi Acknowledgments viii Abstract x Introduction 1 PART ONE Chapter One: An Overview of Flamenco 6 The Identities of Flamenco 9 The Materials of Flamenco 12 The Geographies of Flamenco 19 The Scholars of Flamenco 25 Chapter Two: Music, Regionalism and Political Geography 36 Political Geography and Music 37 Region, Regionalisation and Regionalism 43 Regionalism and Music 51 The Theoretical Framework 61 Conclusions 68 Chapter Three: Methodology 70 Virtual Ethnography: In Theory 70 Virtual Ethnography: In Practice 79 Field Research in Granada 86 Conclusions 97 Chapter Four: Regionalism, Nationalism and Ethnicity in the History of Flamenco 98 Flamenco and the Emergence of Andalucismo (1800s–1900s) 99 Flamenco and the Nation: Commercialisation, Salvation and Antiflamenquismo 113 Flamenco and Political Andalucismo (1900–1936) 117 Flamenco during the Franco Regime (1939–75) 122 Flamenco since the Transition to Democracy (1975 onwards) 127 Conclusions 131 i Chapter Five: Flamenco for Andalusia, Flamenco for Humanity 133 Flamenco for Andalusia: The Statute of Autonomy 134 Flamenco for Humanity: Intangible Cultural Heritage 141 The Regionalisation of Flamenco in Andalusia 152 Conclusions 169 PART
    [Show full text]
  • The Pain in Spain: Examining Andalusia's Youth Unemployment Crisis
    Salve Regina University Digital Commons @ Salve Regina Pell Scholars and Senior Theses Salve's Dissertations and Theses 12-2018 The Pain in Spain: Examining Andalusia's Youth Unemployment Crisis Bianca D. Lennon Salve Regina University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.salve.edu/pell_theses Part of the Economic Policy Commons, International Economics Commons, Labor Economics Commons, Other International and Area Studies Commons, and the Work, Economy and Organizations Commons Lennon, Bianca D., "The Pain in Spain: Examining Andalusia's Youth Unemployment Crisis" (2018). Pell Scholars and Senior Theses. 122. https://digitalcommons.salve.edu/pell_theses/122 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Salve's Dissertations and Theses at Digital Commons @ Salve Regina. It has been accepted for inclusion in Pell Scholars and Senior Theses by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ Salve Regina. For more information, please contact [email protected]. THE PAIN IN SPAIN: EXAMINING ANDALUSIA’S YOUTH UNEMPLOYMENT CRISIS Bianca Lennon Salve Regina University December 2018 Table of Contents Abstract…………………………………………………………………………………...3 Introduction………………………………………………………………………….…....4 1.1 Background…………………………………………………………………...4 1.2 Definition of the Problem…………………………………………………......5 1.3 Risk Factors for the European Union………………………………...……….6 1.4 Risk Factors for Spain…………………………………………………………8 1.5 Risk Factors for Andalusia……………………………………..…………......9 1.6 Statement of Purpose………………………………………………...………10
    [Show full text]
  • Ever Faithful
    Ever Faithful Ever Faithful Race, Loyalty, and the Ends of Empire in Spanish Cuba David Sartorius Duke University Press • Durham and London • 2013 © 2013 Duke University Press. All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper ∞ Tyeset in Minion Pro by Westchester Publishing Services. Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data Sartorius, David A. Ever faithful : race, loyalty, and the ends of empire in Spanish Cuba / David Sartorius. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978- 0- 8223- 5579- 3 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN 978- 0- 8223- 5593- 9 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Blacks— Race identity— Cuba—History—19th century. 2. Cuba— Race relations— History—19th century. 3. Spain— Colonies—America— Administration—History—19th century. I. Title. F1789.N3S27 2013 305.80097291—dc23 2013025534 contents Preface • vii A c k n o w l e d g m e n t s • xv Introduction A Faithful Account of Colonial Racial Politics • 1 one Belonging to an Empire • 21 Race and Rights two Suspicious Affi nities • 52 Loyal Subjectivity and the Paternalist Public three Th e Will to Freedom • 94 Spanish Allegiances in the Ten Years’ War four Publicizing Loyalty • 128 Race and the Post- Zanjón Public Sphere five “Long Live Spain! Death to Autonomy!” • 158 Liberalism and Slave Emancipation six Th e Price of Integrity • 187 Limited Loyalties in Revolution Conclusion Subject Citizens and the Tragedy of Loyalty • 217 Notes • 227 Bibliography • 271 Index • 305 preface To visit the Palace of the Captain General on Havana’s Plaza de Armas today is to witness the most prominent stone- and mortar monument to the endur- ing history of Spanish colonial rule in Cuba.
    [Show full text]
  • Battleground Perceptions in the Portuguese Early Modern Atlantic
    WIH0010.1177/0968344517725540War in HistoryDantas da Cruz 725540research-article2018 Original Article War in History 1 –26 From Flanders to Pernambuco: © The Author(s) 2018 Reprints and permissions: Battleground Perceptions in sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav https://doi.org/10.1177/0968344517725540DOI: 10.1177/0968344517725540 the Portuguese Early Modern journals.sagepub.com/home/wih Atlantic World Miguel Dantas da Cruz Instituto de Ciências Sociais – Lisbon University, Portugal Abstract This article addresses the way the Portuguese experience in the seventeenth-century battlefields of Flanders, during the Iberian Union (1580–1640), reshaped Portuguese military thought and culture. It argues that their traditional martial perceptions – almost exclusively based in imperial experiences, especially against the Muslims in North Africa and in India – were transformed by the direct exposure to Spanish military endeavours in Europe. It also argues that the experience in Flanders resurfaced in the South Atlantic, in all its religious and political dimensions, transforming the prestige of Brazil as a battlefield. Finally, the article revisits the way the Flanders experience poisoned Spanish–Portuguese relations. Keywords Portuguese Atlantic, Iberian Union, War of Flanders, martial imaginary, battleground perceptions Introduction King Sebastian, in his attempt to go to North Africa, to attack the Moors himself, beyond being moved by the zeal of exalting the Catholic Faith, and spreading the Christian religion, had the example of all of his ancestors, who were always the Generals of their own Arms, and the first ones to attack. King John I went in person to take Ceuta with his four sons in a massive fleet. Afonso V went himself three times…to carry on with the war on the Berber Coast, where he achieved many victories… Manuel I was also determined to go there, carrying on with this Corresponding author: Miguel Dantas da Cruz, Instituto de Ciências Sociais – Lisbon University, Av.
    [Show full text]
  • Who Are the Spanish Speakers?
    HJBXXX10.1177/0739986319899735Hispanic Journal of Behavioral SciencesArdila 899735research-article2020 Article Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences 1 –21 Who Are the Spanish © The Author(s) 2020 Article reuse guidelines: Speakers? An sagepub.com/journals-permissions https://doi.org/10.1177/0739986319899735DOI: 10.1177/0739986319899735 Examination of Their journals.sagepub.com/home/hjb Linguistic, Cultural, and Societal Commonalities and Differences Alfredo Ardila1,2 Abstract In this article, three different aspects of the Spanish-speaking community are analyzed: (1) The idiosyncratic characteristics of the Spanish language, (2) the social dimension of the Spanish speakers, and finally, (3) their cultural manifestations. Two major Hispanic subcultures are distinguished: Iberian Spanish culture and Hispano American culture. Initially, the distribution of Spanish speakers in the world and the major oral and written characteristics of Spanish language are presented. The social characteristics of the Spanish- speaking countries, including economic development, literacy, life expectancy, and Human Development Index, are later discussed. It is emphasized that they represent a group of countries with a significant degree of heterogeneity. Finally, the Iberian Spanish and the Hispano American cultures are analyzed. Five cultural elements are reviewed: (1) ethnic group, (2) language, (3) religion, (4) level of development, and (5) level of schooling. It is concluded that regardless that in Spain, there are important regional differences, it is possible to consider that there is a cultural background common to all Spaniards, which may have specific nuances in each region. Hispano America, on the other hand, from the point of view of its ethnic origin, is 50% descended from 1Sechenov University, Moscow, Russia 2North American Academy of Spanish Language, New York, NY, USA Corresponding Author: Alfredo Ardila, 12230 NW 8th Street, Miami, FL 33182, USA.
    [Show full text]
  • As Andalusia
    THE SPANISH OF ANDALUSIA Perhaps no other dialect zone of Spain has received as much attention--from scholars and in the popular press--as Andalusia. The pronunciation of Andalusian Spanish is so unmistakable as to constitute the most widely-employed dialect stereotype in literature and popular culture. Historical linguists debate the reasons for the drastic differences between Andalusian and Castilian varieties, variously attributing the dialect differentiation to Arab/Mozarab influence, repopulation from northwestern Spain, and linguistic drift. Nearly all theories of the formation of Latin American Spanish stress the heavy Andalusian contribution, most noticeable in the phonetics of Caribbean and coastal (northwestern) South American dialects, but found in more attenuated fashion throughout the Americas. The distinctive Andalusian subculture, at once joyful and mournful, but always proud of its heritage, has done much to promote the notion of andalucismo within Spain. The most extreme position is that andaluz is a regional Ibero- Romance language, similar to Leonese, Aragonese, Galician, or Catalan. Objectively, there is little to recommend this stance, since for all intents and purposes Andalusian is a phonetic accent superimposed on a pan-Castilian grammatical base, with only the expected amount of regional lexical differences. There is not a single grammatical feature (e.g. verb cojugation, use of preposition, syntactic pattern) which separates Andalusian from Castilian. At the vernacular level, Andalusian Spanish contains most of the features of castellano vulgar. The full reality of Andalusian Spanish is, inevitably, much greater than the sum of its parts, and regardless of the indisputable genealogical ties between andaluz and castellano, Andalusian speech deserves study as one of the most striking forms of Peninsular Spanish expression.
    [Show full text]
  • Prejudices in Spain
    Prejudices in Spain Index ❏ Photo of the communities ❏ Andalusia ❏ Basque Country ❏ Galicia ❏ Canary Islands ❏ Catalonia ❏ Spain’s mainland from the point of view of Canarians Photo of the communities Andalusia It’s located in the south of the Iberian peninsula and the political capital is Sevilla. It’s the most populated autonomous community of Spain. Andalusia The Andalusians have a reputation for always being partying and making others laugh. When they talk about things they tend to distort reality, increasing it. People from Spain usually think that Andalusian people are lazy. They usually are hospitable, religious, superstitious and generous. Basque Country The Basque Country is an autonomous community in northern Spain. The political capital is Vitoria. Of the Basques there are two generalized prejudices, that they all are separatist and tough people. They are hard, frank, robust, lovers of their land, separatists, gross and they never laugh. A possible explanation for this, if it is true, is that traditional Basque sports stand out for being very physical, for the need to use quite a lot of force. On the other hand, the fact that they are separatists comes from political issues due to the nationalist thoughts of a part of the population. Galicia Galicia is an autonomous community of Spain and historic nationality under Spanish law. It’s Located in the north-west of the Iberian Peninsula. The political capital is Santiago de Compostela, in the province of A Coruña. Galicians are considered closed, distrustful, indecisive, superstitious and traditionalists. Canary Islands The Canary Islands is a Spanish archipelago and the southernmost autonomous community of Spain located in the Atlantic Ocean, 100 kilometres west of Morocco at the closest point.
    [Show full text]
  • A Few Clerics at Court
    Rafferty 1 A Few Clerics at Court Catholic Clergymen in the lay politics and administration of Spain during the reigns of “Los Austrias Mayores”, Charles V/I and Philip II: 1516-1598 Keith Rafferty History Undergraduate Honors Thesis Georgetown University Advisor: Professor Tommaso Astarita, Georgetown University May 9. 2011 Rafferty 2 I authorize the public release of my thesis for anybody who should want to look at it. Rafferty 3 Table of Contents Table of Contents .................................................................................................................................... 2 Introduction ............................................................................................................................................. 4 Thesis Statement.................................................................................................................................. 8 Organization and Explanation .................................................................................................................. 9 Explanation of Terms .......................................................................................................................... 9 CODOIN ..................................................................................................................................... 9 Spain/The Spanish Empire ......................................................................................................... 11 The Spanish Aristocracy ...........................................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • The Persistence of the Andalusian Identity in Rabat, Morocco
    University of Pennsylvania ScholarlyCommons Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations 1995 The Persistence of the Andalusian Identity in Rabat, Morocco Beebe Bahrami University of Pennsylvania, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations Part of the Ethnic Studies Commons, European History Commons, Islamic World and Near East History Commons, Social and Cultural Anthropology Commons, and the Sociology Commons Recommended Citation Bahrami, Beebe, "The Persistence of the Andalusian Identity in Rabat, Morocco" (1995). Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations. 1176. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/1176 This paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/1176 For more information, please contact [email protected]. The Persistence of the Andalusian Identity in Rabat, Morocco Abstract This thesis investigates the problem of how an historical identity persists within a community in Rabat, Morocco, that traces its ancestry to Spain. Called Andalusians, these Moroccans are descended from Spanish Muslims who were first forced to convert to Christianity after 1492, and were expelled from the Iberian peninsula in the early seventeenth century. I conducted both ethnographic and historical archival research among Rabati Andalusian families. There are four main reasons for the persistence of the Andalusian identity in spite of the strong acculturative forces of religion, language, and culture in Moroccan society. First, the presence of a strong historical continuity of the Andalusian heritage in North Africa has provided a dominant history into which the exiled communities could integrate themselves. Second, the predominant practice of endogamy, as well as other social practices, reinforces an intergenerational continuity among Rabati Andalusians. Third, the Andalusian identity is a single identity that has a complex range of sociocultural contexts in which it is both meaningful and flexible.
    [Show full text]
  • Strategy and Tactics in the Thirty Years' War: the »Military Revolution«
    Aufsätze David A. Parrott Strategy and Tactics in the Thirty Years' War: The »Military Revolution« For iwenty years Professor Michael Roberts' work on the »Military Revolution« of the period 1560 — 1660 enjoyed undisputed pre-eminence as the accepted interpreta- tion of military developments in early modern Europe^. In 1976, an article by Geof- frey Parker made the first — and to my knowledge, only — general criticisms of Ro- berts' thesis that a series of tactical changes had a revolutionary impact upon Euro- pean warfare^. Professor Parker expressed reasoned doubts about whether these changes could be described as revolutionary, since serious inconsistencies emerge in any attempt to assess their practical impact. Why, in 1634, did the tactically conserva- tive Spanish army wipe out the »new model« Swedish at Nördlingen^? Why were the developments in tactics and strategy unable to bring the European conflict to any de- cisive conclusion? Parker's suggestion is that Roberts greatly over-emphasized inflexi- bility and traditionalism in the »conservative« armies, particularly the Spanish. He proposes that it is possible to trace a receptiveness to similar tactical developments back at least to the condottiere of the fifteenth Century, and that a willingness to ap- proach common military problems was not confined to the Dutch and the Swedes. In matters of developing firepower, the quality of cavalry, the deployment of small units and in effective training, the Spanish army was quite as progressive as its rivals Yet the effect of this is to confirm by implication the importance of the tactical changes commonly ascribed to the Nassau and to Gustavus Adolphus.
    [Show full text]
  • The Migration of an Emblem Through the Example of the Cross of Burgundy
    The migration of an emblem through the example of the cross of Burgundy by Patrice de La Condamine Abstract The choice for the subject of this paper, The migration of an emblem through the example of the cross of Burgundy, needs an explanation. The purpose of this subject is double. The first one, as the first part of the title indicates, is to show the migration of the emblems, showing that they follow the movements of populations. The second purpose is to explain this reality through an example: the cross of Burgundy. This choice seems to be all the more appropriate since the country which welcomes us was one of the first to receive this emblem on its ter - ritory, in historic circumstances that everybody knows. The story could begin with Once upon a time, there was a cross... The Burgundian native land I do not pretend to know everything about the origins of the cross of Burgundy, how - ever I can talk about its history. First, its name ‘Cross of Burgundy’ does not let any doubt 1 about its origin: Burgundy, the actual region situated in the east of France. On the graphic aspect, it’s a saltirewise cross, called a Saint-Andrew’s cross 2, which is particular, as on the edges of its four limbs some small branch-like offshoots from the main cross can be noticed. That is why this emblem is also called “croix écotée”, 6 in The saltire of Burgundy French. Originally, it represented two crossed tree trunks of which the branches had been cut off, so that only the sawn-off ends remained.
    [Show full text]