Bolton examines how Spain was able to spread its influence across South and Central America while having its resources spent on wars in Europe. The impact was substantial to the extent that the majority of the population of the South American continent speaks Spanish and has culture inherited from Spain. Bolton (1917) identified three elements of the Spanish frontier – conquistadors, presidial soldiers, and missionaries. Although all three played a significant role, Bolton (1917) emphasizes the importance of the latter. The article explores the intricacies of the Spanish mission and its sharp differences from Anglo-American approaches.
Missions are primarily aimed at spreading and promoting religion. Spanish missions, too, advanced the positions of the Catholic Church around the world. Their functions, however, did not end there – the supervision of frontiers and exploring new areas were among their responsibilities (Bolton, 1917). Missionaries had a major part in teaching native people the Spanish language and European values. Unlike Anglo-American frontiers that often brought destruction to native settlements and their cultures, Spaniards learned to co-exist with indigenous populations (Bolton, 1917). Agriculture and self-government were among the subjects missionaries taught to aboriginals (Bolton, 1917). Workshops were built to sustain economic prosperity in the region while providing local populations a means of learning the European craft (Bolton, 1917). At the same time, the culture and customs of native tribes were preserved. Bolton (1917) claims that this difference in colonizing approaches is the reason why Spanish influence was much more substantial than that of the English. Native Americans were given the freedom to have their own implementations of law enforcement, and Spanish missionaries only served as a guiding hand.
Conflicts and Accommodations
The United States-Mexico border has been a source of conflict for many decades. On the one hand, US citizens demand that border policy is made stricter because illegal Mexican immigrants have an unfavorable impact on the country’s economy. On the other hand, unemployment and negative socioeconomic conditions force Mexican citizens to seek success on the opposite side of the border. Weber (1997) provides a historical perspective on the conflict by exploring Hispanic and Anglo-American border relations in the past. The author discusses how borders have changed and what events served as a cause. In addition, Weber (1997) claims that there were times when both sides accommodated each other and lived in mutual understanding.
The article provides a description of how Anglo-Hispanic, and later US-Mexican borders looked like through time. Weber (1997) discusses what led to the conflict and how the border changed after the confrontation. For instance, the author tells the readers about how Spanish territory changed after English colonies started expanding toward the south and west (Weber, 1997). In modern days, Americans are accustomed to Mexicans crossing their borders in search of employment. However, the situation was completely the opposite in the 19th century. Some Americans learned to live in comfort with Hispanics and regarded them as suitable companions for doing business (Weber, 1997). Only those Americans who wanted to take Hispanic lands away portrayed them as barbarians (Weber, 1997). In other words, there is no uniform opinion about whether or not the conflict between the two sides is inevitable. The author shares his belief that someday, the US and Mexico will start accommodating each other as it used to be in the past.
The Fringes of Empires
Examination of colonial frontiers is a major subject of the research of many historians that focus on the records about Latin America. Prado (2012) believes that all these works, however, consider societies of borderland regions in isolation. Therefore, his work is set to blur the line between indigenous groups and colonists located on the opposite sides of frontiers. Prado (2012) provides a comprehensive account of how social groups residing in borderlands interacted with each other and the environment, the role of Native Americans, African slaves, and individuals of mixed race.
Until recently, historians viewed social groups on different sides of frontier relations as isolated groups. Previously, to construct a historical image of borderlands and frontiers, researchers referred to triumphal narratives of conquest (Prado, 2012). This approach often led to biased results because the conquest initiators viewed indigenous populations as barbarians that needed to be civilized. The author believes that the situation has changed in the last 20 years because scholars have started employing tax and church records and other sources for building a more accurate and comprehensive picture (Prado, 2012). New findings suggest that some indigenous groups played a vital role in enslaving other tribes (Prado, 2012). Slaves were critical for the economic prosperity of frontiers, which is why their role should not be undermined. Another vital part was played by cartographers of that time (Prado, 2012). Maps were essential when negotiating with native tribes over lands and natural resources. In summary, the author claims that, in order to yield an accurate representation of colonial time events, historians must search for sources from a variety of regions instead of relying on isolated parts.
References
Bolton, H. E. (1917). The mission as a frontier institution in the Spanish-American colonies. The American Historical Review, 23(1), 42-61.
Prado, F. (2012). The fringes of empires: Recent scholarship on colonial frontiers and borderlands in Latin America. History Compass, 10(4), 318-333.
Weber, D. J. (1997). Conflicts and accommodations: Hispanic and Anglo-American borders in historical perspective, 1670-1853. Journal of the Southwest, 39(1), 1-32.