Tag Archives: Colonization

“Corridos”: A Subgenre of American Folk Songs

Posted on by
Reply

Recording of “Venimos de Matamoros”:

https://latinoamerican2.abc-clio.com/Tools/DisplayVideo/2265362?view=content

Mexican influence is seen all over the United States both geographically and historically. This is especially so in the southeastern region as there were many native Mexicans in that area of the U.S. when that region of the country was annexed through the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848. Music plays a large and important aspect in Mexican influence on U.S. culture. The main focus of this post is this Primary Source recording done in 1939 by José Suarez1. 

The song is called “Venimos de Matamoros” which translates to “We Come from Matamoros” – a town off of the Rio Grande. It falls into the category of Mexican folk songs called “corridos” which translates to “racing”, possibly in reference to the fact that these songs are usually more upbeat in tempo. In addition to its traditional tempo, this “corrido” also maintains traditional instrumentation of a single guitar as well as a solo repetitive melody line. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Corrido’s” originated in 16th century Spain with traveling musicians or “trovadores” in a décima2 format consisting of ten lines3. In the Mexican tradition, “corridos” were added to by women in Mexico during the Mexican Revolution which took place from 1910-1917.  The tradition was then carried into Texas in 1915 when it is believed the story of the song takes place. In a nearby town to “Matamoros” called “Brownsville” where Texas rangers killed the family(wife, son, and brother) of a man named Aniceto Pizaña. This event caused Pizaña to seek revenge and join the group of Mexican Americans against the White Americans taking land and causing conflict in Texas at the time. In comparison to the original 16th century “corridos”, the 19th century version served as a narrative to tell stories of heroism and strength as well as maintain a Mexican Identity in the midst of expansionism. In “corridos” regarding the United States and expansionism, the songs often tell stories of those who were killed(by usually white Americans) in honor of the sacrifice they made. 

Much like other marginalized groups of America, Mexican Americans used music to find identity and peace in the forceful “othering” that was being cultivated at the time. The bigotry and discrimination that was faced became an aspect of Mexican American identity, separating this new identity from that of being “Mexican” and from being “American”. Both of these countries began through colonization, thus furthering the struggles portrayed in “corridos”.  Today “corridos” are considered a subgenre of American folk songs, even though it went through many cultures and countries starting with Spain, going to Mexico, then to the independent Republic of Texas, and finally to the United States.

1 “Venimos De Matamoros’ [3:13].” The American Mosaic: The Latino American Experience audio. 2024. Accessed October 1, 2024. https://latinoamerican2.abc-clio.com/Search/Display/2265362.

2 Kanellos, Nicolás. “Décima.” In The American Mosaic: The Latino American Experience, ABC-CLIO, 2024. Accessed October 1, 2024. https://latinoamerican2.abc-clio.com/Search/Display/1448550.

3 Wood, Andrew G. “Borderlands Music.” In The American Mosaic: The Latino American Experience, ABC-CLIO, 2024. Accessed October 1, 2024. https://latinoamerican2.abc-clio.com/Search/Display/1367240.

Music in the California Missions

Posted on by
Reply

Mission building was one of the primary methods of conquest the Spanish used over the native peoples of California. Beginning in 1768, Gaspard de Portolà, accompanied by Father Junipero Serra, built twenty-one missions up the coast of California (then called Alta California, as opposed to Baja California) from present-day San Diego up to San Francisco (1). Here is a map made by Irving B. Richman of the approximate mission locations around 1798-1804, which was during prime Spaniard mission-building activity:

Missions were not just elaborate Catholic churches, but were the centers of communities that were built around them. The towns, run by one or two Franciscan priests and a handful of soldiers, were intentionally built around missions so the Spanish could force the indigenous folks of the area into their way of life. This included wearing woven clothing, learning Spanish and Latin, eating European produce, utilizing European agriculture methods and technology, and – most importantly – converting to Catholicism and its culture.

Music played a large role in the Catholic faith of the time, and the indigenous peoples were taught both to sing and to play instruments for masses. The Spanish introduced an entire orchestra’s worth of instruments, including organs, woodwinds, brass, strings, and percussion instruments. Evidence of the teaching of Western music theory includes this large fresco depicting a Guidonian hand, which can be compared to an old form of solfège, on a wall of Mission San Antonio.

The music performed in California missions is the most documented and preserved of any Spanish colony in the US. Musicians wrote and performed both plainchant and polyphonic music during masses, and the most popular way of recording works was by making choirbooks, both with music and with information regarding teaching (2). Pieces were written both in Spanish and in Latin, and could be either sacred or secular. Some of the standout composers of the Missions were Fray Narciso Durán of Mission San José, who was so renowned for his skill that he wrote choirbooks and manuscripts for other missions to use and teach from, and Felipe Arroyo de la Cuesta, who even wrote music in the Mutsun indigenous language (2).

While the culture of the music in missions, as well as the music itself, has had a lasting impact on Latinx culture as a whole, the treatment of these peoples within missions was horrifying. With European colonizers brought European disease, which wiped out much of the indigenous population. Indigenous inhabitants of the missions were treated as slaves with consequences of torture, starvation, solitary confinement, and execution for disobedience (3). Music may have been one of the few sources of joy for the approximately 20,000 indigenous people on the missions, and its study cannot be separated from the cruelty the Spanish inflicted upon them.

Sources:

(1) “Historical Timeline – California Missions”. 2022. California Missions. https://www.missionscalifornia.com/historical-timeline/.

(2) Summers, William John. “California Mission Music”. California Missions Foundation. https://californiamissionsfoundation.org/articles/californiamissionmusic/.

(3) Smith-Christopher, Daniel L. “Missions and Native Americans.” 2022. The American Mosaic: The Latino American Experience. https://latinoamerican2.abc-clio.com/Search/Display/2256931.

Cuban Bishop Observer

Posted on by
Reply

First of all, I would like to say that I find it very cool that there are texts from the 1600s. Although the text I read was not the original copy, nor is it in the original language, it gives details on how and who translated it to a legible copy and annotations corresponding with the letter text. It is a collection of letters by Gabriel Diaz Vara Calderón, a 17th century bishop of Cuba. The purpose of his letters are clearly to observe and record his observations of Indigenous peoples and their land and forward this information to the queen (of Spain). He mainly gives information about the land and how it is utlized by the Indigenous peoples. He also details the queen with estimates of Indigenous populations within each village he finds. I’m really unsure of what the purpose for this was. My only inference is that this bishop is scouting out the land for the queen to do something with, however it sounds like at this time it was already controlled by the queen. I am surprised that when giving information about the populations of villages, the bishop distinguished the different villages instead of referring to all of them as “Native Americans”.

I cannot make this post without noting the disrespectful language used by this bishop to refer to the Indigenous peoples. In one of his entries, he describes Indigenous Carribeans as savages. He also uses the words “heathens” and “savages” throughout his letters to the queen. Although, after looking up the word “heathen” I realized it could be used to refer to someone that is a non-believer (in Christ). In modern language (and my perspective) heathen is an insult but I never associated it with religion. Now that I understand the meaning behind the term, it’s unsurprising to see it being used by this 17th century bishop as one of the main goals of colonization was to assimilate that people being colonized.

 

https://www.aihc.amdigital.co.uk/Documents/Images/Ayer_301_S6_v95_no16/2

 

Minstrelsy: Connecting Blackness to the Body and Whiteness to the Mind

Posted on by
Reply

White people putting on blackface and dressing up as black people for entertainment and comedic purposes is disturbing and upsetting on many levels. To me, an aspect of this that is particularly horrific is the effect it had on the body, particularly the black body, that is so often deemed invisible, expendable, dangerous, or hypersexual. Minstrelsy contributed to these stereotypes and beliefs about the black body by controlling how others perceived it. Minstrelsy allowed white people to take ownership over the black body by literally putting it on as a costume through blackface. They were then able to “prove” an amount of stereotypes through this, especially on account that many of the audience members did not know whether the people on stage were actually black or not.

Tying blackness to the body is something that has been done to justify colonialism as well as slavery. Much of this ties back to ideas that began to form during the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment marked the mind, reason, and individualism as core values; values that were used to distinguish between the “savage man” and “civilized man”. This was then used as reason to justify that the “savage” individual’s ideal role is physical labor, thus justifying slavery. The savage man was also believed to lack the intellect that the civilized man had. This idea was used justify the belief that people of differing races were of different species, and was also used to prove the need for savages to be “civilized” by Western/white society. These ideas reduced black people to merely a body, and deemed whites to be better because of their supposedly superior intellectual capabilities. It must be noted that this idea of connecting blackness to the body is deeply rooted in the belief that the body is sinful and dirty, as opposed to the purity of the mind. This is an idea which certainly can, and should, be questioned. But for the purpose of this blog post, it will be assumed that association with the body is going to be perceived by people as a negative thing.

Minstrelsy further emphasized this association of blackness with the body. This is particularly evident in this advertisement for a Minstrel Show in 1899. This ad depicts black women as hyper-sexualized and alludes to the “Jezebel” stereotype, an idea rooted in slavery which labels black women as promiscuous and sexually aggressive. Referring to a black woman as a jezebel has often been used to blame the infidelity of white men on the black women they had relations with. This hyper-sexualization further associates black people to the body, and implies an inability to control bodily instincts. The men depicted in the advertisement also emphasizes the association of blackness with the body as opposed to the mind. This is done through their childlike reaction to the woman in the advertisement. Their facial expressions mimic childlike amusement with the female body, while simultaneously depicting black men as out of control of their sexual desires. By connecting blackness with sexualization and desire, it again implies that black people are not capable of putting mind over matter, thus emphasizing the dichotomy of whiteness as associated with the mind, and blackness with the body.

Between the use of blackface, contributing to stereotypes, mockery, and misrepresentation of black culture, minstrel performances clearly have a a lot of racist elements within them. That being said, there are nuances to it. After all, it did allow black performers to have their first opportunity to perform in front of a white audience, and it could be argued that it helped popularize a variety of black music including spirituals. However even with these nuances, most aspects within minstrelsy perpetuated racism, sometimes in ways that are not as explicit as blackface, specifically strengthening the association of blackness with the body. Through this, minstrelsy reasserted this underlying justification behind treating black people as lesser that dates back to slavery and colonial times. 

Sources:

  • “Gideon’s Big Minstrel Carnival Advertisement.” In The American Mosaic: The African American Experience, ABC-CLIO, 2018. Image. https://africanamerican2.abc-clio.com/Search/Display/1612309.
  • Marisa J. Fuentes, “Jezebel.” In The American Mosaic: The African American Experience, ABC-CLIO, 2018. https://africanamerican2.abc-clio.com/Search/Display/1750376.
  • “Minstrel Music with African American Jim Crow Caricatures.” In The American Mosaic: The African American Experience, ABC-CLIO, 2018. https://africanamerican2.abc-clio.com/Search/Display/1612304.
  • Peter A. Schrom, “The Enlightenment and the Origins of Racism” State University of New York at Albany, ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, 2016.