History Essay

Second assignment Modules 5 and 6 expose you to two very different Latin American societies, marked by different realities and outcomes. In module 5 lecture and materials, I presented the complicated past and context for Brazilian society from its very beginnings before Europeans arrived to the 19th Century. in module 6, I put together a few lectures that break down a few perspectives on the Mexican Revolution; the materials offer you a perspective on how the Mexican revolution exists beyond its historical moment and beyond its historical facts. Choose one of the two prompts below

Prompt 1: when Bartolomé de las Casas (see module 3 and 4) argued that indigenous people should not be enslaved, he did not make the same argument for people of African origin. The sin of slavery was is a part of Latin American history - but it is unequally distributed across the continent. Brazil is - apart from the US - the largest slaveholding colonial territory - and even after independence from Portugal, it maintained those institutions until the late 19th C. Using the materials in the module, trace the origin and history of this sin in Brazil, and how Brazilian society grew around it and with it. This prompt is not asking you to comment on the horror of slavery - that is a given. What we are asking you to do is to use the materials in the module to tell us about Brazilian society - indigenous, African and European.

Prompt 2: the Mexican Revolution promised far more than it delivered, but it also remains an iconic revolutionary moment. Wether Mexico was fundamentally changed by the revolution or not is for historians to debate. The materials in this module allow you to explore the iconography of the revolution, and explore the fictional and journalistic portrayals of life in Mexico that justified the revolution, whatever its long term outcomes. Focus on the revolution as an ideal, and how the materials in the module help you build the ideal that the Mexican Revolution continues to inspire today