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

Second assignment