Harriet J. Bauman
I like to infuse culture into my foreign language classes as often as possible. I spend a great deal of time teaching about the daily lives of the people, as well as their art, music, literature, history, and popular culture.
One of my classes is a language exploratory course for ninth graders. They spend one semester learning French and one learning Spanish. The textbooks I use do not incorporate the culture in any meaningful way, therefore I design the cultural components of the course from various sources.
I take a creative approach with the culture for the exploratory class. Because the students are usually of low ability, I try to include a lot of hands-on project work based on cultural topics. This method helps to involve the students and gives them a creative way to express what they are learning. Many of the activities suggested below will make the subject matter more meaningful to the students as they will be actively pursuing the information about Latin America provided in the unit.
For the Spanish semester, I give the students an overview of the Spanish speaking world. One marking period we concentrate on Spain, and the other on Latin America.
Latin America, with its cultural diversity, lends itself to a great variety of topics for study and student projects. I have written two units using Latin American short stories as a means of discussing Latin American culture. As useful as these two units are, they expect more abstract reasoning from the students.
With this unit I am changing the focus of my students’ study of Latin America. Teenagers are very interested in other people. They like to discover similarities and differences among people. Therefore, this unit concentrates on the people and events that made Latin America unique: the discovery of the New World and the early settlers.
The unit uses first person accounts from the era of exploration to begin to define who a Latin American is. This very descriptive, colorful, and personal material is a means of discovering the common origins and experiences of the Spanish speaking countries in the Western Hemisphere.
As a prelude to the main focus of this unit, there will be a presentation of several history lessons linking what Spain was like in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries with the Spaniards’ reasons for expanding their influence beyond Europe. Some lessons will be devoted to native life in the New World, too. These preview lessons set the stage for the great clash of cultures that takes place when Columbus discovers America.
The collision of these cultures is the heart of this curriculum unit. The students will read, in English, excerpts of Columbus’ first voyage; and the adventures of Cabeza de Vaca and Bartolomé de Las Casas.
In addition, the students will be exposed to Pre-Columbian art which will help them visualize what life was like in the Americas before Columbus and other explorers arrived. This exposure will enliven the narrative accounts that the students will read.
The unit is designed to be taught in two weeks. The preparatory studies of Spanish history can be done in the last week of the previous marking period, to finish the study on Spain and Spanish life. The Latin American introduction will follow rapidly and will provide a great deal of information to help students understand this unit. At the conclusion of this unit, the students will learn about individual countries in Latin America from colonial times to the present.
A unique feature of the unit is its versatility. It can be used in any level Spanish class and with students of all abilities. It can be used in an American History class, a Latin American History class, or an American Literature class. The unit serves also as the first in a possible series of units on the Latin American experience.
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
On August 3, 1492 Christopher Columbus set sail, under the Spanish flag, to find a western route to China and Japan. King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella “hoped that he would blaze a trail for trading ships that would bring profitable cargoes to Spain, as Portugal’s vessels were bringing gold, ivory and slaves to her from newfound territory on the coast of Africa.” (
West and By North
, p. 1)
Columbus’ voyage marked a turning point in the history of the world. Never again would life be as it was. The countries of Europe were foundering in confusion and strife. Spain had been made up of various kingdoms, some Christian, some Moslem. Italy only existed as city states fighting with each other. Other countries were scarcely better off.
Although unaware of the significance of the crucial time, the men of 1492, all over Western Christendom, stood upon the divide between two worlds, the old and the new, the Middle Ages and the Modern. As yet they did not know it, but before them lay a new geographical world. But more significant was the new spiritual, intellectual, economic and political world about to rise on the ruins of the crumbling structure of medieval institutions. (
West and By North
, p. 5)
In the Middle Ages, the spiritual and worldly authority of the Church and the Pope were unquestioned. When Pope Urban II called for Christians to mount a Crusade against the Moslems in 1095, everyone who could participate, did. The Crusaders came in contact with the riches of the Orient for the first time. Their appetite for these luxuries: spices, precious stones, cloth, etc. grew and grew. They wanted to increase trade in Oriental products and to expand their territories eastward.
Marco Polo’s voyage to China increased Christian Europe’s appetite for Eastern goods. Columbus knew well Marco Polo’s story of his travels. He based his thoughts about the proximity of China and Japan on Marco Polo’s information. “Indeed, Polo’s errors in placing China and Japan much nearer Europe than they are helped to persuade Columbus that a sea crossing to these lands was feasible.” (
West and By North
, pp. 8-9)
The fall of Constantinople in 1453 was the catalyst for the Renaissance, “the revival or rebirth of learning, with its emphasis upon the study of the Greek language as well as Greek literature. Coincidental with the new interest in learning came a revival of interest in painting and sculpture, partly inspired by classical models from Greece and Rome.” (
West and By North
, p. 10)
The Renaissance was concerned with man’s goodness and the goodness of man’s life on earth, a major change from the Dark Ages. Man didn’t have to wait until he died for a better life. The Italian Renaissance, in particular, emphasized the joy of life on earth and the lack of concern with the consequences of satisfying one’s desires.
The Pope, Alexander VI, marked the Renaissance with his worldliness, his extravagances, his women and his children: Juan Cesare and Lucrezia Borgia. “His reign exemplified a growing efficiency in worldly materialism, a hint of things to come in the brave new world then springing to life.” (
West and By North
, p. 11)
The invention of the printing press by Johann Gutenberg in 1456 spurred the development of books as a craft destined for ordinary people. The literature, political tracts, philosophical theses, etc. that were widely distributed, effected the demise of the old way of life and opened the horizons to new discoveries in every facet of life.
The new emphasis on business and commerce underlined the most significant difference between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. The influence of commerce on European life destroyed any vestiges of the medieval way of life and forced the people to look westward to find the East and its wealth.
Prince Henry the Navigator of Portugal “had a vision of Portugal’s destiny as an expanding commercial power and at once set about creating the means of stimulating exploration and discovery.” (
West and By North
, p. 20) He encouraged navigators and sailors from all over the world to come to Portugal and sail in his service. He wanted Portugal to be the most important commercial power in the world. In addition, Prince Henry used the guise of bringing the Catholic religion to the pagans to expand his influence. When the sailors brought slaves to Portugal, they pretended that they, as Christians, were taking care of the poor heathens.
The Portuguese were exploring Africa greedily and were keeping it a secret from the rest of Europe. They discovered that Africa got smaller in the south, so they thought that perhaps they could sail around Africa to reach India. At the same time, Portugal declared war on Spain to get the territory of Castilla, but they lost the war.
... In 1479 Spain signed the Treaty of AlcaCovas, which confirmed Portugal in its monopoly of trade and expansion in Africa and in possession of all the Atlantic islands except the Canaries, which Spain had undertaken to conquer from the native Guanches. (
West and By North
, p. 21)
When Bartholomeu Dias sailed around the Cape of Good Hope and landed on the east coast of Africa in the Indian Ocean, the route to India became part of Portugal’s trade monopoly. And when Vasco da Gama found Calcutta (1497-99), the Portuguese empire was assured in India.
At the same time that Portugal was establishing its empire, Spain was involved with its continuing battles with the Moors. It wasn’t until January 2, 1492 when King Boabdil surrendered the city of Granada to King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella that the Spanish could turn their attention to new conquests.
When their Catholic majesties finally accepted Columbus’ proposals and the details were completed for the voyage, the little town of Palos was chosen as the port of departure for various convenient reasons, including the fact that their majesties had recently imposed a fine upon the town requiring it to provide the use for a year of two caravels—vessels which Columbus now required. (
West and By North
, p. 24)
As King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella ended the 800 years of war between the Christians and the Moors, they also got rid of Spanish Jews. Their advisors encouraged the exile of all Moors and Jews so that Spain could be pure and Catholic.
The Jews of Spain were among the most learned and talented of the subjects of Ferdinand and Isabella. Through eight centuries of cold and hot war between Islam and Christendom they had been the go-betweens, the carriers of Arabian science and learning, the apostles of learning to Western Europe. They were the leaders in the professions of medicine, law and the arts generally. They had also shown great sagacity in developing banking and commerce. In short, they were the people who had done more than any others to provide Christian Spain with intellectual and economic leadership. Now, to satisfy the pious wishes of the sovereigns and to comply with the Christian commands of their confessor and Inquisitor-General these people were herded like cattle to the ports and shipped out of Spain, many to die in the deserts of North Africa. (
West and By North
, p.23)
Columbus’ first voyage to the New World was fraught with uncertainties, danger, discoveries and excitement. When he landed on Watlings Island in the Bahamas on October 12, 1492, he thought he had found the coast of Japan which would lead him to the rich country beyond where he would find untold treasures. What he found instead were natives wearing gold nose plugs and pearls. Columbus was determined to find more gold and pearls, thus beginning the search for gold which inspire Spaniards and others to continue exploration of the “New World.”
In November, 1492, Columbus discovered Cuba and natives who rolled an herb and smoked it—tobacco! Columbus recorded his observations of the flora and fauna as well as the natives. He felt the natives would be good workers for their masters. He saw himself as “the ruler under the Crown of Spain of territories already populated with a convenient supply of labor.” (
West and By North
, p. 25)
Columbus was still searching for Cipangu (Japan) when the Santa Maria, his heaviest ship was wrecked on the northern coast of “La Isla Espa–ola”—Hispaniola, the Haiti of today. Here Columbus founded a fort called La Navidad for the members of the crew he could not take back to Spain as he only had two boats for the journey. The indians here had many gold objects that they were willing to trade. They told of gold so plentiful that it was meaningless, located not too far away.
The settlement of La Navidad ended in disaster, but the thirst for gold would push the later explorers far into the unknown territories.
Columbus had his share of the greed for gold and the lust for power that would dominate Spanish conquistadors for generations to come. He saw himself not only as the Admiral of the Ocean Sea, a title granted him by the Spanish crown, but as viceroy, governor and lord of territories that would make him and his heirs rich forever. Not only would his discoveries give him wealth and prestige, but they would also enhance the glory of the sovereigns of Spain. (
West and By North
, p. 26)
With Columbus’ discovery both Spain and Portugal intended to continue these explorations and fill their treasuries with gold. They both wanted to determine their rights to the unknown regions waiting for their plunder.
Fortunately for Spain, the reigning pope was a Spanish Borgia, Alexander VI, who in a series of bulls confirmed Spain in her new possessions and in the second bull
Inter caetera
, dated May 4, 1493 accepted Ferdinand and Isabella’s suggestion of a line of demarcation 100 leagues west of the Azores. All lands west of that line would belong to Spain regardless of the nationality of the discoverer. (
West and By North
, p. 27)
Portugal wasn’t satisfied with the dividing line, even though it had all territories to the east. After much negotiation, Portugal signed the Treaty of Tordesillas on June 7, 1494 which moved the line 370 leagues west of the Cape Verde Islands. This move gave Brazil to Portugal.
