Beyond Mexico

Latin America is not just Mexico. By bringing together several historical documents from or about Haiti, Venezuela, Cuba, and Guatemala, we can begin to see the importance that circulation and representation played and continues to play in how we understand the region. In 1804, a French colonist fleeing the Haitian Revolution immortalized the experiences of migrant laborers, specifically white men, through his unpublished manuscript journal detailing his escape to the United States. The Venezuelan Constitution demonstrates a remarkable expansion of rights to all men who served on the side of independence yet signaled an implicit future contraction of rights for those who did not learn to read or write. Representations of race and gender also emerged in striking color after the Cuban War for Independence in 1898 as illustrated by the drawings that once wrapped chocolate bars. Maya women photographed by travelers to remote areas of Guatemala suggests potential female participation in historical moments thereby challenging traditional male driven historical narratives. Though these artifacts only represent a small sample of the experiences of people outside of Mexico, they nevertheless help us contextualize the broader Latin America in the long 19th century.

Contributors:

Hansika Kamineni, Alec Blair, Christina Rios, and Matthew Wood


Maya Women Weaving in Guatemala

This image shows two Maya women teaching children weaving on a traditional backstrap loom in Chubá, Guatemala. Guatemala was a place of political unrest at the turn of the 20th century. With the support of the United States, corporations like the United Fruit Company had begun establishing hegemony over resources and labor by the 1890s. Yet, even in face of tremendous cultural and political change, the enduring expression of indigenous Maya culture and creativity is represented through the resilience of textiles and weaving. Weaving, a craft passed from generation to generation, was a form of communication and an act of resistance and political activism for the Maya. Through weaving, indigenous women were able to participate in the political conversation and pose a challenge to the traditionally male accounts of history.

Life Narrative by John Baptist Toussant Corneau

This piece displays the title page of French colonist John Baptist Toussant Corneau’s journal detailing his escape from Saint-Domingue, Haiti on June 8th, 1804. Written in English after his arrival to the United States, the unpublished manuscript reflects his and other white colonists’ fear of murder by black insurrectionists and their escape to Cuba at the end of the Haitian Revolution. Reading the journal alone does not provide the necessary understanding that other ethnic groups were displaced by the revolution and should be used with other rare documents written about the time to assess the underlying racial hierarchy and its persisting threat to the Caribbean and Latin America as a whole. The piece demonstrates the issues of voice and prominence being given to those in power, often skewing our understanding of the struggle that Latin America faced in establishing autonomy and modernity.

Chocolates E. Juncosa Trading Card

Depicted throughout the drawing is a group of fair complected Cuban soldiers and women resting on a sunny day at the camp of Cuban general Maximo Gomez. Maximo Gomez was one of the leading Cuban generals during the country’s struggle for independence in the late 19th century. Despite Gomez’s contributions to Cuban history, the scene at his camp emphasizes a deliberately continued separation of races between the country’s Afro-Cuban population and Cubans of Spanish blood. At the foreground of the drawing segregated from the other figures sits the camp’s guard, a black Cubano, who instead appears to be heedful of the resting Spanish-Cubans. Though the Afro-Cuban rests among others who fight for the same cause as he, the look of fear on his face portrays the social tensions between classes, genders, and, especially, races on the island during the 19th century.

Political Constitution of the State of Venezuela Formed by its Second National Congress and Presented to the Peoples for its Sanction, on August 15, 1819.

This rough and old booklet contains the 1819 constitution of Venezuela that was printed in 1821 in Havana, Cuba. It is the second constitution of Venezuela, written for its Third Republic after the collapse of the previous republics in 1812 and 1813. Its eleven sections declare the functions of the government, the rights of citizens and the organization of the Venezuelan state, establishing it as a federal republic. All men were granted rights of liberty, security, property and equality, while citizenship is divided between active and passive citizens, where the active citizens enjoy suffrage and representation. The point that this constitution was reproduced in Havana signals support for Cuban independence that was largely inspired by the success of Venezuelan independence. Interestingly, by the time that this constitution is produced in Havana, Venezuela had already moved on to a new constitution as a part of the unified state of Gran Colombia.