My research will focus on the independence movements in the viceroyalties of New Granada and Peru leading up to, during and following the Napoleonic Wars and the invasion of Spain in Europe. I want to mostly focus on the movements led by Simon Bolivar that resulted in the creation of Gran Colombia, and examine what caused his independence movements to be so successful, at least in their goal of separating these regions from the authority of the Spanish crown. I plan to examine the cultural background of the area that would soon become Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Bolivia and Peru, explore the revolutionary sentiment that arose there, and discuss Bolivar’s role and motivation in leading those goals of independence to fruition.

Primary source:

https://archive.org/details/memoirssimonbol00holsgoog/page/n77

‘Memoirs of Simon Bolivar, President Liberator of the Republic of Colombia’ by H.L.V. Ducoudray Holstein.

Secondary sources:

LYNCH, JOHN. Simón Bolívar (Simon Bolivar): A Life. Yale University Press, 2006. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1npnhh.

Simon, Joshua. “SIMÓN BOLÍVAR’S REPUBLICAN IMPERIALISM: ANOTHER IDEOLOGY OF AMERICAN REVOLUTION.” History of Political Thought 33, no. 2 (2012): 280-304. http://www.jstor.org/stable/26225770.

Roberts, W. Adolphe. “Great Men of the Caribbean 2. Simón Bolívar.” Caribbean Quarterly 1, no. 3 (1949): 4-8. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40652462.

Bushnell, David. “The Gran Colombian Experiment (1819–1830).” In The Making of Modern Colombia: A Nation in Spite of Itself, 50-73. University of California Press, 1993. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/j.ctt4cgf7g.6.

For my research, I think I would like to research Aztec birth and midwifery. This is a topic that has fascinated me for a long time and something that I think will be interesting as well as being something more in-depth in their culture. I hope to learn about what their traditions were at birth and their reasoning behind their practices. I also hope to learn how the colonization may have changed their practices. I would also like to learn about how European women gave birth and were helped early on where there were not many women in the new world from Europe.

Primary source: http://chnm.gmu.edu/cyh/primary-sources/305 this primary source is an image from the Codex Mendoza. It depicts birth rituals, in particular, the bathing and the naming ceremonies.

Secondary sources:

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/archaeology-and-history/magazine/2017/01-02/aztec-midwife-practical-pregnancy-care/   This is a good overview of Aztec midwifery by the National Geographic.

https://www.eiu.edu/historia/Thoele.pdf This is a nice article on how Aztec children were birthed and treated.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/cambridge-archaeological-journal/article/nourishing-gods-birth-and-personhood-in-highland-mexican-codices/D66156688021248E8F99BA45CC9A5FCE This looks like it will offer a great insight into th relationship between birthing and children to the gods.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/325493181_Aztec_Pregnancy_Archaeological_and_Cultural_Foundations_for_Motherhood_and_Childbearing_in_Ancient_Mesoamerica This article offers a look at rituals, the roles of people, and complications during birth.

Previously I was interested in trade connections between Aztec and Mayan society. However, my main focus has now changed to investigating the city of Tenochtitlan and how it became the center of commerce and an important symbol in prehispanic Mesoamerica. Sticking with a comparative study, I want to understand why it is impossible to understand Mesoamerican trade without Tenochtitlan. To do this, I will also look at other Aztec cities, such as Chiconaulta, for comparisons. The Mesoamerican metropolis established in the minds of the Europeans that the Aztecs were sophisticated people who shared many of the same societal qualities seen in Europe. From Tenochtitlan, the Aztecs were able to spread their influence across Mesoamerica by inviting outside tribes and ethnic groups to sell their products, creating a multicultural center of commerce.

Primary Source: https://www.historians.org/teaching-and-learning/teaching-resources-for-historians/teaching-and-learning-in-the-digital-age/the-history-of-the-americas/the-conquest-of-mexico/letters-from-hernan-cortes/cortes-describes-tenochtitlan

Secondary Sources:

For my revised research topic, I plan to analyze the cosmological ideas of late medieval Europeans and the Inca pre-contact, focusing on how these peoples interpreted the universe. This subject is important because it highlights the ways in which people from different parts of the globe attempted to order the universe, demonstrating that all humans—even those whom Europeans considered to be different and separate from their own society—contemplate about the universe and their place within it. No matter their culture, the universe was something that many people thought about, yet Europeans considered their own perspectives and modes of understanding to be superior to those of the Inca. This demonstrates the Eurocentric worldview of Europeans both pre- and post-contact

Primary sources:

1. Bernabe Cobo’s History of the Inca Empire, translated by Roland Hamilton. This is a Spanish Jesuit’s perspective on Incan culture from the seventeenth century, which therefore reflects a colonial point of view.
2. Artistotle’s On the Heavens, a text that was written around 350 BC. Aristotle’s ideas about the universe provided an extensive foundation for later medieval European cosmology.

Secondary sources:

1. Clive Ruggels – Ancient Astronomy: An Encyclopedia of Cosmologies and Myth
2. Bryan E. Penprase – The Power of Stars
3. Edward Grant – “The Medieval Cosmos: Its Structure and Operation”
4. Susan Elizabeth – To Feed and Be Fed: The Cosmological Bases of Authority and Identity in the Andes
5. Johan Reinhard – Machu Picchu: Exploring an Ancient Sacred Center
6. Anthony F. Aveni – Stairways to the Stars: Skywatching in Three Great Ancient Cultures

I’m interested in doing a research project on the military history of the new world. In particular, I would like to explore the material culture of war and warfare in one of the mesoamerican empires.

Something that I would want to research further would be how the Inca’s religion and their ideologies differed from those of the Christian colonizers. While they are obviously very different I want to look at how their different views affected the surrounding regions as well as how the Incas viewed the Spanish.

I’m interested in researching how colonial powers used religion as part of cultural imperialism in the middle and later colonial period in Latin America. I would hope to find primary sources from different ethnic and socioeconomic groups and their views on religious practice. Looking at the spread of Christianity, from King Ferdinand’s claim of God giving his monarchy power over the “new world” to continued missionary efforts, may shed light on religious difference today.

My first idea for a research question is: how did new national identities emerge from the Spanish colonial viceroyalties of Latin America prior to and during the Napoleonic Wars, and what motivated the large-scale uprisings against and distancing from Spanish rule? I’m interested to learn more about how nations and national identities sprung up in central and south America, driving thousands of people to revolt against colonial rule and create independent countries in a relatively short span of time. I also want to know more about the leadup to the revolutionary movements and how the local identity already in place in various regions may have contributed to the explosion of nationalist and independence-minded thought around this time – specifically, were there already large segments of the population that were pushing for freedom and self-government, and how did those segments become prominent enough to topple colonial rule in nearly all of Latin America?