Hispanic America

In his recent Our American: A Hispanic History of the United States , Felipe Fernández-Armesto attempts to re-orient the history of the US. As the Economist reviewer explains,

“The book takes aim at the founding myths of America that run exclusively from east to west. Those myths begin with ocean-crossings by pious, liberty-loving Englishmen. They dwell on the miracle of the Revolutionary War, in which bewigged patriots defeated vastly larger British forces. The myths end with wagon-trains rumbling across the Prairies and railways cutting through the Rockies, opening a continent to such Anglo-American virtues as rugged individualism and the plain- spoken certainties of the common law. The book sets out to show how such tales ignore a parallel history of America that runs from south to north, embraces different values and has—for unbroken centuries—spoken Spanish.”

The re-orientation is revealing: “With startling facts and jaw-dropping tales of courage and depravity, the author triumphantly rescues Hispanic America from obscurity. Spanish conquistadors brought horses to the Great Plains as early as 1540, showing native Americans in present-day Kansas how horsemen with spears could kill 500 buffalo in a fortnight. By 1630 a Franciscan mission in New Mexico claimed to have baptised 86,000 Indians in one summer. To repel French, British and Russian rivals, Spain built forts from Florida to the north-western coasts of what is today British Columbia. Catholic missions ran vast cattle ranches and planted California’s first citrus groves and vines. It was not just the French who helped George Washington’s armies defeat the British crown. Spanish forces harried the redcoats from Florida to Michigan, the book records, while Spanish gold bankrolled the siege at Yorktown (the newly founded town of Los Angeles, a continent away, sent $15 for the war effort).”

Ultimately, the reviewer thinks, Fernández-Armesto goes too far and tries to equalize the East-West and North-South axes. That’s an overreach, but along the way the book exhumes some forgotten episodes of American history.