Conquest + Colonization (Bernal Díaz del Castillo)
Who is the Spanish chronicler and foot soldier who described the arrival in Tenochtitlán?
Bernal Díaz del Castillo.
Explain Tiffany Lethabo King’s argument: why are maps not neutral?
King argues that maps are not neutral because they are tools that produce colonial space rather than simply describe it. Maps organize land into measurable units, making it easier to claim, govern, and exploit. This means cartography is part of colonial power because it transforms territory into property and settlement.
Define colonialism in course terms. Then name one way colonialism reshapes space.
Colonialism is a system of political and economic domination in which one group controls another territory and population for extraction and power. Colonialism reshapes space by reorganizing land into settlements, plantations, and administrative territories that serve imperial interests. This often involves displacing Indigenous people and imposing new legal boundaries.
What are casta paintings, and what do they attempt to organize? (Ilona Katzew)
Casta paintings are a colonial genre from New Spain that visually depict racial mixture and classification. They attempt to organize society by presenting racial categories as a structured hierarchy. These paintings portray race as predictable and “knowable,” supporting colonial governance.
Saidiya Hartman calls the archive a “tomb.” What does she mean by this phrase?
Hartman calls the archive a “tomb” because it preserves colonized and enslaved people mainly through records created by those in power. Instead of full lives, the archive contains fragments, violence, and silence, making it difficult to recover agency or interiority. The archive becomes a burial site where certain histories are trapped or erased.
In 2-3 sentences, explain how Bernal Díaz del Castillo describes Tenochtitlán and what his description reveals about colonial ways of "seeing".
Bernal Díaz del Castillo describes Tenochtitlán as astonishingly large, ordered, and wealthy, emphasizing its markets, temples, and infrastructure. His tone of amazement reflects a colonial gaze that treats Indigenous space as something to be measured and interpreted through European standards. This shows that conquest begins through observation and narration before it becomes political control.
Define “cartographic authority.” Explain why cartographic authority is a form of power.
Cartographic authority is the power to define what land is, what it contains, and who belongs within it through mapping practices. It is power because it determines how territory is imagined and governed. When colonial maps label land as empty or divide it into parcels, they justify settler claims and erase Indigenous sovereignty.
Define representation and explain how representation can produce borders even without physical walls.
Representation refers to the way people, places, and histories are depicted through language, images, and knowledge systems. Representation produces borders by defining who belongs and who does not, even without a physical boundary. For example, Díaz’s narrative represents Indigenous space as conquerable, while casta paintings represent racial hierarchy visually, creating social borders within colonial society.
Give one example of how casta paintings make race “visible.” What visual logic do they rely on?
Casta paintings make race visible by labeling people with categories and showing them in staged family scenes. They rely on the visual logic of hierarchy, where whiteness is associated with refinement and higher status, while darker skin tones are linked to labor, disorder, or lower social value. This creates the impression that race is a visible truth rather than a political invention.
Define the term “silence” in relation to the colonial archive. What produces this silence?
Silence refers to the absence of colonized voices and perspectives in historical records. This silence is produced because colonial archives were created by enslavers, missionaries, officials, and settlers who documented colonized people as property, labor, or threats rather than as human subjects. Saidiya Hartman argues that the archive’s structure is itself violent because it records domination while erasing lived experience.
Write and say a mini-response: How does Díaz’s narrative create an early “geography” of Indigenous space? Use one specific example.
Bernal Díaz del Castillo produces an early colonial geography by describing Indigenous space as a mapped and knowable environment. For instance, he emphasizes the city’s canals, roads, and the organization of its market system. These descriptions create a spatial understanding that makes Tenochtitlán legible to Europeans, preparing it to be conquered and reorganized under colonial authority.
In lecture, we discussed the map of the Quilombo de São Gonçalo, 1769 (circular map). Explain what a quilombo is and analyze what this map reveals about colonial power, surveillance, and Black resistance. Use one concept from Tiffany Lethabo King (2–5 sentences).
A quilombo was a settlement formed by escaped enslaved Africans that created alternative spaces of autonomy outside plantation slavery. The map of the Quilombo de São Gonçalo, 1769, reveals that colonial authorities viewed Black freedom as a geographic threat, since mapping the quilombo became a strategy of surveillance and capture. At the same time, the quilombo itself represents an alternative geography built through resistance and fugitivity, showing that colonial space was never fully controlled. This connects to King’s critique of cartographic authority, because mapping is used to produce colonial order by turning resistant space into something governable and conquerable.
Define settler colonialism and explain how it differs from conquest-based colonialism.
Settler colonialism is a form of colonialism where settlers arrive to stay permanently, aiming to replace Indigenous populations and build a new society. Unlike conquest-based colonialism, which may focus on extracting wealth while ruling from afar, settler colonialism is about taking land, establishing ownership, and eliminating Indigenous claims. It is an ongoing structure rather than a single historical event.
Explain how casta paintings link race to labor and social value. Use one example from lecture.
Casta paintings link race to labor by showing racialized bodies performing particular social roles or occupations. In lecture, we discussed how these paintings often depict lighter-skinned figures in refined domestic settings, while darker-skinned figures are associated with manual work or lower-class spaces. This suggests that race was not just identity but a colonial system for assigning value and economic function.
Greg Grandin describes the “discovery” of the Americas as a violent project of empire. How does his argument help explain why colonial archives are incomplete or biased?
Grandin shows that the “discovery” of the Americas was not a neutral encounter but a project of conquest, extraction, and ideological domination. Because empire depended on controlling narratives, colonial archives often recorded Indigenous and African people through European frameworks of superiority, ownership, and conversion. This helps explain Hartman’s argument that archives are biased; they were created to serve colonial power, not to preserve the full humanity of the colonized.
In lecture, conquest was framed as more than violence. Explain how conquest is also a project of knowledge-making. Use Díaz and one lecture concept.
Conquest is also a project of knowledge-making because colonial power relies on producing descriptions that justify domination. Díaz’s account creates knowledge about Tenochtitlán by translating it into European categories of wealth, order, and civilization. As lecture suggests, “descriptions always precede policies,” meaning that colonial rule depends on the stories and classifications that define Indigenous societies as governable.
In lecture, we discussed that maps often erase Indigenous presence. Explain how erasure is a form of border-making.
Erasure is a form of border-making because it removes Indigenous presence from the landscape and replaces it with settler claims. When maps omit Indigenous towns, territories, and names, they create the illusion that land is unoccupied and available. This produces a colonial border not just on paper but in political reality, since what is not mapped becomes easier to deny.
Define "Orientalism" as Edward Said uses the term. Then explain how Orientalism functions as a form of colonial geography (how it shapes space and people). Use one example from lecture or a Week 1–3 reading.
Edward Said defines Orientalism as a Western system of representation that constructs “the Orient” as exotic, backward, irrational, and inferior in order to justify domination. Orientalism functions as a colonial geography because it produces imagined spaces; dividing the world into “civilized” and “uncivilized” regions that require control. For example, Díaz’s description of Tenochtitlán portrays Indigenous space through Spanish amazement and judgment, turning it into an object of European knowledge. This shows that representation itself becomes a political tool that prepares the ground for colonial rule.
Write a short-answer response explaining how casta paintings demonstrate that race is a colonial system of classification. Include one connection to King or Hartman.
Casta paintings demonstrate that race is a colonial system of classification because they visually organize mixed populations into ranked categories that appear natural and inevitable. By labeling bodies and family structures, they create a racial hierarchy that supports colonial governance and labor control. This connects to King’s argument that colonial knowledge systems like maps produce order and possession, since casta paintings similarly produce social borders inside colonial space. Like Hartman’s critique of the archive, casta paintings show that “official knowledge” often reflects the worldview of power rather than objective truth.
In lecture, we discussed Coco Fusco’s work. Explain how Fusco challenges colonial representation and what her work reveals about the relationship between spectacle and power.
Coco Fusco challenges colonial representation by exposing how colonized bodies have historically been displayed, consumed, and controlled through spectacle. Her work reveals that colonial power operates not only through violence but through performance, making certain people visible only as exotic objects rather than as full subjects. This connects to Saidiya Hartman’s critique because both show how representation can reproduce domination even when it appears cultural or artistic.
Explain how Díaz’s writing can be read as an early colonial archive. Use two examples from lecture or readings to support your claim.
Díaz’s writing can be understood as an early colonial archive because it records Indigenous space through the perspective of the conqueror and shapes what later becomes “historical truth.” For example, his descriptions of temples and markets frame Mexica society through Spanish admiration and judgment. This connects to Hartman’s argument that archives are shaped by violence and exclusion, since Díaz’s narrative preserves Spanish authority while limiting Indigenous voices. It also connects to King’s argument that colonial knowledge systems help transform land into property and territory.
Tiffany Lethabo King argues that mapping is not only literal cartography but also a form of figurative mapping. Explain what figurative mapping means, and discuss how it produces colonial space. Use two examples from Unit 1 (one can be from lecture).
Figurative mapping refers to the way colonial power “maps” people and places through categories, stories, and representations, not only through physical maps. King suggests that mapping produces colonial space by turning land into property and by organizing bodies into racial and political hierarchies. Similarly, Ilona Katzew’s casta paintings function as figurative maps of colonial society because they visually organize racial mixture into a hierarchy that assigns social value. Together these examples show that mapping is a colonial technology that produces borders through knowledge, classification, and representation.
Using Saidiya Hartman and Edward Said, explain how colonial power operates through knowledge production. In your answer, describe two mechanisms (examples) through which colonial representation shapes what becomes “truth.”
Hartman and Said both argue that colonial power operates through knowledge production by controlling how people and places are represented. Said shows that Orientalism creates a dominant “truth” about colonized societies by stereotyping them as inferior and in need of Western governance. Hartman argues that archives operate similarly by preserving colonized people only through fragments shaped by violence, making the archive a “tomb.” For example, Orientalist representation turns entire cultures into simplified images, while the colonial archive reduces enslaved women to objects of record rather than full human subjects. Together, they show that colonial truth is not neutral knowledge; it is produced through systems that decide what is visible, believable, and historical.
Define racialization in the context of colonialism. Then explain how racialization operated as a spatial and political project in the Americas/Abya Yala. Use two examples from readings we have done so far and/or from lectures.
Racialization is the process through which race is socially constructed and made meaningful by attaching political value, hierarchy, and power to bodily difference. In colonial contexts, racialization was not simply about identity but a system used to organize land, labor, and belonging. For example, Katzew’s discussion of casta paintings shows how racial categories were visually produced and ranked, turning mixed families into a colonial hierarchy that justified inequality. Similarly, King’s analysis of colonial cartography, including maps, shows how racial difference was mapped onto space by representing whiteness as proprietorship and Blackness as property or labor. These examples show that racialization was a colonial technology that produced borders within society and across territory.
Saidiya Hartman argues that the archive is a “tomb,” while Coco Fusco critiques colonial spectacle and representation. Using Hartman plus one example from Fusco and one idea from Greg Grandin, explain how colonial power shapes what becomes visible, believable, and historical.
Saidiya Hartman’s claim that the archive is a “tomb” means that colonized people are preserved in history mainly through fragments produced by colonial violence, making their full lives inaccessible. Coco Fusco’s work helps expand this argument by showing that colonial representation often turns racialized bodies into spectacle, meaning visibility itself can be a form of domination rather than recognition. Greg Grandin similarly argues that “discovery” and empire depended on controlling narratives, which explains why colonial archives were constructed to legitimize conquest rather than preserve Indigenous or Black perspectives. Together, these materials show that colonial power shapes history by controlling both what is recorded and how people are represented. In this sense, borders are produced not only through territory, but through systems of knowledge that decide who can appear as fully human in the historical record.