Description:

María Josefina Saldaña Portillo is a Professor of Social and Cultural Analysis at New York University. Indian Given: Racial Geographies across Mexico and the United States traces the figure of the Indian as he [pronoun intended] emerged in the colonial record to solidify distinct yet Eurocentric models of universal humanity that were based, respectively, on Catholic and Protestant principles of faith. U.S. and Mexican racial geographies were produced as much through the visceral representation of indigenous presence in colonial documents of possession, through the figural emplotment of Indians within maps of conquest, as through their careful placement within or displacement from the physical landscapes of national unification. Too often the story of European colonization of America is narrated as a genocidal pillaging and removal of the Indian first from the scene of empire and subsequently from the scene of the nation. Instead, Indian Given traces how the presence of indigenous peoples was actually required for both Spanish and British conquest.

Reception to Follow.