Summary of Colin Woodard's American Nations

By IRB Media

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.

Book Preview: #1 The first European subculture in the United States is found in the arid hills of northern New Mexico and southern Colorado. Spanish Americans have been living in this part of El Norte since 1595, and they remain fiercely protective of their heritage.

#2 The Spanish received the largest bequest in human history from Pope Alexander VI in 1493: 16 million square miles, spread across two continents, and populated by perhaps 100 million people. They were ordered to convert all the inhabitants to Catholicism and train them in good morals.

#3 The history of the Americas has been dominated by European and African actors. But there were many native cultures that had a higher standard of living than European ones.

#4 The Spanish Empire’s colonial policy was to assimilate the Native Americans into Spanish culture by converting them to Catholicism and supervising their faith, work, dress, and conduct in special settlements governed by priests.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: Mar 4, 2022
• ISBN: 9781669356271

IRB Media

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Insights on Colin Woodard's American Nations

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 2

Insights from Chapter 3

Insights from Chapter 4

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

The first European subculture in the United States is found in the arid hills of northern New Mexico and southern Colorado. Spanish Americans have been living in this part of El Norte since 1595, and they remain fiercely protective of their heritage.

#2

The Spanish received the largest bequest in human history from Pope Alexander VI in 1493: 16 million square miles, spread across two continents, and populated by perhaps 100 million people. They were ordered to convert all the inhabitants to Catholicism and train them in good morals.

#3

The history of the Americas has been dominated by European and African actors. But there were many native cultures that had a higher standard of living than European ones.

#4

The Spanish Empire’s colonial policy was to assimilate the Native Americans into Spanish culture by converting them to Catholicism and supervising their faith, work, dress, and conduct in special settlements governed by priests.

#5

The Spanish colony of New Mexico had a caste system, with whites dominating the highest offices. However, by the early 1700s, mestizos constituted a majority of the population.

#6

Until the late 1960s, political commentators regularly noted that the votes of El Norte could be bought and sold like cattle futures.

#7

The northern provinces of New Mexico, Texas, and California were extremely isolated from the rest of Spanish America. They were forbidden from trading with foreigners, and they could ship goods and passengers to Spain only via Veracruz, not through closer alternatives such as San Francisco or Matagorda, Texas.

#8

The American West was developed by ranch hands who were given a lot of freedom and autonomy. This was unlike the central provinces near Mexico City, where Hispanics were under intense scrutiny from the friars and military officers.

#9

The Spanish were able to expand their ranching techniques in the eighteenth century, but they were also facing threats from the north and east. The first such challenger was New France, which was based in New Orleans at the end of the Mississippi Valley.

#10

In 1604, the first Europeans to encounter a New England winter were the French. They built a settlement on a small island in what is now eastern Maine, and named it Acadia. It was a conservative and decidedly monarchical society, but one more tolerant and with greater opportunities for advancement than France itself.

#11

The French colony in North America was not as successful as de Mons had hoped. The first snows came to the island in early October, and when the river froze in December, the strong tides from the Bay of Fundy shattered the ice, turning the waterway into an impassable field of jagged ice floes.

#12

The French colony in Nova Scotia,