Students will visit the exhibit "New Spain: The Frontiers of Faith" at the online site of the Texas Humanities Resource Center. A direct link to that exhibit appears below on this page.

Student should begin by first reading the essay by historian Stanley Hordes entitled: "New Spain: Frontiers of Faith." That essay can be found by clicking on the exhibit URL below, entering the reading room link, and scrolling through the directory on the lower left until you click on the title of Hordes's essay as it appears in the window.

After reading Hordes's essay, students should return to the main home page of the New Spain exhibit and visit all of its web pages -- reading its text, and viewing its images in an organized fashion. It is recommended that students use the topic guides in the upper left hand window as their browsing guide.

After viewing the entire exhibit, students should write a two page, double spaced paper of critical commentary dealing with this exhibit within the context of this course. This paper should both comment on the images in the exhibit and relate them to points about New Spain taken from the readings and class lectures. The finished paper is due at class time on Wednesday, September 20th.

In that regard, it would be helpful to consider some of the following questions, although these suggestions are not intended as a checklist of questions to be answered. Do not limit your commentary only to the questions below. Instead, they serve only as a rough guide for the sorts of comments you might make in your paper.

1.     What role did Spanish religious beliefs play in the exploring and colonizing activities of New Spain? Comment on and analyze in depth an image from the exhibit that highlights this point.

2.    How were such beliefs manifested in the implementation of the political and military policies that Spain followed in New Spain? Comment on and analyze in depth an image from the exhibit that highlights this point.

3.    How did the missionary enterprise among the Indians result from the singular nature of Spanish religious beliefs? Comment on and analyze in depth an image from the exhibit that highlights this point.

4.    How did the Inquisition serve as a reinforcing agent for conformity to Spanish religious beliefs? Comment on and analyze in depth an image from the exhibit that highlights this point.
 
 

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