[DOWNLOAD] "Food Choice and Social Identity in Early Colonial New Mexico." by Journal of the Southwest # eBook PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: Food Choice and Social Identity in Early Colonial New Mexico.
- Author : Journal of the Southwest
- Release Date : January 22, 2004
- Genre: Social Science,Books,Nonfiction,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 241 KB
Description
In 1601, three years after Spain established the colony of New Mexico, one settler described the land as "sterile, lacking in everything necessary to support human life" (Hammond and Rey 1953: 688). In 1669, Franciscan priest Juan Bernal again complained that "for three years no crops [had] been harvested ... and ... a great many Indians perished of hunger, lying dead along the roads, in the ravines, and in their huts." He continued in a similar vein stating, "The greatest misfortune of all is that they [the colonists] can no longer find a bit of leather to eat, for their herds are dying" (Hackett 1937: 272). Despite these cries of distress, colonists throughout the early colonial period (AD 1598-1680) managed to construct homes, estancias (ranches), the capital (Santa Fe), and Franciscan conventos (missions) in Pueblo villages. Although the colony was not particularly robust, it did persist for nearly one hundred years and was not abandoned until the Pueblo Rebellion when native peoples rose up in revolt, destroyed the conventos and estancias, and forcibly expelled the colonists. During the early colonial period, Spanish colonists settled among Pueblo villages; planted crops; raised livestock; and imported cloth, ceramics, and tools. Some fortunate individuals and imported sugar, cinnamon, wine, and chocolate (Ivey 1993; Scholes 1936: 329, 1937; D. Snow 1993), and most consumed the Old World crops they grew, as well as foods appropriated from native peoples. Colonists not only created a functioning society for themselves, but also attempted to incorporate the Pueblo peoples into their social and economic systems. Although they had a well-established cuisine based largely on maize, the Pueblos eventually adopted European-introduced crops such as wheat, peaches, and watermelons and today consider some of these introductions to be traditional foods.