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Chapter 11

Revolution in Mexico: The Mesa Central

• Mexico has the largest Spanish-speaking population in the world.
• Spanish explorers called the best lands on the plateaus and mountain valleys tierra templada, or “temperate lands.”
• The Tolte Empire dominated the Mesa Central beginning about A.D. 900.
• In 1325 the Aztecs founded Tenochititlán. Then came Cortéz in 1519. Cortéz conquered the mighty Aztecs with only fourteen cannon and five hundred soldiers.
• Wealthy Spanish noblemen owned most of the land and built vast ranches called haciendas.
• Mexico City is the largest city in North America.
• The brown-skinned “Virgin of Guadalupe” patron saint of Mexico.
• Mestizos have a mixture of Spanish and Indian blood.
• Coup—the sudden, illegal overthrow of the government by a military office or government official
• The Mexican government began taking land from the wealthy and distributing it among the poor. The plots were called ejidos.
• Life in the big cities of Mexico is very modern, but rural towns and villages still retain many old ways. Villages are built around a plaza or public square.

Revolution in Mexico: U.S. Influence in Northern Mexico

• During the course of the Mexican War, American armies captured the Spanish settlements in California and New Mexico.
• The North American Free Trade Agreement created the second largest free-trade zone in the world.
• Factories in the United States have begun sending many of their parts across the border to assembly plants, called maquiladoras.
• The biggest port in Mexico, Veracruz, lies on the Gulf coastal Plain at the gateway to Mexico City and the Mesa Central.
• The Chihuahuan Desert covers large parts of the Northern Plateau. The state of Chihuahua-the largest state in Mexico-takes its name from this desert.
• Silver mines throughout Mexico make it the world’s leading producer of silver.
• Chiapas broke away from Guatemala and joined the original nineteen states of Mexico in 1824.
• Caciques—party bosses
• Among the thirty major Mayan ruins that have been found in the jungles of the Yucatan, the most famous is Chichen Itza.
• The greatest concentration of Mayan ruins are on the Yucatan Peninsula.

Central America

• Isthmus—narrow land bridge
• The Europeans introduced a new kind of farming called a plantation economy. Plantations require large numbers of workers to raise specialized crops.
• Unlike the other nations of Central America, Belize was settled by the British.
• Those with partial African and partial Euopean ancestry are called mulattoes.
• In El Salvador, a close-knit “Fourteen Families,” descendants of the original Spanish landholders, have owned most of the plantations and controlled the government.
• Juntas—councils of military and civilian leaders who share power
• The Pan Merican Highway extends from the United States to Puerto Montt, Chile, linking seventeen Latin American captials.

West Indies

• During the Spanish-American War in 1898, American soldiers quickly trounced the Spanish troops in Cuba, freeing the colony.
• In 1959 a Marxist rebel named Fidel Castro gained control of the country and established the first Communist government in the Western Hemisphere.
• Havana, the capital of Cuba, was a thriving tourist and commercial center during the heyday of republican government. It remains the largest city in the West Indies, but it has lost its elegance.
• Two countries occupy the island of Hispaniola. Haiti occupies the west, and the Dominican Republic lies on the east.
• Haiti has become the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.
• Voodoo is a strange mixture of West African spirit worship, black magic, and Roman Catholicism.
• A majority of Haitians speak a mixture of French and African words called Creole.
• The capital of the Dominican Republic, Santo Domingo, is the oldest European-established city in the Western Hemisphere.
• In 1951 Puerto Rico voted to become a commonwealth of the United States.
• The Lesser Antilles are a chain of smaller islands that form the eastern boundary of the Caribbean Sea.
• The word leeward, in Leeward Islands, refers to an island that is sheltered from prevailing winds on the open ocean.
• Barbados is an independent nation in the Lesser Antilles and has by far the greatest population density in the Western Hemisphere.