The United States is still typically conceived of as an offshoot of
England, with our history unfolding east to west beginning with the
first English settlers in Jamestown. This view overlooks the
significance of America's Hispanic past. With the profile of the United
States increasingly Hispanic, the importance of recovering the Hispanic
dimension to our national story has never been greater.
This absorbing narrative begins with the explorers and conquistadores
who planted Spain's first colonies in Puerto Rico, Florida, and the
Southwest. Missionaries and rancheros carry Spain's expansive impulse
into the late eighteenth century, settling California, mapping the
American interior to the Rockies, and charting the Pacific coast. During
the nineteenth century Anglo-America expands west under the banner of
"Manifest Destiny" and consolidates control through war with Mexico. In
the Hispanic resurgence that follows, it is the peoples of Latin America
who overspread the continent, from the Hispanic heartland in the West to
major cities such as Chicago, Miami, New York, and Boston. The United
States clearly has a Hispanic present and future.
And here is its Hispanic past, presented with characteristic insight and
wit by one of our greatest historians.