Some cultural observations in Mexico Mexican President Enrique
Peña Nieto, shown during a meeting with President Barack Obama.
(White House photo) This has been a fascinating trip, and,
beneath our preoccupations as Americans with drug violence and
immigration, this is a fascinating society. Of many
observations, I offer here two historical ones and two about
current issues. I am really struck by the huge difference in the
relationship between European colonizers (Spanish) and native
peoples in Mexico versus the US. In Mexican high school history
books, the Spanish settlement is referred to as The Conquest (La
Conquista), and the history of the period is written from the
Native people point of view. Why the enormous difference with
the US? First, there were rather few Spanish settlers, and they
came mostly to plunder or search for gold. They employed the
natives, in semi-slave conditions, in mines and on enormous
farms. This is in stark contrast to the English settlers in
North America, who were larger in num