North/Central America

Dona Marina in Florentine Codex

This image was created by an indigenous painter in central Mexico and accompanies a written description of the conquest of Tenochtitlan, penned in both Spanish and Nahuatl in the Florentine Codex. The Florentine Codex is one of the fullest Nahuatl descriptions of the conquest.

Cortés Greets Xicotencatl in Mexican Manuscript

A detail from a larger manuscript page in the Lienzo de Tlaxcala, this scene was created by an indigenous painter in central Mexico. Scenes from the Lienzo de Tlaxcala, now just fragments from a larger set of images, draw upon preconquest painting techniques and conventions.

Tobacco Workers

In addition to sugar, tobacco was important to Puerto Rico’s industrial agricultural order after the arrival of the United States. Puerto Rican women and men labored in a building called a fabrica (or factory).

Sugarcane Workers Strike

After the United States's occupation of Puerto Rico in 1898, agricultural production shifted from a diverse model of production to a mono-agricultural model of growth, where sugar was the main crop.

Workers’ Celebration

When Americans arrived on the island, the labor movement in Puerto Rico was in its infancy. Labor leaders were aware of the reputation of the U.S. labor unions, so they worked to affiliate with the American Federation of Labor (AFL) as early as 1899.

Malinche Sculpture

A sculpted figure by an internationally-recognized Native American activist, writer and visual artist. The materials chosen by Jimmie Durham create an image of Malinche that seems emptied of life and perhaps not fully human. He stresses the darker underside of Malinche’s history.

The Dream of Malinche

This painting, by a Mexican artist engaged with the international movement of Surrealism, represents a slumbering Malinche; her body serves as the ground supporting an unnamed Mexican community and church.

Analyzing Manifest Records

The modules in Methods present case studies that demonstrate how scholars interpret different kinds of historical evidence in world history. In the video below, Wendi Manuel-Scott analyzes manifest records from the SS Atenas. This ship sailed from Kingston, Jamaica, to New York City in 1920.

Manifest Record from the S.S. Atenas

This document is part of a manifest record from the SS Atenas. This ship sailed from Kingston, Jamaica, to New York City in 1920.

Guadeloupean Household Workers at Ellis Island

This is a photograph of household workers from the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe just after their arrival in New York in 1911.

This source is a part of the Analyzing Manifest Records methods module.