Assignment 5 - Printing, the indigenous influence, the beginning of the Spanish-language press in U.S., El Misisipi

Note: In these assignments the students are expected to read the text as well as supplement their knowledge by visiting websites on Texas history and the exploration of the American southwest by the Spanish. New information on this section includes that the first Spanish newspaper daily in what is now the United States. That newspaper was La Patria. It was published in New Orleans during the U.S.-Mexico War from 1846-1848. It provided first-hand information of that war and many of the newspapers on the East Coast of the United States used its communiques to translate into stories for their own issues.


Part 1: From Chapter 1, discuss the influence of the Aztecs and other indigenous groups in "printing" in this hemisphere. What was the paper they printed on called? Who was the man credited with bringing the first presses to the new world?

Part 2: Early in Spanish colonization of New Spain, which included Texas,and all the American southwest, how did government and the Catholic church communicate with their subjects in, let's say, Nacogdoches, San Antonio, El Paso, Santa Fe, La Bahia, etc.?

Part 3: From Chapter 2 - In the early 19th century, Spanish-language newspapers started to make their mark on the Spanish settlements in what is now the United States. What was the first newspaper, according to your text, to be published in Spanish in the U.S.? Was it all in Spanish? What was the first newspaper in Spanish published in what is now Texas? Where was it published and by whom?