Carrie Gibson: “Pushing Historical Boundaries: Rediscovering El Norte and the Forgotten Hispanic Past of the United States, 1500-1800”

The U.S.-Mexico border and divided opinions about immigration have become a matter of acute national controversy, but buried far beneath these concerns is a centuries-long tie between the United States and the wider Hispanic world, reaching back to a time well before the arrival of the Mayflower in 1620. This talk will outline that history, discussing the early attempts by the Spanish to place settlements in Florida in the 16th century and further efforts to extend Spain’s empire northward — until the early 19th century, when the wars for independence brought this era to an end. At the same time, this paper will situate these events in the context of the development of the United States, in order to consider the place of this largely forgotten early history in the larger vista of contemporary national memory.

Carrie Gibson received her Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge in 2011, focusing on the Hispanic Caribbean in the era of the Haitian Revolution. Her latest work, El Norte: The Epic and Forgotten Story of Hispanic North America, was published in February 2019. She is also the author of Empire’s Crossroads: A History of the Caribbean from Columbus to the Present Day (Pan Macmillan, 2014). Before embarking on a career as a historian, Gibson was a journalist for the Guardian and Observer, and continues to contribute to media outlets. She was born and raised in the U.S., but has lived in London for more than two decades.

This event, presented by the Center for the Study of the Early Modern World, is free and open to the public.