In the intro to “A Land so Strange”, Résendez attempts to argue the importance of the journey of Cabeza de Vaca on the exploration and colonization of the new world. In this introduction, Résendez summarizes the long journey of Cabeza de Vaca and his companions and discusses the larger impact of their journey in terms of Spanish understanding of the Native Americans. The main point of the introduction of “A Land so Strange” was to tell the reader that Cabeza de Vaca’s journey was one of a kind. Never before had a white man, let alone a Spaniard explored the new world so intimately in a way that did not disrupt and destroy native culture. Cabeza de Vaca came to understand the Native Americans as people and attempted to convince the colonizing Spaniards to treat them as such. Fortunately, Résendez uses very strong language, bold imagery, and interesting anecdotes to ensure that his argument is not only interesting, but also persuasive. I felt that Résendez’s argument was very persuasive because he provided multiple viewpoints and referenced multiple first hand accounts and resources to provide evidence for his point. Résendez also strengthened his summary by supplementing it with interesting specifics that kept the reader engaged. I enjoyed the intro and am excited to read more about the fascinating journey of Cabeza de Vaca!

In his article “Creolization in America”, Buisseret analyzes the history of the term “The New World” and when the New World really came into being. Buisseret begins his article by discussing the term acculturation and then follows the transition from sociological acceptance the theory of acculturation to the theory of creolization. After analyzing the ideas of multiple sociologists he moves on to analyze different kinds of evidence of creolization and finally discusses the stages of creolization in an attempt to pinpoint the origin of the New World. Buisseret’s main argument is that the formation of the New World was not instantaneous, it took time and formed through the blending of multiple unique cultures which he referred to as creolization.  While I found the article informative, I think there was a lot of merit to Buisseret’s argument, and definitely agree with what he said, I couldn’t help but feel that he got caught up in too much summary and did not offer enough of his own opinion. I also felt that the specific examples were very helpful but there were just too many examples when he was discussing examples of creolization. I think that if there was a little less summary, the article would have been more clear and convincing.