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Presidio Museum Salon & Saloon Lecture Series: The Enduring Legacies of Old Spanish Law and Water Rights in the American

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Date and Time for this Past Event

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$5 per Zoom Link. Pre-registration Required.

Since the mid-1800s, two international treaties have obliged the United States to protect the property rights of Mexicans and Native Americans living in a region of North America that once belonged to Mexico. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and the Gadsden Purchase provide important constitutional guarantees that often have proven difficult to fulfill. Historian Michael Brescia will explain the difficult historical and legal issues involved in certain disputes over natural resources throughout the American Southwest, while interspersing stories from his archival and field research that highlight the intimate connections between individuals, their communities, and the enduring impact of Spanish colonialism and U.S. expansionism on North America.

Michael M. Brescia is Curator of Ethnohistory in the Arizona State Museum and has faculty affiliations with the Department of History and the James E. Rogers College of Law at the University of Arizona. He teaches a wide range of courses at the UA, including Mexican and Borderlands history, the comparative history of North America, and historical research and method. He is co-author of two books: North America: An Introduction with John C. Super, and the fourth edition of Mexico and the United States: Ambivalent Vistas with Dirk Raat. Michael received the 2021 Dan Shilling Humanities Public Scholar Award from Arizona Humanities for his scholarly efforts to make history and culture more accessible to the general public.