This image is from 1821 and it depicts the Plazo de Mayo marketplace in Buenos Aires, Argentina a previous colony of Spain. The reason why this image stood out to me is because of the vibrant colors as well as the scene it depicts. The image shows a diverse mixture of individuals at the marketplace, diversity being a hallmark of colonial Latin America as we learned in our lectures and readings. The image also shows the caste system that was a huge part of colonial Latin America.
The image shows the difference in caste by the way the individuals are dressed differently. If you notice some are dressed in native fabrics while others are dressed in European garments, then there are some who are wearing a mixture of both styles. This is indicative of Latin America society at the time. The image shows a native woman merchant selling items to a nicely dressed noble looking man. As mentioned in one of the chapters in our Problems book many native women worked as merchants, some created fortunes of their own.
I also noticed in the image how one man seems to be working out a misunderstanding between two others, one looks native the other looks noble European descent. I took this as a metaphor to represent the quarrels that occurred amongst the different caste at the time. I picked this image because for me it provides a visual for some of the topics we’ve been going over in class. It shows the different groups and classes of people who all helped to fuel the Spanish Revolution and the Latin American fight for freedom in their own ways.