OLLI-UA Offerings

Spain’s sixteenth-century imperial aspirations upon the “New World" populations progressed through soldiers of fortune such as Hernán Cortés and his dramatic conquest of the Indian civilizations of central Mexico. Colonization of the indigenous peoples continued northward to the borderlands of what becomes the American Southwest throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Of all the Native tribes encountered by Spanish military and colonizers, the most intransigent was no doubt the Apache. These semisedentary peoples became a constant thorn in the side of the Spanish government to the extent that Spain initiated policies of containment as diverse as food ration hand-outs; genocidal raids on Apache encampments; and ultimately forced exile to the islands of Cuba and Puerto Rico. This class explains the process and the practice of subjecting Apache prisoners of war to removal from their homelands by way of expatriation into confinement and slavery.

Instructor: John Attardi

John relocated to Green Valley upon retiring from a thirty-year career in business management. With a natural curiosity about his surroundings and their historical significances, John immediately began studies of southern Arizona’s Spanish colonial past which led to joining the first graduating class of docents at Canoa Ranch. His essays on Spanish/Mexican land grant procedures and Spain’s material assistance in America’s War of Independence were published in Tumacacori National Historic Park newsletter and El Presidio Real Museum in Tucson.