Considered a part of neither Central America nor the Gran Colombian area, and too small to claim a loyal following among scholars, Panama remains virtually unstudied by contemporary historians. Consequently, sources for the study of Panamanian history have been neglected, a situation this research note seeks to correct in part by identifying the principal holdings in Panamanian archives and libraries.

Spanish colonialism was disastrous for the Indian population of America. By the end of the colonial period, all Indian groups who had come into contact with Europeans were less than half of the size they had been on the eve of Spanish conquest, and some had become extinct. Although the Indian population was reduced in size between 1492 and 1821, the demographic changes experienced by different Indian groups varied considerably. Some groups became extinct at an early date, others experienced a sharp decline followed by a slow recovery, and others continued to decline slowly into the nineteenth century. The uneven distribution of Indians in Latin America today clearly reflects not only their distribution at the time of the Spanish conquest, but also their subsequent demographic histories. It is the aim of this article to identify regional variations in population trends during the colonial period and to suggest factors that may have been responsible for differences in the level of survival of Indian populations.

“What I suffer is pleasant because it shows that I am putting myself above the run of common men, that I am worthy of my Patria and of you…”

Insurgent officer to his wife, 1893

The appeal of sacrifice so frequently encountered in expressions of nationalism is an equally familiar theme in the rhetoric of political warfare in Latin America. Stories of political warfare take up a considerable part of Latin American historiography. The intent of this exploratory article is to suggest how the rhetoric and narrative written about nineteenth-century insurgency can be read to illuminate the political history of Latin America. Two South American civil wars of the 1890s constitute the empirical starting point for my speculations, although they are scarcely a convincing sample of the hundreds of insurgencies that have occurred since independence. Consequently, these observations on a Latin American discourse of insurgency must largely be content to ask questions, raise issues, and suggest hypotheses.

Scholars generally agree that after 1810 the Mexican economy, shattered by destruction of property and flight of population and capital during the long wars for independence, entered a severe depression. It has usually been assumed that this depression persisted well beyond mid-century, exacerbated by political instability, banditry, and intermittent civil warfare. This assumption was given shape and substance by John Coatsworth's influential 1978 article, which presented a picture of not merely miserable but deteriorating economic conditions for at least a half-century after 1810. Coatsworth calculated that per capita and total income fell until “sometime after 1860” and that a solid recovery was delayed until after 1880.

Una de las cuestiones interesantes de las guerras de liberación y las revoluciones sociales del Tercer Mundo es que las luchas por profundas transformaciones sociales e, incluso, por un horizonte socialista, no tienen como fuerza principal a un partido proletario ni a organizaciones donde la clase obrera constituye el componente principal. El protagonista fundamental de estos movimientos es, antes bien, un complejo conjunto de clases y grupos populares—artesanos, campesinos, semiproletarios, jóvenes, pobres de la ciudad y del campo—donde la clase obrera no es un componente mayoritario. Este perfil social propio de las revoluciones y guerras de liberación del Tercer Mundo obedece en definitiva al modo en que el capitalismo se desarrolló en estos países, articulándose a formas no capitalistas de producción y circulación, subordinándolas pero sin eliminarlas plenamente.