Alonso De Zorita’s career as a Spanish judge in the Indies in the years 1548–1556, though not as well known as the career of Bartolomé de las Casas and other pro-Indian reformers, merits serious study. The arrival of Zorita and his subsequent actions as an administrator and legist represent one example of the serious efforts of the Crown in the 1540’s to impose royal control over a quasi-feudal class of conquerors and pobladores which had from the early sixteenth century entrenched itself in the New World. Moreover, Zorita was not only a jurist who attempted to implement the New Laws of 1542–43, but an inspired humanitarian who took an active interest in the native civilizations of the New World and questioned the relations that had evolved and created “a Hispano-Indian society characterized by the domination of the masses by a small privileged minority…” His ardent defense of the Indians against the charge that they were “barbarians” included a relativist line of argument that anticipated Michel de Montaigne’s celebrated comment that “everyone calls barbarian what is not his own usage.” In addition, his inquiries into native history, land tenure and inheritance laws may be considered “in effect exercises in applied anthropology, capable of yielding a vast amount of information about native customs and society” and is an example of what Europe saw or failed to see in the sixteenth century when confronted with a strange new world.

In Shakespeare’s play, Pericles, the leading character interrogates a woman whom he does not know is actually his daughter, Marina. In his excitement, King Pericles asks:

Whereupon Marina replies:

How ironic that Shakespeare’s Marina bears a resemblance to the well-known Aztec princess, Malinche, also known as Marina. For the researcher engaged in telling the history of Malinche, there exists an inherent case of mistaken identity in particular indices and annotations to documents that are relevant to her history—a mistake as perplexing and deceptive as if to “seem like lies disdained in the reporting,”

Revolution in Latin America has become a sufficiently frequent occurrence to be subject to stereotypes which can cause misinterpretation. All too often an uprising is discussed in general terms, without assiduous scrutiny of the particulars, resulting in unconscious assumptions based upon stereotyped notions regarding similar movements elsewhere. The result is that important factors can be overlooked, as general principles obscure the facts and the peculiarities of the local situation. The idea that social revolution involves a confrontation between civilian reformers and military dictators has become one of the standard bromides applied to such events.

Recognising the failure to assimilate the Trinidad Indians to Spanish culture, the king of Spain in 1686 asked the Capuchin Order to undertake a mission to Trinidad so that the “Indians may learn to live a quiet and civilized life.” Eight Capuchin priests under Fr. Thomas de Barcelona arrived in 1687 and founded four missions; two in Naparima, one in San Fernando, and one in Savana Grande. They built their villages following a uniform plan: “A perfect square is traced on the ground and all the Indian ajoupas are built on three sides, north, south, and west of the streets … the eastern side of the mission is taken up by the church, the mission house and other buildings for the use of the priests.”

Three Weeks before the fall of Mexico City and the final victory over its conservative adversaries, the liberal government of Benito Juárez issued a law, on December 4, 1860, establishing freedom of religion in Mexico. Such a law had been a liberal objective throughout the early Reforma period and during the War of the Reform as well. In mid-1859 the Juárez government had issued a manifesto which stated that religious toleration was a requirement for national prosperity. The liberals saw toleration as an important precondition for foreign immigration—and immigration had been an established panacea for national problems since the achievement of independence in 1821. The 1860 law served to vindicate part of the Reforma program. It also sought to resolve almost four decades of debate on the relationship between foreigners, immigration, and religious toleration.

One of the major obstacles preventing Argentine national unificacation in the 1870s was the hostility of the poor interior provinces, victims of the ravages of civil wars and economic stagnation, toward the richer and more powerful coastal area dominated by export-oriented merchants and cattlemen. From 1874 until the first decade of the twentieth century, a major attempt was made to resolve longstanding grievances. A definitive political compromise and program of economic integration emerged in 1880 when a group of politicians, representing both the interior and the littoral, joined together and made their slogan a reality: Peace and administration. This group, known as the Generation of Eighty, brought a national capital and a modicum of peace to Argentina in 1880. Eventually they helped create a new Argentina linked by networks of transportation, communication, banking facilities and other trappings of modernity. They courted regional industries with protective tariffs and political favors in hopes of providing an economic stimulus to the interior which would complement rapid growth in the littoral. But even though Buenos Aires and surrounding areas flourished, by the turn of the century most interior provinces remained as destitute as they had been thirty years earlier.

On the 23rd of November 1876 Porfirio Díaz rode into Mexico City at the head of a “regenerating army” that had just toppled liberal President Sebastián Lerdo de Tejada from power through armed insurrection. This was not an unusual incident in Mexico. Since the establishment of the Republic only two presidents had left office voluntarily at the end of their elected terms. The rest had all been deposed, usually after only a year or so in executive power, with the notable exception of Benito Juárez, who died in the office that he apparently intended to retain indefinitely, having held onto it in one way and another for fifteen years.

The desire to see a restoration of full corporate privilege for their estate encouraged a group of New Granada’s clergymen to support the attempt of leading Creole families to replace the political predominance of the Spanish peninsulares. This political revolution contained both traditionalist and radical aspects. Most clerics strongly opposed the policies of Charles IV’s ministers, and singled out for especial criticism the favourite, Godoy. A particular cause of resentment in New Granada, as elsewhere in Spanish America, was the Consolidación de Vales Reales legislated on 28 November and 26 December 1804. Grievances extended generally to the metropolitan government’s fiscal policies, for a large measure of taxation fell upon the clergy. As in New Spain the defence of the fuero eclesiástico provided a rallying cry.