Father José María Luis Mora, infamous as an advocate for political liberalism during inchoate Mexico’s struggle for nationhood, worked through a myriad of channels to bring about change in his country. Educated and ordained as a secular priest, he was both professor and librarian at the prestigious Colegio de San Ildefonso in Mexico City, but found time to author five volumes of collected essays and edit three periodicals. His national acclaim rests with his career as lawyer, politician, and political theorist. Not all of his contemporaries recognized that he also became a Bible merchant during the second quarter of the nineteenth century.

In March 1855, a literary newspaper in Rio de Janeiro printed the first installment of Nísia Floresta's “Páginas de uma vida obscura,” a serialized short story inspired by Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852). Seven more chapters followed, keeping “Páginas” in the public eye for months. The Jornal do Commercio, arguably the national paper of record, mentioned the story in its announcements. Floresta (pseudonym of Dionísia Gonçalves Pinto, 1810–1885) centered her storyline on the Congo-born Domingos, the “Brazilian Tom,” who exemplified the attributes of Christian virtuosity and resignation found in Stowe's internationally famous novel. Set in the nineteenth century, “Páginas” begins with the ten-year-old Domingos's enslavement on the African coast, and highlights the human devastation of the internal slave trade through his movements across Minas Gerais and on to Porto Alegre and Rio de Janeiro. It ends with Domingos's death, at age 54, grief-stricken over his son's recent passing. In part, Floresta's “Páginas” emerged from the Brazilian schoolteacher's longstanding critiques of patriarchy, nation, and education. Twenty years earlier, Floresta had drawn from Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Woman to write Direito das mulheres e injustiça dos homens (1832), a book that went through three editions in its first decade. More directly though, Floresta had connected to the so-called “Tom mania” while living in Paris in 1852. The following year, back in Rio, she wrote a pamphlet on women's education—Opúsculo humanitário (1853)—that parsed key aspects of Uncle Tom's Cabin, among a larger discussion of women's achievements internationally. Two Rio newspapers excerpted the pamphlet, and, boldly, published the chapters focused on Uncle Tom. This attention in the press raised the profile of a book the public already knew to be controversial, as newspapers had earlier carried reports of port authorities seizing shipments of Uncle Tom's Cabin in Rio, Salvador, and Fortaleza. In writing “Páginas,” then, two years after the Opúsculo, Floresta not only carried forward her literary dialogue with Stowe, but also posed the work as a challenge to the status quo. “Páginas” was necessary, she explained, because “slavery is not an issue of concern in the press.” If overstated, given that the topic of slavery was quite prevalent in public discourse, Floresta's assertion nonetheless signals an opportunity for scholars to probe further into the relationship between slavery and the public sphere in the mid nineteenth century. More specifically, it suggests connections to be explored between the press and the early reception of Uncle Tom's Cabin in Brazil, and, more broadly, connections between the representations of slavery in the press, and the institution's enduring legitimacy.

To the sound of trumpets and drums, the people gathered before the church of Our Lady of the Rosary in the square of the small town of Santa Cruz in southern Goiás. They were there for the “jogo dos cavaleiros” (the game of the cavalrymen). First of all, the troops processed from the commandant's house to the square, which was lined in the form of a cross. Enveloped in long mantles, the women of the commandant's family headed a second procession, including soldiers, musicians, and the Austrian visitor, Johann Emanuel Pohl, who accompanied the commander and the judge. The townspeople followed at the end. Receiving them in formation in the “spacious” square were the mounted cavalrymen dressed in Portuguese uniforms. With their swords, they saluted Pohl and the other men of high rank, who took their seats on the top of a stepped platform shaded by a thatched roof, while the soldiers sat below.

The interim years between the two world wars in Peru witnessed a proliferation of original ideas among Peruvian leftists on the relationship between religion and revolutionary change as a result of their efforts to re-examine national realities and bring about a radical change in Peruvian society. Young social thinkers and protesters such as José Carlos Mariátegui, Víctor Raúl Haya de la Torre, Luís Valcárcel and others felt that the new Peru must incorporate and synthesize the best elements of Peru's past and present with the best ideas emanating from revolutionary Russia and Mexico. In their quest to construct a program of action for a revolutionary Peru, the generation of the twenties and thirties realized the necessity of going beyond the literary liberalism of the grand master of Peruvian anti-clericalism, Manual González Prada. They endeavored to propose a new, positive program which would neither discard nor neglect such an integral part of national life as the Roman Catholicism of the majority of Peruvians. Even more, they consciously explored ways by which the popular Catholicism of the Peruvian lower classes might be converted into a source of energy for the coming revolution.

The well organized Inca nation of Peru yielded to the Spanish quest for precious metals and mission fields. The new Indian subjects, having developed stable economic and political nationhood before the conquest, were accustomed to work and amenable to organization. Out of this substance, a colonial state could be moulded to make a substantial contribution to the Spanish purposes.

Spaniards readily rationalized that precious metals were material rewards for the missions' spiritual ambitions; conquest itself had precedents both among the Romans and the Incas, but Spain's Christianity gave her even greater justification.

On 6 March 1701, the municipal government of Puebla de los Angeles received a cédula commanding the performance of an oath ceremony, or jura del rey, for the new Bourbon monarch, Philip V. Twelve days later, a second cédula arrived, ordering the celebration of royal funerary honors, or exequias reales, for the last Spanish Habsburg king, Charles II. Puebla's municipal leaders, or regidores, attributed great importance to public ceremony and began planning for the events immediately upon receiving Queen Mariana's instructions. Like the political elites of many early modern cities, Puebla's councilmen consistently dedicated a significant share of the city's resources to mount spectacles to commemorate such events as viceregal entrances, patron saints’ days, royal births and marriages, and Spanish military victories. These occasions provided local leaders with opportunities to instruct the populace in the authority of the king's primary representative, the primacy of the Catholic faith, the power of the city's leaders, the importance of hierarchy in colonial society, and the loyalty due the royal family and the Spanish Empire.

Is love a modern invention? This question is perhaps not quite as ludicrous as it might appear. For nearly three decades scholars have been exploring whether contemporary ideas about love are in fact as ancient as we might believe. As a result of these investigations, some historians have concluded that our current attitudes towards love date from no earlier than the seventeenth century. This opinion was expressed most forcefully by Lawrence Stone in his 1977 The Family, Sex and Marriage in England, 1500-1800. In this path-breaking study Stone argued that recognizably modern ideas about marriage did not emerge in England until the seventeenth century. Only then did what he called “companionate marriage” develop. “Companionate marriage,” as described by Stone, was characterized by certain distinguishing features.

Within recent years, Spanish American historical studies have gained in depth and understanding. One area which has witnessed relatively little progress, however, is the clergy. While European scholars have been busy in the investigation of many aspects of the life and work of the clergy, Latin Americanists have done little or nothing. It is a pleasure to be able to present a study on the pastors of the Lima archdiocese in an effort to help fill an evident need.

In this essay I describe some often ignored North American modes of perceiving Latin Americans; and I suggest that a change in these modes contributed to the Good Neighbor era (1933-1945). I do not presume to argue that shifting attitudes and perceptions should be seen as the principal factors in shaping the Good Neighbor policy. Anyone concerned with the primary determinants of that policy must turn to security and economic considerations. Still, an intellectual—and, really, a psychological—phenomenon of shifting perceptions and stereotypes among North Americans accounted for some of the enthusiasm with which they greeted what they took to be a new approach to Latin America.

In its central thrust this essay suggests that in hemispheric relations, seen from the north-of-the-Rio-Grande perspective, the United States stands generally for culture and Latin America for nature. Symbolizing the capitalist culture of the Yankees, shaped by their struggle to subdue wilderness and nature, has been the white male, often portrayed by Uncle Sam. In contrast, Latin America has been symbolized by Indians, blacks, women, children, and also the idle poor: people assumed to lack the capitalist urge constantly to tame, dominate, and uplift nature.

During the second half of the nineteenth century, when Mexico was beginning a slowly drawn-out process of industrialization and urbanization, the seemingly quiet countryside was experiencing agrarian unrest of proportions unprecedented in the nation's history. Trapped between increasing population on diminished ejidal and pueblo landholdings and ever-growing estates and demands of large property owners, Mexican campesinos in three states—eastern Morelos, southeastern Mexico, and northwestern Puebla— sought relief by means of insurrection. Because these agrarian uprisings during the last third of the nineteenth century were a prelude to similar and more famous occurrences during the fateful epoch 1910-1917, their causes, nature, and significance are essential for understanding an important aspect of the Mexican Revolution.

Scholars have paid considerable attention to the famous goodwill mission of Dwight Whitney Morrow to Mexico in 1927, but have written almost nothing about the conditions which necessitated it. An in-depth study of Morrow’s predecessor, James Rockwell Sheffield, whose ambassadorship (1924–27) featured a deterioration in Mexican-American relations, has yet to be published. During Sheffield’s tenure the administration of Plutarco Elías Calles made the strongest attempt to that time to implement the revolutionary program of “Mexico for the Mexicans” embodied in the Constitution of 1917. Especially alarming to Americans was legislation aimed at limiting foreign land-holding and severely restricting the privileges of foreign petroleum interests. These laws precipitated a prolonged diplomatic correspondence and generated considerable ill-will. This correspondence reached a complete impasse by the spring of 1926 since neither side was willing to compromise its position. The re-emergence of the perennial church-state conflict as well as Mexican opposition to American policies in Nicaragua further convulsed relations.

In colonial times four ecclesiastical Councils were held in Mexico City: in 1555, 1565, 1585, and in 1771. Their decisions and enactments affected directly the extensive territory of New Spain and indirectly that of the Philippines.

The last two of these Councils ordered the publishing of three catechisms, of which two were actually printed. The 1585 Council decreed the publishing of a catechism, which, as we shall see, was taken over substantially by the 1771 Council for its lay catechism and partially also for its parochial manual.

On April 28, 1774, the Boston News-Letter published at the bottom of its first page the following “extract” of a letter it had recently received from Fayal, the Azores:

By a Vessel that arrived here last Month from Rio de Janeiro in the Brazils, we have accounts of a small Whaling Brig belonging to some Part of North-America, putting in there for Refreshments, but that Part of the crew were prevailed on either by fair or foul Means to enter on board a Portuguese Scow, to go on a Cruise of three Months a Whaling…. That the Brig still remained there in October last, with only the Captain and three People on board…. That the Portuguese provided themselves with Harpoons and other Necessaries, agreeable to the English Model, and were gone in Search of Spermaceti Whales, a Trade they have hitherto been entirely ignorant of, and are very desirous of acquiring some Knowledge in. All the oil they used to make in the Brazils was from the Bone Whales, and those they caught in such Abundance in open boats along the Shore that they migh[t] undersell any other Europeans if they were expert in their Business, but they never venture out of Sight of Shore.

On November 14, 1904, the eve of the fifteenth anniversary of the founding of the Brazilian Republic, General Silvestre Travassos, leading a corps of several hundred cadets from Rio de Janeiro's military school, fell fatally wounded before the forces loyal to the constitutional government he had pledged to overthrow. His loss came only hours after the uprising had begun, but in those early moments the revolt had already foundered. This brief armed movement climaxed nearly a year of unrest, a month of agitation and almost a week of running clashes between working-class groups and local government forces. Although the revolt continued sporadically for two days more, the death of its leader in the early hours of fighting signalled its failure.

In 1918 an anonymous conscript writing to La Protesta, an anarchist paper known for its anti-militarism, complained about life in the Argentine navy. The military was a “school of vice” where everyone was reduced to a number and was subject to the most cruel and random subordination. The conscript fumed, “You even lose control of your hair.”

On February 18, 1724, field marshal Antonio Manso Maldonado arrived in New Granada as the president, governor, and captain-general of the New Kingdom. He had been appointed to this position on December 4, 1723, because both the crown and the Chamber of the Indies thought it would be best executed by a military officer. Manso Maldonado could boast more than 30 years of military service, proven loyalty, and administrative experience, much of it during the first reign of Felipe V. After joining the royal armies as a private, Manso Maldonado rose steadily through the ranks, fighting the Moors in Ceuta and the French in the wars of the late seventeenth century. During the War of the Spanish Succession, he served at the orders of the militant bishop of Murcia and last viceroy of Valencia, Luis Belluga, who praised Manso's valor directly to the king. Most important perhaps, at the end of the War of the Spanish Succession and upon the occupation of Catalonia by Bourbon forces, Manso Maldonado had served as teniente de rey in Gerona (1716-1719) and Barcelona (1719-1723), witnessing first-hand the implementation of the Nueva Planta and the enforcement of royal authority over the rebellious principality.

The Canary archipelago lies off the coast of Africa at 29° N latitude, some 700 nautical miles south of Gibraltar. Its conquest and occupation, including the subjection of the native Guanche population, represented Spain's first overseas venture, a blueprint and precedent for the colonization of America. For nearly a century prior to Columbus the Spanish Crown found here a laboratory and testing ground for colonial administration, including relations with an aboriginal population that offered an irresistible attraction for enslavement and evangelization. The philosophical justification and legitimization of conquest was first faced in the Canaries as a new colonial bureaucracy sought to adapt and refine the medieval, European institutions of government to the new situation. Authority to appoint officials and to distribute land and natives in service was delegated to local governors while exhaustively detailed ordinances formulated by appointed councils (cabildos) regulated every phase of life through a complex structure of regulations, fines and taxes. The model was in place and operative by the time there was need to organize the first Spanish government in the Antilles.

“The Justice of warring against the notorious Chichimeca Indians of Mexico was a burning issue throughout the sixteenth century.” This simple statement covers more than half a century of theological, canonical, legal, and philosophical debate over whether or not the Spanish government was justified in waging total war a fuego y a sangre against the wild Indian tribes to the north of the capital. Should these Indians continue to be regarded, as they had been in the past, as wards of the Spanish Crown and so be punished as errant children, “ delincuentes,” or should they all, men, women, and children, be declared enemies of the Spanish nation and the Christian religion and so be punished by being pursued, hunted down, subjugated, and either enslaved or exterminated? This debate went to the heart of the question of the nature and justice of Spanish rule in the Indies and it vexed the consciences of viceroys, audiencias, colonists, and churchmen. It was only natural, then, that the question should be submitted to the most important ecclesiastical gathering of colonial Mexico—the Third Mexican Provincial Council of 1585. Though passing references are sometimes made to the consideration given to the Chichimecan question by the Council, no serious study has ever been made of the discussions and arguments nor of the official stand taken by the Mexican Church. This is particularly to be regretted since such a study casts some interesting light on the mentality of the second generation of Spanish settlers in Mexico.