Paraguay, by the mid-nineteenth century, was alone among the South American nations in its policy of internal development and economic autonomy. Exemplifying this were the many independent efforts at modernizing the country and its economy, including the building of a railway, telegraph system, and perhaps most importantly, an iron foundry. Although many foreign advisers were hired for these projects, ultimate control and direction rested in the hands of the Paraguayans themselves.

Elsewhere throughout the continent a new British-dominated neocolonial order had taken firm root. Britain's diplomatic ventures at this time centered on the formation of alliances with such American metropolises as Lima and Buenos Aires. These compacts were built upon mutual interests in reconstructing the splintered Viceroyalties into viable political units under basically British hegemony. “The nail is driven,” wrote Foreign Secretary Canning in 1824, “Spanish America is free, and if we do not mismanage our affairs sadly, she is English.”

In building its early modern empire across the Atlantic, Spain deployed an army of legal bureaucrats who were rooted in the Iberian culture of letters and inherited Roman law. To rule their possessions in the New World, the Habsburgs attempted a wholesale incorporation of indigenous peoples into a Hispanicized legal culture. They redistributed the native population, introduced new forms of communication, and implemented their notions of justice and social order to counter the authority of kurakas (ethnic lords) in the Andes. Over time, the establishment of Spanish legal and political institutions encouraged new supra-ayllu (community) loyalties among Andeans, while in the newly created reducciones or Indian towns, native literate officials became the immediate brokers between the colonial state and the República de Indios, a colonial reordering of indigenous worlds. Working closely with one another, indigenous escribanos, alcaldes ordinarios, procuradores de cabildo (legal advocates of the Indians’ council), along with interpreters and fiscales de iglesia (overseers of Indian conversion), performed their jobs in local office in both expected and unanticipated ways. They interwove alphabetic literacy with their experience as servants of the state and the church, creating alternative legal practices and interpretations.

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.

If, as has been asserted, the Mexican Indian owes his daily wage to the Third Mexican Council, then the attitude of that Council toward the question of Indian labor must be of surpassing importance for Mexican history. The transition of the Indian from an economy in which the wage system was unknow to a totally European system was the aim of the Spanish crown, despite such aberrations as the encomienda and the repartimiento. Any influence exercised on this progress by the Church is deserving of special study, not only because of the positive accomplishments that resulted but also because of the light that it can shed on the labor system as actually practiced in colonial Mexico.

The creation of the new banana enclave on Costa Rica's Pacific coast in the 1920s marks a significant watershed in the social and political history of race relations in the country. The culminating event in what was a lengthy battle over the composition of the workforce on the new plantations was the signing of the 1934 banana contract between the government of Costa Rica and the United Fruit Company. In addition to allowing for the continued growth of the industry in Costa Rica, the agreement took aim at the West Indian immigrant by prohibiting “people of colour” from working for United Fruit on the Pacific coast. Subsequent to the agreement, the state made a conscious effort to force the integration of the West Indian community. The government closed English schools, pushed farmers off their land, and deported West Indians in order to purge the province of Limón of people who were not citizens, but who belonged to a well-established immigrant community. As a result, resident West Indians were forced to re-examine their relationship with the country and they engaged in a protracted struggle to overcome heightened levels of discrimination.

The remarkable career of the adelantado don Pedro de Alvarado is associated in the minds of most with his exploits during the conquest of the Aztec state. To a somewhat lesser degree he is remembered as the conqueror, and later governor, of Guatemala. But in retrospect, perhaps his most significant, though less dramatic, achievement was the fact that he was able to maintain his preëminence for two decades. In an age when Charles V followed a policy of removing conquistadores from positions of political power, Alvarado not only retained the good will of the Crown, but also enhanced his authority and prestige. Despite the many crimes of which he was accused, he was not replaced by royal officials. At his death in 1541 he was one of the most powerful men in the New World, overshadowed perhaps only by Viceroy Mendoza, with whom Alvarado had the shrewd sense to make an alliance.

“Mercy,” preached Fray Casimiro Díaz, “is the legitimate daughter of compassion. And the indigent exclaims, the widows, orphans, and destitute women broadcast, even the religious communities acclaim, that mercy is the distinctive virtue of this Holy Board, for your pious gifts reach all of them.” The Augustinian friar was addressing the guardians and members of Manila's Hermandad de la Misericordia (Confraternity of Mercy) in a mass that commemorated the anniversary of its foundation in mid September of 1743. At first glance, the occasion would not deserve much attention, another sermon praising the alms-giving labor of a confraternity. Spanish America swelled with similar institutions devoted to administering alms and endowments to sponsor prayers and charity. Yet, the Manila Misericordia was different. Church corporations in the Americas invested donations in low-interest annuities in perpetuity attached to property. Charity donors in Manila had found a better way to maximize pious gifts: by creating legacies to be invested in maritime trade loans at high interests.

IT is often said that the French Revolution and the ideas of the philosophers of the eighteenth century were of great influence in Latin America and that they constituted the intellectual motivation of its movements toward independence.

This idea is presented in the majority of elementary history books. It is worthy of note that in the national hymn of the Republic of Honduras, one of the stanzas lauds the work of the Convention and mentions Danton.

However, some years ago a French historian, Marius André, published a rather short essay, La fin de l’Empire Espagnol des Indes, in which he attempted to demonstrate that the independence of Spanish America was achieved by a group of conservatives who were frightened by the rebellion of Riego in Spain and who had no desire at any time to take the French Revolution as a model.

It is generally accepted that the Bourbon Reforms were designed to reestablish Peninsular vigor through colonial renewal. What is often unappreciated is that this pristinely simple goal obscures an underlying tangle. The essential thrust was to recolonize the Indies, and to this end economic life was reordered so as to accentuate the New World's role as supplier of precious and exotic products and as consumer of Spanish manufactures. Equally important, however, was the fiscal dimension. The crown wished to generate enough revenues to be able to bear the increasing burden of colonial defense, but beyond this it also wanted the overseas dominions to aid the mother country in defraying European expenses judged essential to a great power.

In 1910, the Uruguayan Public Assistance Law established the concept of universal poor relief, declaring that “anyone … indigent or lacking resources has the right to free assistance at the expense of the state.” Nothing better than this law qualifies Uruguay for its distinction as the ‘first welfare state’ in Latin America. As in other countries, much of the first social assistance legislation targeted poor women and children and relied on elite women for much of its implementation. In the Uruguayan case, the primary intersections between public assistance and private philanthropy were the secular “ladies’ committees” (comités de damas), charitable organizations without direct ties to the Catholic Church. These organizations were also an important catalyst for liberal feminism in Uruguay, whose chronology—from the foundation of the National Women's Council in 1916 through the women's suffrage law of 1932—closely parallels the history of the early Uruguayan welfare state. Following a discussion of the formation of the National Public Assistance and its significance for class and gender politics in Uruguay, this article will summarize the evolving relationship between the Uruguayan social assistance bureaucracy and one of these groups, the Sociedad “La Bonne Garde,” an organization that worked with young unmarried mothers. It then discusses how a formal and direct relationship with the state helped make the Bonne Garde and other groups like it a principal point of entry for many elite women in the early phases of Uruguayan liberal feminism. Finally, this article shows how processes set in motion in the 1910s resulted in a relative marginalization of elite women from both state welfare and organized liberal feminism in the 1920s. Through an examination of the history of these ladies’ committees, we gain new insight into both welfare state formation in its earliest Latin American example as well as some of the elements and circumstances which helped shape liberal feminism in Uruguay.

The Papal Donation of 1493 has been the subject of propaganda, diplomatic negotiations, and scholarly debate since at least 1512. Recent studies have been more concerned with the doctrine of freedom of the seas than with detailed examinations of the diplomatic events of the 16th century which pitted the Spanish interpretations of the Donation against the desires and ideas of her European rivals. As a consequence, the nuances of the various mid-sixteenth century diplomatic settlements have passed unnoticed.

On November 20, 1681 the cathedral bell of Lima announced the official arrival of the new Viceroy of Peru, Don Melchor de Navarra y Rocafull, Duque de la Palata. The streets were decked with bunting and flowers and many people crowded windows and balconies to catch a glimpse of the new Viceroy. Palata, astride a white horse, led a procession of town councilmen, lancers, footmen, and coaches through the capital to the main plaza. There he was greeted by an artillery salute that shook the entire city. Thanking the officials who had accompanied him, Palata entered the viceregal palace and appeared at a window to the acclamation of the multitude.

Like metropolitan France, the Caribbean colony of Saint-Domingue experienced a media revolution during the first four years of the French Revolution. In 1789, there was only one newspaper on the island, the officially licensed Affiches américaines, with two editions, one in the colony's capital, Port-au-Prince, and the other in its commercial center, Cap Français. By the time of the destruction of Cap Français, the colony's major city in June 1793, more than a dozen different newspapers had been founded in the colony, making it the second site in the New World, after Britain's North American colonies, to experience the phenomenon of a revolutionary press. Not only were there more newspapers, but their content and language were radically different from those of the Affiches. Like the newspapers created in France in 1789, those in Saint-Domingue denounced the vestiges of royal power and called on the colony's white citizens to demand the right to govern themselves. By helping to break down traditional authority, the press played an essential if unintentional role in making the revolts against white rule by Saint-Domingue's free people of color and its slave population possible.

In latin american relations, Woodrow Wilson sought to revolutionize United States policy by supplanting the “Big Stick ”diplomacy of Theodore Roosevelt and the “Dollar Diplomacy ”of William H. Taft with a new Pan Americanism. He not only reiterated his desire to be a good neighbor in numerous speeches, particularly his famous Mobile address of October, 1913, but he even formulated a Pan American Pact to promote hemispheric unity by providing for mutual sovereign and territorial respect. His pact failed largely because of the nationalistic opposition of Chile, and his grand design, though cropping up later in the League of Nations idea, ultimately went the way of all Utopian dreams. Then, since Wilson turned his attention to European and domestic affairs, it remained for his three successive secretaries of state, William Jennings Bryan, Robert Lansing, and Bainbridge Colby, to face the realities of Latin American relations and to apply their own policies in dealing with the immediate problems, especially of the smaller republics. Though each man predicated his policies upon Wilson’s promises of friendship as far as possible, and referred critical problems to the president, each generally left the imprint of his own beliefs and personality on hemispheric relations.

Bryan was sympathetic with the president’s goal of the brotherhood of nations, but he conceived his own plan for resolving international conflicts by proposing that all nations sign bilateral arbitration treaties and then submit their differences for at least a year’s consideration to an international arbitral board. He believed that if nations could be deterred from a hasty resort to arms, they would either “cool off ”while awaiting the decision or have their problem solved. But, Bryan, like Wilson, was not to achieve his larger objective because of nationalistic opposition, and he had to do what he could as a “Good Samaritan ”to help all nations become, like the United States, constitutionally sound republics.

Within a framework of overlapping jurisdictions and responsibilities, the city councils (cabildos) were one of the institutions which performed various functions to protect and further public health in the Spanish American Indies. The seventeenth century records of the cabildo in Santiago, Chile, reveal that the councilmen (capitulares) not only conformed to royal law and custom but also employed the scientific knowledge available to them as they struggled against sickness and disease. Their public-spirited endeavors did not, however, preclude the occasional intrusion of selfish motives into the council proceedings. These several characteristics are discernible in the records pertaining to the prevention and control of disease, registry and review of credentials belonging to members of the medical profession, contracts negotiated with physicians, steps to inhibit malpractice, and surveillance of the local apothecary shops and the municipal hospital.

Were one to sit down to compile a list of the great cities of the African diaspora, Montevideo, Uruguay, would not be one of the first names to come to mind. Yet during the period of Spanish colonial rule, thousands of Africans arrived in the city, brought on slaving vessels from Africa and Brazil. By 1810, the population both of Montevideo (9,400) and the larger colony of the Banda Oriental (an estimated 30,000) was one-third black and mulatto. Two centuries later, as a result of large-scale European immigration during the 1800s and early 1900s that proportion had fallen to 6 percent, with Afro-Uruguayans numbering approximately 180,000 people in a national population of 3 million.

Fray Bernardino de Sahagún's account of the process by which the Aztec rulers edited their past indicates the magnitude of bias that we may expect to find in historical accounts of pre-Columbian Mexico. Even if this holocaust, and later official manipulation, did produce a single, authorized version of Aztec history, there are many conflicting accounts of events extant today. This is the result of several processes. First and foremost, all of the surviving histories were written in the Roman alphabet after the Conquest. None were direct “translations” of pre-Conquest books; rather, they were new versions of the inherently flexible oral traditions that accompanied these books. Second, different accounts reflect differing regional biases. Itzcoatl may have destroyed conflicting Mexica views of their own past, but many of the chroniclers were from places that were historic enemies of the Mexica, or at best uneasy friends, such as Tlatelolco, Tetzcoco, and Chalco. Each of these accounts preserves some local bias. Third, “history” was consciously recast to reflect current needs. This happens in all cultures, even the Western European tradition, which has traditionally claimed to seek objectivity in the recording of past events. Yet even if exact events are recorded, it is never possible to eliminate all selective bias: at the very least, one cannot record everything that happened. The historian's job is to record what he judges to be important, and structure it within a coherent narrative. In Mesoamerica, this narrative reflected the present as much as it did the past. Because of the cyclical nature of time, future events were bound to reflect past ones. Therefore, written histories were structured so that this was so. Exactly what happened and what should have happened blended into each other, and no need was felt to distinguish between the two.

Spaniards introduced into the New World a custom called godparenthood, compadrazgo, which had both formal and informal connotations. The more formal, ritual ties were usually established at baptism, confirmation, or marriage ceremonies between the parents and coparents (comadres and compadres), and the godchildren (ahijados) and godparents (padrinos and madrinos). The terms comadre and compadre also connote an informal reference to adults in a relationship of mutual respect and friendship which differed from the ritual forms of godparentage. Godparental relations established formally or informally among Spaniards and Indians, as well as between the two races pervaded colonial society.

Among all the zoological species, birds are the easiest to observe and study. Their diurnal habits, the songs, and visual features make them conspicuous. These characteristics have made birds one of the bestknown animal groups even though ornithologists do not make up a large community among zoologists. For Ernst Mayr, an ornithologist who has made significant contributions that go beyond his own field, the accessibility of birds to research has allowed ornithologists to make important discoveries in several new fields of biology, ranging “from new systematics and speciation research to endocrinology and behavioral biology.”