The entrance of the Spanish into California and the founding of the Franciscan mission system has been described in many books both by those sympathetic apologists for the missions and the Spanish as bringing “civilization” to barbarous rude savages lacking any knowledge of God (Englehardt 1912, and others) and by those who disapproved of the mission system but approved of the Spanish conquest of California (Bancroft 1884, 1886, and others). The Indian cultures which were destroyed by the Spanish and later American settlers have also been described many times, first by those who unquestioningly accepted the Spanish view of these people as simply taking what nature produced. This viewpoint gives justification to the conquerors because “they could use the land better.” More recently a number of researchers have been reading the Spanish descriptions of what they actually saw and have ignored the Spanish assumptions, but read the descriptions of the environment with the ecological knowledge necessary to recognize the existence of a man-made environment, not a “natural” environment. They have discovered evidence of complex hierarchical stratified social Systems which were ignored because the Spanish assumed they were not present (Kehoe 1981, Shipek 1981a). Others interviewed surviving Indians and have explored areas of Indian knowledge never explored before simply because it was assumed that they had no such knowledge. For example, it has been discovered that all groups had the knowledge of and worshipped a high creator God whose name was so sacred that it must not be mentioned except in the proper sacred areas and during the sacred ceremonies dedicated to the Creator.

An affinity for urban living has frequently been cited as one of the peculiar characteristics or long standing traditions of the Spanish people. Whether one accepts the existence of medieval Iberian cities as a heritage from the Roman municipium or as a necessary defensive establishment against the attacks of the Moors, it is evident that town life was flourishing in the Middle Ages. Municipal governments were formed to administer the communities, and as new towns were captured or created, the old models of organization were carried with the expanding frontier. In Castile the local councils were called concejos or cabildos and until the fourteenth century were often elective, representative institutions with increasing influence and power. But from the reign of Alfonso XI (1312-1350) their strength began to wane as the Castilian kings attempted to control their domains by appointing local officials and dispatching royal agents to work with them. By the sixteenth century the success of the centralizing methods was evident, for the municipal councils had become virtually the tools of the Castilian Crown.

In December of 1980 three women religious and a lay missioner from the United States were brutally raped and murdered by the Salvadoran military. This outrage brought international attention to the violence in El Salvador and led to a temporary halt in US military aid. The sisters were neither the first nor the most violently killed—8,000 people were massacred in 1980 and 45,000 between 1980 and 1984—but their rape and murder, the murder of Archbishop Romero in March of 1980, and that of six Jesuit priests in 1989 were consistently cited as evidence of the sheer brutality and impunity of the Salvadoran military regime. Killing priests and bishops and raping and murdering nuns signified quite simply that “nothing was sacred.”

The best example of the effect produced by Fray Bartolomé de las Casas’ theoretical writings concerning the just title Spain held to America occurred in Peru during the rule of Viceroy Francisco de Toledo, wise law-giver, energetic administrator, and greatest viceroy Spain ever sent to Peru, who laid the basis for Spanish rule there during the years 1569–1582. Before his coming, Peru had had a most turbulent and bloody history, and Toledo arrived with one great aim—to establish without question in this territory the position of the King of Spain. One of his earliest acts was to execute the Inca, Lord Tupac Amaru, the Indian leader who refused to accept Spanish rule. Presently, with a view to establishing Spain’s juridical title to Peru, he undertook an extensive historical investigation which attempted to demonstrate the unjust nature of the Inca regime and thus demolish the doctrines of Las Casas.

In 1660 Cristóbal de la Cruz presented himself before the commissioner ofthe Holy Office of the Inquisition in Veracruz, Mexico, claiming to beafflicted by doubts about the Catholic faith. Born in Algiers and capturedat the age of nine or ten by a Spanish galley force, he was taken to Spain,where he was quickly sold into slavery and baptized. Thirty years later, Dela Cruz denounced himself to the Mexican inquisitorial tribunal andproceeded to recount to the inquisitors a detailed and fascinating story ofhis life as he crossed Iberian and Mediterranean landscapes: escaping fromhis masters and being re-enslaved, encountering Muslims and renouncingChristianity, denouncing his guilt remorsefully before the Inquisitions ofBarcelona and Seville, and moving between belief in Catholicism and Islam.His case provides important insights into the relationship between religiousidentity and the regulatory efforts of powerful institutions in the earlymodern Spanish world.

Inscribed on the outside walls of Quito’s Cathedral is a list of the men who invaded, occupied, and ultimately renamed the Inka city of Quito for Saint Francis on August 28, 1534. Listed among these individuals are two blacks—Juan (de color negro), and Anton (negro). Juan and Anton represented the hundreds (and perhaps thousands by this date) of blacks, explorers, conquistadors, slaves, and squires who had come to the Americas during the age of conquest (1492-1550). Although the biographical records for Juan and Anton are sketchy, sources indicate that they were freemen.

In her study on the configuration of difference in colonial New Granada, Joanne Rappaport contends that many studies “tend to ignore how different practices of distinguishing one individual from another came into play in concrete situations,” and as a result they “end up labeling as ‘race’ something that was much more multifaceted.” Subsequently, she urges scholars to interpret colonial subjects and their identities on their own terms. This study responds to Rappaport's call by analyzing the workings of the historical concept of calidad in colonial Spanish America.

Patterns of land ownership and availability define pre-industrial society. Land defines wealth and translates into political power and social status. Thus historians of Latin America have been interested in land usage and distribution before economic and social history came into vogue. However, the major focus has been on the hacienda, not the small holders, and the assumed model was Mexico, not Paraguay or Colombia. A series of colonial regional studies on Mexico and Peru published in the 1970s and 1980s demonstrated the variation in economic power and regional differences of the hacienda but only incidentally probed the status of small holders. The recognition of the persistence of a variety of early land patterns, including indigenous communal landholdings, however, has challenged earlier interpretations of the socioeconomic power of the hacienda. The awareness of differences of market factors and population density within regions laid the basis for new questions about ownership, land usage, labor, and the forms of internal and external community relations.

After a border skirmish at the Rio Grande on April 25, 1846, A Mexico and the United States were at war, and within a few months Zachary Taylor’s troops had overrun the north, reaching Monterrey and Saltillo. At the same time an expedition under Winfield Scott landed at Vera Cruz and pushed inward along the ancient road of conquest, reaching the gates of Mexico City by August, 1847. Mexican resistance was heroic and determined in spots, but disorganization and poor leadership played havoc with any attempt at national defense. The capital fell and was occupied by the invaders, the Mexican government fled to Querétaro, and an ignominious peace treaty was negotiated and accepted by the helpless Mexicans, though not without serious opposition from the radical (puro) element which favored a last-ditch resistance. With the rapid subjection of the country and the loss of more than half its territory, the once proud and optimistic nation of Iturbide was left stunned; and it turned to bitter reflection upon its paralyzed condition and its flagrant display of weakness when faced by a small and not too efficient force of invaders.

The very independence of Mexico was now threatened. Such an easy victory by a powerful neighbor would mean that Mexico might at any time be absorbed by the United States, especially when there was a movement for that purpose already afoot north of the Rio Grande. The easy optimism of the early days of the republic had now vanished. The shock of military disaster, after the dismal decade of mediocrity and humdrum military revolutions, accentuated a crisis in Mexican thought. Both liberals and conservatives now saw the necessity of imposing radical changes upon the course of independent Mexico. Since the overthrow of the radical Gómez Farias government in 1834, the country had been allowed to drift, and when the Americans invaded, its vigor appeared to be gone. In spite of the presence of a sizable moderate party, the factions became sharply differentiated as they had never been before in the history of the republic, except perhaps for the year 1832. Liberals and conservatives appealed to their traditional programs for solutions to Mexico’s crisis of 1847, and the seeds were sown for a great conflict.

This article examines the sylvan political ecology of late colonial New Spain and the colonial government's attempt to address deforestation through the Council on Forests, the first body in the kingdom's history dedicated to the conservation of natural resources. Drawing primarily from the corpus of documents produced by and remitted to the council, this article gives a trans-regional perspective on colonial forest use and argues that the Spanish crown's usurpation of indigenous communities’ eminent domain over forests was the first step in a process that over centuries progressively severed the cultural ties that bound communities and forests by converting common-pool resources into open-access commons. The catastrophic mortality of the Spanish invasion was the second step, which rendered conservation measures seemingly unnecessary among both woodcutters and officials. But it was during the eighteenth century that older Habsburg notions of protectionism intersected with economic and political changes associated with Bourbon rule to further compel this cultural severance. While previous works have studied the ecological impacts of mining, ranching, and flood control, this article moves beyond the study of a single industry to suggest some of the larger ecological consequences of Spanish colonialism.

The arts of the colonial Andes bear witness to a complex and contested story of evangelization that involved a variety of actors, including priests, artists, indigenous congregations, and confraternities. Sculptures of saints, sumptuous retablos (altarpieces), canvas paintings with elaborate gilded frames, and mural cycles devoted to a variety of biblical themes were employed in the religious instruction of indigenous communities, and as catalysts for sensorial modes of communication. The visual arts provided a tangible analogue to sermons and printed catechisms, offering parishioners a lens through which to envision the sacred. Adapted from European iconographic models and infused with local references and symbolism, religious art throughout the colonial Americas introduced new visual vocabularies to indigenous congregations, who quickly became conversant in these images of conversion.

In 1568, a group of Mexican mulatos unsuccessfully petitioned the Spanish crown for a license to build a hospital. The mulatos’ petition, however, is an important document that speaks to the legal avenues Afro-Mexicans explored in the mid sixteenth century in their attempts to improve their social position. Through an analysis of how the petition process played out, this article demonstrates how that process epitomized the growing limits placed on Afro-Mexican autonomy by colonial administrators. I contend that this case attests to the difficulties Afro-Mexicans continually encountered in their efforts to establish safety nets through such institutions as hospitals and cofradías, following the example of other colonial subjects. Over time, however, the mulatos’ attempts to institutionalize their privileges as permanent fixtures of colonial society, for example, in petitioning to establish a hospital, intensified the opposition of local royal authorities. I also argue that the petition reveals a Mexican mulato community taking form as a common goal brought the mulatos together, setting in motion a process of community-building through petitioning. Finally, the petition process allows us to see how mulato-ness was understood at the time, broadening our understanding of the category at the time as well as its transformations. The article thus contributes to the study of Afro-Mexicans’ use of the Spanish legal system in the mid sixteenth century, as well as their engagement with the Spanish petition system, two topics that have received little scholarly attention.

In the fall of 1874, in the midst a particularly severe round of Church-state conflict, Mexico's archbishop, Pelagio Antonio Labastida y Dávalos, introduced a novel weapon in the Catholic Church's struggle against liberal anticlericalism. He had sought and obtained a special dispensation from Pope Pius IX for all Mexicans to participate in a “spiritual pilgrimage,” a month-long exercise of mental travel, prayer, and contemplation that would figuratively transport the faithful out of Mexico's anticlerical milieu and into the purified air of Jerusalem, Rome, and other Old World holy sites, where they would pray for divine intercession on behalf of the embattled Church. The practice had been inaugurated a year earlier by lay Catholics in Bologna, as a response to the prohibition of mass pilgrimages in the flesh in the former Papal States. Labastida y Dávalos felt that spiritual pilgrimage could be especially effective in Mexico, where the anticlerical government of Sebastián Lerdo de Tejada had embarked on a radical program of secularization. In fact, the recently codified Laws of Reform had likewise prohibited acts of public religiosity in Mexico, attempting thus to suppress the myriad local processions and mass pilgrimages that helped to define Mexican Catholicism.

The Mexican Revolution was predominantly a Northern movement. In part this was a logical continuation of what had occurred during the Díaz regime, namely, the rapid development of the northern tier of Mexican states. But in large measure the rise to prominence of leaders such as Francisco Madero, Pascual Orozco, Francisco Villa, Venustiano Carranza, Alvaro Obregón, and Pablo González reflected the advantage they enjoyed over revolutionaries in other parts of Mexico—access to the American border. Arms and ammunition could be imported, loot to pay for these munitions could be exported, United States territory could be used as a base of operations, and the United States provided a sanctuary for the members of defeated factions. Moreover, since the majority of the population along the border were of Mexican extraction, they inevitably became caught up in the factional struggle, as, for that matter, did many of the Anglos, either out of sympathy or because the Revolution became a lucrative business. Yet despite the extent to which the Revolution spilled over into the United States, we still have but a sketchy knowledge of this phenomenon. Precisely how did Mexican juntas function, how were munitions acquired, how was recruiting conducted, and how was revolutionary activity financed? To understand this critical aspect of the Revolution we need much more work along the lines of David N. Johnson's admirable study of Maderista activities in San Antonio in 1910–1911.

“I carried a package for Osvaldo Pugliese,” Teresa de Gílenberg proudly recalled during our interview in 1997. One day in the late 1940s, this Communist militant of Polish origins asked Juan, a vendor in her barrio, if he would contribute potatoes and gather foods from other tradesmen in solidarity with Pugliese, a renowned tango composer, orchestra director, and Communist who was incarcerated in the infamous Villa Devoto jail. Juan brought her a large parcel containing his donations and those offered by his fellow vendors, and she personally handed it to the musician.

The important role in world affairs played by Spain during the period from the fifteenth century through the nineteenth contrasts sharply with the utter neglect of the writings and theories of great Spanish scholars by those who have written about the development of social thought in western civilization. Almost never has the present writer seen a reference to the work of any Spaniard by those who have prepared the compendia dealing with the history of social and sociological theories which are in general use as texts and references in colleges and universities throughout the United States and Canada. This neglect seems to be paralleled in the writings of most European sociologists; and even in Latin America there appears to be little familiarity with the work of important Spanish social thinkers, exception made of the comparatively recent writings of José Ortega y Gasset.

No one who is entitled to speak with authority has ever questioned the well-known story that relates how in his hour of affliction, on landing at Palos, Christopher Columbus was befriended by the Franciscans of the friary of Santa María de la Rábida; how a Franciscan encouraged him to present his maritime project at the Spanish court; how, when all hope of royal support vanished, the Franciscan guardian of La Rábida intervened and thus made possible the voyage that resulted in the discovery of America. While this much of the story has always been accepted as properly established, students of American history have long been in disagreement and partly also in ignorance concerning certain details that bear importantly on the friendship that existed between the Genoese navigator and the sons of Saint Francis.