In March of 1929, die young Peruvian poet and political activist Magda Portal departed from die Yucatan in Mexico to give a series of lectures in Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, and Colombia. She traveled as an emissary of the Alianza Popular Revolucionaria Americana (American Popular Revolutionary Alliance, APRA), a recendy founded political organization that sought to transform Latin America by creating a united front against foreign imperialism. On July 14, in Santo Domingo she gave a lecture titled “Latin America Confronted by Imperialism,” at “the largest theater in town” to an audience of about 200. Her presence as an intelligent, energetic, and beautiful woman, standing on stages normally reserved to men, enhanced the power of her words, and she was well aware of the striking effect on audiences of seeing a woman in the traditionally male role of political orator

On January 14, 1954, Bahians gathered in the city of Salvador, in Brazil's northeastern state of Bahia, for the Lavagem do Bonfim, the annual ritual washing of the Church of Bonfim and its front patio and steps that was for them a highlight of the Festival of the Senhor do Bonfim. The archbishop of Salvador, Augusto Álvaro da Silva, had recendy banned the syncretic ritual, primarily because it combined elements of popular Catholicism and an important ritual obligation to Oxalá, a principal deity or “saint” in the religious practice of Candomblé, an African Brazilian religion that grew out of West and West Central African antecedents. The water for the lavagem, for instance, was ceremonially prepared and transported in vases during a procession by African Bahian mães-de-santo (priestesses) and filhos-de-santo (initiates) of Candomblé, known together as “baianas” and dressed entirely in white.

It is rare that one finds, in the form of drawings and documents, a study of the architectural evolution of a church in the Spanish borderlands of the United States. Most of the churches were Indian missions, built at first of adobe in a simple, crude form, with thatched roofs. More beautiful buildings arose in a later period of development when Indian converts had increased and after skilled workmen were available to raise them as monuments of beauty on a cheerless frontier.

From the late eighteenth century through most of the nineteenth, Buenos Aires and Montevideo were hosts to a joint theatrical circuit characterized by the regular comings and goings of impresarios, artisans, musicians, and actors between the two cities. The military conflicts that shaped this period actually encouraged these connections, as they stimulated both exile and repatriation between one locale and the other. Africans, and particularly their Rioplatense descendants, were an integral part of popular entertainment circuits in Buenos Aires and Montevideo. Some of the first Argentinean historians of theater and music, among them Vicente Gesualdo and Teodoro Klein, were aware of this connection and included in their initial scholarship links that connect the history of free and enslaved Afro-descendants to the early theater of Río de la Plata.

During the decade beginning in 1910 the economic involvement of the United States in Mexico increased while diplomatic relations deteriorated. Between 1911 and 1920 United States' imports from Mexico increased from $57,000,000 to $179,000,000 and exports from $61,000,000 to $208,000,000. Much of this economic growth related to petroleum and to land where investments in each of these areas increased phenomenally. The new Mexican Constitution of 1917, however, forecast trouble for foreign investors, especially those who depended upon Mexico's unreplenishable subsoil resources. Concessionaires who mined the subsoil appeared to hold their title only at the will of the state. Additionally, the right of foreigners to hold property in Mexico was often restricted. Land on the shores or borders of Mexico, for example, could not be owned by foreigners. Such provisions were designed to limit the economic subservience of Mexico to the United States. Like other Latin Americans, the Mexicans wanted economic self-sufficiency. They resented the fact that their economy was tied to the fluctuating world demand for staple raw materials and that they were caught in an American vise which squeezed both their imports and their exports.

ONE of the principal reasons for the promulgation of the Constitution of Cádiz was the desire of Spanish liberals to answer the complaints of dissenters in overseas colonies and thereby suppress the budding independence movements. This policy met with more success in Yucatán than in most other Spanish colonies. The Yucatecans took advantage of the constitutional reforms to implement a number of economic changes. As long as these changes were in operation, Yucatán was safe from the fervor of the independence movement. To be sure, Yucatán was not completely immune to the appeal of revolutionary propaganda. There was a hard core minority which agitated to disrupt the constitutional system in order to win independence, but this group never gained much popular support. Events outside Yucatán, coupled with the potential threat of crown interference in the economic structure which the Yucatecans were striving to build, led a group of moderates in the Provincial Deputation, an administrative body provided for by the constitution, to declare Yucatán's independence from Spain. Moreover, the motivation for this declaration foreshadowed the factional strife which beset Mexico throughout the nineteenth century.

The nineteenth century represented an era of declining influence for the Catholic church in Mexico, and no aspect of that trend created broader repercussions than the eclipse of the clergy's traditional role in higher education. Before the midcentury civil wars the conciliar seminaries graduated nearly as many laymen as did the public colegios, the majority of which in any case employed priests on their faculties. The seminaries, consequently, forged a vital link between the church and civil society, a link which potentially enhanced the political and social influence of the episcopate.

GENERAL William Miller had played a leading role in the independence of Peru and Bolivia from Spain, working with the chief leaders of the independence movement, and had held civil posts of distinction as president of Puno and president of Potosí. Bad health, however, caused by the many wounds suffered in the wars, had made it advisable that he return to England for treatment. But, unlike so many other foreign legionnaires, Miller's role in the history of Peru did not end with independence.

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.

Although Florida was in the hands of the Spaniards for over three centuries there are hardly any remains of Spanish buildings. Original Spanish architecture has vanished from Florida; a basic link to Florida's fascinating history has been destroyed. Florida was in the hands of the Spanish from its discovery in 1513 until 1763, when Spain gave the province to England at the end of the Seven Years' War, known in America as the French and Indian War. Spain regained Florida in 1783 at the time of the Treaty of Paris which terminated the American War of Independence. The period from 1783 to 1821 is called in Florida history the second Spanish period and gave way to the American territorial period when Florida became part of the American union. The second Spanish period is quite distinct from the first Spanish period of Florida history (1513-1763). While the first period represents true Spanish Florida, the second era is more of an afterthought. Many foreigners, mostly English and United States citizens, were residing in Florida. It hardly can be called a Spanish Florida per se. Architectural remains from this pseudo-Spanish period are extremely scarce. The best preserved piece is the Catholic cathedral at St. Augustine, parts of which date back to the second Spanish period. But this church fares poorly if put next to the magnificent old cathedrals in Spanish America.

The interpretation of Spanish colonial history has ever ranged to extremes. A political observer once remarked that on the subject of James G. Blaine men went crazy in pairs. And on the subject of Spain Spaniards have shown the same flair from Charles V to Franco. How else can we reconcile “the proud Spaniard” so fixed in popular psychology and the revealing verse of Batrina?

Some of the Latin American republics have produced newspapers that rank with the best in the world. In Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Mexico, and Colombia there have been great editors who presided over especially noteworthy journals. Political stability certainly contributed to the development of such papers as La Prensa and La Nación in Buenos Aires and of El Mercurio in Chile. While political stability is a prerequisite for continuous good journalism, freedom of expression, guaranteed by government and jealously guarded by legal institutions, is even more important. Equally important is self-discipline by the press, nowhere more clearly shown than in Chile where the important law of 1872 brought under control abuses that had plagued Chilean journalism for three decades. A free press is incompatible with dictatorial or authoritarian government, a truism amply demonstrated by the Paraguayan experience.

I am of two minds in regard to a response to the reviews of Economic Growth and Change in Bourbon Mexico. Although I am gratified by the attention that it has received, I have been disinclined to engage in a debate about its merits and defects. Ultimately a book must stand on its own. Some will find that Economic Growth and Change makes a plausible case, and others will say that it does not. That is how it should be. I have no interest in rewriting those sections of Economic Growth and Change that miss the mark. Still, the invitation to write a reply does allow me the opportunity to re-examine some of the most controversial issues with an eye toward how scholars might move ahead with the agenda on the reconstruction of Latin America's colonial economic history.