In the history of rural society in Latin America, the interplay between the large landed estate, or hacienda, and the free Indian landowning community, known as ayllu or ejido, has proven one of the most complex issues to understand. The struggle for land, labour and markets between these two seemingly competitive rural landholding institutions varied both time and space and only in a few limited areas has this interrelationship been fully analyzed.

The movement of many vessels up and down the coasts of the Viceroyalty of Peru in the seventeenth century marked the existence of a lively commercial system within the Spanish Empire. In many respects, this maritime economy evolved quite apart and under different influences from the Atlantic world. The nature and dynamics of this trade and navigation within the viceroyalty's domain in this century are the subject of this brief exploration. The primary goal is to outline the major aspects of trade and navigation and describe some meaningful trends. Secondarily, a consideration of the subject seems to reveal die existence of an economy, lively, robust and expansive diat stands in sharp contrast to die ardiridc, decaying state of Spain's general economy in die seventeentii century.

Peru launched its history as an independent state with one of the world's briefest and most direct Declarations of Independence. In Lima, on 15 July 1821, an open town council meeting (cabildo abierto) called especially to consider the question, declared: ‘All the gentlemen present, for themselves and satisfied of the opinion of the inhabitants of the capital, said: That the general will is decided in favor of the Independence of Peru from Spanish domination, and that of whatever other foreign power…’1 People actually present in the chambers of the city council, in the corridors outside, and in the street below signed the Act there and then.

The relations between Church and State in nineteenth-century Chile remained relatively calm when compared with the tumultuous events occurring in Mexico during the same era. While the question of the role of the Church in a secular society divided both nations, it was resolved in Chile without violence or bloodshed. Although President Manuel Montt's assertion of civil authority in the ‘affair of the sacristan’ in 1856 angered the clerical hierarchy, there was little that could be done by a church of less wealth, power and influence than in Mexico. Yet, the slow erosion of colonial fueros was not accepted without clerical resistance, which delayed the constitutional reforms limiting the Church's powers in Chile until the 1880s.

In searching for the roots of Chile's persistent economic frustrations, numerous investigators have turned their attention to the period between the War of the Pacific and the Great Depression. During that half century Chile's elites enjoyed the bounty of the nitrate age but, perhaps lulled by the glowing trade statistics, generous fiscal revenues and general aura of prosperity which nitrates provided, neglected to develop alternative sources of national income for the future.

In recent years, the military institutions of societies both past and present have become an increasingly active field of study and research. Brazil, where the professional military play so commanding a role in the national life today, has received a substantial share of attention. But studies on the Brazilian, military have hitherto been principally concerned with the period since the fall of the Empire (1889). This is understandable.

In his pioneering works on Primitive Rebels and Bandits, Eric Hobsbawm analyzed certain forms of rural banditry as primitive social protest. Such ‘social banditry’ was distinguished from ordinary banditry primarily by virtue of its continued incorporation into the traditional peasant society, its attacks against landlords and other authorities and its ‘affinity for revolution, being a phenomenon of social protest, if not a precursor or potential incubator of revolt’. Social banditry was analyzed by Hobsbawm as a reaction of peasants to alien authorities, injustices and major social up-heavals such as war, conquest, or industrialization.

Every state must maintain constant control of its own development, in order to influence opportunely any situation affecting its growth. Its cultural objectives and its civilization, the increase in national power by way of augmenting the capacity of its citizens, and permanent regard for national security are the bases for harmonious progress of the state; in planning its growth it must be clearly established what is to be accomplished, always considering that every state should aspire to attain the greatest possible extension and capacity.

The past two decades have seen considerable research on migratory problems in Latin America, particularly those problems arising from rural to urban migration and the government role in containing, regulating or directing such migration. Much less research has been directed at the less pressing, but nevertheless important, area of intra-rural migration, especially that of spontaneous migration leading to the development of new areas of colonization, and of the government role in either assisting or regulating this.

One of the most characteristic features of a society is the way in which it organizes its time, designating special days and hours for work, religion, rest, recreation and commerce. Socially accepted patterns of temporal organization are essential to the development of communal activities such as festivals, sports, religious ceremonies, market-place trade and industrial production. Once introduced, patterns of temporal organization tend to establish themselves more and more firmly through time as they become rooted in the customs and traditions of the local population. They are only likely to be changed as a result of wide-ranging social, economic and demographic changes affecting the whole fabric of society. Any possible changes in established temporal patterns usually have both advocates and opponents, and actual changes often result from temporary or permanent shifts in the balance of power between different socio-economic groups, or from shifts in opinion promoted by external factors.

On 7 November 1961, a crucial date in modern Ecuadorian political history, Dr José María Velasco Ibarra, constitutional President of the Republic of Ecuador, was deposed from his high office and sought refuge in the Mexican Embassy. The apparent stability that had characterized the country's political life since 1948 was shattered. The pattern of politics since November 1961 is similar in many respects to that which occurred in the decades between the two World Wars. Coups d'état, dictatorships and military juntas are political phenomena common to both periods. The military intervention which to Velasco's dewnfall in 1961 re-established a convention which had been dormant since 1947.

Professor Joan Thirsk has recently argued that the history of the peasant is not one history, but several. The demise of the peasant, insisted Professor Thirsk cogently, should be seen against the background of particular farming systems and the stages in their evolution. However obvious this point might be to an historian of sixteenth-century England, it is often lost on sociologists of contemporary Latin America. All too often attempts are made to assess the revolutionary potential of the Latin American ‘peasant’ without distinguishing clearly enough between sections of the rural population, and placing them within the context of the land-tenure system. Failure to distinguish between different groups of peasant farmers has important implications not only for academic research but also for Government policy.