bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The Impact of the Wars of Independence on the Institutional Life of the New Kingdom of Granada
Authors: Capdequí José M.
Published: July 2006

In the following study we are presenting, as a supplement to our latest book, Las Instituciones del Nuevo Reino de Granada al tiempo de la independencia, a documentary study on the repercussions which the wars of independence had upon the institutional life of the provinces of New Granada that were still in the hands of the Spanish.

Many of the documents which are cited here show us the innermost idéas of the Spanish leaders in those difficult days when so many institutions were crumbling not only overseas but in Spain itself. By comparing documents concerning the metropolis and the colony, we can gain a fairly good idea of the institutional comings and goings, the efforts to obtain regularity in the functioning of the various governmental bureaus, and the useless attempts to control the uncontrollable.
The Americas of Herbert E. Bolton
Authors: de Onís José
Published: July 2006

WITH the death of Herbert E. Bolton in December, 1953, we close the circle of an important epoch in inter-American cultural relations. We come to the end of a period that, in the United States, had its beginning about the middle of the 1890’s and which eventually culminated with the Good Neighbor Policy and the close collaboration of the American nations during the Second World War.
New Archival Data Concerning Fray Pedro Aguado, O.F.M.: Valdemoro: Aguado’s Birthplace
Authors: Friede Juan
Published: July 2006

ABOUT twenty-five miles to the south of Madrid, lying among the soft rolling hills of the table-land of Castile and surrounded by lands weary of cultivation, lies Valdemoro, a small, picturesque village of only 3,000 inhabitants. Today its main riches lie in the exploiting of gypsum (yeso), and the material from which stucco is made (escayola), both of which are sent to Madrid to be sold. Cultivation of the land succeeds only in producing the bare necessities of life to maintain the sparse population, and does not afford sufficient occupation for the inhabitants. Many of the townsfolk are forced to seek their sustenance by working in the capital city or by emigration to other parts.
Omer Englebert’s the Last of the Conquistadors, Junípero Serra
Authors: O’Brien Eric
Published: July 2006

FATHER Omer Englebert is a distinguished author, known for his works in several languages. In his choice of themes he has shown versatility of interest and a knowledge that is almost encyclopedic. But when he chose Padre Junípero Serra for his latest book, the several years of preparation that he spent were not enough to save the book from many errors. A great number nowadays are asking for a definitive life of Padre Serra. It is regrettable that even such an accomplished writer failed to write it.
Variant Versions of Jose Bonifácio’s “Plan for the Civilization of the Brazilian Indians”
Authors: Boehrer George C. A.
Published: July 2006

The leaders of the independence movements in the several Ibero-American areas frequently turned their attention to the problems of the aborigine. Usually the liberators’ concern was restricted to the pious hope that the Indian would be incorporated into creole society. Detailed programs to this end were not presented. The chief exception was José Bonifacio de Andrada e Silva’s Apontamentos para a civilização dos índios bravos do Império do Brasil. Mostly a drawing upon the experience of the past with a blending of the new ideas of the Enlightenment, the Apontamentos present little new. They are today important because, along with José Bonifácio’s more celebrated treatise on the Negro slave, they show an interest in social problems to which few of his contemporaries gave more than a passing glance. In the present century, they have become the guidepost for Brazil’s Indian program. As such they have frequently been hailed by Brazilians when the Indian problem is discussed.
Fray Jose Maria de Jesus Belaunzaran y Ureña Bishop of Linares, Mexico (1772–1857)
Authors: Murray Paul V.
Published: July 2006

It is sad but true that few Mexicans of our day, even erudite ecclesiastics and faithful Catholic lay historians, know very much about the prelates who led their church during the difficult years from the achievement of independence in 1821 to the commencement of the Reform movement in 1854. Perhaps some will mention a Portugal of Michoacán or a Vasquez of Puebla or a Garza y Ballesteros of Mexico. Not many, however, will remember a Franciscan friar whose life and works have almost been forgotten but who certainly deserves to be remembered by his countrymen and co-religionaries. A famous Catholic review, published in the city of Mexico, carried this note in its issue of September 17, 1857:

With the most profound sorrow we announce to our readers that on the eleventh of this month in this capital the Most Illustrious Fray José María de Jesús Belaunzaran died at the age of eighty-five.
El Convento de San Juan Del Rio y Fray Esteban Benitez
Authors: Saravia Atanasio G.
Published: July 2006

Es de conocimiento general la parte tan importante que en la evangelización de la Nueva España tomó la Orden de San Francisco, a la que pertenecían los primeros apóstoles que en estas tierras comenzaron a predicar y a enseñar el cristianismo.

Conforme fué ensanchándose el territorio conquistado ensanchábase también la labor de los religiosos, pues que sin abandonar los puntos de sus primeras predicaciones y trabajos que amparaban para su continuación con las doctrinas y conventos que iban estableciendo, se extendían en su misión de predicar a los indios en los territorios en donde se iba introduciendo la conquista yendo a la par de los conquistadores y aún, en ocasiones, adelantándose a éstos para ir atrayendo al cristianismo a las gentes de las tribus que esparcidas se encontraban en los nuevos territorios que se iban descubriendo.
Contenido Misionologico de la Obediencia E Instruccion de Fray Francisco de los Angeles a los Doce Apostoles de Mexico
Authors: Fernández Juan Meseguer
Published: July 2006

Acertadamente se ha calificado de “carta magna de la civilización mexicana” a la Obediencia e Instrucción que Fr. Francisco de los Angeles Quiñones, ministro general de la orden franciscana, entregara a Fr. Martín de Valencia y a sus compañeros poco antes de partir de España para el imperio axteca. En sus cláusulas, rebasando los límites de las fórmulas oficiales, vuelca Quiñones su espíritu misionero, de raigambre profundamente franciscana y sienta los principios básicos de todo apostolado con especial referencia al franciscano.

Con todo, nadie se ha parado a analizarlos bajo el aspecto misionológico ni subrayado la importancia e influjo que tuvieron en la epopeya evangelizadora de los Doce. Es lo que nos proponemos hacer en estas páginas.
The Construction of Santa Fe De México
Authors: Warren Fintan B.
Published: July 2006

In the course of the residencia of the Second Audiencia of Mexico, Licenciado Vasco de Quiroga was charged with having overburdened the Indians of Mexico City with the work of constructing his hospital-town of Santa Fe near the city. The official charge (cargo XXVI), as formulated by Francisco de Loaysa, judge of residencia, has been published twice, together with some of the questions that Quiroga drew up for his witnesses in answer to the charge, the answers of the witnesses, and the final decision of the judge, which absolved Quiroga of any guilt in the matter. But the source of the charge, as well as Quiroga’s personal reply to it, have remained unpublished.
Jesuit Historians of Sinaloa-Sonora
Authors: Warren Fintan
Published: July 2006

Beginning in the latter years of the sixteenth century, and continuing through the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Jesuit missionaries made a great pioneering thrust northward along the western coast of Mexico. In this area of Sinaloa-Sonora they met with many fierce and uncultured groups of natives, and frequently they were forced into temporary retreat at the cost of some of their very able men. But their advance was not brought to a permanent halt except by the command of the king which brought to an end all Jesuit activities throughout the Spanish domains.
Lord Cochrane: Critic of San Martín’s Peruvian Campaign
Authors: Carey James C.
Published: July 2006

Peru had two fathers of independence, José de San Martín and Simón Bolívar, and a part-time midwife in Thomas Cochrane the tenth Earl of Dundonald. Antonio José de Sucre, another important midwife, came on to the Peruvian scene after Cochrane had left for that reason is not dealt with in this article. Since the destinies of Peru and Chile were so closely entwined as embryonic nations, one would expect that the wars of independence might have created a mutuality of interest. The purpose here is to study this relationship and its contextual association with the animosity between the lesser known Cochrane and the famous San Martin.
The Coming of the Franciscans to Venezuela in 1575
Authors: Canedo Lino G.
Published: July 2006

My dear friend, Father Carrocera, to whom the history of Venezuela and especially the history of the Franciscan Order in that country owes so much, had the happy idea of uniting in one article all that is known up to now, thanks in great part to the investigations of Father Carrocera himself, concerning the history of San Francisco in Caracas which, during almost three centuries as the center of the Franciscan Province of the Holy Cross of Hispaniola and Caracas, powerfully influenced the spiritual and cultural life of Venezuela. The church and friary of San Francisco not only are the best colonial monuments in Caracas but they are also witnesses of the most notable happenings and events of the republican period. In San Francisco of Caracas Bolivar received on October 14, 1814, the title of Liberator and in this church his remains were displayed in 1842 after they had been returned from San Pedro Alejandrino. The convent served until very recent times as the home of the University of Venezuela and at this moment it is the distinguished Palace of the Academies.
Spanish Colonial Art in the California Missions
Authors: Baer Kurt
Published: July 2006

Art work throughout almost the entire history of the Church has been primarily didactic. Man was taught through the arts of sculpture, painting, mosaic, and stained glass, all that he should know of the creation of the world, the dogmas of religion, the virtues, the hero-saints, and during the middle ages especially, the range of the sciences, the arts and crafts. Thus, in the latter half of the eighteenth century when the Franciscans came to the remote outposts in California, they brought with them the pictures and statues by which the simple and ignorant Indian might learn, through his eyes, much of what he was to know of his new faith. “Through the medium of art the highest conceptions of theologian and scholar penetrated to some extent the minds of even the humblest of the people.”
Some Business Activities of Cortés
Authors: Cadenhead I.E. , Strout C.L.
Published: July 2006

In 1540 Hernán Cortés arrived in Spain to continue his fruitless efforts to clear up the matter of his estate in the New World and his position in the eyes of the Spanish monarch. His activities in Spain along with the ill-fated voyage of Antonio de Ulloa up the coast of California in 1539 caused some drain on his financial resources. The many and varied business activities of Cortés, however, supplied him with income during the remainder of his life and set the stage for legal action over his estate.
The Status of the Indian in Brazil After 1820
Authors: Kiemen Mathias C.
Published: July 2006

Indian policy in Brazil, as in many countries, was and is a confused mixture of religion, humanitarianism, and greed. Almost every kind of system has been tried: open barter during the early years, undisguised slavery until 1570, lay administrators until 1624, missionary tutelage in some form from 1624 to 1759, with intermittent relapses into lay administration, secularization after 1755, with lay directors until 1798; military administration under civil judges until the end of the empire, and finally in 1910 the establishment of the Indian Service under General Rondón.
The Brazilian Mirror: Some Brazilian Writings in English Translation
Authors: Johnson Harvey L.
Published: July 2006

All Americans know that much of our coffee comes from Brazil. Most have heard of marvelous Rio de Janeiro, one of the beauty k queens of the earth—a city compressed between ocean and granite hills with dazzling white beaches, mosaic sidewalks, scores of night clubs, merry-making sambas, and a lavish Carnival. Quite a number have read of its awesome new capital Brasília, a fabulous creation of glass and concrete built in the middle of nowhere. Some are aware that it is a vast country, our largest and most powerful Latin American neighbor, with huge natural resources and a mushrooming growth in population: its high-grade iron ore reserves are among the richest in the world; its population is estimated to be 80,000,000, the major portion distributed along the Atlantic seaboard. Brazil, the fourth largest country in the world, occupies approximately one-half of South America, with a surface of 3,287,195 square miles, much of it unexplored, and has borders with all the countries of that continent excepting Ecuador and Chile.
Continuity or Change: A Comparative Study of the Composition of the Cabildos in Seville, Tenerife, and Lima
Authors: Howell Ellen Douglas
Published: July 2006

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.
A Brief Inquiry into Octavio Paz' Laberinto of Mexicanidad
Authors: Chavarría Jesús
Published: July 2006

One Of The salient characteristics of 20th century Mexican art and intellectual history has been preoccupation with the problem of national identity, or, put in another fashion, with the problem of defining lo mexicano. Most commonly, concern for lo mexicano and mexicanidad has been associated with the Mexican Revolution. The generally accepted assumption is that inasmuch as the Mexican Revolution was a revolution without ideology, it was not until Mexicans began questioning the meaning of their revolution that they asked—what are we? who are we? Yet, the volume and importance of the intellectual and artistic production of the post-revolutionary period notwithstanding, it is certainly true that Mexicans were concerned with the problem of national identity even before 1910.
Unfinished Business: Public Works in Cuba, 1898-1902
Authors: Hitchman James H.
Published: July 2006

The United States Military Government built a significant amount of public works in Cuba after the Spanish-American War. Under the direction of the military governor, General Leonard Wood, a large proportion of the insular budget was expended on building roads, bridges, wharves, cleaning and paving streets, purifying water, extinguishing yellow fever, disposing of refuse, and establishing charitable institutions. Of the roughly $55 million expended by the Military Government, over $22 million was spent on varied public works. While the political, diplomatic, economic, legal and educational aspects of the Military Government of Cuba have been treated elsewhere, public works have merely been mentioned. The subject was considered so important by the Military Government and was so vital to Cuba that it warrants special treatment. A description of the conditions in Cuba and the subsequent public works program will indicate the value of the work in the efforts of the Cubans and Americans to build a lasting republic.
The Cabildo and Public Health in Seventeenth Century Santiago Chile
Authors: Flusche Della M.
Published: July 2006

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.
Poison-Pen Diplomacy: Mexico, 1913
Authors: Rausch George J.
Published: July 2006

Following more than three decades of conservative dictatorship in Mexico Porfirio Díaz was overthrown by the idealistic Francisco Madero in 1911. Madero was impractical and disorganized and the unrest, which had characterized the last years under Díaz, continued throughout the brief presidency of his successor. In February 1913 a rising under Félix Díaz, nephew of the old dictator, led to civil war within the capital. The fall of Madero was assured when General Victoriano Huerta, who commanded the government forces, switched sides and implemented the arrest of the President. A pact between Félix Díaz and Huerta led to the provisional presidency of Huerta with Díaz lurking in the background as potential candidate for the permanent presidency.
Two Country Stores in XVIIth Century Mexico
Authors: Boyd-Bowman Peter
Published: July 2006

On the morning of October 13, 1641, a Spanish shopkeeper by the name of Juan Agudo died quite suddenly in the silvermining community of San Joseph del Parral in northern Mexico. His death must not have been altogether unexpected, however, for in a will drawn up only three weeks before he had described himself as “andando en pie aun que con alguna falta de salud.” According to the provisions of that will, executed without delay, Agudo, a bachelor and a devout Catholic, was buried in the parish church in Parral amidst ceremonies that were to cost his estate well over 500 pesos.
The Efforts of the United States to Secure Religious Liberty in a Commercial Treaty with Mexico, 1825-1831
Authors: Winn Wilkins B.
Published: July 2006

The subject of a commerical treaty quickly emerged after the United States recognition of the independence of Mexico in 1822. To negotiate this treaty Joel Roberts Poinsett was appointed Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to Mexico. Since Mexico had modeled its constitution after that of the United States, Henry Clay, Secretary of State, instructed Poinsett to make himself available to explain the practical operation and advantages of our system to Mexico. Inherent in our constitution and system was freedom of religion, establishment of which in our relations with Mexico constituted an objective of Poinsett's mission. Clay incorporated into Poinsett's instructions those which his predecessor, John Quincy Adams, on May 27, 1823, addressed to Richard Clough Anderson, Jr., Minister Plenipotentiary to Colombia. Adams had emphasized the importance of inserting the principle of religious liberty in the commercial treaty with Colombia. Liberty of conscience and of religious freedom were among the usual objects of a commercial treaty. He expostulated that “civil, political, commercial, and religious liberty, are but various modifications of one great principle founded in the inalienable rights of human nature, and before the universal application of which the colonial domination of Europe over the American hemisphere, has fallen, and is crumbling into dust.”
Santiago Vidaurri and the Confederacy
Authors: Tyler R. Curtis
Published: July 2006

On June 26, 1861, Juan A. Quintero, special agent for the Confederate States of America, sat in the palace in Monterrey, Nuevo León, Mexico, listening to Governor Santiago Vidaurri relate a familiar but nevertheless surprising story. He had long been searching for some method whereby he could effectively resist the federal government, Vidaurri began, and now he hoped that he had found it. Initially he had thought that a Republic of Sierra Madre might be the solution, and many observers on both sides of the Rio Grande felt that this was the course he would pursue. But, for various reasons, that had been discarded. The new Confederacy presented a different alternative—one that he believed might be feasible. Would Southern President Jefferson Davis agree to annex the northern Mexican state of Nuevo León and Coahuila? Thus began a relationship that endured for over three years and did not end until the powerful caudillo fell from power.
Enrico Martínez of New Spain
Authors: Mathes Valerie L.
Published: July 2006

Enrico Martínez, an important but little known figure in New Spain, was an extremely talented man with a wide range of I interests. Interpreter for the Inquisition, Royal Cosmographer for the Consejo de Indias in Mexico, author, printer and cartographer, Martínez was also the architect and engineer of the drainage system (desagüe) of the Valley of Mexico.

Despite his important governmental positions and the Spanish obsession for record-keeping, Martínez’ national origin remains undetermined. One major documentary source relative to the desagüe states that his true name was Henrí Martin, that he was of French origin and that he later Hispanicized his name to enter Spanish territories legally; however, other sources ascribe his nationality to various other countries. Interested in solving this discrepancy, Joaquín García Icazbalceta stated in a letter to Nicolás León on April 23, 1883, that he had searched for data on Martínez but “was unable to find any material that determined his origin. Nevertheless Francisco de la Maza, author of the introduction to a modern edition of Martínez’ Reportorio de los tiempos e historia natural de Nueva España and his principal biographer, stated that Martínez was definitely German and that his true name was probably Heinrich Martin. According to Maza, Martínez was born in Hamburg between 1550 and 1560 and was probably a Protestant because Hamburg was one of the first German cities to become involved in the Reformation. Martínez spent his first eight years in Hamburg, then journeyed to Sevilla possibly at the request of the Martins, probably German relatives who were printers. Although no definite documentation has been located, it is reasonable to presume that if he were in fact Protestant he must have converted to Catholicism during his stay in Spain, a sine qua non for his immigration to New Spain and for his appointment as translator for the Inquisition in later years. Martínez remained in Sevilla until he was nineteen, returning then to Hamburg for a year and one-half, and at age twenty, he traveled throughout Europe, spent enough time in Paris to graduate with a degree in mathematics, and then traveled on to Poland. From eastern Europe, Martínez returned to Spain where he resided in Madrid, Toledo and Sevilla; and in 1589 he sailed to New Spain on the same fleet as his protector and friend, Luis de Velasco, newly appointed Viceroy of New Spain and Juan Ruiz de Alarcón, later author of a comedy entitled, El Semejante a sí mismo which mentions the desagüe of Mexico.
The Barco Concession in Colombian-American Relations, 1926-1932
Authors: Randall Stephen J.
Published: July 2006

The debate over the granting of petroleum concessions to foreign enterprise was one of the most significant areas of contact between the United States and Colombia after World War I. The official United States response to the plight of American interests involved in the development of the Barco concession exemplifies the nature of United States Latin American policy in the transition from the Coolidge to the Hoover administration. State Department actions in the Barco instance underline the growing awareness in American circles of the need to fashion a policy which would protect American enterprise as well as the principle of foreign investment against nationalist sentiment in Latin America.
The Radicalization of the Uruguayan Student Movement
Authors: Van Aken Mark J.
Published: July 2006

Late in April, 1917, students of Preparatory Studies in Montevideo, Uruguay, declared a strike against the authorities of their school and organized a public demonstration on the steps of the Faculty of Law of the University. Thus a decade of calm in the university student movement of Uruguay was abruptly shattered by students who were in the last years of secondary education preparing for entry into the University. In a brief but violent struggle with police, troops, and firemen the angry young men of Preparatory Studies kindled a new spirit of protest and rebellion that would soon spread to the University and awaken the dormant student movement.
Colombian Reactions to the Independence of Panama, 1903-1904
Authors: Arbena Joseph L.
Published: July 2006

Although several Colombians of varying prominence had suggested the possibility of an imminent Isthmian revolt, it seems that the events of and immediately after November 3, 1903, took most of their countrymen by surprise. Certainly there is no evidence of significant prior planning for such a contingency. The achievement of Panamanian independence was followed, in turn, by a Colombian failure to establish a consistent and coherent policy designed either to regain the lost province or to implement terms by which the loss could be made more acceptable. This is not to say that Colombians, officially and unofficially, did nothing in response to the Panamanian separatist movement. Yet what is impressive is not what happened, but what did not happen: There was no sustained military movement against the Isthmus, no break in diplomatic relations with the United States, no serious reprisals against Americans and Isthmians, or their property, in Colombia, and no vigorous protest against the incumbent Colombian political leadership. Panama was apparently not a major issue even during the Presidential campaign and election of 1904. The lack of preparation alluded to above was surely a factor in determining this limited response, but it was a small factor and offers, at best, an incomplete explanation. In fact, the mildness of the Colombian reaction was the product of the unique interaction of domestic and international, contemporary and historical conditions which this article seeks to illuminate.
Two Kentuckians Evaluate the Mexican Scene from Vera Cruz, 1853-1861
Authors: Berbusse Edward J.
Published: July 2006

Interesting insights into the Mexican scene were provided the State Department by two Kentuckians, John T. Pickett and R. B. I. Twyman, who shared the office of United States consul at Vera Cruz from 1853 to 1861. Pickett, the more dramatic of the two, has been described as a “Southern filibuster of the type of William Walker.” He had been a “general” in the Hungarian nationalist army of Kossuth, and had engaged in the López expeditions against Cuba. Most readers of United States diplomacy are well aware of Pickett's subsequent exploits in Mexico after having been appointed by Robert Toombs, Confederate Secretary of State, as diplomatic commissioner to the Juárez Government. Pickett had been recommended to Jefferson Davis by John Forsyth, former U.S. Minister to Mexico, who described him as eminently qualified. Pickett believed that he could advance the interests of the Confederacy by revealing to the Juárez Government the true nature of the Yankee Union's Puritan fanaticism; and, if the Juárez Party were to make cause with the Union, then he urged Confederate support of the Conservative Party. Upon arrival in Mexico, in July, 1861, he spoke with the Governor of Vera Cruz, Ignacio de la Llave, who assured him that his government would give equal treatment to the ships of the Union and of the Confederacy. Meantime, Thomas Corwin, Minister of the United States to Mexico, had the support of Liberal President Juárez. As the preference became more marked, Pickett became more indiscreet. Mr. Pickett was forceful, shrewd and widely known in Mexico; and had for a number of years been closely associated with Benito Juárez and a group of Liberals. But he was tactless when angry and sharp-tongued. The telling of his adventures, between May, 1861 and 1864 is found in Frank L. Owsley'sKing Cotton Diplomacy.
Jorge Ubico and the Belice Boundary Dispute
Authors: Grieb Kenneth J.
Published: July 2006

Belice, or British Honduras, has been the subject of dispute throughout its history. Although the Spanish claim to the Caribbean and Central America was clear in theory, the British distinguished between title by discovery and title by occupation. In their eyes this jungle terrain along the shores of the Caribbean Sea was “ res nullius ”—uninhabited territory, i.e., not occupied by Europeans—and hence subject to seizure by anyone who chose to effectively populate it. Spanish settlements in neighboring portions of Central America, in the British view, conveyed only dubious title to this area. Moreover, the original settlers of the town of Belize were freebooters who were not accustomed to paying heed to Spanish claims.
Toribio Motolinía and His Historical Writings
Authors: Canedo Lino G.
Published: July 2006

Fray Toribio Motolinía, one of the famous Twelve Franciscans who arrived in Mexico in 1524 to lay the foundations for the systematic evangelization of the country, was also the author of the first known historical treatises on pre-Hispanic Mexico and on the origins of the Hispanic period. Time has only confirmed the ancient conviction that these writings constitute the principal source of our knowledge of those events. “ Curioso investigador de tiempos y verdades ” and “ hombre que por ninguna cosa dijera sino la mera verdad,” as Mendieta writes of him. Nevertheless it should not be forgotten that Motolinía was first of all a missionary and a man of action; we know that he wrote under obedience or through curiosity, in haste, and in those brief intervals that freedom from other more urgent duties permitted him, and that he was very conscious of the limitations of his literary work and not at all anxious that it be made public. In view of the decision and confidence with which he acted on other occasions during his life, the modesty which he manifested regarding his own writings is surprising. Perhaps he was convinced that he was only “ moderadamente letrado ” (moderately learned) as Sahagún categorizes him. This might help to explain the fact that his more extensive writings either have remained in embryo or have been hurriedly sketched or have not received the exposure that their importance warranted. For the same reasons-and not because of any supposed official suppression, which in Motolinía's case has never been proven—none of the Motolinía works of ethnohistoric character were ever printed until the 19th century.
Research Possibilities in the Mexican Revolution: The Governorship
Authors: Beezley William H.
Published: July 2006

In the era of the Mexican Revolution, research opportunities on the sub-national level are numerous and varied, although not completely untested. In recent monographs and dissertations, historians have examined the revolution in a few states, leading regional figures, the workings of national reform commissions in selected localities and hinted at the conflict of provincial interests that provoked violence in the name of opposition to national programs. Each of these themes needs further, more systematic evaluation. Still wanting are studies of local demographic changes and concomitant political and economic adjustments accompanying the revolution, of the appropriation of state and local administration, and of the local issues that confused reform programs such as land reapportionment and educational missions. Professor James W. Wilkie has made important national studies of efforts to implement revolutionary programs and to evaluate statistically the church-state question. Both of these themes should be assayed through case studies of states or somewhat larger regions. But rather than cataloging research possibilities, this paper concentrates on one sub-national topic: the state governors.
Spanish and European Textiles in Sixteenth Century Mexico
Authors: Boyd-Bowman Peter
Published: July 2006

The extraordinary demand for luxury clothes in XVIth Century New Spain, especially for silks and velvets, has been well documented. For example, Archbishop Zumárraga, writing to the King, observed that “silks are so common here (in Mexico) that low-class journeymen and servants of both sexes as well as lovers and unmarried girls go about laden with silken capes, tunics, petticoats and mantles. … ”, while the royal accountant Rodrigo de Albornoz, also writing to His Majesty, stated that “tradespeople's wives and prostitutes wear more clothes of silk than a nobleman in Castile.” And although edicts repeatedly prohibited such luxurious dress, these edicts would only be obeyed for a brief time.
Juan de Miralles and the American Revolution
Authors: McCadden Helen Matzke
Published: July 2006

In the Presbyterian burying ground at George Washington's encampment in Morristown, New Jersey, on April 29, 1780, Roman Catholic burial rites were performed for a distinguished emissary from Cuba. Dr. James Thacher, army surgeon, recorded the obsequies in his Journal thus:

His Excellency General Washington, with several other general officers and members of Congress, attended the funeral solemnities, and walked as chief mourners. The other officers of the army, and numerous respectable citizens, formed a splendid procession, extending about one mile. The pall-bearers were six field officers, and the coffin was borne on the shoulders of four officers of the artillery in full uniform… A Spanish priest performed service at the grave, in the Roman Catholic form. The coffin was inclosed in a box of plank, and all the profusion of pomp and grandeur were deposited in the silent grave, in the common burying-ground, near the church at Morristown.
The Deportation of Barbarian Indians from the Internal Provinces of New Spain, 1789-1810
Authors: Archer Christon I.
Published: July 2006

Indian warfare was general in the Internal Provinces of New Spain in the latter half of the eighteenth century. Spain was militarily weak in these frontier provinces so far from Mexico City and, to make matters even more difficult, the barbarian Indian tribes refused to recognize rules of good conduct in war and peace. Where weakness seemed likely to lead to defeat, the Indians thought nothing of employing abject submission, approaching the Spanish authorities with humble requests for peace, conversion, and a place where they might be permitted to settle into a quiet productive existence. Often the Spanish, either exhausted by combat or hopeful of Indian sincerity in such declarations, convinced themselves that the enemy would settle into a sedentary life under the gentle guidance of the friars. Unfortunately for the success of frontier policy, a treaty was only as valid as the number of presidial troops prepared to enforce it. Without force, the Indians, epecially the Apaches, returned to traditional pursuits of rustling livestock and attacks on weakly defended ranches or travellers. A continual history of incidents of this nature brought Spanish governors and frontier soldiers to a state of complete frustration.
Dollar Diplomacy in the Light of the Guatemalan Loan Project, 1909-1913
Authors: Dinwoodie D. H.
Published: July 2006

While historians have shown unusual agreement in their critical assessment of the results of Philander Knox's Central American policy, they have frequently disagreed on the reasons for this failure, as well as on the goals of the Secretary of State. An examination of one of Knox's loan projects — the Guatemalan refunding scheme — throws light on these two issues. The record of this futile four-year attempt to reorganize the country's financial structure reveals a State Department approach relying eventually on the use of coercive diplomatic methods. These techniques were resourceful, but ineffectual, and contributed to an unproductive and acrimonious diversion with the British Foreign Office. The negotiations suggest that the Secretary and other Department officers sought goals broader in nature than national economic or strategic interest. The extent of their objectives may have contributed to the unsatisfactory outcome of the case.
The Changing Functions of Latin American Cities
Authors: Smith T. Lynn
Published: July 2006

The functions of the city are legion; and to a certain extent every city in Latin America performs nearly all of them. Trade and commerce, manufacturing and processing, communication and transportation, government and public administration, educational and cultural activities, religious and ceremonial observances, financial and personal services, servicing and repair, and recreation and welfare work, are a few of the better known categories. This list does not include, however, residence per se which is one of the principal raisons d’etre of cities in general. Moreover, even these better known urban functions can be subdivided into many varieties and classes, without in any way being exhaustive. Familiar examples are wholesale and retail trade; motor, rail, water, and air transportation; light and heavy manufacturing; and national, provincial, and local government and administration. In addition some of them tend to overlap, as in the cases of educational and cultural activities, or government and protection. Finally, the absolute and relative importance of any one of the functions, or of any particular combination of them, varies greatly from one city to another and in the same city from one time to another.
Duarte Coelho Pereira, First Lord-Proprietor of Pernambuco: The Beginning of a Dynasty
Authors: Dutra Francis A.
Published: July 2006

In the early 1620s, D. Luis de Sousa, a former governor-general of Brazil, complained to the Crown about the inhabitants of Pernambuco and their unreliability as witnesses in matters affecting the Albuquerque Coelho family. The colony’s population, he charged, “consists of relatives, friends, followers, and dependents of Duarte de Albuquerque [the fourth donatário or lord-proprietor] and justice officials nominated by him; and because of their land grants and the quitrents they pay to him, they are all his subjects.”
The Mexican-German Conspiracy of 1915
Authors: Meyer Michael C.
Published: July 2006

The Zimmermann telegram of 1917, the attempt of the German government to bring Mexico into World War I on the side of the Central Powers, is a well-known diplomatic episode because it is generally conceded to be one of the series of factors which convinced President Woodrow Wilson of the efficacy of abandoning his policy of neutrality. In return for her co-operation, and upon the successful conclusion of the war, Mexico was to “recover the lost territory in Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona.” On March 1, 1917, when the incident was recorded in the United States press and before either the State Department or the White House issued a confirmation or a denial, many congressmen and a good percentage of the United States public considered the note to be a brazen forgery and a great hoax. Had they realized that Foreign Minister Arthur Zimmermann’s proposal to Venustiano Carranza was not a bold and newly devised scheme but rather the climax of several years of intrigue with various Mexican officials and exile groups and had they been aware that the idea of restoring the territory lost in the middle of the nineteenth century was a Mexican rather than a German idea, there would have been but little reason to dispute the validity of the document in question.
Early Positivistic Thought and Ideological Conflict in Chile
Authors: Bader Thomas
Published: July 2006

Although virtually unstudied, the introduction of the philosophy of positivism into Chile acted as a catalyst upon the development of that country during the decade before the War of the Pacific. Scholars have given appropriate attention to the influence of positivism as it became significant in other Latin American countries during the eighteen-seventies, and Leopold Zea has discussed the importance of that philosophic system in Chile during the years which followed the west coast conflict of 1879-1883. However, despite the ever increasing number of articles and monographs dealing with positivism, the historians of Latin America have ignored the philosophy's growth in the Republic of Chile before the war and the effect of that growth upon the ideologies already extant in the Pacific coast nation.
To Save a City: The Desague of Mexico-Huehuetoca, 1607
Authors: Mathes W. Michael
Published: July 2006

The Mexica people, nomads forced southward by the bellicose Chichimecas of the north in the early fourteenth century, received revelation from their principal deity, Huitzilopochtli, which would terminate their wanderings. Appearing in dreams to the priest Cuauhtloquetzqui, Huitzilopochtli stated that on the spot where the heart of his slain nephew, Copil, was thrown, there would grow a great nopal cactus where an eagle would make his nest and dry his wings in the morning sun. This site he further stated would be named Tenochtitlan, place of the nopal, and there the people were to build a great city from which they would become the masters of the surrounding regions. The announcement of this revelation was made by Cuauhtloquetzqui, and, locating the great nopal on an island in the center of the Lake of Texcoco, a temple to Huitzilopochtli was constructed on the site in the year 1325.
The Indian Directorate: Forced Acculturation in Portuguese America (1757-1799)
Authors: MacLachlan Colin
Published: July 2006

One of the most important issues that confronted the colonial powers in the New World was the problem of European-Indian relations. Upon this pivotal point hinged such fundamental questions as political sovereignty, the moral responsibilities of Christian states towards aboriginal inhabitants and, on a less elevated level, the economic rights of the Europeans to the wealth and labor of the Indians. All colonial nations in the western hemisphere grappled with the problem introducing, modifying, and ultimately substituting a variety of institutions to regulate European-Indian contacts.
Brazil's Paraguayan Policy, 1869-1876
Authors: Warren Harris Gaylord
Published: July 2006

When Brazilian troops occupied Asunción on January 1, 1869, the worst war in South American history appeared to be nearing its end. This was a conflict caused by power politics, boundary disputes, and traditional animosities in the Plata basin. In a very real sense, the Paraguayan War was a climactic event in the evolution of nationalism in all of the four countries involved. A fortuitous combination of circumstances found Brazil and Argentina supporting the same party in Uruguay; although still intensely suspicious of each other's intentions, they had come to realize that an independent Uruguay was essential for the maintenance of peace between them. Argentina and Brazil had long sustained territorial disputes with Paraguay; indeed, if their desires had been satisfied, Paraguay would have been reduced to the territory she now has between the Paraná and Paraguay rivers.
Governor Velasco, the Portuguese and the Paraguayan Revolution of 1811: A New Look
Authors: Williams John Hoyt
Published: July 2006

The day after the successful ouster of Spanish authority in the viceregal capital of the Río de la Plata, on May 26, 1810, the revolutionary Junta in Buenos Aires sent a series of circulars to the governors and cabildos of the provinces formerly subjected to its leadership. These circulars announced the revolution, its aims and purposes, and made it quite clear that the new authorities in Buenos Aires expected to remain in control over the entire immense region. Most of the provinces responded in the affirmative, but royalists in the Banda Oriental and in Alto Perú declared themselves enemies of the revolution and prepared to resist it. In Paraguay, the situation was sufficiently ambiguous that the Junta decided to send Colonel José de Espínola, former military chief of Paraguay's northern frontier and now a partisan of the revolution, to Asunción to state the “ Porteño ” case. He brought with him formal letters from the Junta to the cabildo of Asunción and the Spanish governor, Bernardo de Velasco y Huidbro.
Some Protestant Missionary Letters Relating to the Religious Question in Brazil: 1872–1875
Authors: Vieira David Guerios
Published: July 2006

The above-quoted letter, along with a score of other letters from the Reverend A. L. Blackford, as well as from other Presbyterian missionaries in Brazil, throw a new light on the so-called Religious Question of the 1870's.

The Religious Question or Masonic Question, as all students of Brazilian history well know, was the incident which began in December of 1872, when Bishop Dom Frei Vital M. Gonçalves de Oliveira, of the Diocese of Olinda, Pernambuco (who later on was joined by Bishop Dom Antonio de Macedo Costa, of the Diocese of Pará), ordered all Catholics who were Masons to be expelled from the Catholic fraternal organizations known as confrarias. The confrarias, which were dominated by Masonic elements, refused to expel the Masons from their midst. The Bishop, in return, interdicted all of the recalcitrant confrarias and their churches in the Diocese. The confrarias appealed to the Crown demanding that the Bishop be restrained by the Imperial Power of Patronage, as under the law of the land—as interpreted by the Crown—the Bishop was not entitled to take such a measure. The Papal Encyclicals, which the Bishop was using as his guide, had never been approved by the Crown and as such, were not legally enforceable in Brazil. The Imperial Patronage of the Church, which had been inherited from the Portuguese kings, was very jealously guarded by the Emperor.
Silvestre Terrazas and the Old Regime in Chihuahua
Authors: Sandels Robert
Published: July 2006

From 1903 to 1911, Chihuahua was dominated by the Terrazas-Creel clan. For the patriarch of the clan, Luis Terrazas, the great latifundist and cattle baron, it was a prosperous time. He occupied the office of governor for the first fifteen months of the period and then retired, turning it over to his son-in law, Enrique C. Creel, who served first as interim and then as constitutional governor until the eve of the Madero revolt in 1910.

The effects of porfirismo filtered down to Chihuahuans through the clan. It dispensed offices, lucrative contracts, and concessions through Creel’s científico connections in Mexico City. It monopolized the state legislative offices—only twenty-seven persons sat in the legislature from 1903 to 1911 with the clan names of Terrazas, Creel, and Cuilty occurring in every session.
Two Franciscan Documents on Early San Antonio, Texas
Authors: Leutenegger Benedict
Published: July 2006

San Antonio, Texas, was founded in 1718, and this year is celebrating its 250th anniversary. To commemorate the event, we would like to publish two documents concerning early San Antonio, one dating from 1716 and the other from 1740.