Beyond All Question, the most valuable export of colonial Mexico was silver. However, the exaggerated emphasis usually accorded to this fact has tended to obscure the importance of other products in the Mexican colonial economy. Prior to the development of synthetic dyestuffs, the native dyes of New Spain ranked among her more valuable products. Such important tinting agents as Campeche wood (logwood), indigo, and cochineal were discovered in Mexico shortly after the conquest, and they were soon exported to the mother coutry in considerable volume. From Spain these raw dyestuffs were reexported to all of Europe, where, although the impact of American dyestuffs on the European economy has never been fully evaluated, these New World products served to bring about a revolution in the cloth industry of the continent.

As the recent clashes in Mexico City's metropolitan cathedral show, it is not just clericalism that is making an apparent comeback in post-priísta Mexico: clericalism's faithful alter ego, anticlericalism—provoked to violence when clanking church bells disturbed a political rally in the zócalo in November 2007—is also stirring anew. This dialectical affinity between rival ideological traditions goes back a long way, as historic clashes over church bells—auditory symbols of institutional jurisdiction and influence—remind us: and yet, as Alan Knight points out, neither the terrain, nor the terms, of the dispute between clericalism/anticlericalism have been mapped out with enough clarity by Mexicanist historians. The 1910-40 revolution, for instance, is associated with various anticlericalisms— be it the protestant variety studied by Jean-Pierre Bastian; the constitutionalists' liberal clerophobia, irrupting circa 1914; masonic, spiritist, or popular anticlericalisms; or the “socialist” god-burning of the 1930s which climaxed in the iconoclasm studied by Adrian Bantjes. This trajectory— from priest-baiting to dechristianization within a generation—makes it tempting to posit an irreligious revolution, whose anticlericalism was a precursory form of mature godlessness. Some revolutionaries, like Tomás Garrido Canabal in Tabasco, encouraged such a conflation by using anticlerical restrictions—especially state licensing of priests, enshrined in constitutional Article 130—in a vindictive and secularizing way: squeezing the clergy so hard that priests were eradicated, not just rubber-stamped by the state. Such figures clearly hoped that persecuting priests would fatally mine belief: the day would come, Adalberto Tejeda hoped in 1926, when religion would expire and churches become places of recreation for apostate Indians. The Roman Catholic clergy, meanwhile, was fond of denouncing anticlericals as deicides, if not devils, and reinforced its own position by encouraging the association of anticlericalism with anti-Catholicism in the minds of the faithful.

[our goal] is nothing less that the coordination of the living forces of Mexican Catholic youth for the purpose of restoring Christian social order in Mexico …

(A.C.J.M.’s “General Statutes”)

The Mexican Catholic Youth Association emerged during the Mexican Revolution dedicated to the goal of creating lay activists with a Catholic vision for society. The history of this Jesuit organization provides insights into Church-State relations from the military phase of the Mexican Revolution to its consolidation in the 1920s and 1930s. The Church-State conflict is a basic issue in Mexico's political struggles of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, with the Church mobilizing forces wherever it could during these years dominated by anticlericalism. During the 1920s, the Mexican Catholic Youth Association (A.C.J.M.) was in the forefront of the Church's efforts to respond to the government's anticlerical policies. The A.C.J.M.’s subsequent estrangement from the top Church leadership also serves to highlight the complex relationship that existed between the Mexican bishops and the Catholic laity and the ideological divisions that existed within Mexico's Catholic community as a whole.

During the last quarter of the nineteenth century and first three decades of this one, a small though increasing number of Middle Easterners–principally Lebanese, Syrians, and Palestinians–made their way to the Americas. Hitherto a little studied influx, the Arabic speakers were part of the largely southern European immigration that reached Latin America in general, and Argentina in particular. Included among the arrivals were the forebears of such future heads of state as Argentina's Carlos Saúl Menem, Bolivia's Juan Pereda Asbún, Colombia's Julio César Turbay Ayala, the Dominican Republic's Elías Wessín y Wessín, or Uruguay's Alberto Abdala, and of such presidential hopefuls as Paulo Salim Maluf (Brazil), Abdala Bucaram (Ecuador), and Jorge Dager (Venezuela). Their spectacular rise, in many cases achieved by the first generation of the immigrants' local offspring, must not obscure the fact that the Arabic speakers were generally undesired. That much was clearly spelled out in the legislation of various countries. Unlike some of her sister states, Argentina, the region's principal absorber, did not seek to block the Middle Easterners' entry before 1928. This was so irrespective of the Argentine constitution's bias in favor of European immigration, the preference for north Europeans shown by the country's elites and their illdisguised disdain for the Arabic speakers, among other ethnic and religious groups. Hence, as the numbers of Syro-Lebanese taking advantage of the absence of Argentine barriers rose, they became the victims of xenophobic attacks, especially since the 1880s.

The rebellion of 1932 in El Salvador is commonly described in the context of communism and the leadship role of the Communist Party of El Salvador (PCS). Relying on previously unavailable archive materials from Russia and El Salvador, the present article demonstrates that the PCS played a limited role in the rebellion. Factional infighting and a strategy that collided with social realities in western El Salvador combined to inhibit PCS influence among western peasants. The evidence suggests that Indian communities were at the forefront of the rebellion, as an extention of their long history of political mobilization.

The question of identity has been one of considerable importance to the study of race in Latin America. Particularly for the multitude of racially mixed offspring produced by miscegenation, it has been debated, what exactly was the degree of consciousness that race could produce? What degree of strength, if any, should be attributed to the caste boundaries created in the colonial period, and how did the reins of “caste” contribute to the 19th and 20th century heritage of the region? With the new and emerging research on the African Diaspora in Latin America, the question has often been asked: did the free mulatto, moreno, or pardo ever feel a specific identity, especially during colonial times, and especially when racial discourse was apparently created by, and served the interests of those who held the supreme positions of power?

Land for the landless, food for the hungry, literacy for the uneducated—not through charitable works, but by forcing the state to take seriously its responsibilities to its poorest citizens. This was integral to the theology of liberation as it was practiced by bishops, priests, and nuns in Brazil beginning shortly after the close of the Second Vatican Council in 1965. Important sectors of the Brazilian Catholic Church were “opting for the poor” at a time when economic development, modernization, and democracy were not considered appropriate or meaningful partners in the repressive environment characterized by the Brazilian military dictatorship (1964-1985).

In their zeal to transform rural society during the 1920s, Mexican educators undertook a number of projects that in retrospect seem unusual. Fancying themselves as the intellectual heirs of the earliest Catholic friars, they sent “missionaries” into the countryside to preach the gospel of progress, developed rigid definitions of the appropriate forms of rural living, and even taught school children in Mexico City to paint according to pre-Colombian styles in order to build a harmonious nation. These were indeed creative ideas, but none was more imaginative than the decision to establish a Rural Normal School in the midst of the largest urban center in the country. Established in the Anáhuac neighborhood of Mexico City in 1926, the Casa del Estudiante Indígena was hailed as the centerpiece of the government's commitment to Indian education. Inside the Casa a culturally diverse student population, speaking mutually unintelligible languages, would be transformed into models of the national culture. They would adopt modern dress and practices, learn perfect Spanish, and in turn bring the benefits of modernity to their home communities.

The Document entitled “Conversión de los San Luiseños de la Alta California,” by the Luiseño Indian, Pablo Tac, who was born at the California Mission of San Luis Rey de Francia in 1822, and who died in Italy in 1841, is of unusual interest both as an historical and ethnographic record, but perhaps most of all because it is the unique instance of an account of California Mission Indian life written by an Indian. It may also be claimed as the first writing of a literary nature produced by a native of California, even though there may be legal instruments, commercial notes and personal letters by native Californians bearing earlier dates. Although the culture of the Luiseño Indians is fairly well known from the work of modern anthropologists, Tac’s account is certainly the only written description of it by a Luiseño, brief and incomplete though it is.

When I began this extended period of research into the history of nineteenth-century Peru, I was burdened with the ideas drawn from the writings of Bernard Moses and Desdedives du Dezert. In the main, they seem to think that by the end of the 18th century, the Church in Peru had grown stagnant and formalistic, forgetful of the heritage of Santo Toribio, San Martín, San Solano, or Santa Rosa.

A seventeenth-century inhabitant of São Paulo once remarked that Indians were “the most profitable property in this land.” Legally, however, Indians were not property at all, for the crown explicitly prohibited their enslavement. During most of the seventeenth century, the settlers of São Paulo complied with the letter of the law and did not officially give their Indian servants any monetary value, and though they often sold them, the sales were known to be illegal and were not usually recorded in public documents, such as the documents used for this study, inventários, settlements of estates. By the end of the century, however, local judges were openly allowing the monetary appraisal of Indians and their subsequent sale was duly recorded in inventários and other court processes.

The international situation in which the early Haitian republic found itself between 1820 and 1843 aggravated its internal problems and precipitated its economic decline. The economic structure of the new country had been weakened by the destruction of the colonial sugar plantations during the war of liberation against France (1791-1804). It proved impossible to resurrect these in the republican era, because of the lack of capital and the unwillingness of the ex-slaves to return to plantation life. They wanted property of their own, and this insistence forced successive governments to distribute land to them. Only Henri Christophe, who ruled the North as a kingdom (1806-1820), succeeded in maintaining the old system through forced labor; an experiment which died with him. Dramatic as these changes were, however, they were not sufficient to prevent the resurgence of a new economy based on coffee; a crop which was well suited to peasant cultivation. The shift towards coffee exports had begun in the last years of the colonial era and accelerated in the years after 1804. An economy of smallholders engaged in the cultivation of coffee and provisions existing alongside the remaining plantations could have provided a modest foundation for economic growth. Alexandre Pétion, the first president of Haiti (1806-1818), had envisioned this possibility and it was one of the reasons which he gave for carrying out the first land reform in Latin America. Haiti was a major exporter of coffee in the first half of the nineteenth century, and there were a number of foreign merchants already present in the country to purchase the crop. Instead of economic prosperity, the years after 1820 witnessed an economic decline which made the first black nation virtually ungovernable after 1843 save by the rule of caudillos.

In the last quarter of the seventeenth century the Spanish officials of Florida, both religious and civil, became convinced that a certain game of ball played by the Christian Indians was detrimental to their bodies, their souls, and the peace of the provinces of Apalache and Ustaqua. During a ten-year campaign this time-honored custom was investigated, argued over and finally outlawed. The story of this crusade against a ballgame is valuable for both the ethnologist and the Spanish colonial historian. For the ethnologist it is important because among the documents is a lengthy description of the game and its associated myths and magic: “Origin and beginnings of the game of pelota which the Apalache and Ustaqua Indians have played since pagan times up to the year 1676, brought to light by the Reverend Father Fray Juan de Paiva, Father of the mission of San Luis de Talimali. September 23, 1676.” For the colonial historian, the campaign demonstrates the identification of conversion with sovereignty long past contact and conquest, as well as the interwoven relationships among civil and religious authorities, unofficial Spanish residents, and native nobility.

Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda epitomizes in many ways, both personally and intellectually, the cosmopolitanism of Spanish political thought in the sixteenth century. Educated in Italy, disciple of Pomponazzi, translator of Aristotle, chronicler of the Emperor and mentor of his son Philip, Sepúlveda is best known—and often misunderstood as the defender of the more unsavory aspects of the Spanish conquest and colonization in America—for his bitter controversy with Bartolomé de las Casas. To that debate Sepúlveda brought a humanist's training and outlook anchored in his devotion to Aristotle, but strongly tempered by his attachment to Saint Augustine. It is the purpose of this paper to examine Sepúlveda's ideas on the nature of the American natives, particularly the question of whether the Indians are natural slaves. Considerations of space, of course, rule out the possibility of undertaking here a detailed scrutiny of the foundations upon which those ideas rest. It can be said, however, that they are typically Renaissance views, a blend of traditions characteristic of the composite nature of the age's intellectual milieu.

Since the fall of Nicaragua's Somoza dynasty in 1979, nearly 900 books dealing with Central America have appeared. They repeat the themes of imperialism, paternalism, and security that traditionally have characterized studies about Central America and its relations with the U.S. The imperialist theme is pursued by Walter LaFeber's Inevitable Revolutions and Karl Berman's Under the Big Stick. They assert that the United States economically exploited and politically controlled Central America in general and Nicaragua in particular. A sense of moral righteousness is found in Tom Buckley's Violent Neighbors and Richard Alan White's The Morass while the security theme is pursued by John Findling in his Close Neighbors, Distant Friends. Histories about Central America reinforce these themes. For example, the Dean of the U.S. Central Americanists Ralph Lee Woodward, Jr., and Costa Ricans Edelberto Torres-Rivas and Hector Pérez-Brignoli, and Honduran Mario Argueta demonstrate that the American businessmen capitalized upon the ignorance of region's elite for their own economic gain. Despite their diversity, all of these volumes demonstrate that the United States dominated the relationship and criticize it for so doing.

In 2006, the Newberry Library in Chicago announced its digitization of the ancient Maya-K’iche’ myth, the Popol Vuh. While digitization ensures the preservation of the document and easier access for researchers, it is also significant in that it marks a new stage in the long historical trajectory of the manuscript itself. The Popol Vuh, or “Maya Bible,” is the most studied indigenous document of Mesoamerica. Contemporary scholarship has considered it, among all the early colonial documents, to best reflect a pre-Hispanic native voice. It provides a breadth and depth of detail concerning Maya religion, cosmology, and society, and its contents have been generalized to apply to virtually all of the ancient Maya religions. Additionally, the text has been used as a source for numerous ethnohistorical studies, and its mythological context has profoundly influenced most Guatemalan literature from the early nineteenth century to the present. More important, the Popol Vuh has become a symbol of Guatemalan national “indigenousness” and was officially declared Guatemala’s national book in 1971.

In the spring of 1917, shortly after the United States entered World War I and adopted universal, male, military conscription, American war resisters and draft dodgers known at the time as “the slackers” began to arrive in Mexico. Senator Albert Bacon Fall claimed there were 30,000 slackers hiding out in Mexico, and slacker Linn A.E. Gale agreed with him. When American adventurer, reporter and writer Harry L. Foster passed through Mexico City in 1919, he noted that there were hundreds of Americans, many of them slackers, loitering in the city’s parks and plazas.

The European practice of conceptualizing their enemies so that they could dispose of them in ways that were not in accord with their own Christian principles is well documented. In the Americas, this began with Columbus's designation of certain Indians as man-eaters and was continued by those Spanish who also wished to enslave the natives or eliminate them altogether. The word “cannibal” was invented to describe such people, and the Spanish were legally free to treat cannibals in ways that were forbidden to them in their relations with other people. By the late fifteenth century the word cannibal had assumed a place in the languages of Europe as the latest concept by which Europeans sought to categorize the “other.” As David Gordon White has shown, by the time the Spanish discovered America, barbarians were an established component of European mythology, history and theology as well as popular thought, and the categories Europeans employed to describe outsiders date as far back as the Greeks and the Egyptians before them. Therefore, it is not surprising that when they reached Mexico the Spanish easily adopted a word from Nahuatl to describe the Indian peoples of the north whom they believed to be barbarians. This word, chichimeca, which both designated and defined in a very particular way the native peoples of the north Mexican frontier, assumed in Spanish the credibility of longstanding native use, although as we shall see, this was not entirely justified.

In the introduction to his The Jews in the Canary Islands, Lucien Wolf wrote almost a half-century ago that “The work of the… branches of the Holy Office in America has only been made known to us piecemeal… For social data relating to the great body of Marranos the records have not hitherto been studied.” These records of the trial proceedings, called procesos, still constitute a fairly virgin field of social, religious and economic Latin American history in general and specifically for the history of Jews and Judaism.

A few have written articles about Mexican Jews in colonial times after a cursory study of a few documents and several acclaimed texts. It is, therefore, not surprising that the results are superficial and often suffused with errors. The foregoing may be illustrated by statements in an article published in the American Jewish Historical Quarterly. Among the numerous errors that appeared therein are “among 2,281 trials of the Mexican Holy Office, 351 concerned crypto-Jews…” and that “By the end of the seventeenth century, the whole crypto-Jewish community had been destroyed.”

During the century between 1765 and 1865, the double impact of the industrial and agricultural revolutions brought profound change to rural society in Europe and North America. In England, the enclosure movement and the innovations associated with “ high farming ” culminated in the destruction of the English peasantry and the growth of a productive rural capitalism that underlay Victorian industrial development. On the continent new crop rotations and improved animals increased output while political revolution resulted in drastic changes in European agrarian structure and in the lives of lord and peasant. In North America (and in such regions as Australia and New Zealand) wholly new rural societies were created as population grew and rail and steam began to put these peripheral zones within reach of the industrial world.