Latin americanists have in recent years become increasingly concerned with constructing the basis for a unified history of Latin America. Frequently this enterprise leads them to contemplate the even larger design of a history of the Americas. While the New World may still be, in Hegel’s words, “a land of desire for all those who are weary of the historical lumber-room of old Europe,” it is now recognized as having an independent heritage; its history is no longer experienced as “only an echo of the Old World.”

The fall of Nicaraguan strongman Anastasio Somoza in July 1979 contributed to the publication of an abundance of literature on United States-Central American relations and, like the literature before it, focused largely upon the crisis at hand. Two historical surveys appeared. Walter LaFeber's Inevitable Revolutions: The United States and Central America represented a revisionist approach, charging that United States economic imperialism is responsible for the present crisis. John Finding's Close Neighbors, Distant Friends: United States-Central American Relations is a straightforward account describing Washington's response to various crisis. Still an analysis of the literature is absent. In an effort to address that issue, this article examines the literature on United States-Central American relations in the twentieth century and concludes that the United States acted on behalf of its own security interests, whether or not the threat of foreign intervention had been real or imagined. In effect, the United States maintained the status quo and failed to deal with the structural problems responsible for the contemporary crisis.

The Stewarts of Scotland came to England with William the Conqueror in 1066 and descended from Alan Falhald of Oswestry. Walter, First Lord High Steward of Scotland, was the son of Alan. Sir John Stewart of Bonkyll, who was killed at the battle of Falkirk in 1298, was the son of Lord Alexander Oswestry, Fourth Lord High Steward. Sir John’s brother, Lord James Oswestry, became the Fifth Lord High Steward, and from him descended the House of Stuart, rulers of Scotland and England. William Stewart of Paraguay descended from Sir John of Bonkyll, the twenty-second generation after Alan Falhald. In Scotland the Stewarts were landlords, merchants, bankers and farmers whose fortunes waxed and waned but always seemed to recover. That they were a resourceful clan is a conclusion easily reached if one takes the career of Dr. William Stewart of Paraguay as an example.

The changing status of the Indian population in postindependence Spanish America has been a major theme of historical research and writing, with primary emphasis for obvious reasons on the cases of Mexico and Peru. Bolivia and Guatemala have received a secondary share of attention, but other countries have been relatively ignored. Certainly the case of Argentina is seldom cited save in connection with the ebb and flow of the frontier between Creole settlements and semiautonomous native peoples of the Pampa and Patagonia. The latter story, of course, has more in common with that of westward expansion in the United States than with the situation of settled Indian communities in Mexico or the central Andes. But there are some exceptions even in Argentina, involving native communities more akin to those of Cuzco or Chiapas than to the original inhabitants of Kansas and Wyoming or of the Argentine Pampa.

The New Kingdom of Granada, now Colombia, was discovered and settled by three unrelated expeditions organized for different purposes. Two of them were led by Spaniards and one by a German. The first was placed under the leadership of Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada by the governor of Santa Marta, and ordered to go south in search of a passage to Peru. Another was led from the south and out of Peru by Sebastián de Benalcázar in search of one Dorado or golden man, who was supposed to reign in the Indian area of Cundirumarca, while the third was organized by Nikolaus Federmann in the province of Venezuela, with the aim of reaching the Xerira land of riches, the existence of which was known from the Indians encountered in early explorations. He was to proceed under the auspices of the German House of Welser, concessionary at the time of the exploration and exploitation of the province of Venezuela.