This chapter examines the historical development of the Spanish Inquisition in New Spain (Mexico), investigating its processes, targets, and ambitions. It surveys the first inquisition prosecutions there, which were carried out not by inquisitors per se, but by mendicant friars as well as the episcopal court. After King Philip II authorized an inquisition tribunal for New Spain in 1569, inquisitors quickly began to operate in Mexico City. At the same time, Spanish inquisitors in New Spain had no investigative or coercive powers over New Spain’s Indigenous populations, whose religious beliefs and practices were monitored by the episcopal legal jurisdiction. New Spain’s inquisitors prosecuted far fewer serious heretics than their counterparts in Spain itself, though the tribunal was interested in Portuguese conversos, especially when it was encountering financial difficulties.

The inquisition tribunal in Lima, Peru, has received comparatively less scholarly attention because its sources are scattered and remain relatively incomplete. This chapter examines the inquisitorial jurisdiction in terms both of geography and of the Europeans, Africans, and Native Americans who attracted the inquisitors’ attention. It covers the lives and careers of prominent inquisitors, and addresses the variety of alleged offenders. It identifies different phases of tribunal activity, provides examples of the offenses that Lima’s inquisitors targeted in each phase, and delves into trials of faith for the heresy of crypto-judaism, the so-called “Great Complicity” of 1635–39. Inquisitors in Lima were interested in the same range of offenses as their counterparts in Spain. The tribunal worried about the presence of hidden Jews, Muslims, and Protestants in the Peruvian Viceroyalty and the effects they might have. They also were preoccupied with minor offenders such as visionaries, sorcerers, and bigamists.

This introduction shows how US Army officers used reports and other official correspondence to deploy specific narratives, constructing an identity for themselves and their institution premised on protecting women. This previously unacknowledged process erased or reframed evidence of women’s wartime activities. Yet, acknowledging this process reveals how paternalism shaped army culture; naturalized officers’ authority over enlisted men; and provided a cultural foundation for military law, policy, and strategy. Breaking up the fictive separation of women and war shows how army culture developed between 1835 and 1848. It also illuminates how that culture shaped, rather than removed, violence against women.

Chapter 7 culminates in 1848 with a study of Mexican women’s varied strategies in dealing with the occupation. It argues that US officers and enlisted men misunderstood women’s actions in war to characterize Mexican women as affectionate friends, and surveys the harmful consequences of that misconception. The core cultural belief that the army protected women was powerful enough that soldiers were unable or unwilling to see what was in front of them: pervasive evidence of women’s combatancy. The chapter concludes by uncovering the violence of protection – how army depictions of Mexican women as nonthreatening and sexualized allies both generated violence against women and encouraged officers to exclude evidence of that violence from official records.

The conclusion analyzes the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and its provisions regarding protecting noncombatants. Focusing on what the treaty said about women reveals meaningful changes. Militaries could not imprison women, destroy their property, or seize their food without payment – all critical elements of army strategy a few years earlier in Florida. The treaty’s architects expanded noncombatant protections beyond women to encompass US ideas of civilization. It protected non-fighting men who behaved according to Euro-American notions of land use: merchants, manufacturers, and farmers. It did not protect Native people who adhered to lifeways that the US and Mexico considered uncivilized. Although the treaty established a European laws of war framework for future conflict between the republics of the US and Mexico, it equally legitimized a less restrained approach to disputes with uncivilized enemies whom it deemed criminals. In the army’s future “Indian Wars” the ideals of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo would help the US Army to legitimize violence used against Indigenous peoples.

Chapter 5 moves to Veracruz and the inaugural moments of General Winfield Scott’s 1847 Mexico City campaign. It uses neglected court-martial records to show how the army’s newly formed rescuer-identity shaped General Winfield Scott’s new military commissions. The commissions radically expanded the scope of military justice to encompass not only soldiers but all persons in occupied territory, and this instrument of martial power endures today. Yet, the first capital case tried by military commission – in which the army hanged Isaac Kirk, a Black man from Tennessee, for allegedly raping Maria Antonia Gallegas, a Mexican woman – has remained until now completely unstudied. A close reading of the case file, including the previously uncited testimonies of Gallegas and several enlisted men, lays bare the race and gender dynamics at the heart of army culture and produces new insights into how Scott managed to put his military commission system into effect without foundation in law.

The Mexican Constitution prohibits any form of discrimination that infringes on human dignity, rights, and freedoms. This is further reinforced by the federal labor law, which outlines discriminatory workplace practices, and the federal law for preventing and eliminating discrimination, which provides preventive measures, equality initiatives, and complaint procedures. Employers in Mexico are legally required to adhere to these regulations. Although no specific legal standards exist for demonstrating reliability and validity in employment selection tests, employers using such tests must demonstrate their job-related relevance. Employers found guilty of discrimination may face fines ranging from 1,400 to 30,000 USD, with penalties determined by intent, severity, and recurrence. Common administrative sanctions include mandatory training for involved staff and internal awareness campaigns. Publicizing these cases has proven effective in raising awareness in human resources professionals, encouraging the elimination of discriminatory practices in the workplace. These legal and administrative measures aim to foster a fair and inclusive work environment in Mexico.

This concluding chapter synthesizes the key findings of the study and extends the theoretical framework by testing its predictions in four additional authoritarian regimes — Bahrain, Egypt, pre-apartheid South Africa, and Mexico under the PRI. It argues that the most important factor in sustaining labor militancy is autonomy from political elites and strong connections with the rank-and-file. The chapter reinforces the book’s central claim that labor militancy emerges from authoritarian exclusion and the absence of partisan coalitions to represent labor interests. It concludes by discussing the broader implications of these findings for theories of labor politics, authoritarianism, and institutional change.

Chapter 6 offers an analysis of the Nicaraguan Revolution with a particular focus on Araceli Pérez Darias, a Mexican citizen of Spanish descent fighting with the Sandinistas on the Western Front in Nicaragua during the late 1970s. She was ambushed, raped and killed in 1979. Using Araceli’s life story as a prism, this chapter offers a unique survey of women’s contribution to transnational warfare in the twentieth century, arguing that their challenges were multiple. Unlike their male comrades in arms, they were generally not allowed to fight at the front. Further, they were often subjected to abuses, and their armed resistance – originally motivated by their opposition to the enemy – eventually became intertwined with their struggle to be accepted as equals by the movement they represented at the front. In addition, the chapter provides the first comprehensive overview of the foreign brigades fighting for the Sandinistas, explaining why some have survived in the collective memory of the revolution while the most decisive of them all, consisting of Panamanian volunteers, were cast into oblivion.

Discontent in Britain’s Thirteen Colonies had built to open violence by the mid-1770s, much of it occurring in and around Boston. (See Map 19.) A lack of representation and perceptions that British leaders pursued overbearing policies because they were indifferent or even hostile to the plight of the inhabitants pushed ever more colonists towards open rebellion. In response, the tools Britain possessed to confront its colonial troubles were limited by the nature of its government and the few instruments at its disposal. These included the army and navy, but their use at Boston only exacerbated tensions. Fighting flared on 19 April 1775 when British soldiers attempted to seize munitions at Concord, Massachusetts. Along the way, at Lexington, shots were fired and several colonists were killed. Afterwards, colonists sniped at and harried the British on their return to Boston. In the wake of Lexington and Concord, American militia gathered around Boston, surrounding its British garrison. Nearly two months after the outbreak of hostilities, the Americans seized and fortified the strategic Charlestown Peninsula overlooking Boston harbour. In response, the British stormed the position in what became known as the battle of Bunker Hill: the first major battle of the American Revolution. At the end of the day, the British held the field, but at the cost of nearly a quarter of their army in Boston.