“We are still almost in a state of seige from the operations of the armed bands who rob and plunder almost daily, on the great thoroughfare between this city [Lima] and its port-town, Callao, and, amongst others, some of our countrymen have been attacked and wounded,” wrote Samuel Larned, United States Chargé d' Affaires at Lima on November 16, 1835. Lima and its environs were indeed in an uproar, made so by the revolt of the impetuous twenty-eight year old General Felipe Santiago de Salaverry against the government. While Salaverry the usurper was prosecuting his campaign in the interior, bands of soldiers prowled about the capital area, discipline and order loosened by a quicksilver political situation. Furthermore, Salaverry's attitudes were anti-foreign and his campaign “worthy of the times of Attila or Genghis Kan” to the mind of the American chargé. Little wonder that on December 10, 1835, a few Marines were landed at Callao to protect American interests and property. It was an unprecedented act, the first time United States Marines had ever been landed to protect American diplomatic missions. Next month they packed up and reboarded the U.S.S. Brandywine, only to put ashore once more in August to continue their vigil. On December 2, 1836, less than a year after first setting ashore, the Marines once more withdrew, but the landing, although modest in proportion to the violent maneuvers of the warring factions, symbolized the nature and extent of United States-Peruvian relations.

Interest in the nature of Brazilian slavery has increased dramatically during the last ten years. In part this interest has been stimulated by the desire of North American social scientists to examine what was initially viewed to be the striking differences between patterns of race relations and slavery as they developed in the United States and Brazil. Among Brazilians the interest in slavery is older, beginning as an aspect of the larger evolution of cultural nationalism which sought to demonstrate the unique nature of the Brazilian solution to a multiracial society. Among both North American and Brazilian writers the initial tendency was to emphasize the more “humane” nature of slavery in Brazil. This was attributed to a number of factors of which the Portuguese concept of the slave as a human being based on cultural and religious traits was paramount. Increasingly this view has been subjected to intense criticism and recent works have focused on the harshness of Brazilian slavery and have sought to stress the similarities between the two systems.

Colombia's 1875 election was one of the most intensely fought and pivotal political contests in the nation's history. It has attracted well-deserved attention because it delineated factionalism within the Liberal party to the point of no return, and it marked the sudden emergence of Rafael Núñez to national prominence as leader of one of the two contending Liberal factions. The Nuñista Liberals in that election posed the most serious challenge the Radical Liberals had sustained since they established their political ascendancy in 1867. Victory by the Radicals in 1875 ushered in the final, brief phase of their political hegemony. The bitter factionalism within the Liberal party revealed by the election directly contributed to the costly civil war of 1876-1877 by leading Conservatives to the mistaken assumption that the defeated Nuñistas would tacitly support an insurrection against the Radicals. The Nuñistas, however, supported the Radicals during the crisis of that partisan war and thereby gained access to power.

The letter sent by Ruy González, a councilman of Mexico City, to the Spanish monarch, Charles I (Emperor Charles V of the Holy Roman Empire), in April 1553 constitutes an excellent example of the genre of correspondence sent by the conquerors and early settlers of the colonies back to Spain. These men, self-assured and successful, proud of their achievements and unbothered by moral doubt, though now generally well off and powerful, were nonetheless greatly perturbed in their old age by a growing governmental reluctance to allow them to pass on their status and wealth undisturbed to the next generation. To them there appeared to be a great influx of royal and ecclesiastical officials, characteristically accompanied by dependents and sycophants seeking favor and grants, as well as an unjustified questioning of the moral probity of the actions of the conquerors themselves. In this climate, feeling that his wisdom and deeds were unappreciated, Ruy González sent his several-page letter to the king, justifying his life, arguing his point of view, and advising changes in royal policies towards the colony that he had helped to found.