The treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848 acquired for the United States one-half of Mexican territory, while the Gadsden Purchase of 1853 secured a more level route for railroads destined to connect the south and the far west. Impatient investors, however, sought immediate union with the west, and the shortest route at hand was across the isthmus of Tehuantepec in southern Mexico. The Department of State advanced these interests, and only on failure turned their efforts to an overland route across Northern Mexico. This latter route would have connected Matamoros on the Rio Grande and Atlantic with Matzatlan on the Pacific. To this goal, Delphy Carlin, an American long-experienced in trade with Mexico, urged Secretary of State Lewis Cass. He was convinced that a line skirting the mountains and connecting these ports would be an ideal boundary; that “all north of that red line is a nuisance to Mexico.”

America became a reality in western civilization from the early period of the Golden Age in the literature of the Iberian peninsula. By the seventeenth century the works of a few outstanding personalities already born in America had been added to the bibliographical sources available in the European libraries and universities.

The literature of Puerto Rico has also had a place in the panorama of Spanish American letters since the arrival of European culture at the end of the fifteenth century and the era of conquest and colonization during the sixteenth century. The trends of the literary history of this Caribbean island have followed the pattern of the literary development in the New World. It was initiated with the letters and the chronicles, the epic poems and the annals of the first men entrusted with the mission of conquest and settlement in the newly acquired possessions.

The Conselho Ultramarino in Portugal was created by King João IV in 1642 although there is some doubt that it functioned effectively until the following year in December. Certain it is that the king despatched an alvará under date of December 22, 1643, directed to all parts of the empire, telling all officials to send directly to the Council all correspondence concerning overseas provinces.

The first order of business for the fledgling Council was to request the king to clear up certain vague remarks in the founding regimento concerning their power. This regimento of 1642 had been based upon that given by Philip II in 1604 at the founding of the short-lived Conselho da India but contained important omissions, which seemed to lessen the scope of the new council and led to innumerable questions of authority between the Conselho and the Mesa da Consciencia e Ordens in matters ecclesiastical.

Historical evaluation of the Morrow mission to Mexico, October, 1927 to September, 1930, has been ill-served by polemicists, adulators, and critics who have misrepresented the state of relations between the United States and Mexico in 1927, misinterpreted the nature of Morrow’s accomplishments, and overemphasized the persistence of the problems with which he had to deal. It is the purpose of this paper to clarify the circumstances attendant on Morrow’s appointment, to describe the character of his mission, and to evaluate the consequences of his efforts in Mexico.

In commenting upon the importance of works of fiction the historian finds himself in strange waters, but with familiar tools at his command. Except as signs of the times, few novels would merit such a serious approach, but the exceptions can be most rewarding. The importance of fiction, both for good and for bad, has long been recognized. It does not have to be great literature to be significant: it has to be popular. Uncle Tom’s Cabin and the fictional output of the “Muckrakers” have had profound influences on the thought and history of the United States. The popularity of Captain Marryat’s sea novels changed the regulations of the British Navy. Kipling almost “set” the accepted concept of relations between the East and West in his manifold descriptions of the “White Man’s Burden” —again because of his popularity as a writer. These are but a few of the examples that can be culled from an examination of the fiction to be found in the English language, and there are many others equally significant. Fiction can establish patterns of thought on past and present problems that should make biographers, essayists, and historians jealous, as established patterns of thought can go far toward making or changing history.

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.