In the last two decades, private entrepreneurship has emerged as an important research area in the field of Adantic history. Various studies have clearly shown the role played by private business in the making of the early modern Adantic economy. Initially, private entrepreneurship was studied separately from imperial entities and did not contemplate activities encompassing several European empires. Recently, however, scholars have started to look into private engagement in various branches of the Adantic colonial trade, broadening our understanding of when and how private business operated simultaneously in different colonial settings. The works of Schnurmann, Studnicki-Gizbert, Ebert, Trivellato, and Antunes are some of the most important contributions.

Since the seventeenth century, the Crónica Mexicayotl, an invaluable account documenting the Mexica Tenochca history, has been attributed either to Domingo de San Antón Muñón Chimalpahin Quauhtle-huanitzin, to Hernando de Alvarado Tezozomoc, or sometimes to both. To examine these attributions, we focus here on the way the document as we know it today was written, pointing out the fact that it was made by assembling material from several heterogeneous sources, among which we find the famous and now lost Crónica X. Important passages allow us to emphasize the role played by Tezozomoc in the composition of the original Crónica Mexicayotl, and to propose with reference to the later version that has reached us, that a considerable number of insertions can be attributed to Chimalpahin. In that regard we present two different hypotheses regarding the relationship of the Crónica Mexicayotl to other works, as well as to the authors Tezozomoc and Chimalpahin.

On November 20, 1681 the cathedral bell of Lima announced the official arrival of the new Viceroy of Peru, Don Melchor de Navarra y Rocafull, Duque de la Palata. The streets were decked with bunting and flowers and many people crowded windows and balconies to catch a glimpse of the new Viceroy. Palata, astride a white horse, led a procession of town councilmen, lancers, footmen, and coaches through the capital to the main plaza. There he was greeted by an artillery salute that shook the entire city. Thanking the officials who had accompanied him, Palata entered the viceregal palace and appeared at a window to the acclamation of the multitude.

In 1910, the Uruguayan Public Assistance Law established the concept of universal poor relief, declaring that “anyone … indigent or lacking resources has the right to free assistance at the expense of the state.” Nothing better than this law qualifies Uruguay for its distinction as the ‘first welfare state’ in Latin America. As in other countries, much of the first social assistance legislation targeted poor women and children and relied on elite women for much of its implementation. In the Uruguayan case, the primary intersections between public assistance and private philanthropy were the secular “ladies’ committees” (comités de damas), charitable organizations without direct ties to the Catholic Church. These organizations were also an important catalyst for liberal feminism in Uruguay, whose chronology—from the foundation of the National Women's Council in 1916 through the women's suffrage law of 1932—closely parallels the history of the early Uruguayan welfare state. Following a discussion of the formation of the National Public Assistance and its significance for class and gender politics in Uruguay, this article will summarize the evolving relationship between the Uruguayan social assistance bureaucracy and one of these groups, the Sociedad “La Bonne Garde,” an organization that worked with young unmarried mothers. It then discusses how a formal and direct relationship with the state helped make the Bonne Garde and other groups like it a principal point of entry for many elite women in the early phases of Uruguayan liberal feminism. Finally, this article shows how processes set in motion in the 1910s resulted in a relative marginalization of elite women from both state welfare and organized liberal feminism in the 1920s. Through an examination of the history of these ladies’ committees, we gain new insight into both welfare state formation in its earliest Latin American example as well as some of the elements and circumstances which helped shape liberal feminism in Uruguay.

It is generally accepted that the Bourbon Reforms were designed to reestablish Peninsular vigor through colonial renewal. What is often unappreciated is that this pristinely simple goal obscures an underlying tangle. The essential thrust was to recolonize the Indies, and to this end economic life was reordered so as to accentuate the New World's role as supplier of precious and exotic products and as consumer of Spanish manufactures. Equally important, however, was the fiscal dimension. The crown wished to generate enough revenues to be able to bear the increasing burden of colonial defense, but beyond this it also wanted the overseas dominions to aid the mother country in defraying European expenses judged essential to a great power.

In July 1866, Lima conducted its independence celebrations with great fanfare. The festivities began at the main portal of the walled city, where the members of various patriotic associations gathered to celebrate Independence Day. The participants included the Sociedad de Fundadores de la Independencia, the veteran corps from both the Independence Wars and from the recent war with Spain, the national fire brigades, and the members of an artisan society named the Sociedad de Artesanos de Auxilios Mutuos. Together they sang the national anthem while standing at the foot of a Tree of Liberty, a republican symbol dating back to the French Revolution. They subsequently marched into the city, thus initiating two days of celebrations that included fireworks displays and an intricate reenactment, in Lima's central plaza, of the recent naval combat with Spain. In the course of the ceremonies, two artisans were presented with prizes, one for the most outstanding piece of craftsmanship (in the 1866 celebration the prize was won by Vicente Pedraza for making an organ) and the other for the artisan who had shown the most bravery during the recent military encounter with Spain. The prizes were in the amount of 200 soles. At another point in the celebrations the Chief of the Artisan Fire Brigade gave a patriotic speech and following the speech a young girl offered the President Mariano Ignacio Prado a laurel wreath in the name of the artisans.

IT is often said that the French Revolution and the ideas of the philosophers of the eighteenth century were of great influence in Latin America and that they constituted the intellectual motivation of its movements toward independence.

This idea is presented in the majority of elementary history books. It is worthy of note that in the national hymn of the Republic of Honduras, one of the stanzas lauds the work of the Convention and mentions Danton.

However, some years ago a French historian, Marius André, published a rather short essay, La fin de l’Empire Espagnol des Indes, in which he attempted to demonstrate that the independence of Spanish America was achieved by a group of conservatives who were frightened by the rebellion of Riego in Spain and who had no desire at any time to take the French Revolution as a model.

Among all the zoological species, birds are the easiest to observe and study. Their diurnal habits, the songs, and visual features make them conspicuous. These characteristics have made birds one of the bestknown animal groups even though ornithologists do not make up a large community among zoologists. For Ernst Mayr, an ornithologist who has made significant contributions that go beyond his own field, the accessibility of birds to research has allowed ornithologists to make important discoveries in several new fields of biology, ranging “from new systematics and speciation research to endocrinology and behavioral biology.”

Julio Roca and the Generation of 1880 are best characterized by their liberalism. Indeed Argentine politics ever since the fall of Juan Manuel de Rosas had adopted an increasing liberal tone. These beliefs included the encouragement of constitutionalism, federalism, freedom, and democracy. The last two points were rather vague; and democracy, especially, was interpreted in a more theoretical than practical way by the aristocracy that remained in charge of political, economic, and social affairs. However, efforts to stress the immigration of workers and capital from Europe, a relatively free trade policy, and public education for all were more clear and determined. On most of these points, the leaders of the nation seemed to agree. But on another point, that of the role of the Roman Catholic Church in Argentine life, there was sharp disagreement. At no time was this more evident than during Roca's first administration, 1880-1886.

Spaniards introduced into the New World a custom called godparenthood, compadrazgo, which had both formal and informal connotations. The more formal, ritual ties were usually established at baptism, confirmation, or marriage ceremonies between the parents and coparents (comadres and compadres), and the godchildren (ahijados) and godparents (padrinos and madrinos). The terms comadre and compadre also connote an informal reference to adults in a relationship of mutual respect and friendship which differed from the ritual forms of godparentage. Godparental relations established formally or informally among Spaniards and Indians, as well as between the two races pervaded colonial society.

In an anonymous circa 1754 portrait (Figure 1), fray Francisco de Santa Ana stands in a flowered crown and the brown and white habit of the Carmelite first order. The image commemorates the occasion of his final vows as a mendicant friar, and he is a rare if not unique example of a monk within the genre of the so-called crowned nuns. With eyes cast down, fray Francisco appears next to a table bearing an hourglass, skull, and book, symbols of his devotion and of his meditation on his own mortality. Painted as if tacked to the wall beside him is a print of the Virgin Mary, representing the Carmelite order's fervent Marian devotion. While she seems to gaze down at her follower, fray Francisco humbly looks away.

Within a framework of overlapping jurisdictions and responsibilities, the city councils (cabildos) were one of the institutions which performed various functions to protect and further public health in the Spanish American Indies. The seventeenth century records of the cabildo in Santiago, Chile, reveal that the councilmen (capitulares) not only conformed to royal law and custom but also employed the scientific knowledge available to them as they struggled against sickness and disease. Their public-spirited endeavors did not, however, preclude the occasional intrusion of selfish motives into the council proceedings. These several characteristics are discernible in the records pertaining to the prevention and control of disease, registry and review of credentials belonging to members of the medical profession, contracts negotiated with physicians, steps to inhibit malpractice, and surveillance of the local apothecary shops and the municipal hospital.

The American republics, for the sake of their own reputation and credit—if not for other humanitarian and altruistic considerations —“ought to intervene indirectly in the internal dissensions of the continent. Such intervention might consist, at the least, in the denial of recognition to de facto governments springing from revolution against the constitutional order.” Carlos Tobar, ex-foreign minister of Ecuador and the author of these views, thus expressed his concern over the problem of political instability in early twentieth-century Latin America. Constant revolutions and civil warfare he considered the curse of the region and the principal barrier to economic and social progress. His remedy was to put the combined diplomatic weight of all American nations against revolutionary governments, believing that such intervention would remove new, unconstitutional governments from power, and that, eventually, dissatisfied political factions in Latin America would give up their customary resort to violence. This pre-Wilsonian doctrine of legitimacy—known as the Tobar Doctrine—elicited little favorable response from Latin America’s leaders, already wary of any precept which could be used as justification for foreign interference in internal matters. Because Tobar’s anti-revolutionary entreaty ran directly counter to Latin American thought, it appeared headed for oblivion, except for a desperate situation in Central America in the first years of the twentieth century.

The same year (1565) in which the territory north of the Holy Gospel Province was made a separate Province, the Central American countries were separated from the Yucatan Province and organized into a new Province, that of the Most Holy Name. Ten years later, the latter was further divided, and the province of St. George was erected including Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica. Honduras, which was made a Custody of St. George Province in 1587, was subsequently reunited with the Guatemala Province.

This article is about the relationship between the early labor movement of the Andean town of Cuzco and a local student movement that emerged during the first two decades of the twentieth century and which produced some of Peru's most distinguished indigenistas. At the turn of the century signs of “progress” and “modernity” made their appearance in the city of Cuzco and both indigenistas and labor leaders were fascinated by these vague liberal concepts. The article seeks to explore the role these two groups played in local urban society and to analyze forms of cooperation and conflicts that characterized relations between them. Indigenistas of the earlytwentieth century did not invent what frequently has been called Peru's “Indian Question,” but they pushed the issue to the forefront of regional and even national debates contending that solving this key problem could help unify the country and develop a more solid sense of national identity.

Juan, a literate black slave born and raised in the Spanish town of Cáceres, labored for at least five years during the 1560s in the Honduran gold mines of Guayape. Finally, growing tired of the arduous work of placer mining and taking advantage of his isolation, he made a bid for freedom. Upon hearing of Juan's flight, his owner, a wealthy Santiago-based merchant named Santos de Figueroa, immediately began the process of securing Juan's recovery. Eventually Juan made his way to Santo Domingo where unfortunately he was captured and Figueroa notified of his whereabouts. It remains unknown if Juan was actually returned to Santiago or if Figueroa instead preferred to sell him, a rather common occurrence in cases of runaway slaves.

ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT EVENTS of the Mexican Revolution was the Constitutional Convention that met at Querétaro from December, 1916, to February, 1917. To a Mexico that had been racked since 1910 by the forces of revolution, counterrevolution, and defection, the Constituent Congress called into session by Venustiano Carranza was the fulfillment of numerous promises that had been made in various declarations and decrees issued since the promulgation of the Plan de Guadalupe.

In latin american relations, Woodrow Wilson sought to revolutionize United States policy by supplanting the “Big Stick ”diplomacy of Theodore Roosevelt and the “Dollar Diplomacy ”of William H. Taft with a new Pan Americanism. He not only reiterated his desire to be a good neighbor in numerous speeches, particularly his famous Mobile address of October, 1913, but he even formulated a Pan American Pact to promote hemispheric unity by providing for mutual sovereign and territorial respect. His pact failed largely because of the nationalistic opposition of Chile, and his grand design, though cropping up later in the League of Nations idea, ultimately went the way of all Utopian dreams. Then, since Wilson turned his attention to European and domestic affairs, it remained for his three successive secretaries of state, William Jennings Bryan, Robert Lansing, and Bainbridge Colby, to face the realities of Latin American relations and to apply their own policies in dealing with the immediate problems, especially of the smaller republics. Though each man predicated his policies upon Wilson’s promises of friendship as far as possible, and referred critical problems to the president, each generally left the imprint of his own beliefs and personality on hemispheric relations.

Bryan was sympathetic with the president’s goal of the brotherhood of nations, but he conceived his own plan for resolving international conflicts by proposing that all nations sign bilateral arbitration treaties and then submit their differences for at least a year’s consideration to an international arbitral board. He believed that if nations could be deterred from a hasty resort to arms, they would either “cool off ”while awaiting the decision or have their problem solved. But, Bryan, like Wilson, was not to achieve his larger objective because of nationalistic opposition, and he had to do what he could as a “Good Samaritan ”to help all nations become, like the United States, constitutionally sound republics.

Between 1802 and 1849, cholera and influenza pandemics killed hundreds of thousands from Shanghai to Seville to New York, but these diseases did not dip below the South American portion of the equator. As a result, Brazil gained a reputation of good health, an opinion confirmed by European travelers and some provincial authorities. This rosy reputation wilted in 1849 when a yellow fever epidemic devastated several seaports, including the imperial capital of Rio de Janeiro. Following this outbreak, waves of epidemics swept the nation with unfamiliar and terrifying virulence. Brazilians were struck again and again by cholera, smallpox, yellow fever, and bubonic plague until the early 1900s.