The re-election of Gerardo Machado in 1928 promised to augur the continuity of the political quiescence that had characterized the President's first administration (1925-1928). By 1927, the Cuban chief executive had forged a coalition among the national political sectors, binding the Liberal, Conservative, and Popular parties to his candidacy for re-election. Through the appropriate application of patronage and coercion, the President had imposed a political consensus dissolving partisan autonomy, traditionally the source of anti-re-electionist violence. Cooperativismo, as the arrangement became known, conferred on parties outside the circumference of power the prerogatives, perquisites, and government posts inherent in the past only during national incumbency.

On December 1, 1920, General Álvaro Obregón of Sonora became President of Mexico. During the previous May, his supporters had staged a popular coup d'etat which paved the way for his constitutional election. Mexico was then in the throes of revolutionary ferment, and the instability which had accompanied Obregón's ascendancy to Executive Office also threatened to attend his demise. Obregón thus sought to achieve political and social reforms which would strengthen his regime and allow for a peaceful Presidential succession in 1924. As the major institution of coercion during a time of revolutionary violence, the Army had emerged as the most important political institution in Mexico. Although part of a broader political effort which included labor, agrarian and administrative reforms, Obregón's military reconstruction can be viewed as the important keystone in his attempt to consolidate control of Mexico. Obregón’s military reforms sought to insure, first, Army loyalty to the office of President, and, second, military effectiveness when the Army would be called upon to defend the Federal Government. His reforms grew out of the Agua Prieta movement of May 1920, and continued throughout his own administration. As President, Obregón gave intensive attention to military affairs and his military reforms were the most significant achievement of his broadly based effort to consolidate the Mexican Revolution.

On Christmas Day, 1829, in a room in the National Palace in Mexico City, Joel Roberts Poinsett received official Mexican acknowledgement of his resignation as the United States minister to Mexico. Two days earlier, Poinsett had requested his passport, and this meeting was merely a diplomatic formality. Across the table from Poinsett were Lucas Alamán, Pedro Vélez, and Luis Quintanar, representing General Anastasio Bustamante, who on December 23 had forcefully ousted Vincente Guerrero from the Mexican presidency. Alamán, Vélez, and Quintanar were serving as an interim executive body until Bustamante's impending entry into the capital. The gathering was a cordial one, at which time Poinsett and Alamán in particular expressed admiration for one another. Such had not been the case in their previous dealings.

Perhaps no event affected the lives of so many people and the history of so many nations as the French Revolution and subsequent roles played by Napoleon Bonapart. There was the Louisiana Purchase and the preliminaries to the War of 1812 in North America. In the Caribbean the Haitian independence movement which was precipitated by events in France set off a chain of events of farreaching consequence. For Spanish America the Napoleonic invasion and occupation of Spain had a catalytic affect for the independence-minded patriots who declared themselves independent “in the name of Spanish Prince Ferdinand.” The invasion of Portugal and the flight of the Court to Brazil set that country reeling on its course toward nationhood. This study begins with the earliest actions in the French colony of Saint Dominigue after the outbreak of the French Revolution.

Upon the plantations themselves the laborers are not so badly treated, for there they are the property of their owners, and men treat their own property well, especially when it is of considerable value. But they are brought from a thoroughly healthy climate, where disease is almost unknown, to a feverstricken region. Within twelve months their numbers will probably be reduced to one-third, and at the expiration of the three years a woefully diminished number will return to their lovely homes in the Western Pacific.

In recent years much attention has focused on the labor migration of Pacific Islanders, and particularly Melanesians, during the second half of the nineteenth century for work on the export plantations of Fiji, Samoa, New Guinea, and Queensland. A smaller number, but a quantity nevertheless significant for the populations from which they came, went to labor in Latin America. In 1862-63, for example, vessels from Peru kidnapped perhaps 3,600 persons from the smaller islands of the eastern Pacific and ventured as far west as the Gilbert Islands, where they ensnared three hundred or more unsuspecting individuals. A larger migration from the Gilberts occurred almost thirty years later, when in 1890-92 some twelve hundred individuals signed up to work on the coffee plantations (fincas) of the Pacific piedmont (boca costa) of southern Mexico and Guatemala; this constituted almost fifteen percent of the Gilbertese who migrated for offisland labor after the middle of the century. Less than 800 of the 1890s cohort actually arrived, and perhaps a quarter to a third of these died in the first year, so that their impact on an industry which annually mobilized tens of thousands of local Indians was limited. Nevertheless, for the Guatemalan coffee elites the experience confirmed what they had long suspected, that there would be no solution to their labor problems outside of the republic itself. For the Gilbertese this was by far the largest instance of labor recruitment of the decade, a period of economic hardship and political changes in the archipelago.

In the Latin American context there are few regions which defy the commonly accepted idea of dependent development and the late start of the process of industrial growth following the great crisis of 1929. Among these few, Northeastern Mexico, with its industrial capital Monterrey, appears to offer the best example of a large industrial spurt occurring towards the end of the nineteenth century. During the two decades from 1890 to 1910 important industrial complexes, basically metallurgic and siderurgic factories, began to operate in this region, creating an impressive network of related activities and making possible considerable growth in the local demand for both consumption goods and semi-manufactured items. The statistics on industrial production reveal the importance of the process: during the years 1897,1898 and 1899 the metallurgic sector in Nuevo León produced goods worth 50,847,178 pesos. This represented 23.5% of total Mexican production, making it the most important state in the nation. By 1902, Nuevo León was also in first place as far as total industrial production was concerned, accounting for 13.5% of the national production.

One of the key policies guiding the regime of General Porfirio Díaz during its rule over an underdeveloped Mexico between 1877 and 1911 was to invite foreign participation in Mexico’s economic activities. At that very moment in history a rapidly industrializing Germany was anxious to find new economic opportunities in less advanced nations. German private entrepreneurs in Mexico could easily exploit both of these trends. A study of their fortunes suggests that commercial and industrial representatives of an economically advanced nation can earn the respect and personal friendship of citizens of a less developed country. This relationship was readily manifested because the Mexicans did not fear or resent German entrepreneurs since the German influence was large and tactful enough to be useful but small enough not to constitute a menace. There was no great possibility of a large influx of Germans into Mexico, because, by contrast to the opportunities enjoyed by German businessmen, Mexico’s latifundia system continued to limit German participation in Mexican agriculture to a few plantation owners. German professional people and workers avoided Mexico because of the depressed conditions that faced members of their calling there. Cautious German investors, afraid that Mexico’s political and economic stability might not last, limited themselves to extending occasional loans to the Mexican Government or to investments in Mexican private enterprises in conjunction with other foreigners, especially Americans.

The student of history who is concerned with the historical past of the American Indian and who is also a reader of general American historical works is faced with a provocative problem which apparently does not seriously bother other members of the historical profession. That is, he is aware of the question of defining what is meant by the concepts of “United States history “and “American history.” Most historically minded people would solve the problem very simply: American history is the story of America’s past (meaning by “American “the United States of America only) or, Unįted States history is the story of the development of the United States as a nation and as a region.

It is necessary to study the political status of Latin American merchants because we have so long heard that they were largely without franchise during the colonial period. We have been told that the creoles were the landowners, that the peninsulares were the merchants, and that the creoles generally controlled the cabildos. Though several writers have been investigating the merchants for some time now there are still historians who do not recognize the presence of a dynamic, influential group of creole merchants at the end of the colonial period. The Conceptión merchants (those who maintained residence in the town of Concepción) have been singled out for case study, but I am fully convinced that the patterns we see among them will apply also for the Santiago and far-northern merchants. By 1790 the town of Concepción was the capital of Chile's southern intendency, it was as it would demonstrate time and again in later years the capital of the south; and the south was the keystone of early nineteenth-century Chilean political life.

It is a notable fact that Nuño Beltrán de Guzman, whom many regard as second only in importance to Hernán Cortés in the early history of New Spain, should have escaped for so long the detailed attention of historians. Because of this neglect several false notions have gained currency. For instance, it has been customarily assumed that a Nuño de Guzmán, encomendero of Puerto Plata, Española, was the man who became governor of Panuco, president of the First Audiencia of New Spain, and governor of New Galicia; and wide acceptance has been given to the belief that the man who held these important positions in New Spain died a lonely, despised man in the royal prison of Torrejón de Velasco. Recent investigations by the author in the Spanish archives of Sevilla, Madrid, Guadalajara, and Simancas strongly suggest that the Nuño de Guzmán of Puerto Plata was not the same as the more famous Nuño Beltrán de Guzmán of Guadalajara, Spain, who held three important positions in sixteenth-century New Spain. This research has also lent new insights into the life of Nuño de Guzmán of Guadalajara before and after his career in the Indies.

While historians have shown unusual agreement in their critical assessment of the results of Philander Knox's Central American policy, they have frequently disagreed on the reasons for this failure, as well as on the goals of the Secretary of State. An examination of one of Knox's loan projects — the Guatemalan refunding scheme — throws light on these two issues. The record of this futile four-year attempt to reorganize the country's financial structure reveals a State Department approach relying eventually on the use of coercive diplomatic methods. These techniques were resourceful, but ineffectual, and contributed to an unproductive and acrimonious diversion with the British Foreign Office. The negotiations suggest that the Secretary and other Department officers sought goals broader in nature than national economic or strategic interest. The extent of their objectives may have contributed to the unsatisfactory outcome of the case.

Magellan’s abortive attempts to introduce baptism among the natives of the island of Cebu during the month of April of 1521 and the more successful efforts of the Spanish missionaries to preach the Gospel following the arrival of the Legazpi-Urdaneta expedition at Cebu on February 13, 1565 occurred during the initial and the culminating chapters respectively of the “spiritual conquest” of those native peoples of America and the Far East who were to enter the orbit of Spanish culture. During April of 1521, as Magellan was transforming himself into a lay missionary, Hernán Cortés was making the final preparations for the siege of Tenochtitlán. Its successful issue on August 13, 1521 laid the foundation not only of the Spanish Empire in the New World, but also it provided the Spaniards with the base of operations from which eventually they could extend their power to the Philippines. It was Cortés’ conquest of the Aztec Confederation in 1521 which enabled the Catholic missionaries of Spain to undertake one of the most extensive expansions in the history of the Christian Church. In 1565 the Spanish Church for its Philippine enterprise was able to draw upon a vast storehouse of missionary experience acquired in both North and South America. Magellan’s apostolic labors, ill-starred and brief though they were, exemplify many of the permanent features of the Spanish missionary enterprise. The Magellan episode also illustrates how his successors after 1565 did in fact profit from the Circumnavigator’s errors of judgment and tactics.

The majority of leaders who participated in the 1910 Mexican Revolution agreed that educational reform was essential if the laboring classes were to be assimilated into Mexican society. Despite these deepfelt concerns, in the arena of social reform, education during the years 1910-1920 played a tertiary role behind agrarian and labor reform, issues which received the greatest national attention. Thus, at the national level education failed to attract serious reform until the 1920s. There were, however, other reasons that explain the lack of support for educational change. The political instability that existed due to revolutionary internecine warfare, the shortage of revenues, and the lack of a national education policy further obstructed an educational reform movement. The shortcomings in governmental direction were compounded even more because in 1914 the central government adopted an educational policy of decentralization that gave the states control over education. This experiment in decentralization, lasting from 1914 to 1920, was a fiasco and left little doubt that the national government should assume control over education.

The Lautaro lodges of revolutionary South America had their roots in Spain and England where creole patriots dreamed and plotted the overthrow of Spanish colonial power. The name was that of an Indian chief of the Araucanians of Chile, immortalized by the poet, Alonzo de Ercilla y Zúñiga. There is general agreement among Latin American historians that the Lautaro lodges played a significant role in the struggle for independence. Still debated is whether or not they were masonic or merely resembled the Freemasons in organization and principles.

It’s easier to make a revolution, than it is to make a revolution work,” Fidel Castro once told a packed audience listening to him discuss the progress of Cuba. His remark, made with characteristic candor, expressed the challenge that confronts all rebels who manage to achieve power. For the Anti-reelectionists in Mexico, the revolution had been made in the victory over federal troops at Ciudad Juárez in May, 1911. It then fell to Francisco Madero to direct the program that would make it work. He intended to justify the violent overthrow of the porfirian dictatorship by invigorating Mexican politics as a means to restore democratic government and to establish the mechanism for responsive reform of the economy and society. The critical element in his proposal was the redemption of the authority of the state governors, to whom he delegated the responsibility and the opportunity to reconstruct Mexico. This policy represented no casual abdication of authority, but a carefully devised scheme of decentralization. Madero’s opposition to highly-centralized government resulted from his birthright as a son of remote Coahuila, the native state of Mexico federalism, his political convictions, including an abiding faith in the confederated government posited in the 1857 Constitution, and his philosophic precepts, based on the ideals of Karl Christian Friedrich Krause and a reaction to the governmental consolidation rationalized by Comtean Positivism (promoted in Mexico by the Positivists, the Científicos, and the dictator).

Fray Lorenzo de Bienvenida was among the first and most noted of the founders of the Christian missions of Yucatan, a region whose conversion was almost exclusively entrusted to the Franciscan Order. The work of the friars has been fairly well studied, not only on the basis of the data supplied by the old chronicles, but also by modern research in the documentary sources preserved in the archives of America and Spain. This research has resulted in the publication of many documents and historical studies which contain important information on the Franciscan missions of Yucatan. Analysis of the information offered in these various documents and studies—although it is sometimes conflicting—enables us to reconstruct an acceptable account of the obscure period which coincides with the first decades of Franciscan activity in Yucatan.

In the mid-sixteenth century the peninsula of Yucatán, with the remnants of its ancient Maya glories sleeping in the bush, had little to attract corsairs or contraband traders. When, after nearly twenty years of struggle, the Spaniards finally overcame the resistance of the stubborn Maya in the 1540’s, French intruders had already made many profitable voyages to the Antilles and extended their activities to the coast of Tierra Firme. More than another decade was to pass before they Cast a speculative eye on the possibilities of this later acquisition of the Spanish Crown.