In the era of the Mexican Revolution, research opportunities on the sub-national level are numerous and varied, although not completely untested. In recent monographs and dissertations, historians have examined the revolution in a few states, leading regional figures, the workings of national reform commissions in selected localities and hinted at the conflict of provincial interests that provoked violence in the name of opposition to national programs. Each of these themes needs further, more systematic evaluation. Still wanting are studies of local demographic changes and concomitant political and economic adjustments accompanying the revolution, of the appropriation of state and local administration, and of the local issues that confused reform programs such as land reapportionment and educational missions. Professor James W. Wilkie has made important national studies of efforts to implement revolutionary programs and to evaluate statistically the church-state question. Both of these themes should be assayed through case studies of states or somewhat larger regions. But rather than cataloging research possibilities, this paper concentrates on one sub-national topic: the state governors.

Heir to Greek and Roman culture, the revelations of Holy Scripture and the great commentaries upon it written by Saint Augustine, Saint Thomas Aquinas, John Duns Scotus, and lesser theologians and philosophers of the Middle Ages, the cultured European of the fifteenth century was content that the corpus of his knowledge was complete, and that within it was all that was necessary for a full understanding of the universe. Nevertheless, this satisfaction was greatly upset by the explorations of Christopher Columbus and his followers during the final decade of the century. The European discovery of extensive lands populated with theretofore unknown peoples, with a flora and fauna totally distinct from that of Europe, was, in all senses, a New World. In that this New World had not been incorporated into the extensive and well-defined knowledge of Western civilization, it was, therefore, open to any and all concepts conceivable to the imagination; everything was possible, even the very improbable.

To the dismay of today's social progressives, the Argentine Catholic church addresses the moral situation of its people but also shies away from specific political positions or other hint of secular involvement. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the church set out to secure its place in national leadership by strengthening religious institutions and withdrawing clergy from politics. The church struggled to overcome a heritage of organizational weakness in order to promote evangelization, that is, to extend its spiritual influence within Argentina. The bishop of the central city of Córdoba, Franciscan Friar Zenón Bustos y Ferreyra (1905-1925), reinforced pastoral care, catechesis, and education. After 1912, as politics became more heated, Bustos insisted that priests abstain from partisan activities and dedicate themselves to ministry. The church casts itself in the role of national guardian, not of the government, but of the faith and morals of the people.

Arguably the line “Broken Spears” is the most famous in Nahuatl. Any undergraduate student who has taken a course in Latin American history, literature, or anthropology has in all likelihood come across the line. It, of course, comes from the title of Miguel Leon-Portilla's book of the same name. The line appears in a description of Tlatelolco following the destruction of the city by the Spanish in the conquest of Mexico:

Broken spears lie in the roads
We have torn our hair in our grief
The houses are roofless now, and their walls
Are red with blood.

This evocative image has dominated much of the imagination of two generations of college students.

Gold and silver production in Honduras probably never exceeded 5% of that produced in Spanish America at any one time during the colonial period, but it was of considerable importance to the local economy and employed a significant proportion of the total workforce. In Spanish America as a whole the types of labour that were employed in mining were extremely varied. During the early Conquest period Indian slaves were used to pan gold in the Antilles, and later Mexican silver mining relied on the employment of free labour supplemented by that of Indian and Negro slaves. In Colombia the repartimiento provided Indians for mining up to 1729, by which time the Indian population and gold production had declined, but in Peru the mita continued to supply labour for the mines until its abolition in 1812, although by that time the mines had become heavily dependent on free labour. The dominant type of labour employed in mining in any one area at any one time appears to have been strongly influenced by the availability of Indian labour, which was largely determined by the size of the Indian population and the number of competing demands for labour, and by the profitability of mining, which determined the ability of miners to overcome shortages of labour. These influences were very apparent in the mining industry in Honduras, where during the colonial period many different types of labour were employed: Indian slaves, Indians working in the service of encomenderos, Negro slaves, Spanish immigrant workers, Indians working under the repartimiento and free labourers.

After the Failure of the Atondo-Kino attempt (1683–1685) to found permanent Christian missions among the Indians of the rock-ribbed peninsula called Lower California, the project lapsed for over a decade. Then a missionary who was to achieve historical fame, Juan María Salvatierra, was sent as official Visitor to the north Sonoran establishments where Eusebio Francisco Kino was working successfully and pushing the frontier of New Spain across the international boundary north to what is now Tucson in Arizona. As Kino and Salvatierra jogged on horseback over mission trails during the early months of 1691, the former was able to impart to Salvatierra a spark of his enthusiasm for the conversion of the Indians of Lower California. The spark fell amidst ready tinder which took fire. From that time on an unquenchable desire to convert the Indians of California took hold of Salvatierra. Though other duties intervened (Salvatierra was made rector at Guadalajara, then master of novices at Tepotzotlán), he never gave up the idea of founding permanent missions in the cactus-ridden peninsula. For years the holy man prodded viceroys in Mexico and Jesuit generals in Rome. Finally, through a fortunate combination of circumstances both in New Spain and in Rome, secular and ecclesiastical authorities became willing to allow the Black Robe to carry out his idea provided there would be no burden put upon the royal fisc and provided he would take full charge of the soldiers and seamen necessary to implement the founding of a permanent establishment on the peninsula. The happy turn of events came in 1696. Salvatierra with Kino and Juan de Ugarte as treasurer would beg money to finance the expedition, Kino would cross the gulf with Salvatierra, and the first permanent mission in California would be founded. The last minute Kino was detained and Francisco María Picólo, Tarahumar missionary, was designated. But the ardent Salvatierra could not wait. In a small boat with sixteen men, three of them Christian Indians, the missionary put off from the port of Yaqui on October 10, 1697. After dangers and adventures the party set foot on California soil five days later.

The Primary purpose for the creation of the Pan American Federation of Labor was to foster the development of trade-unionism in Latin America. But from its inception at Laredo in 1918 until 1927, when the fifth and last congress was held, autonomous trade-unionism became a secondary endeavor. Uppermost for Samuel Gompers and his associates in the AFL was the effort to deal with problems largely political in character.

My dear friend, Father Carrocera, to whom the history of Venezuela and especially the history of the Franciscan Order in that country owes so much, had the happy idea of uniting in one article all that is known up to now, thanks in great part to the investigations of Father Carrocera himself, concerning the history of San Francisco in Caracas which, during almost three centuries as the center of the Franciscan Province of the Holy Cross of Hispaniola and Caracas, powerfully influenced the spiritual and cultural life of Venezuela. The church and friary of San Francisco not only are the best colonial monuments in Caracas but they are also witnesses of the most notable happenings and events of the republican period. In San Francisco of Caracas Bolivar received on October 14, 1814, the title of Liberator and in this church his remains were displayed in 1842 after they had been returned from San Pedro Alejandrino. The convent served until very recent times as the home of the University of Venezuela and at this moment it is the distinguished Palace of the Academies.

The evangelization of the Chilean natives, which was always a motive of special interest to the kings of Spain, received new impetus in the last years of the Austrian dynasty. By the royal decree of May 11, 1697, Charles II ordained the formation of a council for the missions of Chile and the establishment of a college in that country to educate the sons of the caciques of Arauco. Don Tomás Marín de Poveda, the governor, had the responsibility of putting into execution the commands of the monarch. He established the council and from its meetings resulted the foundation in Chilian of a college for natives.

It is often assumed that the most creative aspect of Latin American thought, since independence, has been revolutionary. To a considerable degree this is true, as this author has himself pointed out in previous writings. But Latin America has also felt the impact of a different stream of creative thought, Spanish in origin to a considerable degree, though not completely so—the stream of Hispanic and Christian traditionalism. But this traditionalism is a mixed current. Thus, Pablo González Casanova of Mexico has shown that while reactionary forces often opposed it, “modern” Christian thought in Spain and New Spain was absorbing the new philosophy and science of the eighteenth century. Alberto Caturelli and Enrique Zuleta Álvarez. of Argentina, in somewhat different ways, have pointed out a mixture of Christian traditionalism with liberal streams of thought in that country. Moisés González Navarro of Mexico found in the historian-statesman, Lucas Alamán, a mixture of Christian traditionalism and economic liberalism. Carlos Valderrama Andrade of Colombia has found that traditionalists such as Miguel Antonio Caro (1843-1909), and his father before him, mixed with the conservative elements of traditionalist thought progressive elements not unlike those of modern Christian democracy.

In the course of the residencia of the Second Audiencia of Mexico, Licenciado Vasco de Quiroga was charged with having overburdened the Indians of Mexico City with the work of constructing his hospital-town of Santa Fe near the city. The official charge (cargo XXVI), as formulated by Francisco de Loaysa, judge of residencia, has been published twice, together with some of the questions that Quiroga drew up for his witnesses in answer to the charge, the answers of the witnesses, and the final decision of the judge, which absolved Quiroga of any guilt in the matter. But the source of the charge, as well as Quiroga’s personal reply to it, have remained unpublished.

Although, at the beginning of the year 1911, there was practically no aviation activity in Mexico, the development was so fast that by 1913 the airplane had demonstrated its usefulness in war and had even been used to bomb naval vessels. To those who would see, the events taking place in and over Mexico clearly foreshadowed the future importance of this weapon. While flying was not new in 1911, for many generations had worked on the problem, still it was only a couple of years before that Bleriot’s flight across the English Channel had convinced the world that flying was indeed a reality.

Economic progress of the late nineteenth century afforded the upper class of Colombian society the opportunities to pursue new business goals and to improve its standard of living. Exports of coffee, steam navigation on the Magdalena River, the fitful building of railways, growth of urban populations, and the heightened tempo of foreign and domestic commerce all converged to the economic and social benefit of Colombia's landed and educated elite. Economic progress supported not only new elite professions in commerce and engineering but also traditional pursuits in medicine, law, and notably literature. In fact, nineteenth century Colombia witnessed a proliferation of cultural affectation which, because it was so divorced from reality, may be described as “the genteel tradition.”