For three centuries the Church in colonial Spanish America was the primary cultural institution affecting the lives of all Spain's overseas subjects. Education, charity, art, architecture, all the humane arts had been the legacy of the Church as well as its greatest gift to the New World, the Christianization of the Indians. In all these pursuits the Church was ably and dutifully supported by the Crown. Concurrently, clerics of all ranks and occupations were tied closely to the civil authority by the Royal Patronage.

The achievements of the orders of the Church were out of proportion to their numbers. Franciscans, Dominicans, Mercedarians, then Jesuits and others all left their mark on Spanish America and often expanded the empire through missionary activities. Paraguay, an isolated province in the Río de la Plata, was a striking example of the successful toil of various orders. However, in 1767 by command of the regalist Carlos III, the Jesuits were expelled from this region (and the entire empire) and at the turn of the century there remained but three orders in the province, Franciscans, Dominicans, and Mercedarians. Of the three the Franciscans were the most important in the colonial era. Ever since the 1530's, this order was concerned with the conversion and welfare of the Indians. Reductions of the Guaraní were established by the Franciscans long before those of the better known Jesuits. Among the great figures of the Franciscan first century in Paraguay were Fray Martín Ignacio de Loyola and especially fray Luis de Bolaños, the “Apostle of Paraguay.”

Historians generally see their tasks broken into three main stages: as comprehensive as possible collection of relevant documentation, followed by critical and evaluative appraisal of it, and finally, a synthesis based on verified data. Contrary to a considerable body of hostile secondary discussion, critical examination of Juan de Torquemada’s Monarquía Indiana indicates a surprisingly high level of workmanship in at least the first two phases. Although what he strove for in synthesis—an accurate record that would place native Mexican cultures on a par with ancient, classical, and for him modern societies—is an early and interesting example of a comparative approach, the classical and Biblical citations he employed for such comparisons are now largely of curiosity value, except as clues to his own ambience and personal outlook.

Bibliographies for the study of Brazilian history are either too brief, such as those in the appendices of general textbooks, or too long, such as the Manual Bibliográfico de Estudos Brasileiros. The present one aims to strike a happy medium and, by doing so, to provide a practical guide for the increasing number of students and of the general public in the United States who have an interest in learning more about the Brazilian past.

The selection of books for this bibliography has not been entirely arbitrary. Because it is intended primarily for North Americans, I chose liberally of the material available in English. Conversely, I was more exclusive in selecting works in other languages. Of the voluminous literature available in Portuguese, I sought to point out only the outstanding works—whether for quality of style, depth of research, originality, or at times, because they were the only examples of their kind in neglected aspects of Brazilian history. A few books of exceptional merit or interest in French and Spanish also were added. Doubtless I have included here some works which others may consider unworthy, to the exclusion of some they may consider indispensable. Still, I believe this bibliography will fulfill its primary purpose of indicating the basic material available to the student of Brazilian history.

During the period of the French intervention in Mexico (1862-1867), the United States Secretary of State, William H. Seward, pursued a policy which historians have aptly termed “ cautious moderation ” and “ masterly inactivity.” Caught between the fear of French recognition of the Confederacy, or even a French-Confederate alliance, and outright war with France, Seward steered a middle course. The French government was informed that the United States disapproved of intervention in Mexico and that a monarchy established by external force held no promise of permanency. But this was done in such a way as to avoid the active antagonism of France toward a Union plagued by civil war. Although at no time was the Monroe doctrine invoked prior to 1865, these mild but consistent protests paved the way for a firmer policy toward France.

1. Relación de las cosas de Yucatán. MS copy of part of Landa’s original manuscript discovered in Academia de la Historia, Madrid, by C. E. Brasseur de Bourbourg and first published by him: Relation des choses de Yucatan de Diego de Landa (Coll. Doc. Lang. Indig.… de l’Am. Anc., vol. 3). Paris, 1864. (Incomplete.)

Second edition: Juan de Dios de la Rada y Delgado, Manuscrito de Diego de Landa tomada directamente del único ejemplar que se conoce y se conserva en la Academia de la Historia (Appendix to Spanish translation of Léon de Rosny’s Essai sur le déchiffrement de l’écriture hiératique Maya, Paris, 1876). Madrid, 1884. (First complete edition except for maps.)

As trade between Spain and her American colonies declined in the seventeenth century, interprovincial commerce increased. This change within the Spanish Empire and some of its multiple implications have only recently been recognized and given scholarly attention. Consequently, little information is available on the part colonial municipal governments played in the imperial economic realignment. A case in point is the role of the Santiago cabildo in regard to the export trade which tied Chile's Central Valley, the region administered by that city council, to the Peruvian market economy. Although various studies provide supportive data on this subject, a close scrutiny of the council minutes, focused on policies that regulated outbound commerce and the production from which it flowed, can more clearly delineate the extent of creole initiative and cabildo participation in policy formulation and enforcement. A correlative theme pursued through this appraisal of the records concerns the socio-economic attitudes of the upper levels of society in the last century of Hapsburg rule.

Well protected by fortifications of their famed cuadrilátero, Paraguayan soldiers surely exclaimed in wonder as they looked toward Brazilian lines on June 24, 1867. There, rising slowly in a hazy wintry sky, was a captive balloon held by two strong ascension ropes. An observer with a good spyglass could have seen in the basket two men who gazed intently at the Paraguayan positions. The aeronauts were James Allen of Rhode Island and Sergeant Major Roberto Adolfo Chodasiewicz, a Polish military engineer and cartographer. This first ascension by the smaller of two balloons proved that the brothers James and Ezra Allen, with the aid of Chodasiewicz, could succeed where a Frenchman, P. L. D. Doyen, had failed on December 14, 1866.

In the autumn of 1509 the explorer Alonso de Ojeda landed on the northern coast of South America, near where is today the city of Cartagena, and claimed the region in the name of Spain. As some of the natives appeared inclined to question the acquisitive proclivities of the Crown, Ojeda had read to them the principal articles of the Christian faith, hoping to demonstrate the benign nature of his invasion. Apparently feeling that his obligation to the Church was not yet fulfilled, he then informed the local residents “ especially of the supreme jurisdiction of the pope ” and required that they embrace the Catholic religion. Ojeda barely escaped with his life.

Let me introduce to you, or rather reintroduce, the two great characters, the dramatis personae about whose dreams and achievements I invite you to a brief reflection.

The action begins in July 1768. The Majorcan Father Serra had spent already twenty years working as a missionary in various places on the Mexican mainland. Of all of his accomplishments, the best known were his achievements in the Sierra Gorda of Querétaro where, accompanied by his former student and always active assistant Francisco Palou, he had established five missions. Serra certainly deserved the reputation he had of being not only a sincere and religious friar but also a distinguished theologian, indeed a scholar, and besides a man who knew how to carry out what he considered ought to be done. Now at the age of fifty five, he had a new and difficult task as president of the California missions, replacing the just-expelled Jesuits. There, at the old mission headquarters of Loreto, he was learning about the demographic collapse of the natives and the general situation of the peninsula. Before him lay the task of reorganizing those missions whose future appeared to him so uncertain.

In 1565, when Spain was still on the ascending arc of its colonial ventures, the first permanent settlement in the Philippines was made. The subsequent decades witnessed, not only a military conquest by Spanish conquistadores, but a spiritual conquest as well. The efforts of Salcedo, Legazpi and the others were, so to speak, the first stage, ushering in the missionaries, “… the real conquerors, who without any other arms than their virtues, gained over the good will of the islanders … and gave the king two millions more of submissive and Christian subjects.”

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.”

One of the most important aspects of the recent mass migrations of Latin Americans into previously remote regions of the hemisphere is the impact these have had on areas cut by international boundaries. With the exception of the United States-Mexico border, however, historical examination of the process is still in its infancy. And few observers have developed a satisfactory theoretical basis explaining an admittedly complex process.

One exception was Cuban historian Jorge Mañach, who spoke of “balanced” and “unbalanced” frontiers, largely in the context of the United States-Mexican boundary. He believed that power distribution between nations determined the degree to which their frontier interrelationships were equal or unequal. In Mañach's view, when a politically or economically weaker nation shares a boundary with one that is stronger, overall communication is sacrificed and the stronger power inevitably “spills over” into the neighboring region, economically and culturally.