Colonial New Orleans was a community, like so many others in Latin America, in which the upper sectors desired to maintain order and “toda tranquilidad,” preferably by way of legislation and judicial compromise but through force and authoritarian measures if necessary. Challenges to this tranquility came from those groups considered marginal and thus often subordinated, oppressed, and made generally unhappy with the status quo, among them workers, women, soldiers, slaves, and free blacks (libres). Free black women— the focus of this paper—drew upon multiple experiences as members of several of these subjugated groups: as women, as nonwhites, sometimes as former slaves, and usually as workers, forced by poverty to support their families with earnings devalued because they were gained doing “women's work.” But they did not suffer silently. Condemning the patriarchal order, racist, sexist, authoritarian society in which they operated, libre women vigorously attacked it both verbally and physically, employing such elite-defined legal and illegal methods as petitions, judicial procedures, slander, insults, arson, and assault and battery.

In 1479 (the year 13-Reed), some men from the towns of Chalco-Amaquemecan and Tlamanalco went for the first time to sing in Mexico-Tenochtitlan: the Mexica (Aztecs) held hegemony in the area, including Chalco. The song they sang was a war song called the “Song of the Woman Warrior.” They played it for the tlatoani, or ruler, Lord Axayacatl (ca 1469-1481), performing it in the patio outside his house of women. Unfortunately, the performance got off to a rather slow start. A man from the area of Tlamanalco in Chalco, one who had never played the drums before or directed a song, made a very bad showing.

The pulpería, a country store and tavern, stood with the estancia as the most important socio-economic institutions of the Argentine pampa. The store served multiple social and commercial functions (both licit and illicit) and survived into the twentieth century despite virulent verbal attacks and calls for legislative restriction from the colonial era on. Some commentators lauded the pulpería as the outpost of civilization on the savage frontier and projected the pulpero or proprietor as civilization's lonely representative in a barbarian world. He supposedly embodied patriotism, culture, and free enterprise in a hostile, alien environment of anti-social, localistic, unlettered gauchos—the itinerant horsemen of the pampas. Evidence weighs heavily in the opposite direction; however, and the pulpero of fact rather than myth functioned as a contraband capitalist exploiting the landless rural masses and preying upon ranchers whose livestock provided the goods for illicit trade. Far from encouraging culture and civilization on the vast pampa, the pulpería housed excessive drinking and gambling, prostitution, and served as an arena for violent, often fatal, knifefights.

Even a brief look into the historiography on Indian marriage in New Spain will reveal how infrequently scholars have devoted themselves to this topic. On the one hand, there are texts written from the perspective of canon law, such as those by Federico Aznar Gil, Paulino Castañeda, Daisy Rípodas Ardanaz, and Guillermo Floris Margadant, but these authors address canonical development in Spain as well as Spanish America and use mainly references from councils and synods, especially pastoral sources. On the other hand, there are anthropological studies, such as those of David Robichaux, Danièle Dehouve, Pierre Ragon, and Serge Gruzinski that compare pre-Hispanic marriage to Christian marriage.

The European occupation of Mesoamerica, set in motion by Columbus' voyages now almost five centuries ago, proved both enduring and pervasive. Not content simply to trade with the indigenous peoples from distant coastal forts or entirely new towns, the Spanish conquerors of Mexico moved right into Indian cities and, increasingly over time, Indian towns, villages, and their hinterlands. The conquerors' intention behind living in such close proximity was to better extract the local peoples' services and tributes and to convert them more effectively to every aspect of Hispanic culture. From the moment of their arrival Hernando Cortés and his followers sought to introduce a new king, a new god, and a new way of life into the land they called New Spain.

After expelling their European rivals from the Amazon in the early–seventeenth century, the Portuguese set about exploiting the principal assets of the vast basin—the indigenous inhabitants. As allies, converts, and slaves the native population provided the labor and much of the social fabric of the developing colony. While a variety of canoe-borne expeditions ventured ever farther up the main river and its tributaries seeking elusive gold, harvesting forest products, and expanding the crown's domain, prosperity and power for the leaders and sponsors of those forays derived mainly from the human cargo brought downstream to missions, forts, and other settlements. As a result, crown and colonial authorities attempted to regulate and control the expeditions, and fierce competition developed among institutions and individuals involved in the process. Documents in Portuguese and Brazilian archives reveal the key role played by the Indians themselves in collaboration with the little-studied cross-cultural intermediaries, known as cunhamenas.

In June of 1930, Dr. J. M. Puig Casauranc, who held the post of Jefe del Departamento del Distrito Federal (a post then somewhat akin to mayor) received a lengthy letter from the Confederación de Sociedades Mexicanas in Los Angeles, California. The letter asked Dr. Puig if a Committee for the Supervision of Film could be constituted in Los Angeles, a committee to be made up of members of the Confederation and the Mexican consulate in Los Angeles. In their letter members of the Confederation’s steering committee displayed a clear understanding of the history of Mexico’s struggle to exert some control over the content of Hollywood films.

The first general strike in Uruguayan history, which completely paralyzed Montevideo for three days in May 1911, provides a useful vantage point from which to view the transformation of the third largest capital in South America from a sleepy “Belle Epoque” horse town into a modern, cosmopolitan city. Coming many years after general strikes in Buenos Aires, São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, the 1911 Montevideo conflict appeared to erupt virtually overnight, at a moment when the labor movement itself was in some disarray, and caught the city by surprise. Merchants closed their doors, transport ground to a halt, and theaters and cinemas remained dark as the city became strangely quiet. An estimated 50,000-60,000 workers in 37 unions left their jobs in factories, breweries, frigoríficos, stores, and newspapers. In the words of a journalist for a conservative daily paper, “every sign of activity vanished from the city as completely as if it had been stricken by a pestilence—as in truth it was.” The anarchist labor confederation, which organized the mass strike, took over control of the streets and the food supply, and vehicles were only allowed to run with its authorization, thus inverting the city's power structure, at least temporarily.

Countless judicial complaints ranging from malos tratos (domestic mistreatment) to assault to insults contain the phrase de obra y palabra (by deed and word). Mexicans of the period 1750 to 1856 understood that the two aspects of injury—verbal and physical—were equally important. While violent acts harmed the body, words attacked an individual's honor and reputation. Therefore harm was conceived of as both physical and verbal, and the connection between the two was inherent in judicial formulations and the expression itself.

Franciscan historian Antonine Tibesar’s study of the early evangelical accomplishments of the Franciscan Order in the Andes constitutes a landmark contribution to an insufficiently examined subject. Trying to detach his work from Joachimist debates, Tibesar did not deem the spirituality shared by peninsular friars to be relevant in explaining their poor early evangelical results. Although Tibesar acknowledged such shortcomings, he sustained that they were caused by an apathetic Franciscan engagement in parish work among the Indians. The inexperience of Spanish friars and the turmoil of the civil wars that ravaged the Andes in the aftermath of the conquest greatly explain this situation, he sustains. Additionally, Tibesar advances the idea that the undecided approach towards Indian conversion amongst sixteenth-century Franciscan authorities was the major cause of these first evangelical failures. Troubled by the hardships of life in Indian parishes and concerned about the lack of familiarity with parish administration among the Order’s ranks, the Franciscan establishment sent the friars contradictory orders, thus preventing them from bringing together a more coherent evangelical plan.

The Newly independent government of Mexico became concerned in 1821 about the lack of progress made by the Franciscans in preparing the California mission Indians to take their place in the new nation. The government feared that Upper California might well be lost to the encroachments of the Russians or the Americans if it were not settled by a thriving community of Mexican citizens able to exploit its great natural resources. Influenced by the new egalitarian and humanitarian concepts of the day, the authorities felt that the mission Indians were more like serfs than citizens. Unimpressed by the arguments of the experienced Franciscan Fathers that the Indians would either revert to their wild life in the hills or be enslaved by the white settlers if they were prematurely released from the missions, the government decided to instigate a series of experiments, reminiscent of those made in the days of Father Bartolomé de las Casas, to see what actually would happen. A program was begun involving extensive research in the culture and civilization of the California Indians.

On April 8,1626, a violent confrontation took place between the president and one of the oidores of the audiencia of Santo Domingo. According to a letter from oidor Alonso de Cereceda, President Diego de Acuña had called three of the magistrates and the fiscal of the audiencia to his residence in order to question them in private about their response to a message from Acuña's wife, doña Ana de Acuña, instructing them to release a prisoner. When Cereceda suggested that doña Ana's involvement in official business was undermining the tribunal's authority, Acuña flew into a rage and physically assaulted the oidor, punching him in the body and face and knocking his chair to the ground. After the other two oidores and the fiscal pulled the two men apart, Acuña called some of the presidio soldiers into the chamber to guard the letrado officials with drawn swords. Cereceda claimed that while these other witnesses were present, Acuña “attacked me two or three more times, throwing punches at me and putting his hand to my beard for greater injury.” He was then escorted home by the sargento mayor of the presidio, while the other officials remained to calm the president. Following this altercation, Cereceda stopped attending the court's audiencia publica and acuerdo sessions in person, sending his votes with the audiencia scribes instead, until Acuña finally had him placed under arrest.

In the spring of 1925, Santa Anita's Festival of Flowers seemed to follow its tranquil trend of previous years. The large displays of flowers, the selection of indias bonitas (as the contestants of beauty pageants organized in an attempt to stimulate indigenism were known) and the boat-rides on the Viga Canal, all communicated what residents of neighboring Mexico City had come to expect of the small pueblo in the Federal District since the Porfiriato: the respite of a peaceful pastoral, the link to a colorful past, and the promise that mexicanidad was alive and well in the campo. Unfortunately, wrote Manuel Rámirez Cárdenas of El Globo, “the modern newspaper,” the next day, this idyllic tradition was rudely interrupted by a group of audacious, scantily clad women. The culprits were actresses of Mexico City's Lirico theater, who walked around Santa Anita's streets in “picaresque clothing”—stage outfits that left little to the imagination, particularly in broad daylight—and upset visitors and campesinos alike. According to Cardenas, abuelitas and mamas were shocked by the display, averting their eyes from the female spectacle in fear of “elpecado mortal.” Thankfully, for the mothers and grandmothers in the audience, the festival continued in predictable fashion after the initial uproar. Organizers continued with the traditional dances, and judges selected an india bonita from a pool of young, decente mestizo girls to represent the pueblo and the festival.

The 1920s saw the emergence of a distinctive, new urban culture in the city of Buenos Aires. Although this culture did not extend to the borders of the nation, it was a national culture in the sense that it continually manufactured and reproduced images of Argentine national identity. Research conducted over the last two decades has greatly improved our understanding of this new culture. We know that it was, to a great extent, forged in the city's new, outlying barrios where manual workers lived side by side with skilled workers and members of the middle class. The relatively strong performance of the Argentine economy during these years made social mobility a more for realistic aspiration for more people than it had ever been before. Partly as a result of this economic reality, the new barrio culture revealed a less militant attitude on the part of porteño workers, a trend visible as well in the significant decline in membership and effectiveness experienced by labor unions. But the new cultural milieu reflected more than just economic prosperity; it was intimately tied to the birth of a mass culture disseminated by radio, cinema, and tabloid. In particular, the 1920s witnessed the commodification and massification of tango and football, two popular cultural practices that were now transformed into quintessential representations of Argentinidad.

The methodological problems involved in studying the political role of corruption and inefficiency have long baffled historians of seventeenth-century Spanish America. Complaints by contemporaries about various forms of corruption (fraudes), abuses (abusos), bribery (cohecho), and other forms of corruption (mala administratión), abound in the extant archivai documents of the period. In addition, successive viceroys and royal inspectors (visitadores) frequently charged that colonial officials were too stupid, lazy, or inexperienced to carry out their duties efficiently. One visitador in 1683, for example, described the administrative practices of high-ranking treasury officials in the viceregal capital of Lima as “la más ciega y descuidada que se ha visto en muchos siglos,” and went on to recommend that such officials be “despoblados de sus plazas, poniendo in su lugar personas capazes y inteligentes.”

The 1936 Hull-Alfaro treaty, which fulfilled New Deal pledges to Panama, represented also the impact of Panamanian nationalism. For thirty years following the 1903 isthmian revolution, Panama remained a subject of American Canal policy. In 1921, for instance, the Panamanian government hurried troops to the Costa Rican boundary in order to compel a favorable decision in a long-standing border dispute. The Department of State, however, had decided that Panamanian military action against Costa Rica was unjustifiable. Arguing that hostilities between Panama and Costa Rica endangered Canal security, a warning was sent to Panama City, followed by the cruiser Sacramento. This act of “gunboat diplomacy” was castigated throughout Panama, but the Panamanian government withdrew its troops. Similarly, Panamanians voiced charges of economic domination, even exploitation, by arguing that the Canal failed to satisfy the republic's commercial aspirations. In 1903, Panamanians had welcomed military intervention by the United States on the grounds that it would be followed by technological intrusion capable of building the canal. By the late 1920's, however, it was obvious to many Panamanian critics that the profits of the isthmian waterway were returned to the United States. The American government strictly limited the operation of Panamanian merchants inside the Canal Zone. Moreover, the more desirable positions in Zone employment, the so-called “gold roll” jobs, were invariably meted out to Americans. Those Panamanians who found employment in the Zone were usually grouped with imported West Indian Negroes on the “silver roll,” a term referring to unskilled positions. Racial antagonism between West Indians and Panamanians resulted from economic competition.

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 1964, at what was surely the acme of her career, Violeta Parra became the first Latin American to have a solo show at the Louvre. During the five-odd weeks that her artwork was on display, Parra was at the museum every day. She chatted with visitors, put finishing touches on her tapestries, sang songs, played her guitar, served empanadas, and turned the exposition hall into a veritable Chilean ramada. The exhibit received favorable reviews in the press, and was visited by important dignitaries and a who's who of the Parisian and expatriate Latin American artistic community. Parra sold several of her tapestries, including one to the Baroness Rothschild. By all accounts, the show was a great success.

Historians have long been interested in shedding light on the numerous, habitual transactions that constitute economic life at its basic level. Yet, questions about how men transact business as individuals, and how they feel about it are largely unanswered by traditional political and bureaucratic records, perhaps because these activities were so commonplace to the society, so well-known and unremarkable to contemporaries as to obviate remark in the records. A study of the extensive records of the Roman Catholic Church, however, can shed light on this, and many other aspects of Spanish colonial society in Mexico.

In a 1924 essay, the botanist Henri Pittier worried that many of Latin America's tropical products—particularly its plants—lacked a ‘civil status.’ By this, Pittier meant that they had not yet been identified and named scientifically. He likened the plants’ lack of a botanical ‘civil status’ to a person's lacking a passport or credentials that proved their citizenship. This was more than a casual analogy. Over the previous half-century, many states in Latin America had begun to take inventories of their plants, just as they had begun taking censuses of their citizens, and surveying and mapping their national territories. These botanical inventories helped states establish control over the natural world, just as censuses helped the state establish control over civil society. Between 1885 and 1935, governments throughout Latin America began to fund botanical research institutions and to finance the publication of national floras. Pittier had been actively involved in this process: he had helped establish national natural history museums in Costa Rica and Venezuela, and wrote or edited three national flora: the Primitiae Florae Costaricensis (1891-1901), the Ensayo sobre las plantas usuales de Costa Rica (1908), and the Manual de las plantas usuales de Venezuela (1926). National floras such as these were not simply ‘entertainment for intellectuals’ but also part of broader programs by Latin American governments to incorporate the natural world into the national political and economic order.