Since Mexico now seems to be the key nation in Latin America in the implementation of President Kennedy's Alliance for Progress, it becomes even more pressing that we in the United States understand the nature of the Mexican social order. As a point of departure for this effort, one might well begin by considering the basis for contemporary industrial and political development of Mexico as formulated in the years 1934-1940 under Mexico's New Deal of Lázaro Cárdenas. Sanford Mosk noted, “… what went on during the time of Cárdenas has had an indirect effect on the subsequent industrial development.” Or, as the United States Tariff Commission claimed, the reorientation of Mexico's economic and social policy has been an important part of her political life since 1910. The new program was given impetus by the Constitution of 1917, which contained important provisions for agrarian reform and for the protection of labor. Yet, aggressive implementation of the new policy began under president Lazaro Cardenas with the inauguration of the Six-Year Plan in 1934.

NACIMIENTO IS THE NAME given in Spain and Spanish America to the plastic representation of the Nativity of Christ at Yuletide. These Nacimientos are of very ancient origin; they go back, in fact, to the days of St. Francis of Assisi in the thirteenth century. In December, 1223, St. Francis, who had just obtained from Pope Honorius III the approval of the Order he had founded, left his abode and set out for the Monastery of Monte Colombo, where, shortly after his arrival, we are told that he addressed his friend, Giovanni Vellita, in the following manner:

I am desirous of celebrating with thee the feast of the Nativity of our Lord in a special and hitherto unusual way. Go, therefore, to the cavern that is near this monastery and set up therein a manger full of hay, having taken with thee an ox and an ass, which thou wilt place close by, as they were in Bethlehem that blessed night, for I wish to recall with due solemnity the coming of the Son of God into this world, and to see with my own eyes how poor and miserable He appeared, and all for the love of us men.

Three centuries of fertile activity from San Fernando to Isabel la Católica place Spain in a prominent position among the nations of Europe. From being the source of revelation and interpretation of Eastern Culture, she becomes on the eve of the discovery of America, the disseminator of Western Culture.

At the end of the fifteenth century, Spain finds itself prepared to accomplish its high historic mission. Armed with a powerful Christian Faith, victorious in its secular struggle against the Moors, unified spiritually and politically, but nevertheless yearning for deeds of prowess and adventure, Spain feels the imperative necessity of spreading over the New World its spiritual abundance.

The study of the first decade of the Republic permits one to reflect on the numerous myths that permeate Brazil's history. These myths have served to reduce social conflict and to provide ideological foundations for the holders of power. In particular, examination of the 1890s challenges the commonly accepted notion of the peaceful character of the Brazilian historical process and the myth of consensus. The roots of these traditions, according to Henry Keith, date from the viceregal period. But the republicans were particularly active in reinforcing it by exalting the bloodless character of the change of regime in 1889. “Revolution without blood” the politicians Martim Francisco Ribeiro de Andrada of São Paulo and Karl von Koseritz of Rio Grande do Sul would say. The Correio Mercantil of Pelotas, Rio Grande do Sul agreed; the country had witnessed a “marvelous political change that Brazil brought about instantaneously without shedding a drop of blood, without firing a single bullet.”

Over the Sea of Odysseus and of Columbus with sunrise-gilded sails, a ship with a saint aboard voyaged toward America. He was an island saint, with the compass of his heart pointing north, his vision directed toward the America which on the planisphere was still depicted as surrounded by seamonsters and dotted with Indian cities where men lived in misery, naked in a Paradise wherein the wolf of Gubbio had taken refuge.

It is a Great Honor for one who lives in the Wild West to be asked to speak in the cultured capital of our country, for California is remote. In fact, it came into history as “the most outlandish place in the World,” and in some quarters so it is still regarded. A wealthy Italian Duchess, in the seventeenth century, told her Father Confessor that she wished to endow a mission for the heathen. Being asked where she wished it established, she replied, “In the most outlandish place in all the world.” The Jesuits consulted their geography and concluded that the most outlandish place in all the world was California, and there the mission was founded. Father Kino had a long correspondence with the same Duchess, and for their letters the Huntington Library, a few years ago, paid $18,000. Bigger sums have been paid for letters written to a lady, but seldom for letters written to a lady by a Jesuit priest.

Scholars who have studied the Franciscan effort in New Mexico during the Spanish colonial epoch have generally posited that the watershed event in the missionary program was the Pueblo Revolt of 1680. Thus, the periodization for the Order's evangelical effort has been structured in two parts: pre-1680 and post-reconquest (1692-1821). One need only compare Fray Alonso de Benavides's glowing description of his brethren's work in the region in 1630 with that of Fray Silvestre Vélez de Escalante's harsh rebuke to the friars in 1777 to realize fundamental changes had occurred in the missionization process. Benavides's Franciscans are ardent, ascetic, and capable missionary priests. Consequently, prior to 1680, the Franciscan Order, in what the Spanish called the Kingdom of New Mexico, was able to maintain a high degree of authority, power, and prestige especially in regard to its relations with the local population and civil government. On the other hand, the missionaries condemned by Escalante are complacent, contentious idlers. While there are a dearth of studies on the post-1692 Franciscans, historians who have ventured into the era suggest a significant erosion in the quality and dedication of the later missionaries. The conclusion, then, is that these less committed friars were at least partially responsible for the decline of the Order's position within the Kingdom.

Highlighting the Wars of Independence in Latin America are the personalities and exploits of the great patriot leaders who took up arms in the cause of freedom. Simón Bolívar and José de San Martín are known throughout the world, for they were outstanding liberators whose efforts were crowned with success. But there were other leaders in the Spanish colonies who are almost equally deserving of fame for their contributions to the revolution, and among such men was José Gervasio Artigas, leader of the rebels in the Banda Oriental. His biography is a story of adherence to ideals and tenacity of purpose in the face of dismaying opposition. Chroniclers of his life, however, are not in agreement as to his possible faults and virtues. As one observer has aptly said, “Perhaps never did the memory of a man meet with more honor in his own country and with less favor without it.”

In the study of colonial history the ability to discover the voice of the people is often hindered by the fact that most extant sources are archival, written by those who held power. In some instances mediated sources have survived which can be read as colonialist text, or can be read subversively, from the perspective of the colonized. Such is the case surrounding the events which began in May 1865 when a traditional Yucatecan religious festival was held in the Maya village of Xaibe, near Corozal in the Northern District of Belize (known at that time as British Honduras). The newly appointed British magistrate laid criminal charges against those celebrants who had engaged in the alleged cruelties of the vaquería or bullfights held in conjunction with the fiesta. In June, nearly four hundred residents of the District, “Persons of mixed Spanish and Indian descent and Indians,” petitioned the House of Assembly demanding redress from a magistrate who had, “systematically harassed and oppressed the people … prevented them from disposing of their commodities before the hours of service on Sunday mornings … and has endeavoured and partly succeeded in putting a stop to the festivities of one of their most sacred and cherished festivals.” The petition was rejected and colonial authorities challenged its authenticity, the integrity and character of the signatories, and the “alien” culture it represented.

One of the central problems of Spanish missionary activity in the New World was the translation of Christian concepts into native languages. The following document, housed in Rome’s Jesuit archives (ARSI), highlights both the concern and the controversy surrounding this issue in the audiencia of New Granada (modern-day Colombia). On 25 August 1606, audiencia president Juan de Borja issued a decree requiring all members of New Granada’s clergy to provide religious instruction in the Chibcha language. The recent arrival of a small group of Jesuits had intensified a long-standing debate over how best to explain the mysteries of the Christian faith in early-colonial New Granada. Almost three decades earlier, in 1580, the oidor Pedro de Zorrillo, complained to the Council of the Indies that the natives of New Granada were as ignorant (in spiritual matters) now as they had been before the conquest. This ignorance, according to Zorrillo, was the result of the recalcitrance of local priests, most of whom stubbornly refused to learn native languages. Few priests spoke Chibcha and therefore taught the doctrina in Spanish or in some cases, Latin, which the Indians simply repeated like parrots, “como papagayos.”

Hispanic Florida was characterized by one truth: it was a failure, from whatever angle you look at its history. Spain's efforts in Florida were unsuccessful. She pursued a policy of bankruptcy with regard to that land. In 1763 she readily turned Florida over to the English to get back Havana. Today's Cuban capital was worth the whole of Florida. When she came back in 1783 new ideas could not stem the tide of failure of Spain's first period and a half century later she again gave up Florida, this time to the United States.

At the present time there is much interest both in factual history and in the history of the ideas which motivated these facts. This might be the justification, for instance, of so many monographs which are now appearing in many countries about the religious motives which gave impulse to great reforms.

The Spanish enterprise of the Indies has already been the subject of such studies, both from the point of view of Spanish thinkers and writers or from the standpoint—much less frequent—of the “Indianos” or Americans themselves.

Shortly after 1546 someone in Mexico was reading a book recently published at the instance of Bishop Juan de Zumárraga. The book was one of the first dozen published in the New World. As he read he occasionally made annotations in the margin. At one place he wrote: “Constantino.” Further on he put: “Constantino es este y no Zumárraga.” At the end of the book he summed up his observations by writing: “Hasta aquí tomó Su Señoría de Constantino doctor.”