Because of its geographical separation from other Spanish colonies and the rigid mercantilistic policy of its mother country, Alta California was completely isolated from outside influence during its first sixteen years as a Spanish province. Gradually, however, as a result of the explorations of Captain James Cook (1728-1779), foreign vessels began to appear in the area. When the fur trade started flourishing in the Pacific Northwest, European and American ships as well as overland expeditions were attracted further south to the ports and population centers of California.

The above-quoted letter, along with a score of other letters from the Reverend A. L. Blackford, as well as from other Presbyterian missionaries in Brazil, throw a new light on the so-called Religious Question of the 1870's.

The Religious Question or Masonic Question, as all students of Brazilian history well know, was the incident which began in December of 1872, when Bishop Dom Frei Vital M. Gonçalves de Oliveira, of the Diocese of Olinda, Pernambuco (who later on was joined by Bishop Dom Antonio de Macedo Costa, of the Diocese of Pará), ordered all Catholics who were Masons to be expelled from the Catholic fraternal organizations known as confrarias. The confrarias, which were dominated by Masonic elements, refused to expel the Masons from their midst. The Bishop, in return, interdicted all of the recalcitrant confrarias and their churches in the Diocese. The confrarias appealed to the Crown demanding that the Bishop be restrained by the Imperial Power of Patronage, as under the law of the land—as interpreted by the Crown—the Bishop was not entitled to take such a measure. The Papal Encyclicals, which the Bishop was using as his guide, had never been approved by the Crown and as such, were not legally enforceable in Brazil. The Imperial Patronage of the Church, which had been inherited from the Portuguese kings, was very jealously guarded by the Emperor.

The Spanish political crisis of 1808 and the subsequent convening of the Cortes at Cádiz two years later helped crystallize certain political and philosophical concepts held by a number of “enlightened ”persons on both sides of the Atlantic. Their inherent faith in reason and progress made these delegates at Cádiz turn to a new instrument of government with confidence. In the end, however, strong vested interests thwarted the work of this liberal Cortes. This study examines the struggles, frustrations, triumphs, and failures of one influential and outspoken American in the Cortes at Cádiz, José Mejía Lequerica (1775-1813), who brought many ideas of the Enlightenment and of the French Constitution of 1791 to the new Spanish Constitution.

In November of 1898, Samuel Gompers, president of the American Federation of Labor, lashed out at the expansionists and denied most emphatically that there was “justification for our enforced conquest and annexation ”of the “semi-nude people ”of Puerto Rico, living in a state of “peonage.” At large, the American trade union movement appears to have been caught up in the movement for Cuban independence—both political and economic. Puerto Rico, however, was a different matter. The trade union leadership had shown no special awareness of the island or of conditions prevailing there and, following the American occupation, adopted a strongly anti-imperialist stand. Yet, in February of 1901, the American Federationist (edited by Gompers) warmly applauded the Louisville conventions decision “. . .to organize the 15,000 skilled workers of the island of Puerto Rico on the unshakable basis of the trade union.” By the summer of 1902, trade union opinion had largely reversed itself and fraternal ties between the American Federation of Labor and the Federación Libre of Puerto Rico had been irrevocably forged.

Leonard Wood Served as military governor of Cuba from December, 1899 to May, 1902. As the instrument of United States policy in Cuba, Wood’s administration provides an excellent example of the American touch in meeting the troublesome question of imperialism. This subject of exercising power over other people, as much debated today as it was at the turn of the century, was fully appreciated in its ramifications by those who formulated the Cuban policy of the United States: Presidents McKinley and Roosevelt, Secretary of War Elihu Root, Senator Orville H. Platt and General Leonard Wood. Having gone to war with Spain on the basis of the Joint Resolution of April 20, 1898, with the famous fourth clause inserted by Senator Henry M. Teller of Colorado, that Cuba would be left to the Cubans once the island was pacified, the United States refused to acquire Cuba at the Paris peace conference of December, 1898. The United States was pledged to give Cuba her freedom, but opinions divided over the time needed to pacify the island and ensure future stability. Hopefully, by tracing the actions of the military government with regard to schools, courts, the economy, government and the Platt Amendment, it may be seen that General Wood, far from being a bureaucratic proconsul in khaki, attempted to prepare Cubans for managing their own affairs.