During the second half of the nineteenth century, when Mexico was beginning a slowly drawn-out process of industrialization and urbanization, the seemingly quiet countryside was experiencing agrarian unrest of proportions unprecedented in the nation's history. Trapped between increasing population on diminished ejidal and pueblo landholdings and ever-growing estates and demands of large property owners, Mexican campesinos in three states—eastern Morelos, southeastern Mexico, and northwestern Puebla— sought relief by means of insurrection. Because these agrarian uprisings during the last third of the nineteenth century were a prelude to similar and more famous occurrences during the fateful epoch 1910-1917, their causes, nature, and significance are essential for understanding an important aspect of the Mexican Revolution.

The 1842-1844 diplomatic mission of General Tomás Cipriano de Mosquera is generally assumed to have had as its major purpose the extradition of his personal and political enemy, General José María Obando. Obando had been a rebel leader in the War of the Supremos, the New Granadan civil war of 1839-1842, and the victorious administration in Bogotá (the ministeriales) had also charged him with complicity in the 1830 assassination of Marshal Antonio José de Sucre. During the diplomatic mission a large portion of Mosquera's time and effort was indeed spent in attempting to obtain Obando's extradition and to discredit him in various ways. This study, however, will be concerned primarily with the original objectives of the mission—those relating to New Granada's role in the regional diplomacy of western South America.

Within a framework of overlapping jurisdictions and responsibilities, the city councils (cabildos) were one of the institutions which performed various functions to protect and further public health in the Spanish American Indies. The seventeenth century records of the cabildo in Santiago, Chile, reveal that the councilmen (capitulares) not only conformed to royal law and custom but also employed the scientific knowledge available to them as they struggled against sickness and disease. Their public-spirited endeavors did not, however, preclude the occasional intrusion of selfish motives into the council proceedings. These several characteristics are discernible in the records pertaining to the prevention and control of disease, registry and review of credentials belonging to members of the medical profession, contracts negotiated with physicians, steps to inhibit malpractice, and surveillance of the local apothecary shops and the municipal hospital.

In the course of its “ nation saving ” in the Caribbean in the first third of this century, the United States government created native constabularies in each of the nations it temporarily occupied. In three countries, these forces—the Garde d'Haiti, the Guardia Nacionál de Nicaragua, and the Guardia Nacional Dominicana—became military Mr. Hydes. Raised, trained, and indoctrinated by American officers to preserve civil government from subversion, the Caribbean constabularies instead served as the backbone of military dictatorships after the Americans sailed away. In Cuba, however, the native constabulary did not become the dominant military power base for uniformed politicians. Instead it was itself subverted by both Cubans and Americans until it lost the institutional stability and professional autonomy which would have made it politically powerful. How this constabulary was reshaped, consciously and unconsciously, is the tale of the rise and the fall of the Cuban Rural Guard.

Woodrow Wilson seldom wavered in his determination to guide the Mexican Revolution along a course acceptable to the United States. From the beginning, he insisted upon the creation of a stable, constitutional, and representative government which could reform social and economic inequities and would provide a hospitable environment for American economic interests. The possibility of involvement in World War I, however, weakened the president's bargaining power with Mexico and reduced his ability to pursue his goals effectively. As Wilson learned to his regret, blatant interference tended to heighten Yankeephobic Mexican nationalism and to create a circumstance which Germany might exploit to her advantage. This problem became critical early in 1917, when the German question profoundly influenced the American government's response to the new Mexican Constitution. Historians hitherto have neglected this relationship, even though it provides an intriguing insight into United States policy toward the government of First Chief Venustiano Carranza.

Traditionally, historians of the Americas have found essential primary source material in the published diaries, journals, and travel accounts of European visitors and tourists. The pungent nineteenth-century commentaries of Alexis de Tocqueville and Lord Bryce are rarely omitted from general accounts of American history. The extensive writings of Alexander von Humboldt, partially scientific in nature and covering his travels during the first decade after 1800, similarly add to the perspectives of Latin American historians. When taken in conjunction with other sources, and when used carefully, the penetrating insights and strong impressions of such travelers can help reconstruct the past in a more detailed, often more colorful, way.