The English-language historian who deals with Spanish civilization and culture has to think as much of how he is going to grapple with the bias of his public as he does of finding what the case is. If his conclusions do not conform to their preconceptions, the uninformed public and sometimes, unfortunately, the historian will set him right. Salvador de Madariaga wondered why, when he published a book, the series of misunderstandings that followed should be called reviews when they could “ equally well be described as Extraviews, Counterviews, Sideviews, Underviews, Superviews, Supercilious views,” or “ just views.” And, of course, the most perceptive of all, “ favorable ” views.

The indecision which plagued Prescott regarding the advisability of publishing the massive manuscript on which he had labored a decade yielded to a decisively vigorous, though little known, presentation of that work to the American reading public.

The manuscript of the History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic, concluded by Prescott in mid-1836, passed, in succeeding months, through the hands of one friendly critic after another. First to subject the long opus to critical evaluation was William Howard Gardiner, a foremost figure in the inner circle of Prescott's Boston neighbors and literary friends. Next it went to editor-historian Jared Sparks, then situated in Cambridge. Reflectively reading and, as circumstances permitted, occasionally visiting Prescott to discuss the manuscript with him, Sparks never had reason to retract the judgment he pronounced on February 24, 1837 in a brief note which closed with the succinct assertion, “The book will be sucessful,—bought, read and praised.” With the spring of 1837 the itinerant manuscript passed into the hands of the scholarly-minded city solicitor of Boston, John Pickering, but before that reader could be heard from, Prescott was actively facing the publication problem on another front.

We can better measure the contributions of the Spanish travelers and historians who penetrated the jungles of the Chaco, crossed the pampas of the Plata region, scaled the Andes and followed the course of the Amazon, the Orinoco and the Paraná if we pause to consider that the vast American continent, even today, presents great, physical barriers to research. Most of the works here studied are the direct result of firsthand observation. An appreciable number, however, do not fall into this category. All of them, nevertheless, offer a rich variety of themes for they abound in descriptions of the land and climate of the United States, the region of the Californias, Mexico, Venezuela, the Guianas, the Gran Chaco, the lands of the Orinoco, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Chile, the countries of the Río de la Plata and the region of the Strait of Magellan. Interest in the flora and fauna of America, so prevalent during this century, is reflected in the numerous chapters devoted to detailed descriptions of plant and animal life. The study of the natural history of America, which had absorbed the interest of so many Spanish writers in preceding centuries, enjoyed a remarkable development under royal patronage during the eighteenth century. The scientific missions sent to America by the Spanish Crown, resulted in the monumental works of Hipólito Ruiz and José Pavón, Florae peruvianae et chilensis prodromus (1794) of which only three of twelve manuscript volumes have been published; Martín Sessé, Flora mexicana, unpublished, and the unpublished Flora de Santa Fe de Bogotá of José Celestino Mutis whom Baron Humboldt called the illustrious patriarch of American botanists.

In accordance with the terms of the 1867 convention which effected the transfer of Russian America to the United States, the archives of the Russian American Company at Novoarkhangelsk (Sitka) were transmitted to Washington, D. C. Inventoried and bound in 67 volumes and labeled Archives of the Russian American Company, they are now in the National Archives. Although microfilmed for the University of California at Berkeley, these archives have not been translated or published, and apparently, scant use has been made of them, although Bancroft had extracts made of many documents and used some of the material in his histories of Alaska, California, and of the Northwest Coast.

The Panamanian Revolution of November 3, 1903, and the establishment of an independent republic under the aegis of the United States are well-known and often related events. Neither the scholar nor the polemicist has been guilty of neglecting this episode in history. The Revolution of 1903 was to Panamá, of course, the starting point of its history as a separate state; to Colombia, possession of the isthmus of Panamá seemed a sine qua non of national existence. Thus it is no surprise that writers in both countries should turn their attention to the circumstances of the separation of Panamá from Colombia. With the passage of over half a century we can assume that Panamanian and Colombian attitudes toward the Revolution, and the role of the United States in it, have undergone changes. It is hoped that by examining some of the books written by Panamanians and Colombians about their countries' histories in general, or the canal and isthmian politics in particular, the evolution of these changed, and still changing, attitudes will be illuminated.

In the words of the Brazilian historian, “Brazil was born Franciscan,” since it was a Franciscan, Frei Henrique Soares de Coimbra, and his confreres, who said the first Holy Mass on Brazilian soil in 1500.

After that, in 1516, two anonymous Franciscans were massacred by the Indians near Porto Seguro. Various groups of Franciscans in Brazil are mentioned during the rest of the sixteenth century, until, in 1584, Fr. Francisco Gonzaga, while visiting Portugal in his capacity as Minister General, and presiding at the provincial chapter of the Franciscan Province of St. Anthony in Portugal, decreed the founding of the custody, or minor-province, of St. Anthony in Brazil. He did this over the objections of some of the friars assisting at the chapter, who thought their numbers too small to think of founding a new mission.

Throughout Mexican history the attitudes and actions of the Church have been of the greatest importance. During the colonial period the Church had exclusive jurisdiction not only over the religious life of the people, but also over education. Its role in the political and economic fields was often paramount. In the national period of Mexican history the attitude of a government toward the Church and religion was often the most important feature of its program, and on many occasions a government came to power or fell on this question.

Early in his political life the famous British statesman, W. E. Gladstone, had close contact with colonial problems. His maiden speech in the House of Commons, June 3, 1833, was a defense of his father against charges that slaves were mistreated on the Gladstone plantations in Demerara; his first government post was that of Parliamentary Undersecretary of State for the Colonies; before the end of the 1830's he had served on many committees which studied questions relating to the colonies; and in 1846 he was Secretary of State for War and the Colonies. In 1835 and again in 1849 he drafted pamphlets on the British colonial empire; by mid-nineteenth century he was a leading advocate of colonial self-government; and his speech “Our Colonies” at Chester, November 12, 1855 (published as a pamphlet), was a clear statement of his creed that “ freedom and voluntaryism ” should govern the relationship between Britain and the overseas portions of the British Empire. While in later years noncolonial issues received most of his attention, he never abandoned his faith in freedom as the basic remedy for intra-imperial problems. In the closing years of his political career he fought magnificently but vainly to apply that principle of freedom (which had stilled colonial discontent) to the age-old Irish question.

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.”

Perhaps the most characteristic feature of the colonial policy devised by the Hapsburgs to govern Spanish holdings in America was the system of intervention, checks, balances, and overlapping authority. Many modern students express impatient disapproval of this system, assuming that it resulted in governmental inefficiency if not complete stagnation. By applying a different set of criteria, however, and one which was certainly more in the minds of those who fashioned the Spanish colonial structure, intervention, checks and balances may be judged a brilliantly conceived means of maintaining under colonial status a vast overseas empire. Considered in these terms, it is the opinion of the writer that nowhere was the success of this system more evident than on the level of local administration in the “ Indies,” where it served to prevent the rise of an unchecked spirit of local autonomy while tending to preserve sentiments of loyalty to the crown.

The reluctance of Costa Rica to join in cooperative political action with her Central American neighbors has for more than a century been a dominant theme in the relations of these states with each other. Costa Rican separatism—a traditional withdrawal or aloofness from Central American political affairs—has been cited in most studies as a powerful factor in the repeated failure of the attemptsof these nations to create a single Central American Government. Always apart by reason of geography, and largely ignored by Spain, the Costa Ricans acquired strong feelings of exceptionality in late colónial times near the end of the eighteenth century. The basis of this attitude was the conviction that they were being badly treated by other Central American provinces, Guatemala and Nicaragua in particular, who in various ways were responsible for Costa Rican administration. In the few years remaining before independence the Costa Rican distrust was substantially increased by Central American and international events. Independence in 1821 intensified this separatism and grossly compounded it by freeing the forces of localism in individual towns and villages.

Until the unsuccessful British invasion of Argentina in 1806-1807, Buenos Aires had been, for the non-Spanish peoples of the world, a mysterious, strange, unknown city, thousands of miles across the ocean. Except for a shipwrecked sailor or two, few Englishmen had had the opportunity of seeing that old colonial city prior to that time. Due to Spain's monopolistic trade policies with respect to her American possessions, trade with the New World, and even the right to reside there, except for a relatively brief period under Charles V, had been reserved for the subjects of the Spanish Crown.

An adequate comprehension of Brazilian institutions, history, economics, and other aspects of national life could be but with great difficulty acquired without a consideration of the role played by the Negro in the development of the Brazilian nation. His influence has been far-reaching, encompassing the major social institutions; and his impress is to be found in virtually every phase of the culture. Although originating from a wide diversity of African nations with distinctive cultural backgrounds, he has received as well as given culturally, and is distinctively Brazilian.

In this paper the Negro in Brazil will be discussed from three different points of view: the demographic; the historical; and the social.

Religious education in Brazil can be conveniently divided into four phases or periods:

I. 1553-1759
II. 1759-1891
III. 1891-1931
IV. 1931 to the present.

During this early period religious education in Brazil was, practically speaking, in the hands of the Society of Jesus.

The movement known as the Counter-Reformation attached great importance to cultural formation. Three great personalities of the sixteenth century dominate this intellectual renascence which can rightly be called Catholic humanism. They are St. Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits, in Spain; Thomas More, the excellent Hellenist and sociologist, in England; and St. Angela Merici in Italy, who founded the Congregation of the Ursulines, dedicated especially to the education of women.

Several currents of “enlightened” doctrine ran swiftly and strongly through Latin America by the end of the eighteenth century. Scholarly work of the past two decades obviates the need to prove that the new philosophy, the new science, and the new politics found acceptance in the Spanish world. Forbidden books made their way into Latin America with relative ease, the Inquisition proved ineffective in preventing the spread of new ideas, and the Spanish crown itself not only promoted useful knowledge but encouraged “ modern ” philosophical studies. Aside from special studies on the Enlightenment, however, the more general histories of Latin America too frequently take the position, implicit if not explicit, that the Catholic clergy, monolithic in their obscurantism, constituted the primary obstacle to the complete victory of “enlightened” ideas. It appears to me that this point of view is somewhat inaccurate. This paper holds as a thesis, rather, that the clergy were seriously split on practically all aspects of the Enlightenment. Some supported, some opposed, and many were indifferent to or ignorant of “ enlightened ” notions. The degree of support or opposition varied, and not all who opposed or supported the movement, supported or opposed it in toto.

Captain Francisco Antonio de Fuentes y Guzmán, whose proud boast it was (as he never tires of reminding us) that he was the great-great-grandson of Bernal Díaz del Castillo, in his erratic, rambling, and frequently delightful Recordación Florida (c. 1690), has this to say about the ancient town that will be the subject of this article:

In colonial times four ecclesiastical Councils were held in Mexico City: in 1555, 1565, 1585, and in 1771. Their decisions and enactments affected directly the extensive territory of New Spain and indirectly that of the Philippines.

The last two of these Councils ordered the publishing of three catechisms, of which two were actually printed. The 1585 Council decreed the publishing of a catechism, which, as we shall see, was taken over substantially by the 1771 Council for its lay catechism and partially also for its parochial manual.

As American economic interests expanded in Central America in the early twentieth century, many British representatives concluded that the Foreign Office would have to devise some method to protect existing British investments against American encroachment. When Secretary of State Knox visited Central America in 1912, he and Sir Lionel E. G. Carden, the British Minister to Central America, discussed Central American affairs when they met in Guatemala on March 16. Knox could scarcely have been very sympathetic as Carden expounded the British point of view, for the Department of State believed that the greatest obstacle to the success of its policy in Central America was none other than the British Minister. As early as April, 1910, Knox had unsuccessfully tried to have Carden transferred from his post; the attempt failed because Sir Edward Grey backed up his Minister.

Traveling on the Pan-American Highway from Mexico City to Puebla, the tourist may feel invited to stop at the small and somnolent town of Huejotzingo. After having succeeded in shaking off the vendors of gaudy sarapes and having tasted the local cider, he may walk around the typical plaza and then he will not fail to be attracted by the old fortress-like church belonging to the sixteenthcentury monastery. In the atrium a pleasant shade of old giant trees shields the visitor, refreshingly, from the tropical heat. As he wanders around, a bunch of youngsters, just dismissed by a friar clad in brown cloth, will watch him from a safe distance. First he will pause before the posas (secondary chapels) at the four corners of the atrium. As he approaches the church a rather sober façade awaits him. The interior of the nave, too, is meager; only a few colonial retablos try to hide the otherwise naked walls. But the gilded high altar with its paintings and carved sculptures still stands in its old place covering the entire rear wall of the apse and commands the admiration of everybody who enters the church.