On the 8th of March, 1500, a fleet of thirteen ships and caravels departed from Lisbon under the command of Pedro Alvares Cabral. Two of the caravels were destined for East Africa and the others for Calicut, on the Malabar coast of India, where they were sent to obtain cargoes of spices and other Eastern commodities, to establish friendly relations with its ruler, and to leave a factory for future trade. Vasco da Gama with his fleet had preceded; Cabral followed to reap the reward. The route was carefully selected to secure the safest and best passage to the Cape of Good Hope. The ships of the fleet were clumsy so that the course must be taken with the most favorable winds. They sailed somewhat to the west of south from the Cape Verde Islands and the coast of Brazil was reached, probably for the first time. After remaining here for about a week taking on supplies of water and wood, the main fleet continued to India. Before doing so, possession of this discovery was taken for the Crown, though it was not then known whether it was mainland or an island. A small supply ship was sent back to Lisbon carrying letters for the King, among them one by Pedro Vaz de Caminha telling of the sojourn and describing the natives, and another by the king’s astrologer, Master John. Both of these letters still exist. The date of the arrival of the supply ship in Portugal is not known but it was probably early in July, 1500. The news of the discovery was of great interest to the King and to the Portuguese people, but their chief concern was with the success of the India fleet, and Caminha’s letter reported that little of value was found in the new land during Cabral’s stay. The discovery made by Cabral was considered of sufficient importance, however, to warrant sending a second fleet for further investigation. The King and the cosmographers wished to know whether it was mainland, as they undoubtedly suspected, and if so its extent. If such were the case, they desired to claim the land for Portugal under the Bull of May 4, 1493 and the Treaty of Tordesillas, signed June 4, 1494. If it were an island, the Spice Islands farther to the west might be reached as Columbus had claimed. The merchants were interested in its commercial value particularly for obtaining pearls and dye wood and in its possibilities for the cultivation of sugar cane. In the latter of these Bartolomeo Marchioni, a wealthy Florentine, who had long resided in Lisbon and operated sugar plantations in Madeira and elsewhere, could anticipate profits, if the land were fertile and native labor adequate. The New Christians or converted Jews evidently also saw in this new land the possibility of escape from persecution in Portugal and a chance for wealth from the products which might be found there.

As the armies and navies of the United Nations press on to victory in all parts of the world, we at home, who are planning for the organization of peace, have an obligation to the young people of the United States to perfect a program that will reap the fruits of our war-time partnership with the Good Neighbor Republics. Brought to a white-hot temperature during the clash of arms, the policy of inter-American friendship established its value in creating “the corridor of victory” from Brazil to Africa and in forging a strong, defensive shield on the West Coast, whose southern anchor extended from Chile, through the Ecuadorean Galápagos Islands, to the Panama Canal. Would not all the students in our colleges and universities acknowledge that this was an “accelerated program” of American amity that paid out rich dividends both in national security as well as in furnishing the bases, naval, land and air, which are now the springboards for victorious offensives in Europe and in the Orient? In the eyes of our young men and young women it must be clear that America’s need proved itself to have been an inter-American opportunity.

Very little has been known about the life of the seventeenth century Yucatecan historian, Francisco de Cárdenas Valencia, author of the Relación historial eclesiástica de la provincia de Yucatán. He completed this important work on the early colonial history of Yucatan in February, 1639, but although it was known and used by Diego López de Cogolludo and later historians, it remained unpublished for nearly three hundred years. In 1937 it was finally printed in the Biblioteca histórica mexicana de obras inéditas. In his bibliographical note to this edition, Federico Gómez de Orozco tells the history of the manuscript, refuting the erroneous belief that Cárdenas Valencia wrote two works, but he does not give much new data concerning its author.

Another gifted writer whose name has almost passed into oblivion is Tirso Rafael Córdoba. Like Rafael Gómez, he from Michoacán, a circumstance that seems to explain why during the period we are considering these two men stood on such intimate terms of friendship and in their literary career had so many things in common. His biographer tells us that in 1853, at the early age of fifteen, Córdoba, then a student in the Seminario de Morelia, was admitted to membership in the Liceo Iturbide, a distinction conferred upon him in view of the exceptional progress he had made in the arts and sciences. Only for the disturbed times in which his youth and early manhood fell, Córdoba would have entered the priesthood, this being his intention when he studied philosophy in the Seminario Conciliar Palafoxiano in the city of Puebla. From this celebrated school he graduated with high honors and then proceeded to Mexico City where he studied canon and civil law in the Colegio de San Ildefonso and passed the bar examination in the University of Mexico. But again he became a victim of circumstances, unable to engage freely and fully in the legal and political circles for which he was so richly qualified. After the fall of the Second Empire, at which time he was Secretary General of the municipal government of Puebla, he retired from public life and thereafter took a prominent part, chiefly in Mexico City, in social and literary activities. He was one of the founders of the organization known as La Sociedad Católica and collaborated in the founding and editing of periodicals, popular as well as literary, such as La Voz de México, El Obrero Católico, El Hijo del Obrero, La Lira Poblana, La Aurora, and La Oliva.

The founding of the College of St. Francis at Celaya, near Querétaro in Mexico, later to achieve the status of a Royal and Pontifical University, offers an excellent example of the Franciscan Order’s internal conflict between the strict observance of poverty and its willingness to administer higher educational institutions on a permanent basis.

The present article is concerned (1) with an evaluation of the place of Latin American studies in the economics curriculum on the college or university level and (2) with a review of the principal publications which are available for organized studies in Latin American economics. The correlation of both topics and their combination in one article does not require an elaborate justification for those who are acquainted with the development and growth of new subjects in the college curriculum. Organized studies, i. e., new courses, develop chiefly under the influence of two factors: available teaching personnel and available teaching material. It goes without saying that these factors operate, or should operate, only as manifestations of a more general tendency which assigns to the new subject its rank and place in a systematic order of cultural values.

During the three centuries of the colonial period, Franciscan friars devoted themselves to the Christianization and civilization of the natives and the spiritual care of settlers in all the regions now comprising the nine Spanish American Republics of South America, in the Portuguese American Republic of Brazil, and even in the Guianas; and though the various units of the Franciscan Order suffered considerable reverses during the wars for independence and subsequent disorders of the nineteenth century, the sons of St. Francis are today in all these countries with the exception of Venezuela and the Guianas.