IT is often said that the French Revolution and the ideas of the philosophers of the eighteenth century were of great influence in Latin America and that they constituted the intellectual motivation of its movements toward independence.

This idea is presented in the majority of elementary history books. It is worthy of note that in the national hymn of the Republic of Honduras, one of the stanzas lauds the work of the Convention and mentions Danton.

However, some years ago a French historian, Marius André, published a rather short essay, La fin de l’Empire Espagnol des Indes, in which he attempted to demonstrate that the independence of Spanish America was achieved by a group of conservatives who were frightened by the rebellion of Riego in Spain and who had no desire at any time to take the French Revolution as a model.

IN 1578 the Spanish Ambassador in London protested against English outrages “beyond the line.” Queen Elizabeth replied

IN Latin America of the present day there still survive, to a greater or lesser extent, some vestiges of the non-material cultural traits of its Indian forbears. In the so-called “Indianistic” nations (those which still contain a high percentage of their total populations which has been identified as Indian) such as Mexico, Guatemala, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia, modern-day reflections of pre-Columbian culture, including concepts of land tenure, are of extreme importance. In other Latin American nations, where there are sizeable Indian (“ethnic” or “cultural”) populations, and where these Indians still maintain their own segregated communities, such as Panama, Colombia, Venezuela, and Chile, aboriginal patterns of tenure, somewhat modified by the centuries, are still evident.