Looking over the course of my half century working in the fields of LatinAmerican and US history, I find that from the beginning to the end I have beenworking in a relatively isolated area of our historical profession. I have beencommitted to history as a social science, and in that framework, using mostlycomparative and quantitative analysis to study themes related to basic socialand economic structures. In this I have been much influenced by the traditionalvision of the Annales school of historical research. I have also been totallycommitted to working within the social sciences, having completed a minordoctoral field in Anthropology at the University of Chicago.

The letter sent by Ruy González, a councilman of Mexico City, to the Spanish monarch, Charles I (Emperor Charles V of the Holy Roman Empire), in April 1553 constitutes an excellent example of the genre of correspondence sent by the conquerors and early settlers of the colonies back to Spain. These men, self-assured and successful, proud of their achievements and unbothered by moral doubt, though now generally well off and powerful, were nonetheless greatly perturbed in their old age by a growing governmental reluctance to allow them to pass on their status and wealth undisturbed to the next generation. To them there appeared to be a great influx of royal and ecclesiastical officials, characteristically accompanied by dependents and sycophants seeking favor and grants, as well as an unjustified questioning of the moral probity of the actions of the conquerors themselves. In this climate, feeling that his wisdom and deeds were unappreciated, Ruy González sent his several-page letter to the king, justifying his life, arguing his point of view, and advising changes in royal policies towards the colony that he had helped to found.

TO all Mexico’s visitors, as to the United States’ beverage industry, “Tehuacán” is a trade-mark, a synonym for superlative mineral water. This product of some dozen bottling works at Tehuacán is justly regarded as the traveler’s health insurance in the tropics; it is, for its excellence, purchased in trainload lots by American brewers and soft-drink manufacturers. To sufferers from some exceedingly painful physical disorders the same word spells the relief obtainable from the “water cure” they take there. In pursuit of health, rest, and a superb climate for both, thousands from many nations annually make their way to the little spa “city” they find glistening in the highland sun against that masterpiece of natural sculpture, the Cerro Colorado, the advance line of Puebla’s mountain rampart against the deep tropics. Such are the facts that have realized Tehuacán’s modern fame and, thereby, prosperity.

On September 28, 1927, the central atrium of the Museo Etnográfico on Buenos Aires's Calle Moreno was crowded with people. More than 100 men and women were in attendance, from Universidad de Buenos Aires rector Ricardo Rojas to Argentine president Marcelo T. de Alvear, wrapped in heavy jackets against the spring chill to participate in the inauguration of the museum's new building. Previously housed in “the gloomy catacombs” of an administrative basement, the Museo Etnográfico had now relocated to an airy, Baroque-style building two blocks south of the city's central Plaza de Mayo. In his inaugural speech on that chilly September morning, museum director Salvador Debenedetti proclaimed that the Museo Etnográfico, until then a predominandy academic museum, was undergoing a powerful transformation: it was becoming a public museum. Debenedetti proclaimed that the museum's new incarnation would be a place “of tranquility and of meditation, which will move the spirit of the people and lead them from epoch to epoch, from region to region, from culture to culture.” He described the museum's public visitors, or “the people,” as active participants in the institution's openly nation-building agenda, and celebrated their participation as a “patriotic conjunction, inspired by die desire for scientific progress, the love of truth, [and] the desire to know better and penetrate in its essence the thought of our native ancestors in the land of América.”

The study of the opposition to the Third Mexican Council of 1585 provides a fascinating picture, not only of the determined efforts to undo the work of the most important ecclesiastical meeting of colonial New Spain but also of the various hostilities and animosities, intrigues and rivalries, that were at work in New Spain toward the end of the sixteenth century In the Third Council, the bickering of secular and religious priests, the opposition of bishops to the exorbitant privileges of the religious orders, the encroachments of the civil authority into the domain of the ecclesiastical, and the determination of clerics to defend their privileges and jurisdiction, all converged on the questions of (1) should the Council be permitted to publish its decrees and (2), once published, could they be put into execution?

The genesis for this special issue on "Words and Deeds" was a panel discussion held in conjunction with the January 1997 joint meeting of the Conference on Latin American History and the American Historical Association in New York City. Participants Richard Boyer, Sonya Lipsett-Rivera, Kimberly Hanger, and Jane Landers presented the papers included in this volume. The essays all flowed together so nicely and initiated such a lively exchange among panelists and the audience that the editors of The Americas asked us to prepare them for publication, incorporating some of the commentary offered at the session. What you read in the following pages is a result of that process, although we still think it rather ironic that a journal produced by the Academy of American Franciscan History should want to include articles with so many off-color words and references to sexual conduct and violence!

The fact that these essays generated such interest as conference papers and appear in this special issue of The Americas confirms the value cultural historians are placing on the study of insults, conflicts, and other confrontational behavior to reconstruct societal norms and worldviews and assess challenges to them. What constituted an insult or defined anti-social behavior reveals much about what the community considered each person's position in it; resistance to one's assigned role and identity or objection to someone else misconstruing this identity unmasked a sense of injustice that community members, especially its leaders, had to rectify in order to maintain social order.

Highlighting the Wars of Independence in Latin America are the personalities and exploits of the great patriot leaders who took up arms in the cause of freedom. Simón Bolívar and José de San Martín are known throughout the world, for they were outstanding liberators whose efforts were crowned with success. But there were other leaders in the Spanish colonies who are almost equally deserving of fame for their contributions to the revolution, and among such men was José Gervasio Artigas, leader of the rebels in the Banda Oriental. His biography is a story of adherence to ideals and tenacity of purpose in the face of dismaying opposition. Chroniclers of his life, however, are not in agreement as to his possible faults and virtues. As one observer has aptly said, “Perhaps never did the memory of a man meet with more honor in his own country and with less favor without it.”

In 1876, the Revolution of Tuxtepec raged in the Mexican countryside, producing more war dead for families to mourn. The timely arrival of General Manuel González on the battlefield at the hacienda of Tecoac (Tlaxcala) forced Federal Army General Ignacio Alatorre to surrender to the rebels on November 16. Without an army, President Sebastián Lerdo de Tejada went into exile and the forces of General Porfirio Díaz entered Mexico City unopposed. Widespread melancholia continued through December. The journalist “Juvenal” (Enrique Chávarri) wrote about the gloomy outlook in the capital, where no serenades or social gatherings rang in the new year. Instead of patronizing restaurants, people flocked to churches to pray for a better year.

One of the central problems of Spanish missionary activity in the New World was the translation of Christian concepts into native languages. The following document, housed in Rome’s Jesuit archives (ARSI), highlights both the concern and the controversy surrounding this issue in the audiencia of New Granada (modern-day Colombia). On 25 August 1606, audiencia president Juan de Borja issued a decree requiring all members of New Granada’s clergy to provide religious instruction in the Chibcha language. The recent arrival of a small group of Jesuits had intensified a long-standing debate over how best to explain the mysteries of the Christian faith in early-colonial New Granada. Almost three decades earlier, in 1580, the oidor Pedro de Zorrillo, complained to the Council of the Indies that the natives of New Granada were as ignorant (in spiritual matters) now as they had been before the conquest. This ignorance, according to Zorrillo, was the result of the recalcitrance of local priests, most of whom stubbornly refused to learn native languages. Few priests spoke Chibcha and therefore taught the doctrina in Spanish or in some cases, Latin, which the Indians simply repeated like parrots, “como papagayos.”

The Important Role of the religious orders in the evangelization and colonization of Spanish America is recognized by all historians. In both Mexico and Peru the Franciscans, Dominicans and Mercedarians were the earliest friars upon the scene. They traveled down from Panama to Tumbez and to San Miguel de Piura in Peru as early as 1531 when the conquest of that country was scarcely under way. Those were heroic days, when men braved the incalculable terrors of the unknown, the hostility of the natives and the rigors of extreme altitudes swept by angry winds and snows in the bitterness of winter.

Known by various names, this Franciscan Province at one time comprised the territory of all the states in the vast basin of the Rio de la Plata and its great tributaries: the Rio de la Plata and Tucumán colonies (present Argentina), Paraguay, and Uruguay—and in the beginning also the southernmost part of Brazil.

Though it was the last of the Franciscan Provinces to be established in Spanish South America during colonial times, it was founded as the independent Custody of Paraguay-Plata as early as 1538. In 1565 another Custody, that of St. George of Tucumán, was founded by Franciscans of the Peruvian Province (see The Americas, II, 83–90). These two Custodies were united into one in 1575, but separated again into two in 1597, both remaining dependent on the Province in Peru. Fifteen years later, the General Chapter held in Rome on July 12, 1612, once more joined the two Custodies to form the Province of Rio de la Plata.

The Franciscan Order was the first large agency to concern itself with the Christianization and civilization of North America. Its personnel sought to change the culture patterns, the institutions, and the ideology of the native aboriginal social order not merely by erecting chapels and churches but also by an educational policy that was vitally interested in improving the quality of individual living and implementing the ideals of a Christian democratic society.

Twentieth-Century historians accept the fact that history can no longer be viewed merely as past politics; it must now embrace all aspects of national life and thought—total history. In the study of a colonial empire, the social scientist must seek his sources not only in the colony but also in the mother country. The enumeration and analysis of American themes in the literature of imagination of eighteenth-century Spain can open new panoramas to the student of history since these themes reflect the ideas of the peninsular Spaniard and might help explain the reactions which they caused in the colonies.

A History of Catholicism in Brazil could well be divided into the pre- and post-Jacksonian eras. Jackson de Figueiredo, fiery Catholic journalist of the 1920's who serves as the point of reference, performed the feat of almost single-handedly wrenching the Brazilian Church from the position of static equilibrium in which it long lay suspended. This statis had its roots in the restrictive regalism of the Portuguese and Brazilian Empires and in the Republican disestablishment which followed in 1890.

Caught up since 1890 with organizational and financial problems of survival, the Brazilian Church had drawn ever closer to Rome. Under the auspices of the papacy, the hierarchy recruited foreign clergy to staff its underorganized church and encouraged new orders to set up branches in Brazil. In 1905 Pope Leo XIII appointed Archbishop Joaquim Arcoverde of Rio the first Cardinal of Brazil and of Latin America. He created new dioceses in Brazil and appointed Rome-trained bishops to fill them. The utilization of Rome's financial and personnel resources in the postdisestablishment period considerably shored up the Church qua organization in Brazil.