Although there have been numerous important contributions to the social history of colonial Spanish America published in recent years, these studies have generally ignored the artisan and semi-skilled working classes that were, numerically, the largest urban components of these societies. This article will examine one colonial artisan group, the bakers of Buenos Aires, during a period when the city and its hinterland experienced significant economic and political change, 1770-1820. At the beginning of the period, Buenos Aires was little more than a large village with a population of approximately 20,000 and an economy dominated by contraband trade. As part of a major reform of Spanish strategic and economic policy, Buenos Aires was selected in 1776 as the political capital of a new viceroyalty that included the vast region bordered by the Andes, the Atlantic and Brazil. The city's new political importance with a viceregal court, enlarged military garrisons and augmented bureaucracy stimulated both urban and regional economies and attracted large numbers of immigrants from the interior and from Europe. It is increasingly clear that these alterations in the city's economic life and social structure contributed to the political crisis that culminated in the independence period. Although this study will concentrate on a single occupational group, it is hoped that this effort to measure the responses of the bakers to the altered opportunities and challenges of the late colonial and early independence periods will also provide some new insights into the economic and political history of the region during this crucial period.

On January 4, 1614, a fat thirty-year old mulatto with reddish-black hair rode into the town of Tula and stopped at the inn. The man's horse was a roan mare, thin, saddle-backed, and run down. The stirrups of his saddle were barely intact. Such arrivals, however commonplace, never failed to interest the curious, this time to the stranger's harm. Onlookers told don Gabriel Arías de Riquelme, alcalde mayor, that the man was Juan Vázquez, a bigamist. Don Gabriel, always ready to strike against the lawless, especially one of the “unruly ox drivers” so irksome to the town, acted at once. He arrested Juan, placed him in the local jail, and reported to the Holy Office of the Inquisition in Mexico City.

Socialism, as expressed by political parties professing that ideology, has had only minimal impact on Argentina's twentieth-century political history. On the other hand socialist ideas, broadly defined, have had considerable influence, although often in an indirect manner. In the political realm, for example, popular presidents Hipólito Yrigoyen (1916-1922; 1928-1930) and Juan Perón (1946-1955; 1973-1974) sought to pre-empt and co-opt socialism's appeal to the working class by proposing and implementing socialist-inspired reforms wrapped in nationalist rhetoric. Conversely, after the fall of Perón in 1955 various military governments have based their intervention into national politics largely on the need to stem the flow of Marxist ideas, to prevent the growth of socialist organizations—especially those which would repeat the Cuban revolutionary experience on Argentine soil—and to protect the principles of free enterprise capitalism.

Most studies of relations between government and organized labor in Mexico stand firmly on the supposition that the Revolution of 1910 marked a sharp break with the past. The labor policies of the Díaz regime have alternately been described as either brutally repressive or as neutral and aloof in keeping with nineteenth century liberal doctrine (especially before 1906). If either of these somewhat contradictory characterizations are true, then the case for discontinuity in labor policies is clearly confirmed.

This essay will argue that neither description of labor policies during the Díaz regime is accurate. Rather, patterns of interaction between the Díaz government and urban working class organizations, especially in Mexico City, shaped the evolution of the Mexican labor movement and national labor policy along lines followed ever since. The Díaz government developed a flexible and sophisticated array of labor policy instruments that was based upon cooperation with and subsidies to progovernment labor organizations as well as political rewards and the other fruits of cooptation for labor leaders loyal to the regime. With its labor allies, the Díaz government promoted modes of organization which retarded labor militancy, sponsored informal as well as official mediation between workers and employers during strikes and other conflicts, and disseminated propaganda and instituted educational programs, including pro-government labor newspapers and schools for the working class, designed to promote labor's identification of its own well-being with the interests of the state. While the Revolution of 1910 and the later developments of the Cárdenas era institutionalized statelabor relations as never before, the objectives and instrumentalities of contemporary labor relations have their origin in the Porfiriato.

This study explores the convergent ground of two separate research projects: an analysis of the role of the state of Pernambuco in the Brazilian federation between 1889 and 1937, and a forthcoming study of the Recife Law School. The first part of this presentation will discuss the definition of the political elite, describe its composition, and examine the theme of continuity and change over the period of study. The second part will focus on the Law School per se, the principal vehicle for the training of the political elite.

Pernambuco's political elite constitutes less a model for other Brazilian states than a phenomenon specific to Pernambuco's own historical role. This elite may be examined systematically, although only in the broadest sense. For one thing, its membership never remained static, but changed constantly according to the ebb and flow of political life. Relative power within an elite is not easily measurable; nor does there exist a single elite; rather, one observes a fluid set of power relationships, arrayed vertically according to levels of influence and authority, and horizontally from small urban interest nuclei through local elites to subgrous scattered across regional, economic, and social networks.

Carlos Martínez de Irujo y Tacón was first secretary of the Spanish Embassy in London, when he received a promotion and transfer as minister plenipotentiary of the Spanish legation in Philadelphia, replacing the chargé d'affaires, José Jáudenes y Nebot, who returned to Spain for a new assignment. Carlos Martínez de Irujo arrived in Philadelphia in the summer of 1796 and assumed his duties. Soon after arrival, the diplomat met, and apparently was captivated by, Sally McKean, the vivacious sixteen-year old daughter of Pennsylvania's chief justice and one of the state's most respected citizens—Thomas McKean. Two years later the couple married at St. Augustine Parochial Church in Philadelphia. Sally McKean, being from an influential American family, along with her own charm, grace, intelligence and beauty, contributed greatly to the success of her husband's mission in the United States. In 1802, as a result of his diplomatic services in Philadelphia, Martínez de Irujo received the Spanish aristocratic title of Marquis of Casa Irujo, with his Philadelphia-born wife becoming the first Marquise of Casa Irujo. He served as Spanish minister in Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., until 1808, when he was reassigned to Spain, accompanied by his wife and their six year old son. This Spanish diplomat culminated a brilliant professional career when he was named Secretary of State in 1819.

In 1767 Charles III issued his famous decree expelling the Jesuits from Spain and the Spanish colonies around the world. The repercussions of this edict were felt even on Samar, a large but relatively unimportant province in the eastern Visayas in the Philippine colony (see Map One) whose missions, later parish churches, had been staffed by Jesuit missionaries from the last few years of the sixteenth century until the order of expulsion arrived on Samar in September 1768. The Jesuits were replaced by Augustinians in the pueblos of Guivan, Balangiga, and Basey; and in the rest of the pueblos by Franciscans (see Map Two).

Our view of the Spanish missionary Church results from the convergence of two streams of historical writing. The first uses the activities of a particular religious order or its most illustrious members to frame the foundation and growth of a missionary enterprise. The second pursues a thematic approach, emphasizing the importance of the missions as foci of Spanish culture in a native world. Within this second stream falls the particularly North American interest in the frontier with its stress on the mission stations as the vanguard of Iberian religious, political, and social institutions.

Though widely divergent in organization and emphasis, both streams present a picture of isolation. Solitary missions existed as self-contained theocracies on the very edge of the viceroyalty. The missionaries themselves constantly stressed this view. Their correspondence cites the difficulties of operating stations at great remove from the seats of Spanish power in America. Professional historians, following the diaries and letters of the missionary fathers, have placed priests, neophytes, and — in North America — presidial soldiers beyond the aid or control of metropolitan authority touched only by an occasional visita or supply train.

Women played a significant but, until recently, largely overlooked role in the complex and destructive civil war known as the Mexican Revolution of 1910-1920. A number of women trained and educated in the vocational and normal schools and molded by the incipient feminist movement of the Porfirian era actively sought involvement in the struggle during its various phases. A much larger number of women of the rural and urban lower classes found themselves caught up in the struggle and had no choice but to become actively involved, especially in the military aspects of the Revolution. Still others, numbering in the hundreds of thousands, and including women of every class, were among the victims and casualties of that conflict. Lastly, women of primarily but not exclusively middle and upperclass origins who strongly identified with the Catholic Church became active and bitter enemies of the decidedly anti-clerical leadership of the Revolution.

José Celestino Mutis, physician, naturalist and educator, and a native of the port of Cádiz in Spain, arrived at the Spanish viceroyalty of New Granada in the year 1760 as personal physician to Viceroy Messía de la Zerda. His arrival coincided with the beginning of a period of change in the cultural history of that reino or “kingdom”. Progressive reform in the colonial universities, stimulus to scientific study, new directions in philosophic and political thought and the formation of an enlightened society were the contributions don José made to the cultural partrimony of New Granada. The results of his activity in this viceroyalty were manifestations of that period in history which is termed the Enlightenment.

In an age of fiscal and administrative reform, the army of New Spain stood out as an irredeemable drain on the treasury as well as a nightmare for bureaucrats and military planners. No knowledgeable observer could possibly advocate a continuation of the haphazard defenses of previous decades, but there were very few other points of agreement. From the perspective of the mother country, Mexicans had to recognize the need to defend themselves. The British conquests of Canada, the Floridas, and the temporary occupation of Havana, underscored the dangers and the possibilities of Mexicans losing their possessions and liberties. Naturally, the full burden of military finance and service would fall upon the residents of the viceroyalty, not to mention the growing costs of the annual subsidies (situados) sent to help pay for the defense of less advantaged possessions in the Caribbean, Central America, and the Philippines. The problem was how to prevent the army of New Spain from becoming a voracious consumer of money without offering much in the way of a standing defense force. In 1762 for example, Viceroy Marqués de Cruillas spent 3,398,471 pesos extraordinary funds without managing to get the fortifications at Vercruz into a state of readiness or a proper force to defend them. Most viceroys, inspectors general, and senior staff officers confronted with the task of having to inspect Mexican units catalogued a long list of failures. They described a history of constnatly changing military policies that achieved little other than to waste hundreds of thousands of pesos each decade while entrenching numerous chronic defects.

It is generally accepted that the Bourbon Reforms were designed to reestablish Peninsular vigor through colonial renewal. What is often unappreciated is that this pristinely simple goal obscures an underlying tangle. The essential thrust was to recolonize the Indies, and to this end economic life was reordered so as to accentuate the New World's role as supplier of precious and exotic products and as consumer of Spanish manufactures. Equally important, however, was the fiscal dimension. The crown wished to generate enough revenues to be able to bear the increasing burden of colonial defense, but beyond this it also wanted the overseas dominions to aid the mother country in defraying European expenses judged essential to a great power.

“Let pass Manuel Nunes Viana, a man of medium build, round of face, with brown eyes and black hair”. Made by the official at the register on the Rio Grande in the interior of Brazil on May 14, 1717, this is the only physical description of a charismatic figure whose word was law in the backlands of Brazil in the first quarter of the eighteenth century. A native of Viana do Castelo in northern Portugal, Nunes Viana migrated to Brazil around the 1680's. Salvador was his point of entry but, after killing an assailant he lay low until pardoned by the governor; subsequently, he left for the sertão where he was to establish residence for some 40 years near to the bar of the Rio das Velhas. He sired at least six daughters and four sons. During his lifetime he returned to Portugal on two occasions, and was a minor literary Maecenas although in 1717 his signature is that of a barely literate man. He was financially successful as a result of ventures in cattle ranching, commerce in foodstuffs to the developing mining areas, and investments in alluvial mining. Alone, and in league with his cousin Manuel Rodrigues Soares, he ruled the sertão of the captaincies of Bahia, Minas Gerais, and Pernambuco for two decades, before dying in the mid-1730's. He cocked a snook at governors and viceroys, although his loyalty to the crown was never called into question. If one viceroy in 1715 could report to the crown that Nunes Viana was not only the “most capable” of the inhabitants of the sertão and the best suited to carry out the royal will, the following year the Overseas Council in Lisbon was to refer to him as “guilty of many crimes.” Not surprisingly the king was at a loss to know whether he had a saint or a sinner on his hands. Governors ran the full gamut from regarding him as the only possible instrument to maintain a royal presence in the Brazilian west to considering him a cancer to be eliminated before infecting the loyalty and wellbeing of the colonial flock. To some settlers, he may have been a Robin Hood of the backlands, but for others he was a cruel and despotic figure who meted out arbitrary justice with excessive cruelty. Whatever the divergence of views, one fact was certain: Manuel Nunes Viana was not a man to whom anybody could remain indifferent.

French Catholicism inspired one of the most ambitious missionary movements in the history of Roman Catholicism in the nineteenth century. French missionaries went to Latin America to build a new Church. In France, new missionary societies were founded for this task. Older, established religious societies were renewed in order to participate in the missionary movement of the day. French missionaries travelled across the globe establishing a network of missions linking the continents to France, and France to Rome. The missionary revival constituted the leading edge of religious renewal sweeping Europe and France during the nineteenth century.

The Latin American Church was especially receptive to French religious currents. Latin American religious leaders were preoccupied with internal struggles and absorbed with social and political conflicts. They disposed of few resources and of limited energy for evangelization and religious renewal within their newly-formed nations. The French were anxious and able to supply what was needed in Latin America. The French saw the missionary challenge as a struggle against secularization and liberalism, even though that battle was far from over within France itself.

Over the course of the colonial period the Spanish in Mexico, whether Creole or peninsular, not only created an economic and marketing structure based on their own practices and preferences but also penetrated and even came to dominate the marketing of certain Indian commodities, when these products were exchanged in a cash rather than a barter system and when involvement in the marketing appeared sufficiently lucrative. Cacao was probably the first item in the indegenous market economy whose distribution was taken over by Spaniards. Cacao had been a long-distance import item of high specific value even in the pre-Conquest world and the victorious Spanish quickly replaced the disappearing pochteca class of merchants which had controlled its distribution.

As the American Revolution matured, foreign intervention on behalf of the Thirteen Colonies against Great Britain became increasingly important. Nowhere in that struggle was outside assistance more significant than at the seige of Yorktown during the autumn of 1781. It was here that a French army under the Count de Rochambeau and a French fleet under the Count de Grasse enabled George Washington to force the surrender of Lord Cornwallis. Historians have always recognized how crucial French participation was for this last important battle in the English colonies. Indeed, it would not have taken place without their aid. Yet there was another ally of the Continental army at Yorktown whose contribution has often been belittled or ignored. That ally was Spain.

The international situation in which the early Haitian republic found itself between 1820 and 1843 aggravated its internal problems and precipitated its economic decline. The economic structure of the new country had been weakened by the destruction of the colonial sugar plantations during the war of liberation against France (1791-1804). It proved impossible to resurrect these in the republican era, because of the lack of capital and the unwillingness of the ex-slaves to return to plantation life. They wanted property of their own, and this insistence forced successive governments to distribute land to them. Only Henri Christophe, who ruled the North as a kingdom (1806-1820), succeeded in maintaining the old system through forced labor; an experiment which died with him. Dramatic as these changes were, however, they were not sufficient to prevent the resurgence of a new economy based on coffee; a crop which was well suited to peasant cultivation. The shift towards coffee exports had begun in the last years of the colonial era and accelerated in the years after 1804. An economy of smallholders engaged in the cultivation of coffee and provisions existing alongside the remaining plantations could have provided a modest foundation for economic growth. Alexandre Pétion, the first president of Haiti (1806-1818), had envisioned this possibility and it was one of the reasons which he gave for carrying out the first land reform in Latin America. Haiti was a major exporter of coffee in the first half of the nineteenth century, and there were a number of foreign merchants already present in the country to purchase the crop. Instead of economic prosperity, the years after 1820 witnessed an economic decline which made the first black nation virtually ungovernable after 1843 save by the rule of caudillos.

William L. Sherman has written a good book on the personal service of the Indians, a theme so important in the society of Spanish America but here limited to Central America.

Series of studies exist on this topic for the viceroyalties of New Spain and Peru but Central America, the intermediate region, has received only sporadic attention. Now it receives an impressive and more complete study, based on documents from the archives of Central America and Spain: actas de cabildo, letters, official depositions, law suits, juicios de residencia and notarial registers. Both the old and modern bibliography is cited, with some omissions.

In his volume, Professor Sherman includes all the distinct institutional forms of Indian labor. The first is Indian slavery either as the result of war or barter. This section enlarges our understanding of that topic for the entire region. Of special interest is the trade in Honduran Indians to the Antilles and those of Nicaragua to Panama and Peru. The Peruvian sources consulted are limited. In this connection, he recalls (p. 387, note 11), even though the matter does not concern Central America, the exportation of the Indians from the Province of Panuco in New Spain to the Spanish Islander of the Caribbean.