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Recent United States Studies in Latin American History: Trends Since 1965

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2022

Charles W. Bergquist
Charles W. Bergquist*
Affiliation:
Duke University
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United States studies in Latin American history, since their emergence as a distinct body of literature in the early years of the twentieth century, have been much more tradition-bound than their counterparts in United States and European history. More descriptive than analytical, they concentrated on diplomatic, military, political, and institutional history. They were legalistic and elitist in their approach, a reflection in part of their subject matter. But many other factors accounted for their traditionalism. Narration and description seemed justifiable first steps in a field practically devoid of serious scholarly attention. The dearth of research aids and the accessibility of certain types of source materials influenced the nature of the work undertaken. Less tangible factors were also present. It was easy to justify studies about former Spanish territories later incorporated into the United States since, after all, such studies were really a part of “American” history, and a “romantic” part at that. A case could also be made for the study of Spain and her empire in the new world. Once Europe's greatest military power and master of a world-wide empire, Catholic, aristocratic Spain subsequently became the rival of England, source of the dominant liberal, protestant culture of the United States. Moreover, as the United States itself began to acquire overseas colonies, was it not important to assess more objectively the Spanish experience with empire? But what was the importance of studying the dismal and chaotic post-independence history of Spain's former colonies in America? Perhaps concerned about the reception of their work in an area many people considered marginal, United States historians of Latin America produced impeccable scholarship on themes of proven acceptability. Working largely in isolation from United States social scientists, unlike their colleagues in United States history, they remained remote from the fascinating tools and concepts being developed in other disciplines. Moreover, although many first-rate scholars contributed works of solid worth and enduring value, the field as a whole seems to have failed to attract the most imaginative and original minds.

Type
Topical Review
Information
Latin American Research Review , Volume 9 , Issue 1 , Spring 1974 , pp. 3 - 35
Copyright
Copyright © 1974 by the University of Texas Press

References

Notes

1. On this point see Benjamin Keen's introduction to the recent edition of Edward Gaylord Bourne's Spain in America, reprinted in Howard F. Cline, ed., Latin American History. Essays on its Study and Teaching, 1898–1967 (2 vols., Austin, 1967), 1:57.

2. James Alexander Robertson, the first editor of the Hispanic American Historical Review, alluded to one answer in 1919, noting that the increase in interest in Latin American history in the United States was “largely fostered by the narrowing bonds set to the earth by the demands of commerce and by the industrial development of our age.” “A Symposium on the Teaching of the History of Hispanic America in Educational Institutions in the United States,” in Cline (1967:1:231).

3. As late as 1958, Robert Burr lamented the failure of Latin American historians to make clear that their field offered “real intellectual challenges, either within the framework of contemporary historical thinking or in opening up new currents of historical thought.” “History: Needs and Prospects,” in Cline (1967:2:542).

4. A comparison of the first (1966) and second (1971) editions of The National Directory of Latin Americanists, prepared by the Hispanic Foundation of the Library of Congress, readily confirms the great increase in the number of United States scholars specializing in Latin America and also attests to the recent vintage of a large proportion of United States Latin Americanists.

5. Morse's comments, his contribution to a 1968 conference devoted to exploring problems of training and research in Latin American area studies in the United States, are published along with other conference papers and commentary in Stanley R. Ross, ed., Latin America in Transition (Albany, N.Y., 1970).

6. “Thirty Years of the Hispanic American Historical Review,” HAHR, 29:2:188–204 (May, 1949).

7. Since an earlier version of this article was submitted to the HAHR in May 1971, the editors have adopted a similar scheme for monitoring the geographical, temporal, and thematic distribution of the articles submitted and published in the journal. See “From the Editor's Desk,” HAHR, 51:4:714 (November, 1971), for an introduction to this policy.

8. Simpson included documentary pieces as well as articles since the former were, he believed, “in effect, short articles.” He excluded the “Notes and Comment” section as generally devoted to “ephemeral articles of no great weight.” Simpson (1949:188). Pieces dealing with archives were not mentioned by Simpson. I found these distinctions to be tenuous at best for recent issues of the HAHR. “Notes and Comment” sometimes included pieces of importance, while pieces dealing with documents were often little more than transcriptions. Recently, few documents have appeared in the HAHR. To avoid this tangle, I have surveyed only full-fledged articles and avoided the tabulation by number of pages, the procedure Simpson used to weight the shorter documentary pieces he included.

9. See Simpson (1949:189) for the list from which these data are taken.

10. “Trends in United States Studies in Latin American History,” in Cline (1967:2:538).

11. These criteria are rarely made explicit in guidelines for funding, but John J. TePaske has recently pointed out that the Joint Committee on Latin American Studies of the Social Science Research Council and the American Council of Learned Societies has restricted its funding of cooperative projects by North American and Latin American scholars to studies dealing solely with the national period. “Spanish America: The Colonial Period,” in Roberto Esquenazi-Mayo and Michael C. Meyer, eds., Latin American Scholarship since World War II (Lincoln, Neb., 1971), 6. This useful volume contains some excellent historiographical articles on their respective specialties by a number of United States historians. The collection has the virtue of demonstrating that the bulk of important scholarship on Latin American history continues to be done outside the United States by scholars in Latin America and Europe. Reviewing the literature as a whole since World War II, the book offers a very different perspective from the one presented in this article on trends within the United States community of Latin American historians.

12. Following Simpson's procedure, all articles of general application were not tabulated. In Simpson's sample these amounted to 22% of the whole; in my survey, 14 articles or 11% of the whole were omitted. The smaller percentage of articles of general application may itself be an indication of the increasing specialization characteristic of the field. Simpson (1949:192).

13. Simpson (1949:193).

14. For Simpson's harried statement of the problem, see Simpson (1949:194).

15. Simpson's table is found in Simpson (1949:194).

16. For a criticism of Simpson's survey in general, and his classification scheme in particular, see Howard F. Cline, “Reflections on Traditionalism in the Historiography of Hispanic America,” in Cline (1967:1:135–138).

17. Some examples from the articles surveyed in the HAHR would include those by Charles A. Hale, “José María Luis Mora and the Structure of Mexican Liberalism” (May, 1965); Ralph Lee Woodward, Jr., “Economic and Social Origins of the Guatemalan Political Parties (1773–1823)” (Nov., 1965); Richard Graham, “Causes for the Abolition of Negro Slavery in Brazil: An Interpretive Essay” (May, 1966); Warren Dean, “The Planter as Entrepreneur: The Case of São Paulo” (May, 1966); Asunción Lavrin, “The Role of the Nunneries in the Economy of New Spain in the Eighteenth Century” (Nov., 1966); Richard E. Green-leaf, “Vice-regal Power and the Obrajes of the Cortés Estate” (Aug., 1968); Kenneth R. Maxwell, “Pombal and the Nationalization of the Luzo-Brazilian Economy” (Nov., 1968); James Lockhart, “Encomienda and Hacienda: The Evolution of the Great Estate in the Spanish Indies” (Aug., 1969); Stuart B. Schwartz, “Magistracy and Society in Colonial Brazil” (Nov., 1970); Robert G. Keith, “Encomienda,. Hacienda and Corregimiento in Spanish America: A Structural Analysis” (Aug., 1971); Warren Dean, “Latifundia and Land Policy in Nineteenth-Century Brazil” (Nov., 1971); Mark Falcoff, “Raúl Scalabrini Ortiz: The Making of an Argentine Nationalist” (Feb., 1972).

18. On the other hand, as will become apparent in the next section, the space available in a book-length study may encourage innovation since the author enjoys ample room to develop and defend his ideas and methodology.

19. Unable to control Simpson's data, for the article survey I tabulated every article published during the period surveyed. These included a very few by persons who would not meet the strict definition outlined here.

20. Not tabulated were four books for which geographical focus did not apply. They are: Howard F. Cline's handy Directory of Latin American Historians (Durham, 1966); the second edition of the same editor's National Directory of Latin Americanists (Washington, D.C., 1971); the volume edited by Stanley Ross, cited previously; and J. Fred Rippy's memoirs, Bygones I Cannot Help Recalling (Austin, 1966). Recommended for prospective United States historians of Latin America, Rippy's book conveys some of the flavor of the profession in decades past and often candidly treats his long experience in academic life.

21. A few of these studies abandon the tradition of romantic narrative accounts and collections of documents related to exploration, conquest, and settlement so characteristic of borderlands history in the past. Leonard Pitt's The Decline of the Californios, A Social History of the Spanish-Speaking Californians, 1846–1890 (Berkeley, 1966) stresses the traditional nature of Spanish Californian society and documents the racism and economic exploitation to which the Spanish-speaking population was subjected after United States acquisition in 1848. A solidly researched study, which interlaces the traditional style and concerns of borderlands historians with attention to economic and social factors and an interest in the comparative study of frontier institutions is C. Alan Hutchinson's Frontier Settlement in Mexican California. The Hijar-Padrés Colony, and Its Origins, 1769–1833 (New Haven, 1969). A descriptive economic history, devoted primarily to the first half of the nineteenth century is David J. Weber's The Taos Trappers: The Fur Trade in the Far Southwest, 1540–1846 (Norman, Okla., 1971). Joyce Elizabeth Harman works from ship manifests and customs records to document extensive economic ties between Spanish Florida and the English colonies in her Trade and Privateering in Spanish Florida, 1732–1763 (St. Augustine, 1969). Some evidence of changing interests among Gulf coast historians can be found in two collections edited by Ernest F. Dibble and Earle W. Newton, In Search of Gulf Coast History (Pensacola, Fla., 1970) and Spain and her Rivals on the Gulf Coast (Pensacola, Fla., 1971). See especially the interesting comparative study by John J. TePaske of French, Spanish, and English Indian policy published in the latter volume. All in all, published evidence of the changing concerns of borderlands scholars is limited, but judging from the research opportunities and interest in social and economic history attested to in William S. Coker, et al., “Research in the Spanish Borderlands,” LARR 7:2:3–94 (Summer, 1972), the future of borderlands history may be significantly different.

22. Teaching aids (23 books) and the four books not tabulated in the analysis of geographical focus were not included in the table.

23. In his recently published Latin America: A Concise Interpretive History (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1972), which falls outside the time-span of books tabulated, Burns somewhat less successfully applies the same approach to the history of the area as a whole.

24. At this point the discussion abandons the restrictions employed in the surveys for purposes of control over the data and includes significant studies published since 1971.

25. In a stimulating recent article, “Encomienda, Hacienda and Corregimiento in Spanish America: A Structural Analysis,” HAHR, 51:3431–446 (Aug., 1971), Robert G. Keith seeks to modify Lockhart's conception of the relationship between encomienda and hacienda by emphasizing the discontinuities and tensions between the two institutions. As an ideal type, he argues, encomienda perpetuated pre-capitalistic, indigenous structures while hacienda, in is ideal form, is a capitalistic institution.

26. Other pioneers in the use of notarial research, parts of whose work are at present only available in dissertation and article form, are Frederick P. Bowser and Karen Spalding. The potential of another kind of source available to colonial historians, metropolitan appointment files, is demonstrated by Stuart B. Schwartz' recently published study of the career patterns and local interests of judges serving on the high court of Bahia, Sovereignty and Society in Colonial Brazil (Berkeley, 1973).

27. Studies in Latin American history employing quantification have recently been reviewed for the colonial and national periods by John J. TePaske and William Paul McGreevey in their contributions to V. Lorwin and Jacob Price, eds., The Dimensions of the Past: Materials, Problems, and Opportunities for Quantitative Work in History (New Haven, 1972). TePaske's judicious survey demonstrates the greater development of studies in the colonial period and illustrates for the neophyte the advantages and promise of computer techniques. McGreevey's treatment of the relatively meager literature on the national period primarily offers suggestions for future work.

28. See Thomas E. Skidmore and Peter H. Smith's searching criticism of Wilkie's book— and Wilkie's rebuttal—in LARR, 5:1:71–91 (Spring, 1970).

29. Two fine examples of the use of explicit, informally structured comparison are John Leddy Phelan's book discussed above, and Stanley J. and Barbara H. Stein's The Colonial Heritage of Latin America (N.Y., 1970), which is treated in the next section.

30. “The Relation of American History to Other Fields of Historical Study,” in Cline (1967: 1:54).

31. With the exception of Eugene D. Genovese, who has taken a truly American approach to the problem of comparative slavery, “American” historians have been interested in Latin American slavery largely insofar as it can shed light on United States slavery. Contrast the approaches of the first part of Eugene D. Genovese, The World the Slaveholders Made (N.Y., 1969), and Laura Foner and Eugene D. Genovese, eds., Slavery in the New World (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1969) with Stanley M. Elkins, Slavery (Chicago, 1959) and Carl N. Degler, Neither Black Nor White (N.Y., 1971). Degler's formally structured comparison of slavery and race relations in Brazil and the United States takes issue with much previous work on the problem. Degler argues that slavery in the United States was probably milder than in Brazil and that the future of race relations in the United States is, in many respects, more hopeful than in Brazil. With its close attention to the problem of the free black and mulatto, Degler's book reflects a recent trend in the historical study of slave societies. In this regard see the excellent contributions in David W. Cohen and Jack P. Green, eds., Neither Slave Nor Free (Baltimore, 1972). United States historians of Latin America contributing to that volume include Frederick P. Bowser, Gwendolyn Mildo Hall, Franklin M. Knight, and Herbert S. Klein.

32. Another example, not included in this discussion because of the strict definition adopted for United States historians of Latin America, is Rayford Logan's Haiti and the Dominican Republic (N.Y., 1968). Depending on secondary sources, Logan compares the historical experiences of the two countries with an eye to accounting for their disparate economic, political, and cultural development. Although Logan's study suffers from many of the pitfalls discussed below, his analysis raises a number of challenging questions. Discounting racial factors, Logan suggests that the divergence between the two nations is accountable in terms of the varying impact of slavery, the timing and nature of the independence movement, and continuing relations with great powers.

33. The importance of this question was particularly stressed by Eugene D. Genovese in a paper delivered to the CLAH luncheon at the American Historical Association meeting in December 1969. Genovese's plea for comparative history was similar to Bourne's statement quoted previously: “There are at least two reasons for bringing our work into comparative focus, the first being the need to maximize control of our generalizations, and the second being the need to write the history of the social process by which a single world community has been developing since the sixteenth century.”

34. Books by William J. Griffith, Empires in the Wilderness: Foreign Colonization and Development in Guatemala, 1834–1844 (Chapel Hill, 1965), Wayne M. Clegern, British Honduras: Colonial Dead End, 1839–1900 (Baton Rouge, 1967), and Ralph Lee Woodward, Jr., Class Privilege and Economic Development: The Consulado de Comercio de Guatemala, 1793–1871 (Chapel Hill, 1966), are examples of the concern with development in studies of smaller Latin American countries which do not receive attention in other sections of this article.

35. Especially noteworthy in this respect are the influential contributions of Albert O. Hirschman in economics and Charles W. Anderson in political science. See, for example, Hirschman's Journeys Toward Progress (N.Y., 1963), and Anderson's Political and Economic Change in Latin America (Princeton, 1967).

36. A prime example, which does not figure in the subsequent discussion, is James Wilkie's The Mexican Revolution, cited previously. Wilkie argues that the greatest “social change” since the outbreak of the Mexican Revolution has occurred since 1940. The implications of Wilkie's study are clear, since it was in 1940 that the Mexican government abandoned its aggressive economic nationalism and its emphasis on bringing about social change directly. Since 1940, Mexican governments have given highest priority to a policy of capitalistic economic development which was to produce the trickle-down effect which Wilkie claims to have measured.

37. Fredrick B. Pike, The Modern History of Peru (N.Y., 1967), xvii.

38. Maxwell (1968:625,630,631).

39. Hugh Hamill Jr., The Hidalgo Revolt (Gainesville, 1966), 220.

40. Albert Hirschman has emphasized the importance Magaña assumes in Womack's narrative in his article, “The Search for Paradigms as a Hindrance to Understanding,” World Politics, 22:3:329–343 (April, 1970).

41. In this regard see the spirited exchange between Keen and Lewis Hanke in the HAHR, which began with Keen's “The Black Legend Revisited: Assumptions and Realities,” HAHR, 49:4:703–721 (Novmber, 1969). Hanke responded with “A Modest Proposal for a Moratorium on Grand Generalizations: Some Thoughts on the Black Legend,” HAHR, 51:1: 112–127 (February, 1971). Keen's rejoinder, “The White Legend Revisited: A Reply to Professor Hanke's ‘Modest Proposal’,” HAHR, 51:2:336–355 (May, 1971), contains his most explicit statements of the relationship between scholarship and the concerns of empire. Keen has also examined the other side of the coin. In his perceptive and handsomely published The Aztec Image in Western Thought (New Brunswick, N.J., 1971) he adopts a sociological perspective to assess changing Western evaluations of the Aztec empire since the sixteenth century. Recent additions to the literature on the Black Legend include Charles Gibson, ed., The Black Legend (N.Y., 1971), a Borzoi teaching aid, and William S. Maltby, The Black Legend in England (Durham, N.C., 1971).

42. See Claudio Véliz, ed., Obstacles to Change in Latin America (London, 1965), and Claudio Véliz, ed., The Politics of Conformity in Latin America (London, 1967).

43. See Paul Baran's pathbreaking, On the Political Economy of Growth (N.Y., 1957), and Fernando Cardoso and Enzo Falleto, Dependencia y desarrollo en América Latina (México, 1969).

44. See his seminal article, “José María Luis Mora and the Structure of Mexican Liberalism,” HAHR, 45:2:196–227 (May, 1965), and his book, Mexican Liberalism in the Age of Mora (New Haven, 1968).

45. Ralph Lee Woodward, Jr.,'s much needed teaching aid, Positivism in Latin America, 1850–1900 (Lexington, Mass., 1971), unfortunately fails to deal with this definitional problem.

46. A promise of things to come is contained in William D. Raat, “Leopoldo Zea and Mexican Positivism: A Reappraisal,” HAHR, 48:1:1–18 (Feb., 1968).

47. An excellent example is his article, “Toward a Theory of Spanish American Government,” Journal of the History of Ideas, 15:1:71–93 (Jan., 1954).

48. Publishing his book in Spanish, Spalding, like the Wilkies before him, has set a good example for those United States historians of Latin America who are concerned that the products of their research reach beyond an English-reading public living primarily in the United States.

49. Previously, Thomas E. Skidmore in his Politics in Brazil, 1930–64 (N.Y., 1967) had assessed the failure of Brazil's “experiment in democracy” against a background of growing domestic and international developmental dilemmas faced by the country in the decade 1954–64.

50. The fact that entrepreneurial elites appeared on the scene to seize the opportunities for development in the coffee-producing areas of both Brazil and Colombia would appear to be the strongest evidence militating against a cultural explanation of economic development. Rather than resort to cultural arguments to explain industrialization, as both Dean and McGreevey ultimately do, it would seem more fruitful to emphasize the structural opportunities for development seemingly inherent in the nature of large-scale coffee production as it expanded in the two countries in the early twentieth century.