Historians treating the American-Mexican diplomatic crisis during the Hayes administration have tended to regard it as a political and military affair, involving such points of controversy as the American recognition of Porfirio Díaz, the Mexican inability to keep order on the frontier, invasions of Mexico by American troops to punish marauding Indians, and, behind and above all, Mexican fears of American territorial ambitions. No one will deny that these dramatic circumstances deserve attention, but some writers have largely ignored the economic side of the question. Under cover of the rifle fire along the border and the excited buzzing in the government offices American business promoters, long anxious to take part in the development of Mexican resources, finally obtained the terms which would make this development possible. In September, 1880, after three years of controversy and war scares had almost extinguished American hopes, the Mexican government granted generous concessions for the building of the Mexican Central and the Mexican National Railroads and, in so doing, opened the way for an inrush of American capital.

The general history of man has not infrequently been supplemented by materials found in epic poetry (The Iliad, The Aeneid, La Chanson de Roland, Os Lusiadas, etc.). The history of Spanish America has similarly profited, from epic poems such as Castellanos' Elegías de varones ilustres de Indias, Ercilla's La Araucana, Oña's Arauco domado. Most scholars who have commented on Antonio de Saavedra Guzmán's El Peregrino indiano, published in 1599, have emphasized this poem's historical value. Such emphasis perhaps compensates somewhat for their having found scant literary merit in it (A mere “rimed chronicle” is the dictum of Menéndez y Pelayo, dean of Spanish literary historians).

During the past fifty years much scattered writing has appeared about the arts of the neophyte Indians resident in the California missions. But these arts: the sculpture and carving in stone and wood, the work in metal, the paintings on the walls and on canvas, most of these are not truly Indian. The California Indians were on the whole at a cultural level far below that of the Indians of New Mexico and Arizona, to say nothing of those of Mexico. They were as primitive and backward as any in the western hemisphere. They had no writing, they had little social organization, they knew nothing of metals. Their housing was either huts of rushes or caves; they wore little or no clothing. Their arts were unusually primitive; pottery was almost unknown. Basketry, or the weaving of baskets, was the only craft that reached a considerable development, and the patterns and designs throughout the state are comparable to those of any Indian culture. Several techniques of weaving were used and the decorations comprised designs often using several colors. Sometimes shell mosaics were applied to the baskets to create more interesting patterns.

As the United States went into the second year of civil strife in 1862, Abraham Lincoln was under strong pressure to find some acceptable solution to the problem of the Negro. Though the Republican Party had made no emancipation pledges, and both President and Congress had denied any intention to interfere with established state institutions, conditions changed swiftly in the months that followed these disclaimers. It became increasingly awkward to allow each regional commander to handle the Negro refugees as he saw fit—returning the men and their families to their erstwhile owners, chasing them out of the camps, or holding them in labor battalions as “contraband of war.” Still more important was the dilemma caused by the Radicals both in and out of Congress who saw only a clear-cut case of right versus wrong, and who felt that victory would surely be forthcoming once the shackles of servitude had been cut off. Neither the unwillingness of Union Democrats to enter upon an abolitionist crusade, nor the administration's need to retain the support of border state slaveholders served to quiet their clamor. Accordingly, Lincoln was forced against his will into piecemeal and sometimes contradictory measures ending with his proclamation of January 1, 1863, when what he actually preferred was a long-range program of compensated emancipation that would include voluntary colonization of a large portion of the Negroes thus set free.

Edward Bliss Emerson, a younger brother of Ralph Waldo Emerson, was born in 1805. Educated at Andover Academy and Harvard, he showed great promise as a scholar. Ill health plagued the young man, however, and he was forced to give up his work as a teacher. A trip to southern Europe failed to cure his tuberculosis. Next he tried to study law in Boston, but this brought on the total ruin of his health and a short spell of mental derangement.

By 1831 it was apparent that a prolongation of Emerson's life required a warmer climate than that of his beloved New England. He went first to the Danish island of St. Croix. A few months later he was in Puerto Rico, and there he remained—with the exception of one brief trip home—until his death in 1834.