In latin american relations, Woodrow Wilson sought to revolutionize United States policy by supplanting the “Big Stick ”diplomacy of Theodore Roosevelt and the “Dollar Diplomacy ”of William H. Taft with a new Pan Americanism. He not only reiterated his desire to be a good neighbor in numerous speeches, particularly his famous Mobile address of October, 1913, but he even formulated a Pan American Pact to promote hemispheric unity by providing for mutual sovereign and territorial respect. His pact failed largely because of the nationalistic opposition of Chile, and his grand design, though cropping up later in the League of Nations idea, ultimately went the way of all Utopian dreams. Then, since Wilson turned his attention to European and domestic affairs, it remained for his three successive secretaries of state, William Jennings Bryan, Robert Lansing, and Bainbridge Colby, to face the realities of Latin American relations and to apply their own policies in dealing with the immediate problems, especially of the smaller republics. Though each man predicated his policies upon Wilson’s promises of friendship as far as possible, and referred critical problems to the president, each generally left the imprint of his own beliefs and personality on hemispheric relations.

Bryan was sympathetic with the president’s goal of the brotherhood of nations, but he conceived his own plan for resolving international conflicts by proposing that all nations sign bilateral arbitration treaties and then submit their differences for at least a year’s consideration to an international arbitral board. He believed that if nations could be deterred from a hasty resort to arms, they would either “cool off ”while awaiting the decision or have their problem solved. But, Bryan, like Wilson, was not to achieve his larger objective because of nationalistic opposition, and he had to do what he could as a “Good Samaritan ”to help all nations become, like the United States, constitutionally sound republics.

Of all Woodrow Wilson's foreign policies, none is more deserving of criticism than his non-recognition policy. This policy, initiated by the President within a week after his accession to office on March 4, 1913, in response to the news of violent revolutionary disturbances in Mexico and Nicaragua, was primarily predicated on Wilson's assumption that the best way to prevent the recurrence of revolutions in Caribbean nations would be to warn all would-be revolutionists that they could expect no political or financial support from the United States. Ultimately he hoped that he could end the threat of revolution and induce all Latin American nations to abide by constitutional and democratic forms of government.

Argentina’s foreign policy during World War II is often believed to have been one of indifferent, or even pro-Axis, neutrality from the very onset of hostilities in Europe. Passions aroused by the Axis leanings of the government leaders during most of the period of American belligerency have tended to obscure the fact that the attitude of the Argentine government during the period preceding the fall of France was unquestionably favorable to the Allies. Previous writers have neglected this period, and have tended to skip directly from the Panama Conference in September, 1939, to the capitulation of France, following which Argentina adopted a policy of strict neutrality, and thus have given the erroneous impression that Argentina’s position on hemispheric neutrality was the same throughout the war.

“The Justice of warring against the notorious Chichimeca Indians of Mexico was a burning issue throughout the sixteenth century.” This simple statement covers more than half a century of theological, canonical, legal, and philosophical debate over whether or not the Spanish government was justified in waging total war a fuego y a sangre against the wild Indian tribes to the north of the capital. Should these Indians continue to be regarded, as they had been in the past, as wards of the Spanish Crown and so be punished as errant children, “ delincuentes,” or should they all, men, women, and children, be declared enemies of the Spanish nation and the Christian religion and so be punished by being pursued, hunted down, subjugated, and either enslaved or exterminated? This debate went to the heart of the question of the nature and justice of Spanish rule in the Indies and it vexed the consciences of viceroys, audiencias, colonists, and churchmen. It was only natural, then, that the question should be submitted to the most important ecclesiastical gathering of colonial Mexico—the Third Mexican Provincial Council of 1585. Though passing references are sometimes made to the consideration given to the Chichimecan question by the Council, no serious study has ever been made of the discussions and arguments nor of the official stand taken by the Mexican Church. This is particularly to be regretted since such a study casts some interesting light on the mentality of the second generation of Spanish settlers in Mexico.

During the period of the French intervention in Mexico (1862-1867), the United States Secretary of State, William H. Seward, pursued a policy which historians have aptly termed “ cautious moderation ” and “ masterly inactivity.” Caught between the fear of French recognition of the Confederacy, or even a French-Confederate alliance, and outright war with France, Seward steered a middle course. The French government was informed that the United States disapproved of intervention in Mexico and that a monarchy established by external force held no promise of permanency. But this was done in such a way as to avoid the active antagonism of France toward a Union plagued by civil war. Although at no time was the Monroe doctrine invoked prior to 1865, these mild but consistent protests paved the way for a firmer policy toward France.

The Seven Years’ war brought an end to almost 200 years of Spanish residence in Florida. Following the 1763 Treaty of Paris which settled the long and costly conflict between Great Britain and the Bourbon Family Compact (France and Spain), all Spanish possessions in North America east and southeast of the Mississippi River, were ceded to His Britannic Majesty, George III of England. Because Havana, Cuba, had capitulated to a British invasion in the summer of 1762, Marqués de Grimaldi, the Spanish plenipotentiary at Paris, reluctantly relinquished Florida to England in order to recover the Caribbean Island for His Catholic Majesty, Charles III. The treaty of Paris thus reduced Spain’s territorial holdings in the Americas. However, since the Spaniards were determined to leave to the British Crown an empty and unpopulated colony, all the population and portable possessions of Spanish Florida were transported to other areas of the Hispanic Indies.

In Latin America in the twentieth century, nation after nation has revised its concepts of constitutional law to take into account the whole new realm of state responsibility for the economic and social welfare of its citizens. Beginning most dramatically with the Mexican Constitution of 1917, Latin American states have written into their constitutional charters detailed chapters on the social responsibility of capital, the economic rights of the worker, and the state responsibility for the protection and security of the family and for the physical and mental welfare of all its citizens and classes. In rewriting their national constitutions, the Latin Americans have deliberately broken with the classic liberal constitutionalism of the nineteenth century and adopted what some have called a “social constitutionalist” position.

The question of the jurisdiction of the Holy Office of the Inquisition over the native populations in New Spain and the rest of the empire has been one of controversy and confusion since the earliest days of the conquest. The perplexing problem of enforcing orthodoxy among the recently converted Indians was linked with the debate over whether or not the Indian was a rational human being who had the capacity to comprehend the Roman Catholic faith and enjoy the full sacramental system of the Church. As in the case of the rationality controversy, the position of the Indian vis-à-vis the Holy Office of the Inquisition was not resolved articulately, and after the first decades of the spiritual conquest the question took on added importance as the Mexican clergy discovered recurrent idolatry and religious syncretism among their flocks.

Students of the life and writings of José Martí y Pérez (1853–1895), the National Hero of Cuba, will be forever indebted to the lifelong efforts of Marti’s close friend, fellow revolutionist, and “literary heir,” Gonzalo de Quesada y Aróstegui, and to those of his son, Gonzalo de Quesada y Miranda. Through painstaking research and editing they have preserved, over a period of nearly seventy years, the record of Martí’s prodigious writings as a revolutionist, journalist, novelist, dramatist, and poet. It is no exaggeration to say that most of the writing on this remarkable Cuban is derived from their carefully edited collections of his works. Gonzalo de Quesada y Aróstegui, as one of the architects of Cuban independence, Cuba’s first Minister to the United States, and major participant in the early International Conferences of American States, is deserving of special attention by scholars in the Americas. Now that a third official edition of Marti’s writings is nearing completion by Gonzalo de Quesada y Miranda in Cuba, a biographical and bibliographical sketch of the Quesadas, father and son, is in order.

A distinguished British historian, commenting on the trial and execution of “ Edmund Arrowsmith, a Papist burned by pious Englishmen at Lancaster in 1628,” claims that “ clearly … there is no rational comparison between a victim of the bloody Spanish Tribunal and one who suffered at the hands of cool headed English justice.” Considering that Magistrate Henry Yelverton judged Arrowsmith guilty of high treason for being a priest, refused to allow the accused to testify in his own defense, and then gleefully witnessed the execution, it is possible that “ cool headed English justice ” might not compare so favorably with the proceedings of the Inquisition. This is particularly true when the Inquisition in eighteenth-century New Spain is studied, for although the Holy Office was then in decline and under the control of regalist prelates, its operations exhibited marked deliberation in the pursuit of justice as defined by the courts of that period.

In May 12, 1793, a tall handsome Spanish American strode quickly and confidently into the old Paris Parlement chamber, escorted by an usher, and followed by most eyes in the buzzing room. As he approached his place his eyes very likely met those of Danton, seated in the courtroom, for Danton, the real head of the Committee of Public Safety, was present and, although unable at the time for political reasons to show public sympathy for the Spanish American, was his friend.

During the first half of the sixteenth century, the chroniclers of the Indies, those true chroniclers who were contemporaries of the conquest, wrote from personal acquaintance with the events which they were relating, as direct or indirect witnesses, relying upon their own experiences or upon the stories and versions of the other participants with whom they lived or whom their informers knew. But during the period which extends from the later years of the sixteenth century into the first decades of the seventeenth, those whom we would call the later chroniclers found themselves separated from the happenings which they were relating. For this reason they had to make use of different means. Further, this obliged them to depend on what their colleagues produced. They made use equally of the unpublished manuscripts of earlier historians as well as of works which were appearing at that time, either to follow them or to contradict them. From this arose the polemic atmosphere in which they had to work.

Bibliographies for the study of Brazilian history are either too brief, such as those in the appendices of general textbooks, or too long, such as the Manual Bibliográfico de Estudos Brasileiros. The present one aims to strike a happy medium and, by doing so, to provide a practical guide for the increasing number of students and of the general public in the United States who have an interest in learning more about the Brazilian past.

The selection of books for this bibliography has not been entirely arbitrary. Because it is intended primarily for North Americans, I chose liberally of the material available in English. Conversely, I was more exclusive in selecting works in other languages. Of the voluminous literature available in Portuguese, I sought to point out only the outstanding works—whether for quality of style, depth of research, originality, or at times, because they were the only examples of their kind in neglected aspects of Brazilian history. A few books of exceptional merit or interest in French and Spanish also were added. Doubtless I have included here some works which others may consider unworthy, to the exclusion of some they may consider indispensable. Still, I believe this bibliography will fulfill its primary purpose of indicating the basic material available to the student of Brazilian history.

A Young Irishman from Cork was among those who answered a call sent out by Luis López Méndez, Venezuela’s agent in London, for foreign volunteers to join the patriot forces in their efforts to win independence from Spain. Though such enlistments were expressly forbidden by the British government, it would seem that little effort was made to stop them, for we know that several thousand Englishmen and Irishmen volunteered for service over a period of a few years. So it was that on December 3, 1817, Daniel Florence O’Leary left Portsmouth on board the corvette Prince, bound for the New World. What was it that led O’Leary to leave family and home at the rather tender age of seventeen? Was it the desire for adventure and excitement in an unknown land where a war was being waged or was it because the economic crisis in the British Isles after the Napoleonic wars gave an enterprising young man little hope of forging a successful career for himself? It is difficult to assess his motives at that time, but there seems to be no doubt that he felt strongly attracted by this struggle for freedom going on across the seas, all the more so because he came from a land where the Act of Union decreed by the British government in 1800 had ended the limited autonomy granted the people two decades earlier and had re-established many of the intolerable restrictions previously in force. It seems very likely, too, that the young adventurer had been influenced in his decision by the great champion of Irish rights, Daniel O'Connell, a family friend, who followed with keen interest the struggle for freedom and became a fervent admirer of Bolivar, even to the point of offering the latter the services of his son.

The Nearness of Cuba to the United States, lying as it does a scant ninety miles from the coast of Florida, has always provided a strong reason for American preoccupation with the “Pearl of the Antilles.” This geographic proximity has been a source of political consideration and concern for over a century. The historical roots of the western hemisphere, with Columbus’ landings in the Caribbean, the Spanish, English, and French colonization and imperialism, and our own interest, expressed most notably in the Monroe Doctrine, have kept Cuba central in our thoughts. Our continued interest during the twentieth century, following the removal of Spanish control from the island at the turn of the century, has intensified through the years, partly because its sugar has been important to our economy, and partly because the island has become politically unfriendly in the past decade.

During the second half of the seventeenth century and the early years of the eighteenth century relaxation of the morals of religious orders, especially the masculine ones, and of the priesthood was notable in Spain and her American dominions. That this situation also existed in New Spain was reported in detail by several contemporary Viceroys in the Instrucciones to their successors. This relaxation also extended to feminine orders, though in their case it did not lead to a similar moral looseness, but to a lack of proper observance of their Rules and Constitutions. Among the main charges against nunneries were: the possession of large numbers of servants; the constant demands made upon the families of nuns for money to be spent on the needs of convents; quarrels, both among members of communities and with their Superiors, leading to appeals to civil authorities and frequent contacts with the outer world, which deteriorated the spiritual character of these institutions.

This book is a major study of one of the most serious problems of the Church in Latin America today, the shortage of priests, by the Secretary General of the Latin-American College of Louvain University. Ten years have been devoted to research, and this effort is reflected in the extensive bibliography, numerous statistical tables, and the wide range of facts contained in the text. In a word, this study is a notable effort to understand and explain the lack of priests in an area which is traditionally looked upon as Catholic.