Between 1791 when the Haitian revolution began, and the death of Henri Christophe in 1820, important economic changes occurred in Haiti which transformed one of the most prosperous plantation economies in the New World into a republic of peasant proprietors. While the political history of the revolution has received a moderate amount of attention, the economic and social changes which accompanied it have been poorly understood. It is the purpose of this study to focus on the internal developments which were occurring in an irresistible way to bring about a peasant economy and to delineate the responses of a variety of governments, both French and Haitian, to try to halt these changes.

No English reformer of the early nineteenth century was so much admired by his Latin American contemporaries as was Jeremy Bentham, the prolific author of utilitarian treatises on government, economics, and law. The fundamental reasons for the Colombian liberators' interest in Bentham were undoubtedly the attractive manner in which he treated the explosive question of sovereignty, and his demand for a complete reconstruction of all legal systems upon utilitarian principles. It is even more certain that Bentham's most important entrée to the Spanish-American world was afforded by the popularity of his works, many of them published first on the Continent and in the French language, among the Spanish liberals. Yet the story of Bentham's personal contacts with a number of the próceres of Gran Colombia formed a noteworthy chapter in the history of the Bentham vogue in South America, as they sought him out during their journeys to Europe and the British Isles. Bentham himself was more than a passive partner in this exchange. Especially in the case of Bolívar, he pursued his acquaintances rather relentlessly by correspondence in his high-minded efforts to provide men in positions of power with the models for introducing utilitarian reforms.

On May 9, 1913 the California State Legislature passed an alien land bill designed to prohibit Japanese ownership of land in California. Based on prejudice and clearly discriminatory, the California Alien Land Act embarrassed Washington and provoked a controversy with Japan. Relations with that country rapidly approached the point of tension verging on war because Japan viewed the act as an affront to her national dignity. Many notes passed between the two governments during the remainder of 1913 and the first half of 1914, however, Washington's efforts to conciliate the Japanese failed. From the California viewpoint the passage of the alien land bill was strictly a domestic issue but it caused a serious break in the friendly relations between Japan and America and just as important it had serious implications for American diplomatic relations with another country. That country was America's neighbor to the south, revolutionary Mexico.

This article is divided into two parts. The first deals with Alcedo and his collaborators; the second treats his correspondence with the Scottish historian, William Robertson.

When Antonio de Alcedo y Bexerano published his valuable five-volume Diccionario geográfico-histórico de … América … (Madrid: 1786-1789), he was painfully aware that, given its magnitude, it inevitably contained errors and omissions. To remedy these deficiencies in a revised edition that he planned to bring out later but never did, he requested in his prologue that readers inform him about mistakes and shortcomings they might detect. Exactly how many heeded his call, we do not know; but prominent among those who offered assistance and whose correspondence has been found were three: two expatriated Spanish American Jesuits, the Mexican, Agustín Pablo de Castro, and the Argentinian, Francisco Javier Iturri, and the former Spanish governor and commander-general of Guayana, Colonel Manuel Centurión. Only the letters of Castro and Centurión to Alcedo are published here. Those of Iturri, one of which has already appeared, will be published later.

On January 8, 1917 Bogotanos who glanced at the morning newspapers were startled to learn of a rebellion in the Llanos. Ten days before Humberto Gómez and a band of armed men had seized the town of Arauca. Ordinarily such an event would excite little concern in the capital. A small village on the Venezuelan border, Arauca was surrounded by vast tropical plains and lacked even a telegraph connection with Bogotá. It was a favorite refuge for Colombian and Venezuelan outlaws who routinely defied with impunity the laws of both countries. Yet Humberto, by killing the principal Colombian authority, the Comisario Especial and proclaiming himself Civil and Military Chief of the “Republic of Arauca” sounded a challenge that could not be ignored. Anxious to safeguard precarious treaty negotiations then in progress with Venezuela, President José Vicente Concha took swift action. He declared a state of siege and ordered two separate military expeditions commanded by General Jeśus García to Arauca. The daily periodicals gave full coverage to the ensuing drama. Their interest continued even after Humberto's capture in Venezuela on February 9, when eye-witness reports of atrocities committed in the Llanos by García's soldiers brought demands for an investigation. Between May and September, the editor of El Diario Nacional and future president, Enrique Olaya Herrera fanned the border incident into a major scandal by attacking the government in the columns of his newspaper and on the floor of the Chamber of Representatives. An analysis of what came to be called “The Arauca Affair” brings to light a little-known aspect of Concha's administration and explores a neglected theme of Colombian history—the interrelationship between the Andean interior and the Llanos frontier.

Sigmund Freud was more than the father of psychoanalysis; he was also one of the great classical philosophers of history. In Freud's historical thought, we have the framework for an analysis of the past which parallels the formation of neuroses in the life history of the individual. Like psychological man, historical man is the victim of events (trauma) from the past. Etched on the brain of historical man, are memories which endure through time, become part of the “archaic heritage,” and are transmitted from one generation to another. Then, like the “return of the repressed” in neurotic individuals, societies feel the afflictions of the past, which return to haunt them. That Freud stressed the killing of the primeval father by his jealous sons, an event of dubious historical veracity, should not obscure the value of his historical framework. In Freudian thought, the psychic stages of the individual unfold in the collective societies of history.