Jerry W. Cooney

Foreigners in the Intendencia of Paraguay

The Spanish American Empire in its last half century of existence experienced an economic resurgence in oceanic shipping and inter-change with Europe. That prosperity, prompted by the reforms of the enlightened Bourbon monarch, Charles III, produced an unexpected result. Non-Spanish immigrants appeared in ever increasing numbers in Spains American colonies. That immigration, almost always illegal, had always occurred in the colonial era in spite of the many barriers erected to exclude foreigners. Now, searching for economic opportunities, these immigrants participated in the economic revitalization of Spanish America. For the most part these newcomers posed no threat to the state; and often by virtue of their commercial expertise or skilled labor, were a boon to Spanish American economic life. Unofficially, imperial officials were well aware of this. The major concern, regardless of official statements, was that immigrants profess the Catholic faith. Many of the newcomers soon acquired families in the New World, pursued their own ends, and quietly melded into Spanish American society. Certainly that proved to be the case in the Rio de la Plata. In this vast region, until the creation of the Viceroyalty in 1776, Spanish authority had been loose and the small foreign presence was generally tolerated or just ignored.

Race, State, and Armed Forces in Independence-Era Brazil: Bahia, 1790s-1840s (review)

Armies not only played a critical role in the wars of independence in Latin America, but also had a great impact upon the political structure of post-independence republics. Yet, since Brazil took a different path to nationhood than did its Spanish American neighbors, there has been a lack of serious studies on the transformation of a colonial Portuguese establishment into a national institution. Hendrik Kraays path-breaking work on the Bahian military has repaired this deficiency.

El espacio interior de America del Sur: Geografia, historia, politica, cultura (review)

above-mentioned cliché. The lack of rhetorical structure often leads Stavans into tiresome plot summaries of obscure novels, and rather than analyzing the ideologies under examination, Stavans often simply repeats them. A chapter called “A New Era of Distant Neighbors” is typical in this regard. According to Stavans, the Pilgrims of New England, who dreamed of a New Israel governed by “the manners, law and reason of their forefathers,” were “motivated to work hard and make progress” and were “fortunate enough not to find a huge Indian empire ready to oppose them.” The Spaniards, by contrast, came “to destroy, to proselytize, to exploit, to rape, to kill”—which had the unfortunate result that “Hispanic American civilization has been marked by violence, chaos and repression.” These are standard motifs of “The Black Legend,” and Stavans should present them in a more critical light than he does here. These are frustrating books, in large part because the topics Stavans has chosen are so interesting. The literatures of the Americas, the politics of sexuality, and the abiding power of myth in Latin American political life are all topics bound to fascinate students of Latin America for years to come. Stavans offers some tantalizing insights on the ways in which literary and historical narratives inform one another. But their glib tone and hasty execution leave the reader wishing these books had been written with greater care.

A guide to collections on Paraguay in the United States

Introduction Archives and Manuscripts Arkansas California Connecticut Georgia Illinois Indiana Iowa Kansas Kentucky Maine Maryland Massachusetts Michigan Minnesota Mississippi Missouri New Jersey New York North Carolina Ohio Oregon Rhode Island Tennessee Texas Utah Virginia Washington, D.C. West Virginia Collection Index Subject Index