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Chapter 21

This webpage reproduces a chapter of
Spain in America

by
Edward Gaylord Bourne

in the
Barnes & Noble edition,
New York, 1962

The text is in the public domain.

This page has been carefully proofread
and I believe it to be free of errors.
If you find a mistake though,
please let me know!

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 p338  Supplementary Bibliography​a
by Benjamin Keen

Bibliographies

C. K. Jones, A Bibliography of Latin American Bibliographies (2nd rev. ed., 1942), offers a good point of departure for research, but is again in serious need of revision. The indispensable Handbook of Latin American Studies, published annually since 1936, attempts, with the aid of specialists in various disciplines, to digest the material published the preceding year. Oscar Handlin and others, Harvard Guide to American History (1954), replaces the old Channing, Hart, and Turner Guide; it is especially useful for the themes of discovery and exploration, but lacks annotation. R. A. Humphreys, Latin American History: A Guide to the Literature in English (1958), is an exemplary reference work; critical and occasionally pungent comments on entries enhance the book's value. Charles Gibson and Benjamin Keen, "Trends of United States Studies in Latin American History," American Historical Review, LXII, 4 (July, 1957), 855‑77 "provides a useful survey with extensive bibliographical notes." The new American Historical Association Guide to Historical Literature (1961) replaces the old (1931) volume edited by Dutcher and others; the sections on "The Expansion of Europe" and Latin American history, edited by C. E. Nowell and H. F. Cline, respectively, are of special value. Among reference works in Spanish, B. Sanchez Alonso, Fuentes de la historia española e hispanoamericana (3rd ed., 3 vols., 1952), is the most comprehensive; it is an immense repository of titles, arranged according to subject and period, but  p339 without annotation. Since 1953 the quarterly Indice Histórico Español, published by the Centro de Estudios Internacionales, Universidad de Barcelona, has been giving brief critical notices of recently published materials on Spanish and Spanish American history. Note should also be taken of the series of historiographic studies in course of publication since 1953 by the Comisión de Historia of the Instituto Panamericano de Geografia e Historia; to date volumes dealing with Haiti, the British West Indies to 1900, Ecuador, Brazil in the sixteenth century, and Paraguay in the pre-Columbian and colonial periods have appeared.

Students can keep abreast of the most recent writing in the field by consulting the review sections in the Hispanic American Historical Review (1926‑), the American Historical Review (1895‑), the Revista de Historia de América (1938‑), the Review of Inter-American Bibliography (1951‑), and The Americas, A Quarterly Review of Inter-American Cultural History (1944‑), published by the Academy of American Franciscan History.

General Secondary Works

All of the current college texts in Latin American history treat, in varying depth, the topics featured in Bourne's book. M. W. Williams, R. J. Bartlett, and R. E. Miller, The People and Politics of Latin America (4th ed., 1955), is an older work, repeatedly revised, but still very useful. A. Curtis Wilgus and Raul d'Eça, Latin American History (5th ed., 1962), is a guidebook in the Barnes & Noble College Outline Series. Three widely used recent texts are Hubert Herring, A History of Latin America from the Beginnings to the Present (1955); J. F. Rippy, Latin America, A Modern History (1958); and H. M. Bailey and A. P. Nasatir, Latin America, The Development of Its Civilization, 1492 to the Present (1960). Benjamin Keen, ed., Readings in Latin American Civilization, 1492 to the Present (1955), provides a comprehensive collection of translated sources.

R. B. Merriman, The Rise of the Spanish Empire in the  p340 Old World and the New (4 vols., 1918‑34), a work of vast scope and highest merit, views the process of discovery and colonization of America as a sequel to Spain's empire-building in the Mediterranean and Atlantic. For the background of this process, see J. H. Mariéjol, The Spain of Ferdinand and Isabella, tr. and ed. by Benjamin Keen (1961), a lively as well as learned book. B. W. Diffie, Latin American Civilization: Colonial Period (1945), reveals great erudition and intensive thought; influenced by Carlos Pereyra and other revisionists, Diffie emphasizes Spanish contributions to economy and culture and deprecates Indian pre-Columbian cultural achievements; on the other hand, he takes issue with those who claim that Spain imposed no restrictions on classical culture. Diffie's positions are frequently debatable, but always command respect. Salvador de Madariaga, The Rise of the Spanish American Empire (1947), is readable but speculative. C. E. Chapman, Colonial Hispanic America: A History (1933), is written with the author's customary verve and is not altogether outdated. A. C. Wilgus, ed., Colonial Hispanic America (1936) is a collection of essays of uneven worth.

C. R. Beazley, The Dawn of Modern Geography (3 vols., 1897‑1906; repr. 1949), traces in rich detail the gradual widening of medieval geographical horizons. G. A. T. Kimball, Geography in the Middle Ages (1938), summarizes geographical theory, ideas of the earth, and travel up to the beginning of the Renaissance. H. H. Hart, Venetian Adventurer (1942), is a sound yet readable account of Marco Polo; see also Leonardo Olschki, Marco Polo's Precursors (1943), for early travelers to the East. A. P. Newton, ed., The Great Age of Discovery (1932), is a series of essays by English authorities on the great explorers. C. E. Nowell, The Great Discoveries and the First Empires (1951), is a brief, informing account. See also Boies Penrose, Travel and Discovery in the Renaissance, 1420‑1620 (1952); and, among older works, J. A. Williamson, Maritime Enterprise, 1485‑1558 (1913). R. A. Skelton, Explorers' Maps: Chapters in the Cartographic Record of Geographical Discovery (1958), is a fascinating "pictorial companion to general histories of exploration."

 p341  B. W. Diffie, Prelude to Empire: Portugal Overseas before Henry the Navigator (1961), is a valuable background study. S. E. Morison, Portuguese Voyages to America in the Fifteenth Century (1940), subjects these voyages to careful scrutiny. Edgar Prestage, The Portuguese Pioneers (1933), is a well-written, reliable general account. J. P. Oliveira Martins, The Golden Age of Prince Henry the Navigator (1914), is very readable but partly outdated.

I. B. Richman, The Spanish Conquerors (1918); and F. A. Kirkpatrick, The Spanish Conquistadores (1934), cover the same ground with sound and well-written summaries. H. E. Bolton, The Spanish Borderlands (1921), is a model of good story-telling and sound scholar­ship; it opens with a series of chapters on sixteenth-century Spanish explorers in North America, then discusses individually the areas of Florida, New Mexico, Texas, Louisiana, and California, and concludes with a chapter on the Jesuits on the Pacific Coast. H. I. Priestley, Coming of the White Man, 1492‑1848 (1928), is a broad survey of the spread of Europeans over the continent and their cultural contributions. J. B. Brebner, The Explorers of North America, 1492‑1806 (1933; repr. 1955) is a comprehensive, well-written account. John Bakeless, The Eyes of Discovery (1950), interestingly weaves together the first explorers' descriptions of American flora, fauna, and geography.

The process of Spanish discovery, exploration, and colonization of America is traced in detail in successive volumes of Antonio Ballesteros y Beretta, ed., Historia de América y de los pueblos americanos (14 vols., 1936‑56).

General Collections of Sources

The most important additional collection of sources on exploration in territory now possessed by the United States is J. F. Jameson, ed., Original Narratives of Early American History (19 vols., 1906‑17; repr. 1959 by Barnes & Noble, Inc.). Volumes touching topics treated by Bourne are J. E. Olson and E. G. Bourne, eds., The Northmen, Columbus, and Cabot; F. W. Hodge and T. H. Lewis, eds., Spanish Explorers  p342 in the Southern United States; H. S. Burrage, ed., Early English and French Voyages; W. L. Grant, ed., Voyages of Champlain; H. E. Bolton, ed., Spanish Explorations in the Southwest.

For some account of the publications of the Hakluyt Society, the Cortes Society, and the Quivira Society, all of which have issued translations of important early Spanish chronicles and documents relating to Spanish America, see Humphreys (cited above). Publication of the great Colección de Documentos Inéditos Relativos al Descubrimiento, etc., cited in Bourne's bibliography, was continued until 1932, when the collection numbered 67 volumes. It has been indexed by Ernst Schäfer, Índice de la colección de documentos inéditos de Indias (2 vols., 1946‑47). Other important source collections for Spanish America include S. Montoto and Rafael Altamira, eds., Colección de documentos inéditos para la historia de Hispano-América (14 vols., 1928‑32), most useful for institutional and social history; and L. C. Blanco and J. F. Guillén, Colección de diarios y relaciones para la historia de los viajes y descubrimientos (4 vols., 1943‑46). Some of the most important early chronicles appear in M. Serrano y Sanz, ed., Historiadores de Indias (2 vols., 1919), and Historiadores primitivos de Indias (2 vols., 1925). For other pertinent collections, see entries under "printed sources" in the section on Latin American history edited by H. F. Cline in the new American Historical Association Guide to Historical Literature.

Lives of Columbus

Two recent bibliographical aids are Donald Mugridge, A Selected List of Books and Articles Published by American Authors or Published in America, 1892‑1950 (1950); and C. E. Nowell, "The Columbus Question. A Survey of Recent Literature and Present Opinion," American Historical Review, XLIV (July, 1939), 802‑22.

Ferdinand Columbus's biography of his father remains, in the words of Henry Vignaud, "the most important of our  p343 sources of information on the life of the discoverer of America." Bourne's statement (in his Critical Essay on Authorities) that "the earlier part, prior to 1492, is of uncertain authenticity," may now be dismissed as unfounded. For the history of the wearisome controversy concerning the book's authenticity, see Rinaldo Caddeo's introduction to Le Historie della vita e dei fatti di Cristoforo Colombo per D. Fernando Colombo suo figlio (2 vols., 1930). Briefer accounts are found in Ramón Iglesia's preface to his Spanish translation, Vida del Almirante Don Cristóbal Colón (1947), and in my preface to The Life of the Admiral Christopher Columbus by His Son Ferdinand (1959), the first modern English translation, superseding the archaic version cited by Bourne.

Bourne wrote when the process of re‑evaluating Columbus and the materials for his life by the methods of modern historical criticism, initiated by Henry Harrisse, was reaching its climax. A major figure in this tradition was Henry Vignaud, whose Histoire de la grande entreprise de Christophe Colomb (2 vols., 1911) (summarized in his The Columbian Tradition (1920)), materially contributed to the reconstruction of Columbus's early life by its meticulous sifting of sources. Salvador de Madariaga, Christopher Columbus (1940), is a vividly written but highly speculative work. S. E. Morison, Admiral of the Ocean Sea: A Life of Christopher Columbus (2 vols, 1942), supersedes all previous accounts; it is as close to being the definitive life of the Discoverer as the mutability of historical knowledge and opinion makes possible. Morison based his account of Columbus's life on the researches of other students, but brought to his work an admirable spirit of common sense lacking in some previous writers; his major contribution consisted in reconstruction of Columbus's voyages through re‑exploration of their routes with ships approximating those of Columbus in rig and burthen, combined with careful study of Columbus's Journals and other sources. A recent large Spanish work is Antonio Ballesteros y Beretta, Cristóbal Colón y el descubrimiento de América (2 vols., 1945). D. L. Molinari, La empresa colombina (1938), is an admirable compact study.

 p344  The Voyages of Columbus

The principal sources for the voyages of Columbus continue to be his own writings, some preserved intact, others abstracted or embedded in the biography by his son Ferdinand (see my translation, cited above), or in the monumental Historia de las Indias of Bartolomé de Las Casas. Of this work there are two recent editions; that of A. Millares Carlo, with an introduction by Lewis Hanke (3 vols., 1951), and that of Pérez de Tudela (2 vols., 1957).

Cecil Jane has translated and edited letters and journals of Columbus in The Voyages of Christopher Columbus (2 vols., 1930), and Select Documents Illustrating the Four Voyages of Columbus (2 vols., 1930‑33). Using the Cecil Jane translation as his base, L. A. Vigneras has produced a new version of the Journal of the First Voyage, with critical annotations and a useful appendix by R. A. Skelton on "The Cartography of Columbus's First Voyage," The Journal of Christopher Columbus (1960). This is a very handsomely made and illustrated book.

The Decades of Peter Martyr d'Anghera, cited by Bourne as the first history of the New World, is now available in a modern English translation by F. A.MacNutt, De Orbe Novo, The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr d'Anghera (2 vols., 1912). The word Decades in the title has no chronological denotation. The work originally consisted of a succession of Latin letters; hence the name Decades (groups of ten letters).

Recent monographs have enlarged our knowledge and understanding of the Columbian enterprise at various points. G. E. Nunn has shed light on The Geographical Conceptions of Columbus (1924). For ship construction see J. F. Guillén Tato, La caravela Santa María (1927) and Heinrich Winter, Die Kolumbusschiffe (1944). Columbus's language and vocabulary have been studied by Ramon Menéndez Pidal, La lengua de Cristóbal Colón (1942); Rodrigo de Sa Nogueira, "Portuguesismos en Cristovão Colombo," Miscelanea de Filologia, Literatura, e Historia Cultural a Memoria de Francisco Adolfo Coelho (1950), pp81‑107; and J. F. Guillén Tato, La  p345 parla marinera en el diario del primer viaje de Cristóbal Colón (1951). Alice Gould has provided a biographical dictionary of Columbus's shipmates in her "Nueva lista documentada de los tripulantes de Colón en 1492," Boletín de la Real Academia de la Historia (Madrid), LXXXV‑CXV (1924‑44). The problem of the site of Columbus's landfall has recently come up for renewed discussion. E. A. and M. C. Links, "A New Theory on Columbus' Voyage Through the Bahamas," Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections (Washington), CXXXV, 4 (1958), 1‑32, argue that Columbus first landed on Caicos; E. Roukema, "Columbus Landed on Watlingsº Island," The American Neptune, IIII (April, 1959), pp79‑113, restates the traditional position.

The Voyages of Other Navigators

On the Cabot voyages, the material cited by Bourne should be supplemented by J. A. Williamson, The Voyages of the Cabots and the English Discovery of North America under Henry VII and Henry VIII (1929), "a definitive study," according to C. M. Andrews, "which for the first time treats the subject dispassionately and with an historian's regard for evidence." L. A. Vigneras has two interesting notes based on a recently unearthed letter, "New Light on the 1497 Cabot Voyage to America," Hispanic American Historical Review, XXXVI (November, 1956), 503‑509; and "The Cape Breton Landfall: 1494 or 1497; Note on A Letter from John Day," Canadian Historical Review, XXXVIII (September, 1957), 219‑28. For Sebastian Cabot's activity under the Spanish flag, see the heavily documented work of J. T. Medina, El veneciano Sebastian Caboto al servicio de España (2 vols., 1908).

For general accounts of the Portuguese explorations, see Prestage, The Portuguese Pioneers, and other relevant entries under "General Secondary Works."

H. H. Hart has told the story of Vasco da Gama and his exploit in a sound yet readable work, Sea Road to the Indies (1950). Jaime Cortesão, A expedição de Pedro Alvares Cabral e o descobrimento do Brasil (1922), is a standard work. On  p346 Cabral's intentions, see C. E. Nowell, "The Discovery of Brazil — Accidental or Intentional?," Hispanic American Historical Review, XVI (1936), 311‑38, but compare Prestage, The Portuguese Pioneers, Morison, The Portuguese Voyages, and W. B. Greenlee, ed., The Voyage of Pedro Alvares Cabral to Brazil and India, from Contemporary Narratives and Documents (1938).

For the secondary voyages of Pinzón, Niño, and Hojeda, see Amando Melón y Ruiz de Gordejuela, Los primeros tiempos de la colonización, Cuba y las Antillas, y la primera vuelta al mundo (1952), Vol. VI of Ballesteros y Beretta, ed., Historia de América y los pueblos americanos. D. L. Molinari, El nacimiento del nuevo mundo (1492‑1534) (1942), is an admirable summary of the Columbian enterprise and its sequel of exploration and conquest.

Naming of America and the Vespucci Question

The most significant development in the Vespucci controversy is the notable effort made by Alberto Magnaghi in his Amerigo Vespucci: Studio critico (1926) to rehabilitate the Florentine navigator by declaring spurious the two letters attributed to Vespucci describing four voyages to America, while accepting as genuine the three letters describing only two voyages. Magnaghi thus absolves Vespucci of having foisted his name upon the New World by publishing accounts of a fictitious voyage in which he claimed to have reached the American mainland before Columbus. F. J. Pohl, Amerigo Vespucci, Pilot Major (1944), adopts the Magnaghi position, and rates Vespucci highly as an explorer and cartographer. Not content with Magnaghi's compromise formula, Roberto Levillier, América la bien llamada (2 vols., 1948), claims the utmost for Vespucci, arguing for the authenticity of all the voyages on the basis of cartographic evidence. Stefan Zweig, Amerigo, A Comedy of Errors in History (1942), is a delightful literary version of the Magnaghi interpretation; German Arciniegas, Amerigo and the New World; The Life and Times of Amerigo Vespucci (1955), is an equally readable  p347 presentation of the Levillier thesis. For source materials, see G. T. Northrup, ed., Vespucci Reprints (7 vols., 1916).

Search for a Strait, and Magellan's Voyage

For recent surveys of these topics, see the works of Melón y Ruiz de Gordejuela, Los primeros tiempos de la colonización, and Molinari, El nacimiento del nuevo mundo (cited above). On Balboa and Magellan, see the works of the eminent Chilean scholar J. T. Medina, El descubrimiento del océano pacífico. Vasco Núñez de Balboa, Hernando de Magallanes y sus compañeros (2 vols., 1913‑14); and El descubrimiento del océano pacífico. Hernando de Magallanes y sus compañeros (2 vols., 1920). C. L. G. Anderson, Life and Letters of Vasco Núñez de Balboa (1941), is a semipopular treatment. C. M. Parr, So Noble A Captain: The Life and Times of Ferdinand Magellan (1953), is both scholar­ly and readable. An older life of value is Jean Denucé, Magellan, la question des Moluques et la première circumnavigation du globe (1911). See also Antonio Pigafetta, Magellan's Voyage Around the World, tr. and ed. by J. A. Robertson (2 vols., 1906), the journal of Magellan's secretary.

Exploration of the East Coast of North America

For convenient summaries of Spanish exploration of the Gulf and Atlantic Coasts, see Bolton, The Spanish Borderlands; H. I. Priestley, The Coming of the White Man; and J. B. Brebner, The Explorers of North America.

Vicente Murga Sanz, Juan Ponce de León (1959), is an important new work based on Spanish manuscript sources and offers a positive assessment of Ponce as a constructive figure in Spanish empire-building. Barcia's chronicle, cited by Bourne, is now available in a translation by Anthony Kerrigan, Barcia's Chronological History of the Continent of Florida (1951).

On early French explorations, Parkman's classic Pioneers of France in the New World, cited by Bourne, should be  p348 supplemented by the opening chapters of G. M. Wrong, The Rise and Fall of New France (2 vols., 1928). C. G. M. B. de la Roncière, Jacques Cartier (1931), and gaston Martin, Jacques Cartier et la découverte de l'Amérique (1938), are two modern lives. For source materials, see the collections of documents edited by H. P. Biggar, The Precursors of Jacques Cartier (1911); and The Voyages of Cartier (1924).

Exploration of the Interior of the Continent

William H. Prescott's classic History of the Conquest of Mexico (1843) remains unsurpassed from breadth of conception and literary charm, but its romantic attitudes clearly reveal the book's age. F. A. MacNutt, Fernando Cortes and the Conquest of Mexico (1908), is a semipopular account very favorable to its hero. H. R. Wagner, The Rise of Fernando Cortes (1944), is a scholar­ly biography. Salvador de Madariaga, Hernan Cortes, Conqueror of Mexico (2nd ed., 1955), features a dubious psychological interpretation; quite unreliable. Maurice Collis, Cortes and Montezuma (1955), is a well-written account of the conflict between two worlds of culture. Studies of the military aspects of the Conquest include C. H. Gardiner, Naval Power in the Conquest of Mexico (1956); Mario Alberto Salas, Las armas de la conquista (1950); and R. M. Denhardt, "The Equine Strategy of Cortes," Hispanic American Historical Review, XVIII (1937), 550‑55.

Among the considerable number of sources turned into English since the appearance of Bourne's book, two of the most important are The Letters of Cortes, tr. and ed. by F. A. MacNutt (2 vols., 1908); and Bernal Diaz del Castillo, The True History of the Conquest of New Spain, tr. by A. F. Maudslay (5 vols., 1908‑16).

On the subject of northern explorations, H. E. Bolton, The Spanish Borderlands; J. B. Brebner, The Explorers of North America, and H. I. Priestley, The Coming of the White Man, all offer sound, concise surveys. The dramatic story of Cabeza de Vaca is told in detail in Cleve Hallenbeck, Alvar Núñez  p349 Cabeza de Vaca (1940). Morris Bishop, The Odyssey of Cabeza de Vaca (1933), is a pleasantly written biography. Newly available sources on De Soto include Garcilaso de la Vega, The Florida of the Inca. A History of the Adelantado, Hernando de Soto, ed. by J. G. and J. J. Varner (1951), and a new translation by J. A. Robertson of the Gentleman of Elvas, True Relation of the Hardships suffered by Governor Fernando de Soto and certain Portuguese Gentlemen during the Discovery of the Province of Florida (2 vols., 1932‑33). For the exploits of Fray Marcos de Niza, who sighted "the Seven Cities of Cibola," see Cleve Hallenbeck, The Journal of Fray Marcos (1949). Recent studies of the Coronado expedition include H. E. Bolton, Coronado on the Turquoise Trail; Knight of Pueblos and Plains (1949), and A. G. Day, Coronado's Quest. The Discovery of the South-Western States (1940). For documentary material, see G. P. Hammond and Agapito Rey, eds., Narratives of the Coronado Expedition, 1540‑1542 (1940).

On Spanish explorations along the Pacific Coast, see H. R. Wagner, Spanish Voyages to the Northwest Coast of America in the Sixteenth Century (1929).

On the subject of Bourne's Chapter XII, "French and Spaniards in Florida," Bourne's references should be supplemented by Woodbury Lowery, The Spanish Settlements in Florida, 1562‑1574 (1911), especially for the Menéndez episode. On the general subject of Franco-Spanish conflict, see Henry Folmer, Franco-Spanish Rivalry in North America (1953).

The Spanish Colonial System

C. H. Haring, The Spanish Empire in America (2nd ed., 1952), is an authoritative study of colonial institutions; it is particularly good on political administration. B. W. Diffie, Latin American Civilization: Colonial Period, is a work of formidable scholar­ship and sharply defined viewpoints on many topics. Bernard Moses, The Spanish Dependencies in South America (2 vols., 1914), is pedestrian in style and uninspired  p350 in approach, but faithfully digests available printed sources. Outstanding general works in Spanish include Carlos Pereyra, Vol. II, El Imperio Español, of his Historia de la América Española (8 vols., 1924‑25), and J. M. Ots Capdequi, El estado español en las Indias) (2nd ed., 1946).

In recent decades the political institutions of the Indies have been explored in monographic detail. Ernst Schäfer, El Consejo Real y Supremo de las Indias (2 vols., 1935‑47), is a definitive study of the fountainhead of Spanish colonial policy. J. H. Parry, The Spanish Theory of Empire in the Sixteenth Century (1940), is a useful background study. Typical monographs on administrative structure include L. E. Fisher, Viceregal Administration in the Spanish American Colonies (1926), and her The Intendant System in Spanish America (1929); John Lynch, Spanish Colonial Administration, 1782‑1810: The Intendant System in the Viceroyalty of the Rio de la Plata (1958), a study in Bourbon efforts at political reform; and J. P. Moore, The Cabildo in Peru under the Hapsburgs (1954). Important political biographies include A. S. Aiton, Antonio de Mendoza, First Viceroy of New Spain (1927), Roberto Levillier, Don Francisco de Toledo, Supremo Organizador del Peru (5 vols., 1935‑1947), and Ursula Lamb, Fray Nicolas de Ovando, gobernador de las Indias, 1501‑1509 (1958).

An extensive literature has arisen on the judicial and moral problems created by the Conquest and on the development of Spain's Indian policy. Silvio Zavala ably summarizes modern insights into the evolution of political, social, and economic institutions in the Indies in his New Viewpoints on the Spanish Colonization of America (1943). He has also written on Las instituciones jurídicas de la conquista de America (1933), on The Political Philosophy of the Conquest of America (1953; orig. pub. in 1947), and on Utopian elements in the ideology of the Conquest, in La 'Utopia' de Tomás Moro en la Nueva España (1937) and Ideario de Vasco de Quiroga (1941). See also, for Messianic and utopian influences in the Conquest, Lewis Hanke, The First Social Experiments in America (1933), and J. L. Phelan, The Millenialº Kingdom of the Franciscans in the New World (1956).

 p351  On Las Casas, who played so large a part in the debate on Spain's Indian policy, see the writings of Lewis Hanke, especially The Spanish Struggle for Justice in the Conquest of America (1948), Bartolomé de las Casas. An Interpretation of His Life and Writings (1951), and Aristotle and the American Indians (1959), a study of the controversy between Las Casas and Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda over the nature and capacities of the Indians.

A considerable literature now exists on the economic life of the Spanish colonies. C. H. Haring, Trade and Navigation between Spain and the Indies in the Time of the Hapsburgs (1918), remains a standard work. Huguette and Pierre Chaunu are exploring Spain's commerce with the Indies on an archival base in Seville et l'Atlantique (8 vols., planned, 1955‑). William Schurz, The Manila Galleon (1939), studies the colorful Chinese silk trade between Manila and Acapulco. On mining, see Modesto Bargallo, La minería y la metalurgía en la América Española durante la epoca colonial (1955), for a general survey; and, for special studies, R. C. West, The Mining Community of Northern New Spain: The Parral Mining District (1942) and Colonial Placer Mining in Colombia (1942), A. P. Whitaker, The Huancavelica Mine (1941), C. G. Motten, Mexican Silver and the Enlightenment (1950), and Walter Howe, The Mining Guild of New Spain and Its Tribunal General, 1770‑1821 (1949).

J. M. Ots Capdequi, España en América; El régimen de tierras en la época colonial (1959), surveys the juridical foundations of colonial land tenure. François Chevalier, La formation des grands domaines aux Mexique: terre et société aux XVIe‑XVIIe siècles (1952), a landmark in the study of colonial land systems, traces the interplay of demographic and economic trends in the development of the hacienda. L. B. Simpson has studied Exploitation of Land in Central Mexico in the 16th century (1956), showing, among other conclusions, the replacement of men by sheep.

The encomienda has been the subject of careful scrutiny in recent decades. A pioneer work in the field is L. B. Simpson, The Encomienda in New Spain (rev. ed., 1950). See also,  p352 among other studies, Silvio Zavala, La encomienda indiana (1935), E. R. Service, Spanish-Guarani Relations in Early Colonial Paraguay (1954), and E. Arcila Farias, El régimen de la encomienda en Venezuela (1957). José Miranda, El tributo indigena en la Nueva España durante el siglo XVI (1952) is a technical study for the advanced student.

On the closely related subject of population and demographic trends, see, for a general survey of nonwhite groups, Angel Rosenblatt, La población indígena y el mestizaje en América (2 vols., 1954). S. F. Cook and Woodrow Borah have made an extraordinarily illuminating series of studies of post-Conquest Indian population trends in Mexico; they have consolidated and revised their findings in The Indian Population of Central Mexico, 1531‑1610 (1960). Woodrow Borah's New Spain's Century of Depression (1951), is a fundamental work that links the decline in population to a drop in mining and food production, to the rise of Spanish latifundia, and to the growth of repartimiento labor and debt peonage. On the rise of peonage, see also Silvio Zavala's New Viewpoints, and his "Origenes coloniales del peonaje en Mexico," Trimestre Económico (Mexico), X (1944), 711‑48.

On the Negro in the Spanish colonies, see, for a general survey, Arturo Ramos, Las culturas negras en el Nuevo Mundo (1943), and, for a special study, G. Aguirre Beltrán, La población negra de México, 1519‑1810 (1946). Frank Tannenbaum, The Negro in the Americas (1946), is a comparative study of the status of the Negro in Latin America and the United States. On the slave trade, see G. Aguirre Beltrán, "The Slave Trade in Mexico," Hispanic American Historical Review, XXIV (1944), 402‑31; and Fernando Romero, "The Slave Trade and the Negro in South America," ibid., XXIV (1944), 368‑86.

On immigration to the Indies, see L. Rubio y Moreno, Pasajeros a Indias. Siglo primero de la colonización de América, 1492‑1592 (2 vols., 1932). V. A. Neasham, "Spain's Emigrants to the New World, 1492‑1592," Hispanic American Historical Review, XIX (1939), 147‑60, is a slight summary article.

 p353  For summaries of Spain's Indian policy in the two great colonial centers, see Silvio Zavala and José Miranda, "Instituciones indígenas en la colonia," in Alfonso Caso, ed., Métodos y resultados de la política indigenista en Mexico (1954), pp29‑112, and J. H. Rowe, "The Incas under Spanish Colonial Institutions," Hispanic American Historical Review, XXXVII (1957), 155‑99. Charles Gibson, Tlaxcala in the Sixteenth Century (1955), is a careful study of Indian adaptation to the ways of their conquerors; see also Gibson's "The Transformation of the Indian Community in New Spain, 1500‑1810," Journal of World History, II (1955), 581‑607. E. R. Wolf, Sons of the Shaking Earth (1959), contains much provocative discussion on Mexican cultural evolution under the impact of Spanish conquest, and is provided with a very useful bibliography.

J. L. Mecham, Church and State in Latin America (1934), contains introductory chapters covering the colonial era. The best work on the process of conversion is Robert Ricard, La "Conquête spirituelle" du Mexique (1933); but see also C. S. Braden, Religious Aspects of the Conquest of Mexico (1930). H. C. Lea, The Inquisition in the Spanish Dependencies (1908), remains a standard work on the Holy Office in the Spanish colonies; for special studies, see J. T. Medina, Historia del tribunal del santo oficio de la Inquisición en Lima, 1569‑1820 (2 vols., 1887), and La Primitiva inquisición americana, 1493‑1569 (2 vols., 1914). J. F. Rippy and J. T. Nelson, Crusaders of the Jungle (1936), is a slight semipopular treatment.

V. G. Quesada, La vida intelectual en la América española durante los siglos XVI, XVII y XVIII (1917), is still a useful introductory sketch. Bernard Moses, Spanish Colonial Literature in South America (1922), is pedestrian in style and tone, but presents basic information. Pedro Henriquez Ureña, Literary Currents in Hispanic America (1945), contains brilliant discussion of the colonial literary achievement. For the culture of colonial Mexico, see Julio Jimenez Rueda, Historia de la cultura en México: El Virreinato (1950), a work that richly merits translation; for that of Peru, Felipe Barreda  p354 Laos, Vida intelectual del virreinato del Perú (1937); for that of Argentina, José Ingenieros, Evolución de las ideas argentinas (1937), a penetrating work written from a Marxist point of view. I. A. Leonard is a leading authority on the literary culture of the Spanish colonies; his Books of the Brave (1949), is "an account of books and of men in the Spanish conquest and settlement of the . . . new world"; his Baroque Times in Old Mexico (1960), is an enlarge and sensitive recreation of the literary and social climate of seventeenth-century Mexico. J. T. Lanning is the author of a standard work on Academic Culture in the Spanish Colonies (1940); see also his The University in the Kingdom of Guatemala (1955) and The Eighteenth-Century Enlightenment in the University of San Carlos de Guatemala (1956). Among the substantial contributions to the history of colonial art are Pal Kelemen, Baroque and Rococo in Latin America (1951), G. A. Kubler, Mexican Architecture of the Sixteenth Century (2 vols., 1948), and H. E. Wethey, Colonial Architecture and Sculpture in Peru (1949).


Thayer's Note:

a See also the additions suggested by W. R. Shepherd in his review of Bourne's book (PSQ 20:329‑333).


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