When Mexico achieved its independence in September 1821, few imagined that the country would soon become a republic, much less a federal republic. The autonomists, the members of the national elite who gained power at independence, opted for a constitutional monarchy. They initially favored establishing an empire with the Spanish king or a member of the royal family as sovereign. When Spain rejected their proposal, and faced with “popular” demands, the country's political leaders reluctantly accepted a native, Agustín de Iturbide, as Mexico's first emperor. The new monarch, a former royalist commander, had gained immense popularity when he turned against the Spanish colonial regime and proclaimed independence under the Plan of Iguala.

As early as the first decades of the sixteenth century, when English and Dutch corsairs and privateers began to challenge Spain's exclusivist claims to the New World, the struggle for control over the Americas began to be couched in terms of a holy war. The Caribbean, in particular, became the arena in which the commercial, ideological and military forces of Protestant Northern Europe and Catholic Southern Europe clashed. Spanish officials commonly referred to the English and Dutch intruders as “heretics” and “Lutheran corsairs,” while Francis Drake and his fellow Elizabethan sea dogs believed that their penetration of the New World was a crusade against Popery, Catholic fanaticism and idolatry. These rivalries continued for centuries as new actors, the United States in particular, inherited some of the old roles.

On November 27, 1902 Colombia signed an agreement with the Vatican that established parameters for the evolution of the mission as a frontier institution in the twentieth century. Renewed in 1928 and again in 1953, the Convenio sobre Misiones granted to religious orders chosen by the Vatican absolute authority to govern, police, educate, and control the Indians in the peripheral regions of the republic, which at that time accounted for sixty-five percent of the national domain but only two percent of the population. An exchange for substantial state subsidies, the orders were to carry out such government functions as administering a rudimentary judicial apparatus, providing primary education for whites as well as Indians, and promoting colonization through unlimited access to public lands. Another provision assured the ascendancy of the religious over civilian authorities by granting the former the right to reject nominees for positions in civil government if they regarded the candidates as unsuitable or as threatening to the Indians or the missionaries. Under these terms, the Augustinian Recoletos (Candelarios) in Casanare and the Capuchins in Putumayo expanded their operations, while between 1903 and 1918 the Montfort Fathers, Lazarists, Claretians, Carmelites, and Jesuits took control of apostolic prefectures and vicariates in other parts of the country.

In November 1834, Mary Robinson Hunter sailed to Rio de Janeiro with her husband William, a prominent Newport lawyer and newly appointed chargé d'affaires to the Imperial Court, and five of their six children. President Andrew Jackson had named Hunter to the post in June 1834 on the recommendation of their son, William, a clerk with the State Department. The Hunters had experienced financial difficulties over the years, and a diplomatic assignment offered them a steady income, prestige, and a unique travel opportunity.

The experience of living in a Latin and tropical culture inspired Mary Hunter to record her impressions in six diaries which she kept during a residence of fourteen years. These journals are part of a larger collection of Hunter family papers that are located in the Newport (RI) Historical Society. The volumes were carefully scanned by her daughter, Elizabeth Hunter Birckhead, who crossed out passages which shed light on family quarrels; they were ultimately deposited by her great granddaughter, Anna Dunn, in 1945. These diaries, written in medium sized script, in brown ink and a firm hand, are thoroughly legible and in good condition, given their age. They serve as the main source for her memories of life in Brazil, since her letters to female friends in Newport do not survive.