This year, 1992, marks the quincentenary or quincentennial of the first voyage of Columbus to the Western Hemisphere. In 1990, as Chair of the Mexican Studies Committee of the Conference on Latin American History, I invited two of the leading scholars on Mexico during the colonial period– Professor Jacques Lafaye (Universite de Paris IV) and Professor James Lockhart (UCLA)–to help set the debate for the upcoming anniversary by delivering a 20 minute summary of the role of Spain in the history of colonial Mexico at the annual meeting of the American Historical Association in San Francisco. The following essays are the result of that discussion held on December 29, 1990 in San Francisco.

With the end of the First World War, American hegemony in the Western Hemisphere appeared to be an unquestioned fact of international life. The defeat of Germany, in combination with the wartime weakening of Great Britain and France, had created a situation whereby the major economic and political competitors of the United States were unable, at least in the short-run, to exercise the degree of influence they had enjoyed in the years before 1914. Given the strategic considerations involving the isthmian canal route, the circum-Caribbean region was the area within the Western Hemisphere where the influence of the United States was especially strong, a point born out by the existence of virtual American protectorates in Cuba, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Panama, and Nicaragua. Accordingly, when viewed from an immediate post-World War I perspective, one might have anticipated that the United States would have had relatively little difficulty in maintaining a regional Pax Americana.

This discussion takes its historical cue from a piece of recent urban folk wisdom in Brazil, one claiming that children born outside wedlock historically have enjoyed equal inheritance rights with their legitimate half-siblings. This notion attained wide circulation in the final years of the great debate over divorce that ended in 1976. As the defenders of the status quo, opponents of divorce usually failed to point out that Brazilian succession law had historically distinguished not just between individuals of legitimate and illegitimate birth but also among those of illegitimate birth. Of course, most Brazilians, like most North Americans, remained unaware of the vast differences prevailing between their two legal systems of inheritance. They usually assumed that the legal precept contained in the Statute of Merton (1235) still served as a rule of thumb for the Anglo-American experience: “Once a bastard, always a bastard.” On the other hand, what appealed to Brazilians' sense of fairness was the flexibility their national system of succession offered. The notion that inheritance rights should be restricted to those of legitimate birth was one they proudly rejected. In leaving the door open to the possibility that civil law could equip those born to unmarried parents with the potential for equal inheritance rights with legitimate heirs, Brazil's system of succession provided that so-called bastardy could be converted into legitimacy.

Latin American maritime history is virtually an unexplored subject among English-speaking scholars. Opportunities for research abound since practically every Latin American nation has had an intimate affair with the water; for some it has been sweet and for others salt. One can find a maritime topic which complements his or her interest in almost any Latin American country or any era.

Even land-locked Paraguay has been profoundly influenced by its maritime environment. It has fought two major wars since independence and the outcomes of both were influenced by the exploitation of the extensive river systems. During the War of the Triple Alliance, Paraguay lost control of the rivers, the only efficient means of transportation, early in the contest. As a result, Paraguay's enemies held the initiative and could find a haven under the guns of their fleet if the battle went poorly on land. Conversely, during the early stages of the Chaco War, Paraguay's control of the rivers gave it a significant logistical advantage over its enemy, Bolivia. Paraguay had to bring its supplies up the Paraguay River and its tributaries; on the other hand, Bolivia had to bring its supplies up the west slopes of the Andes and then down the other side.