This essay deals with the lore of the military profession in Latin America in two ways. First, it presents a general introduction to militarylore, its applications to the study of military-civilian relations and its limitations as a research tool. Second, it presents an application (with obvious limitations) of concepts discussed in part I to a case study, part II: the lore of the Chilean Army officer class in the twentieth century. I am convinced that militarylore as defined and discussed herein is an especially fertile field for research in the study of the interaction between the armed forces and state, nation and society.

Terminology used in the following pages is for the most part selfexplanatory and free from neologisms, jargon and “sociologese.” There are, though, some terms which merit clarification, not because of their vagueness, but so that they not be confused with similar terms. There is, I believe, a decreasing tendency to generalize about military-civilian relations; clarity is important.

The expulsion of the Jesuits from Spain and her possessions represents a historical question mark, in so far as the decisive factors which led to that event are still far from being clear. Ludwig von Pastor's dictum that the whole affair was a most secretive one remains the one conclusion beyond doubt. Historians have presented various hypotheses on the causes for expulsion, but none of them are conclusive or definitive. Among the more probable and plausible of these hypotheses, that of the regalist policies of the Spanish Crown appears to be the most convincing. In effect, regalism as an antithetical force to the organization and activities of the order has been implied by nineteenth and twentieth-century Spanish historians, although they tended to view the “Cloaks and Hats” riot of 1766 as the essential cause of the Jesuits' expulsion.

The demographic configuration of Brazil during the colonial period is known only in its general outlines. To a large degree this is due to the unavailability of census data for most of the colonial period as well as to a general reluctance on the part of historians to resort to the laborious process of systematically using parish records or census tracts. This essay is an effort to present detailed information on a colonial Brazilian urban center in the hope that it will provide some insights into the structure of colonial society while at the same time providing material from which comparisons can be drawn with other parts of the world for which the demographic picture is clearer. Because of the paucity of comparable studies for other areas of Brazil no claim is made, at this time, concerning the generalizability of the conclusions reached from the Vila Rica data.

The wars of the French Revolution and Napoleon obliterated century-old boundaries. In the tedious reformation of European borders, nations quarreled so violently at times—such as over Poland and Saxony—that it seemed as if new wars would immediately engulf Europe. This study explores a major Iberian storm center, which existed on the eastern Portuguese border at Olivenza. Repercussions of this conflict between Spain and Portugal extended from Moscow to Montevideo—and resulted in the formation of a new nation, Uruguay.

In 1920, Chile entered a transitional period during which political issues sparked intense social tensions. A fundamental reform of the Alianza Liberal coalition was to open the political system to fuller citizen participation, a prospect which threatened the Chilean elite. To thwart reform and change, an oligarchy, closely united by kinship ties and mutual interest, pursued a policy of obstructionism in the Senate which effectively paralyzed government. The four years 1920-1924 during which Arturo Alessandri occupied the presidency were so turbulent and frustrating that the military alone seemed capable of reestablishing order.

Edmund Burke was much troubled in 1775 by the deteriorating relations between Great Britain and her North American dependencies. Even so grave a crisis, however, did not prevent him from noting and extolling “the manner in which the people of New England have of late carried on the whale fishery.” New England whalers were sailing to places as remote as the South Atlantic Falkland Islands “in the progress of their victorious industry.”