While historians have shown unusual agreement in their critical assessment of the results of Philander Knox's Central American policy, they have frequently disagreed on the reasons for this failure, as well as on the goals of the Secretary of State. An examination of one of Knox's loan projects — the Guatemalan refunding scheme — throws light on these two issues. The record of this futile four-year attempt to reorganize the country's financial structure reveals a State Department approach relying eventually on the use of coercive diplomatic methods. These techniques were resourceful, but ineffectual, and contributed to an unproductive and acrimonious diversion with the British Foreign Office. The negotiations suggest that the Secretary and other Department officers sought goals broader in nature than national economic or strategic interest. The extent of their objectives may have contributed to the unsatisfactory outcome of the case.

On the windswept heights near the Bolivian mining camp of Catavi on December 21, 1942, in the center of a rocky lunar landscape which dwarfs man but enlarges his passions, a mass of Indian and mestizo tin miners and their families, some 8,000 strong, trudged stubbornly down a road toward an emplacement of 700 Bolivian Army troops and Carabineros watching them through the sights of machine guns, rifles and a trench mortar. Women and children marching in front, they came from the nearby mines of Llallagua and Siglo XX to support the striking Catavi workers. The newcomers were unarmed and carried a red banner in their front ranks.

Through the decades, historians who have dealt with the Mexican Reform either directly or in passing have formulated a series of generalizations which have come to be accepted as giving an accurate analysis of the movement. The tenor of their writings is that insofar as the economic program of the Liberals was concerned, more harm than good was done. According to the historians, the Reformers generally failed in their attempt to restructure the nation into one of small property owners by making available to the people the real estate held formerly by civil and ecclesiastical corporations. The properties disamortized in 1856 and then nationalized or confiscated in 1859 got into the hands of hacendados and land speculators or enriched corrupt politicians and military commanders. Indian communities were despoiled of their communal lands. The Church continued secretly to control a great portion of the property through simulated sales in which devout Catholics opposed to the Reform bought the properties of the Church and held the real estate until times became more settled and the ecclesiastical authorities could reclaim the patrimony. The common man derived little benefit from the forced redistribution of property; rather the wealthy landowners became wealthier. In political terms, the historians have considered the Reform as much more successful because the Liberals emerged victorious after twelve years marked by civil war and foreign intervention in Mexican affairs, and by their triumph broke the power of the conservative forces which would never again control the destiny of the nation. These historians have never offered much in the way of concrete proof to support their widely accepted and often repeated generalizations.

The Republic of Colombia was the first Latin American nation to which the United States extended a formal act of recognition in 1822. This country was also the first of these new republics with which the United States negotiated a treaty of friendship, commerce, and navigation. The importance of incorporating the principle of religious liberty in our first commercial treaty with Latin America was revealed in the emphasis that John Quincy Adams, Secretary of State, placed on it in his initial instructions to Richard Clough Anderson, Jr., Minister Plenipotentiary to Colombia. Religious liberty was one of the specific articles stipulated by Adams for insertion in the prospective commercial treaty.

Most diverse are the evaluations of the Chibchas and their civilization and even the descriptions of that civilization. Steward and Faron, for example, call it “The Greatest Chiefdom” of South America, while Kroeber calls it a “realm,” Oberg calls it a “Feudal Type State” and others use the word “Kingdoms.” At any rate, a review of some evaluations will illustrate the confusion about the stature of the Chibchas among the aborigines of the New World and at the same time serve as an introduction to their civilization.