The Canary archipelago lies off the coast of Africa at 29° N latitude, some 700 nautical miles south of Gibraltar. Its conquest and occupation, including the subjection of the native Guanche population, represented Spain's first overseas venture, a blueprint and precedent for the colonization of America. For nearly a century prior to Columbus the Spanish Crown found here a laboratory and testing ground for colonial administration, including relations with an aboriginal population that offered an irresistible attraction for enslavement and evangelization. The philosophical justification and legitimization of conquest was first faced in the Canaries as a new colonial bureaucracy sought to adapt and refine the medieval, European institutions of government to the new situation. Authority to appoint officials and to distribute land and natives in service was delegated to local governors while exhaustively detailed ordinances formulated by appointed councils (cabildos) regulated every phase of life through a complex structure of regulations, fines and taxes. The model was in place and operative by the time there was need to organize the first Spanish government in the Antilles.

Some of the Latin American republics have produced newspapers that rank with the best in the world. In Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Mexico, and Colombia there have been great editors who presided over especially noteworthy journals. Political stability certainly contributed to the development of such papers as La Prensa and La Nación in Buenos Aires and of El Mercurio in Chile. While political stability is a prerequisite for continuous good journalism, freedom of expression, guaranteed by government and jealously guarded by legal institutions, is even more important. Equally important is self-discipline by the press, nowhere more clearly shown than in Chile where the important law of 1872 brought under control abuses that had plagued Chilean journalism for three decades. A free press is incompatible with dictatorial or authoritarian government, a truism amply demonstrated by the Paraguayan experience.

In the Latin American context there are few regions which defy the commonly accepted idea of dependent development and the late start of the process of industrial growth following the great crisis of 1929. Among these few, Northeastern Mexico, with its industrial capital Monterrey, appears to offer the best example of a large industrial spurt occurring towards the end of the nineteenth century. During the two decades from 1890 to 1910 important industrial complexes, basically metallurgic and siderurgic factories, began to operate in this region, creating an impressive network of related activities and making possible considerable growth in the local demand for both consumption goods and semi-manufactured items. The statistics on industrial production reveal the importance of the process: during the years 1897,1898 and 1899 the metallurgic sector in Nuevo León produced goods worth 50,847,178 pesos. This represented 23.5% of total Mexican production, making it the most important state in the nation. By 1902, Nuevo León was also in first place as far as total industrial production was concerned, accounting for 13.5% of the national production.

This analysis and survey of economic activities in Rio Grande do Sul aim to shed new light on the crucial importance of the southernmost captaincy to overall Brazilian development at the close of the colonial period. Rio Grande do Sul was unique in economic growth, compared to the Center-South, Northeast and North, because the extreme South produced for a variety of markets: the internal Brazilian, the internal Portuguese, the Portuguese reexport to Europe and the Rio de Janeiro reexport to Angola. This market diversification made Rio Grande do Sul less dependent on the commercial vagaries of any particular geographical area. The focus of this article is the importance of economic growth in Rio Grande do Sul prior to 1808.