Das Jahrbuch für Geschichte Lateinamerikas / Anuario de Historia de América Latina ist bis heute die einzige in Deutschland herausgegebene Zeitschrift, die sich ausschließlich der Geschichte Lateinamerikas widmet. Das Jahrbuch für Geschichte Lateinamerikas/Anuario de Historia de América Latina veröffentlicht Artikel zur Geschichte Lateinamerikas von der Kolonialzeit bis zur Gegenwart in deutscher, englischer, portugiesischer und spanischer Sprache. Es ist offen für die verschiedenen in der Forschung zur Geschichte Lateinamerikas vertretenen Ansätze.
Fugas escravas e tráfico de africanos no Rio de Janeiro, Brasil (1822-1855), com especial referência a 1829
The study of slave flights in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, can be furthered through the construction of a time series. The movement of flights was intimately connected to the slave trade, more than to any other phenomenon, and many changes affected the traffic from 1821 through 1855. An enormous growth took place during the 1820s, and a prohibition was intended in 1830-1831, with real effects during the first half of the decade. Contraband gained momentum from 1835 on, and fluctuations continued. The movement and the fluctuations of flights, as well as the characteristics of the runaways, could be understood considering the impact of the slave trade. The history of slave trade to Brazil also explains the upsurge of flights occurred in 1829, and reactions to it are also studied here. This article was developed through a massive survey of slave flights announcements published in the Diário do Rio de Janeiro and Jornal do Commercio. The analyses of such periodicals allow us to understand contemporary perceptions about the effects of the increase in captive escapes on the social life of the then Brazilian capital.
Copyright (c) 2025 Carlos Alberto Medeiros Lima, Sandro Aramis Richter Gomes https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Esculpiendo la forma negra. La conceptualización de las artes visuales afrodescendientes en la obra de Teodoro Ramos Blanco.
Within Latin American visual arts, the name Teodoro Ramos Blanco remains largely unknown, despite being one of the most significant sculptors of Cuba's Republican period. This is unsurprising given the systematic exclusion of Afrodescendant artists from the hemisphere's art histories. Ramos Blanco created the sculptures for iconic public works in Cuba and Haiti, he exhibited throughout the region, and trained generations of artists and advanced the nation’s cultural life through his work with the Círculo de Bellas Artes (CBA) and the National Academy of Fine Arts San Alejandro. This article highlights an unexplored dimension, not only of his pioneering work but also of the region's art histories. It traces the origins of conceptualizations of Afrodescendant visual arts envisioned by Afro-Latin American artists. Beyond his pioneering output and his pedagogical and administrative contributions, Ramos Blanco stands out for his exceptional writings on race and the arts, where he conceptualized what he called the black form in the 1930s. His framework was explicitly diasporic and antiracist, sculpting the Afrodescendant character as a resilient and transformative force. This article weaves together his biography, his work, and his conception of the black form, broadening the coordinates of thought and action of Afro-Latin American artists while illuminating the legacy of this sculptor.
Copyright (c) 2025 Cary Aileen García Yero https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Foreign businessmen and the financing of trade to the Indies in the second half of the18th century
This article examines the intermediary role of foreign merchants (especially French, Genoese, and Milanese businessmen) in managing European trade with the Indies through the Spanish port of Cadiz towards the end of the ancient regime, by focusing on the ways they structured their participation and the instruments they used to finance this trade. We argue that foreign merchants operated in two different institutional environments depending on the nature of their business: with their European partners, they relied upon the classical instruments of intra-European trade (such as account books, bills of exchange and commission contracts); with the cargadores, the merchants who were legally enable to participate in the Spanish transoceanic trade, they pooled European merchant and financial capital into the American markets by massively (albeit not exclusively) resorting to sea loans. The article not only discusses the persistent use of this instrument and its profitability, but also and the possible reasons for its decline in the last decades of the century.
Copyright (c) 2025 Catia Brilli, Arnaud Bartolomei, Klemens Kaps https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Retratos hablados: la representación visual del delincuente a través de la caricatura. Colombia: siglo XIX, principios del XX.
In diesem Artikel werden die historischen Dialoge zwischen künstlerischem Schaffen und der Konstruktion von Imaginären und visuellen Darstellungen der Figur des Kriminellen sowie aller jener, die verdächtigt wurden, es zu sein, vom mittleren 19. Jahrhundert bis zum frühen 20. Jahrhundert untersucht. Ausgehend von einer spezifischen Auswahl an Karikaturen von Kriminellen wird auf den folgenden Seiten analysiert, welche Rolle Künstler und Karikaturisten als aktive Akteure bei der Konfiguration von Bedeutungen in Bezug auf die Körperlichkeit von Individuen spielten, wobei sie auf eine Vielzahl von rassischen, sozialen und morphologischen Stereotypen zurückgriffen. Daraus ergibt sich die Beobachtung, wie der Einsatz von Karikaturen, die sowohl auf die Schaffung von Sittenbildern als auch auf politische und soziale Satire in der entstehenden unabhängigen Republik abzielten, eine hybride Funktion der Überwachung, Kontrolle und Identifizierung sozialer Gefahren erfüllte. Im Zusammenspiel dieser Wissensfelder mit rassischen Elementen, evolutionistischen Diskussionen, kriminalistischen Theorien sowie medizinischen und polizeilichen repressiven Praktiken wird untersucht, wie die Erstellung von Kriminellenregistern ein kriminelles Archetypus konstruierte, das soziale, rassische und wahlbezogene Identitäten kriminalisierte.
Copyright (c) 2025 Miguel Adolfo Galindo Pérez https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Esclavitud, racialización e identidades africanas en los registros parroquiales republicanos de Cartagena de Indias y Caracas de principios del XIX
Racializing narratives were in force both in the Spanish Ancien Régime and in the later Spanish-American republics during the first half of the 19th century. Counterintuitively, in the official discourse, the colonial and republican authorities of Colombia and Venezuela converged in the use of ideological devices of control and sociorracial classification aimed exclusively at the enslaved black population and, in this sense, reproduced slave-owning thinking. Nor did the local sphere escape this racializing logic. The parish slave registries of Cartagena de Indias and Caracas, for instance, reproduced these racializing narratives until the republics of Colombia and Venezuela were well consolidated in the mid-19th century, and were decisive for the hierarchization of the social body and the delimitation of the political community. From a comparative perspective of two (post)colonial spaces of the Spanish Afro-Atlantic world, Colombia and Venezuela, this article analyzes the (re)construction of African identities in these racializing narratives, in light of the parish records of Cartagena de Indias and Caracas during the first decades of the nineteenth century.
Copyright (c) 2025 Roraima Estaba Amaiz https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
La movilización estudiantil del profesorado por la renovación de sus planes de estudio durante la última transición hacia la democracia en Argentina (1984-1988)
This article examines the impact of student mobilization on the renewal of the formative experience of teacher-education students during Argentina’s most recent transition to democracy. Drawing on a multiple empirical base, it reveals the challenges posed by this segment of the student body to several features of their academic training and analyzes how these demands intersected with the political conflict and educational policies of the period. First, the article focuses on the years of the so-called post-dictatorship, reconstructing the claims aimed at questioning the perspectives, tendencies, and training modalities inherited from the previous period—particularly the demand to revoke the curricula imposed in 1982 by Minister of Education Cayetano A. Licciardo during the last de facto civil-military dictatorship. Second, it examines the student responses, during the more advanced stage of the Alfonsín administration, to two pedagogical innovations proposed by the newly created National Directorate of Higher Education (DINES): the modalities of student participation linked to the MEB curriculum and the implementation of non-mandatory final examinations—both of which elicited opposition as well as alternative proposals.The article concludes by reflecting on how student mobilization shaped the tempo and specific contours of the educational policies targeting the sector in a region still marked by Operation Condor, where a trend toward the marketization of Higher Education was beginning to crystallize.
Copyright (c) 2025 Josefina Ramos Gonzales https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
El Galeote Mexicano: el atentado contra el obispo José María Cázares, un episodio olvidado de la historia eclesiástica mexicana, 1887-1889
De una verdadera tragedia calificaban los periódicos mexicanos al intento de asesinato del obispo de Zamora a manos de un miembro de la iglesia católica. El suceso, acaecido el jueves de Corpus Christi de 1887 al interior de la catedral de Morelia, había conmocionado a la sociedad católica del país que no tardó en conectar las similitudes del caso con el asesinato del obispo de Madrid, ocurrido apenas dos años antes a manos del sacerdote Cayetano Galeote y Cotilla. En el desarrollo del juicio contra el imputado por intento de asesinado, la prensa católica incentivó un debate sobre las posibles causas del acontecimiento, a la luz del impacto social de más de dos décadas de la separación Estado-Iglesia, en el contexto de los atentados contra otras autoridades eclesiásticas y civiles. En el presente artículo revisaremos los principales argumentos de dicho debate.
Copyright (c) 2025 Cecilia Adriana Bautista Garcia https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Boldness and Prudence. The Moderate Approach to Morality and Religious Tolerance: 1844-1847
Der Artikel untersucht die politische Sprache der gemäßigten Gruppe in Mexiko zwischen dem Fall von Antonio López de Santa Anna (1844) und dem Ende des Krieges mit den Vereinigten Staaten (1847) im Hinblick auf religiöse Elemente wie Moral und Toleranz gegenüber Kulten. Basierend auf Recherchen in Broschüren, Zeitungen und offiziellen Dokumenten bietet es ein Panorama, in dem Kühnheit und Besonnenheit in einer fernen Mischung aus Zweifel und Unbestimmtheit zusammentreffen. So waren Persönlichkeiten wie Luis de la Rosa und José María Lafragua die ersten, die von Regierungsstellen eine gewisse Toleranz gegenüber Kulten und eine Perspektive ethischer Pluralität forderten. Der Text schlägt eine Neubewertung des gemäßigten Denkens als Option für Veränderungen angesichts des juaristischen Reformismus vor.
Copyright (c) 2025 Gustavo Santillán https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Reisende und Intellektuelle im Blick. Moderne und Katholische Kulturen in Argentinien im 20. Jahrhundert
Das Ziel dieses Artikels ist es, eine Reihe von Besuchen prominenter religiöser Persönlichkeiten im Laufe des zwanzigsten Jahrhunderts in Argentinien zu beschreiben und zu analysieren, Untersuchung ihrer Auswirkungen auf die katholische Kultur. Die Erfahrung der Reise bringt verschiedene und sehr unterschiedliche Beispiele zusammen, die für das Studium der Sozial- und Geisteswissenschaften aufschlussreich sind. Von der Literatur bis zur Wesentlichkeit von Transfers, einschließlich der Untersuchung von Netzwerken und der begrenzten oder mehrjährigen Wirkung eines Gastes. In den in diesem Artikel aufgeführten Fällen beabsichtigen wir zu analysieren, welche Auswirkungen diese Besuche während eines Großteils des zwanzigsten Jahrhunderts auf die argentinische katholische Kultur hatten, mit der Überzeugung, dass dieses Fenster uns einige Merkmale zeigen kann, die wir sonst nicht beobachten könnten. Als Hypothese halten wir den Konfliktcharakter des katholischen Kulturfeldes aufrecht, ein Gebiet, in dem jenseits des bischöflichen Diskurses über Vertikalität und Gehorsam ein fast permanenter Machtstreit um das Wahrheitsmonopol zu beobachten ist.
Catolicismo latinoamericano del siglo XX: de la relación tradicional con el Estado a las nuevas preocupaciones sociales
Copyright (c) 2025 José Zanca https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Modelos de renovación. El catolicismo social del clero local y de los misioneros extranjeros en el sur andino peruano, 1940-1965
The Catholic Church in Cusco, Peru, experienced a pastoral renewal in the decades preceding the Second Vatican Council: the clergy of Cusco, oriented by indigenismo and seeking answers to the question of concentrated landholding and the future of the peasantry, proposed a pro-indigenous pastoral method. At the same time, the Vatican created new structures and missions destined for the abundant clergy of North America, which arrived in the same region with a different model of social Catholicism focused on modernization. This essay proposes to describe and compare the social Catholicisms present in the southern Peruvian Andes between 1940 and 1965. On the basis of archival materials from Peru and the United States, this research seeks the points of agreement and disagreement between the two pastoral styles on the eve of the conciliar reforms.
Copyright (c) 2025 Taylor Fulkerson, S.J. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Favoring the Retreat of Secularization. Corporative Catholicism and State in Peru, 1920-1945
This study outlines, for the period between 1920 and 1945 -marked by the global economic crisis, World War, authoritarianism or the increasing social control of the State-, how the corporatist vision existing within the hierarchy of the Peruvian Catholic Church and the presence of authoritarian governments allowed closer collaboration between the Church and the State in several fields, as opposed to their immediate past. This collaboration achieved the elimination or limitation of some existing secularizing norms and practices. The specific aspects of these changes are reviewed and their consequences are discussed. This study may help to provide a better understanding of the relationship between authoritarianism and religion in Latin America.
Copyright (c) 2025 Fernando Armas Asín https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
El catolicismo chileno entre los 40s y los 60s. Un estudio a través de tres polémicas: la Ley Maldita, la huelga de Molina y las cartas pastorales de 1962
Hispanic-American Catholicism has faced numerous changes in the last fifty years due to events in the international Church and to internal challenges in each of the countries where it is present. Chilean Catholicism presents itself as a privileged scenario to study these transformations, given that the Chilean Church was considered in the last century as one of the most progressive in Latin America, and that attitude had profound consequences among the country's Catholics. This study focuses on Chile, but we believe it can be relevant to help understand the processes that Catholicism in our continent has experienced in the last century, as well as an instance of discussion about the history of the Catholic laity and the Church. The objective is to contribute to the history of Catholic ideas and intellectualism through a study of thought and debates within national Catholicism in years of profound structural changes marked by the new protagonism of the laity, the emergence of a markedly more progressive clergy, and the great ecclesial transformation that was Vatican II. We want to see how both the Catholic laity and ecclesial sectors continued to develop a strong presence in the public sphere, participating in discussions and debates that sought to improve society and the state. The proposal of this work is to elucidate the main flags of struggle that arose within the Chilean Catholic world, about how to interpret and disseminate the Social Doctrine of the Church and in what way to put it into practice, focusing on three specific moments in which Catholicism and politics intersected, causing debates and deep ruptures within the Chilean Catholic world. Those three moments are: the discussion around the so-called "The Coursed Law," which proscribed the Chilean Communist Party in 1948; the Molina peasant strike, which occurred in late 1953; and the publication of the two controversial pastorals of the Chilean Episcopate in 1962. Thus, the topic is inserted into a broader approach that investigates the close relationship between catholicism and politics in Chile, despite the separation between Church and State in 1925, to insist on its persistent influence on the affairs of civil society and the growing secularization of the Chilean clergy, especially in the chronological period studied.
Copyright (c) 2025 Andrea Botto Stuven https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Resisting the New Order: San Luis Potosí's City Council Against the Mayor, 1787-1799
This article analyzes the actions of resistance that influential groups in San Luis Potosí implemented against new politicians who introduced the Royal Mayoral Ordinance. They rebelled mainly through the city council, not only because its members were powerful individuals in the region, but because the Crown wanted to keep a close eye on its territory through the appointed mayors. Therefore, the opposition and resistance were carried out in confrontations against the main political character who was in charge of enforcing the Royal Ordinance in San Luis Potosí, Bruno Díaz Salcedo.
Resistencia de los ayuntamientos en el régimen de intendencias y su protagonismo en los procesos de independencias. Estudios de casos
Copyright (c) 2025 Graciela Bernal Ruiz https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
"La ley general no deroga el privilegio": Resistance and Negotiation in the Queretaro Corregimiento, 1786-1795
In the tradition of Hispanic government, the system of consultations and memorials was a resource widely used by authorities to make evident the exceptionalities of their territories and negotiate the implementation of new regulations out of doubt. A practice sanctioned by a jurisdictional and political culture that extended to the Bourbon government model. The article explores the political, regulatory and jurisdictional resources of the community of councilors of the city of Querétaro to defend their privileges in the context of the changes promoted by the Ordenanza de Intendentes. The defense of privilege in the city government is analyzed from the category of resistance that allows the councilors discourse to be read as a resource to build a space for negotiation and exceptionality of their city and therefore of their forms of government.
Copyright (c) 2025 Yovana Celaya Nández https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Conflict Relations of the Municipal Council of Mérida, Yucatán. Actors and Institutions at the End of the Colonial Period
The historiography about Municipal councils in the time of Intendency system has placed emphasis on the power struggle between their members and the Intendants. In this work, we will focus on Mérida (Yucatán, New Spain) Municipal council, which particularity was that the conflicts with the Intendents were almost non-existent. The first Intendent had been murdered by the elites’ hands and it was a great lesson for his successors. The members of the municipal council had conflicts about jurisdiction and power with actors belonging to other administrative areas, in particular the city attorney and the lieutenant-assessors. We assume the idea that these struggles show that local power was built from the Municipal councils, from the availability or lack of availability of their members for negotiating the reforms. Although we can talk about success in the economic and fiscal spheres, when we analyze the regions, specially the peripheral, we perceive different strategies of local elites to look after their privileges. In that sense, resistance was one of them, contradicting what did not suit their interests.
Copyright (c) 2025 Laura Machuca Gallegos https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
El fin de la opresión de los pueblos: la supresión de los subdelegados como restauración de las libertades de los pueblos chilenos en la crisis de la Monarquía española (1810-1811)
In 1811 the Governing Board of the Kingdom of Chile suppressed the subdelegates but not the subdelegations, created by the regime of intendancies established in Chile in 1786. They justified the measure because it was the oppression of the towns. The powers of the subdelegates were exercised by the ordinary mayors of the towns councils. This article analyzes this modification of the intendancies regime as a restoration of municipal liberties and from the perspective of the collective resistance of the councils in the crisis of the Spanish Monarchy.
Copyright (c) 2025 Lucrecia Enriquez https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
La formación del Archivo Nacional del Perú (1861-1920)
Dieser Artikel befasst sich mit der Geschichte des Nationalarchivs von 1861, dem Jahr seiner Gründung, bis 1920, als es volle institutionelle Autonomie erlangte und begann, als Dienst zu fungieren. Das Studium der Geschichte des Nationalarchivs ermöglicht es uns zu verstehen, wie ein Teil der peruanischen Elite die soziale Funktion der Geschichte verstand; und reflektieren Sie über die Herausforderungen, die oft mit der Umsetzung von Kulturunternehmen in unserem Land einhergehen. Die Rekonstruktion der Geschichte des Archivs zeigt auch die Unsicherheit der staatlichen Institutionen in Peru.
Copyright (c) 2025 Pedro M. Guibovich Pérez https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Exploración y práctica científica en México. El caso de Karl Theodor Sapper como geólogo oficial (1893-1896)
Karl Theodor Sapper (1866-1945) was a prominent naturalist who was part of the constellation of German travelers, explorers and men of science who toured, described and studied portions of the American continent during the nineteenth century. The German geologist, geographer, ethnologist, Mayan and collector resided in Central America from 1888 to 1900; for twelve years he traveled from the Isthmus of Tehuantepec to Panama. In his travels through the tropics he made studies in geology, volcanology, mining, soils, linguistics, cartography, archaeology and economics, which are pioneers in the region. His initial activity as administrator of coffee farms in Alta Verapaz, Guatemala, -owned by his brother-, was combined with explorations and scientific studies, which ultimately reputed him worldwide fame as an expert scientific explorer of the Central American regions at the service of several of his governments and Mexico and as an epistemic authority in geology. In 1893 he signed a three-year contract with the Ministry of Development, Colonization, Industry and Commerce to perform the geological and geographical commission of Chiapas, Tabasco and the Yucatan Peninsula to perform the geological and geographical commission in charge of the Geological Institute of Mexico. The focus of this work is to study the geological practice at service of a government institution in Mexico by a transnational scientist like Sapper within the framework of “culture of exploration” proposed by Felix Driver, useful as a means of highlighting the ways in wich ideas, images and practices of exploration that crossed areas of culture during nineteenth century.
Copyright (c) 2025 Lucero Morelos Rodríguez https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Resisting by Obeying: the Legitimation of Indigenous Authorities through Parish Elections of the Bishopric of Puebla, 1789-1835
The resistance to the electoral reforms of the Constitutional City Councils, by the República de Naturales, marked the political practice that, with the establishment of the nation-state, modified the symbols of legitimacy of the new authorities and outlined an alternative way of participating in their government through the emerging concept of citizenship. They did so by constantly interpreting and adapting the new system to the traditional corporate regime. The mechanism was the legitimizing reference: the parish, a symbol of identity and recognition, which allowed the indigenous authorities to maintain their collection capacity.
Copyright (c) 2025 Lidia E. Gómez García https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Known Posters, Unknown Impact. OSPAAAL Graphic Art and Its Worldwide Reception
In recent years, the literature on the Cold War era has given increasing attention to the so-called Third World project and has proposed new concepts to analyze its different currents, such as Tricontinentalism. Scholars agree that the propaganda materials produced by the Cuba-based Organization of Solidarity with the Peoples of Africa, Asia and Latin America (OSPAAAL, 1966-2019) played a crucial role in disseminating the Tricontinentalist agenda, vocabulary and imagery. But this general agreement is not anchored in empirical evidence, since the circulation and reception of these materials have been understudied so far. This paper argues that debates on Tricontinentalism have much to gain from expanding this front. By focusing on the OSPAAAL posters, I will explore four avenues – their distribution; reproductions and versions; iconographic and stylistic influence; and presence in books, exhibitions and archives – highlighting the methodological difficulties involved in this endeavor. The paper organizes data obtained from archival documents, works by other scholars and interviews published in different parts of the world. This approach challenges generalizations based on very specific primary sources, as well as theorizations not grounded in rigorous empirical analysis. This study reaffirms the importance of a Cold War history that considers the particular dynamics of the so-called Third World, their global connections, as well as the visual dimension of the antagonisms and solidarities built in that context. At the same time, it emphasizes the importance of a long-term perspective when looking into the global sixties.
Copyright (c) 2025 Natália Ayo Schmiedecke https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Catolicismo latinoamericano del siglo XX: de la relación tradicional con el Estado a las nuevas preocupaciones sociales - Introducción
La introducción plantea, en el contexto de la importancia que tuvo la Iglesia católica en la vida social en América Latina, el aporte de los artículos que componen el dossier. Describe aspectos como la persistencia de las relaciones tradicionales entre la Iglesia y el Estado, marcada por la fuerte influencia católica en la vida política; pero también los cambios de perspectiva en su labor, que se fue desarrollando con el avance del siglo producto de los acontecimientos políticos o sociales existentes, la toma de conciencia local o por la llegada de diversas ideas, aunque algunas de ellas, como las pastorales, no necesariamente eran adaptables.
Resistencia de los ayuntamientos en el régimen de intendencias y su protagonismo en los procesos de independencias. Estudios de casos - Introducción
En este documento se resumen los principales puntos tratados en el dossier “Resistencia de los ayuntamientos en el régimen de intendencias y su protagonismo en los procesos de independencias. Estudios de casos”. Se argumenta que los cabildos durante la segunda mitad del siglo XVIII empezaron a emerger de la crisis de funcionamiento que los aquejaba, por lo que la Reforma de Intendencias más que debilitarlos, los reforzó al tener sus miembros que unir fuerzas contra las reformas y los actores encargados de llevarlas a cabo. Los cinco artículos que incluyen el dossier se abocan en las Resistencias de los cabildos a la reforma de intendencias, el conflicto está implícito, y sirve de base para mostrar que, en realidad, para ponerle fin, los implicados debían negociar para llegar a acuerdos. Es decir, no es que la Corona española lograra imponerse y uniformizar como era el objetivo inicial por medio de esa reforma, debido a que cada lugar muestra diferentes formas de resistencia, por lo cual el proceso fue más complejo de lo que hasta ahora se ha sostenido y estuvo determinado por la casuística.
Copyright (c) 2025 Laura Machuca Gallegos, Lucrecia Enriquez https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
El 3 de abril de 2024 falleció Inge Buisson-Wolff, la distinguida historiadora latinoamericanista de Hamburgo, a la edad de 103 años. En los años de 1950/1960, el enfoque a la historia colonial era punto esencial en las investigaciones de los historiadores alemanes. En cambio, Inge Buisson-Wolff empezó a dedicarse – y es éste su gran mérito – a la historia latinoamericana de los siglos XIX y XX, en especial al proceso de formación de los estados y las naciones en Hispanoamérica. Sus trabajos tan valiosos han contruído al prestigio y arraigo de la historiografía latinoamericanista en Alemania.
Copyright (c) 2025 Hans-Joachim König https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Scandal and Gender in Colonial and Nineteenth-Century Latin America - Introduction
Violating the norms of gender frequently provoked scandal. This section presents the connections between scandal and gender by introducing the articles that are included in this special issue. Scandals may not seem worthy of scholarly work, but they provide an entry into the interstices of gender performance and the ways that people disrupted social norms. Scandals have three components: the transgression, its dissemination, and the receptive public. Gossip about individuals was often at the heart of scandals but it was also an important social force that established community values. The news of scandalous conduct was often spread by murmurings but also by pasquines and in later periods, in newspapers. The definition of the word “scandal” has changed over time as have the elements that seem shocking have evolved. In this special issue, the authors show how space of honor such as convents, recogimientos, and the family home could be violated. Institutions such as the Church and the State tried to enforce a gender binary but many cross-dressed for their own amusement in dramas or as a disguise. Single women were often the most vulnerable to accusations of scandalous behavior, but young men also were the target of accusations of vagrancy when they surpassed their families’ tolerance for youthful antics.
Copyright (c) 2024 Sonya Lipsett-Rivera, Verónica Undurraga Schüler https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
“Para no vivir en perpetua afectación de un sexo mentido”. Normas de género y travestismo en las primeras décadas del siglo XIX chileno
This article analyzes gender norms and their negotiation in Chilean society at the beginning of the 19th century. Based on a notorious case of homicide that occurred in 1845, it proposes that the transvestism of masculine identity was tolerated and justified when it was transitory and did not discuss the representation of the masculine identity as superior to the feminine. The study of judicial sources, press, books about the case and correspondence, allows to observe how the adoption of the female identity by a man did not necessarily imply the denial of masculinity, focusing public interest on the honor of the individuals involved.
Copyright (c) 2024 Verónica Undurraga Schüler, Sandra Cristina Montoya Muñoz https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Escandalosas: Plebeian Women and Violence in Venezuela’s Middle Period (1790-1860)
This article investigates the meaning of scandal during Venezuela’s “middle-period”, from the end of the colony through the early republican decades (~1780 - ~1860). The article first attempts to understand the meaning of the term “scandal” during these years and then explores the phenomenon through an examination of court cases of women charged with violent crime. The investigation finds that historically the term “scandal” had a far more sinister meaning than it holds today. When used with reference to religion, politics, and state administration the term was associated with rebellion against institutions as well as the social hierarchies and cultural norms that supported those institutions. To accuse somebody of creating scandal implied that they harbored rebellious impulses and that they threatened social order because others might imitate the transgressor’s bad example. For a woman to be accused of scandalous behavior suggested that she had rebelled against patriarchal hierarchies, the honor code, and norms of feminine decency. Though scandal itself was not a crime, the courts treated scandal like a crime in order to preserve social order. Even if the court acquitted the woman of the crime for which she had been charged (i.e., murder), the judge would punish her for having scandalized the community. The defendants in these trials tended to be poor and illiterate. Their low socio-economic status left them particularly vulnerable to charges of scandalous behavior because any violation of feminine norms could appear as a rebellion against patriarchal hierarchy. Their low status also left them vulnerable to false accusations from relatives or neighbors, as simply the implication that she had caused scandal would hurt her reputation.
Copyright (c) 2024 Reuben Zahler https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Sexo, poder y espiritualidad en un monasterio femenino colonial. Las monjas de la Encarnación, Popayán, siglo XVII
Few events could cause a greater scandal in colonial society than rumors about the sinful conduct of cloistered nuns. Because, contrary to what one might think, there were nuns who, in multiple ways and in various cloisters in the Indies, led acts of indiscipline, disobeyed bishops and judges, and had illicit relationships in defiance of male authority and professed religious vows. This is the case of the Augustinian nuns of the convent of Nuestra Señora de la Encarnación in Popayán, who were accused of various acts of sacrilege against themselves and against the cloister, causing an evident tension between estates, an assassination attempt on the person of the bishop, and the execution on the gallows of a foreigner. The interrogations and trials that make up the process show how the rumors about what was happening in the convent exalted the spirits of the relatives of the nuns, authorities and neighbors, who between 1608 and 1613, got involved in a strong dispute to condemn or defend the Augustinians, and whose outcome was to be exiled to convents in Pasto and Quito. Among the objectives of this text is to analyze a prohibited sexuality, as well as the rumors and testimonies of carnal relations that supported the accusations against the nuns, and that ultimately generated the challenge from neighbors and civil authorities to the episcopal figure and the scandal that the city experienced.
Copyright (c) 2024 Carolina Abadía Quintero, Pablo Rodríguez Jiménez https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Female Agency and Scandal: Doña Josefa de Angulo in 17th-Century Mexico City
This essay examines the life of Doña Josefa de Angulo through the lens of a 1661 Inquisition case. Josefa, whose much older husband, Juan de Vilches, deposited her at the Recogimiento de la Magdalena (the home for wayward women) in Mexico City, demonstrated a concerted effort to live life on her terms, ignoring the expectations for a married woman of some socio-economic standing. She dramatically altered life at the recogimiento and set in motion a series of scandalous events that involved employees at that institution, the archbishop and his staff, her stepchildren, the inquisitors, and her confessor Miguel de Palmares, who she accused of solicitation in the confessional. She challenged normative ideas about marriage, obedience to male authority, female agency, and the very purpose of the recogimiento. Her story illuminates the complicated relationship between gendered social control and the nature of scandal in colonial Mexico City.
Copyright (c) 2024 Linda A. Curcio-Nagy https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Aproximación a los proyectos de colonias ganaderas alemanas en Chile y sus discursos imperialistas (Llanquihue, 1898-1912)
At the beginning of the 20th century, the diplomatic position of the Chilean government had weakened as a result of international condemnation of its actions after the War of the Pacific. With a view to reversing this process, Chile sought support from European countries, particularly Germany. Bremen business groups saw an opportunity to establish themselves and produce wool for export, forming companies in alliance with prominent Chilean political actors, who pressured the government to obtain public land concessions. This article problematizes the thesis of the German colonialist project in Chile, indicating that he responded to a rhetorical appeal of the German chancellor in Chile and that he had no correlate in Germany's foreign policy.
Copyright (c) 2024 Jorge Ernesto Muñoz Sougarret https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
La otra visita: legitimidad interna y convulsión externa. Richard Milhous Nixon en Costa Rica (1955)
By studying documents produced by US and Costa Rican agencies, as well as newspapers from both countries during that time, this article explores the contextual factors that surrounded Richard M. Nixon's official visit to Costa Rica. The article determines the fundamental role of the US-Costa Rica relationship, not only for the Costa Rican government but also for the opposition within domestic politics. Additionally, this research exemplifies how Costa Rican actors aimed not only to adapt to US policy but also, utilizing the tools at their disposal, sought to modify it in their favor. This perspective highlights that the objectives of US authorities were not always achieved as intended, revealing the limitations of US influence when dealing with smaller actors in the region, such as Costa Rican political factions.
Copyright (c) 2024 Carlos Humberto Cascante Segura https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0