SESSION REPORTS

The "Beatos and Beatas in Colonial Latin America" panel consisted of two papers. The first of these, by Dr. Linda Curcio-Nagy of the U. of Nevada - Reno, was entitled "Corporate Identity and Patronage: The Inquisition and the Festival of San Pedro el Martir in 17th Century Mexico City." The Holy Office of the Inquisition was established in Mexico in 1571. One of the guiding principles of the institution was to influence the behavior of the populace i n general. The public punishment of the guilty served a didactic purpose. The reading of each edict, the preaching of sermons, and the pomp associated with the public events also served similar didactic purposes. In this study Curcio-Nagy looks specifi cally at the cofradía associated with the Inquisition, the Cofradía de San Pedro Martir, and the celebrations associated with it in order to look into the didactic purpose of the institution. Through an analysis of expenditures and sermons p reached during the corporate celebration of the saint's festival, Curcio-Nagy discovered the values which the group wished to impart.

Barbara De Marco, of the U. of California, focused on "La Conquistadora: Hagiographical Elements in don Diego de Vargas' Narrative of Reconquest." The best sources which are available for documenting the reconquest of New Mexico, following the 1680 Pu eblo Revolt continues to be the account written by don Diego de Vargas. Yet there are elements in Vargas's account with resonate from an older tradition. De Marco, in her analysis, looks at the medieval "Cantigas de Santa Maria" of Alfonso el Sabio, Kin g of Castile, as a possible source or inspiration of some of the miraculous events described by Vargas in his account. Likewise De Marco analyzes a contemporary narrative, the "Memorial" of Fr. Francisco de Ayeta, and discovers similar evocations of an o lder tradition.

The commentary on the two papers was offered by John F. Schwaller, of the Academy of American Francis-can History and the U. of Montana. Schwaller noted that the celebrations of the festival of San Pedro el Martir also served the purpose of providing a collective identity to the members of the Inquisition cofradía. The sermons preached at that event also served to instill a sense of common purpose in the membership at the same time that it presented a vision of the moral ideal to society at lar ge. With regard to De Marco's paper, Schwaller commented that while medieval elements were no doubt present in the narratives of the Recon-quest of New Mexico, one might also consider the transferal of these images at the time of the con-quest. Clearly the works of Cortes and Diaz del Castillo, for example, narrated similar miraculous events. Consequently it might be useful to trace the development of these images as they had been applied in New World settings.

A spirited discussion by members of the audience ensued.

John Frederick Schwaller, U. of Montana

Catholic Social Action in Latin America - Although the three presentations were, on the surface, quite diverse, the ensuing discussion, provoked by a superb commentary from Sandra McGee Deutsch, and active audience involvement, identified many c ommon themes among the papers, as well as among the research interests of members of the audience.

One of the important arguments of the theoretical literature in the United states is that local religious communities require much more thorough examination because it is at this level that significant differences arise. The initial research by Dougla s Sullivan-Gonzalez, extending back to the late 19th century, demon-strates the importance of geographic locale to institutional development, specifically that of the center-west region in determining religious expansion and intensity. The discussion ra ised the issue of the degree to which individual dioceses, and the greater presence of priests, contributed to a contextual environment favorable to the Cristero movement in the 1920s.

Bruce Calder, in his exploration of the Catholic Church in Guatemala in the twentieth century, again demonstrates the complexity of church as an institution, in this case, the ideological contradictions in their theology and pastoral tasks. As Deutsch -McGee demonstrated, comparable divisions and linkages occurred elsewhere in the region among groups tied to social catholicism. The degree to which these contradictions were apparent were also suggested in the paper by Professor Hanson, focusing on the role of Mexican women as contributors to social catholicism, and again the contradictions of the institutional church in pursuing this mission. Research on socially-oriented Catholicism suggest considerable, shared insights across time and culture.

Roderic A. Camp, Tulane U.

Enterprise and Entrepreneurs: The History of Business in Cuba and Brazil - The panel, consisted of three papers--two on Brazil and one on Cuba--focusing on the development of businesses and businessmen. All three papers drew heavily on busine ss archives. Marshall Eakin`s paper, The Formation of a Business Elite: Belo Horizonte, Brazil, 1890-1940, reconstructed the growth of the business community in Belo Horizonte, Brazil in the first half of the century. Using state and municipal census re cords, and archival records from commercial associations, Eakin traced the expansion of the community from a few hundred individuals to several thousands by the 1940s. He emphasized the role of a small elite of several hundred businessmen who dominated c ommerce and industry in Belo Horizonte into the 1940s. The paper also emphasized the strong ties between political and economic elites.

Gail Triner`s paper, British and Brazilian Banks in Early 20th-century Brazil, offered a careful analysis of the differences between the behavior of British and Brazilian banks in the first three decades of this century. Despite their superior resourc es and knowledge at the turn of the century, Triner showed the inability of the British bankers to change their strategies as the Brazilian economy and political system evolved. In partic-ular, British banks followed conservative policies largely profitin g off exchange trans-actions. Their place in the financial markets was gradually replaced by Brazilian banks by the 1930s as the latter became more re-sponsive to the needs of the business community, especially their need for loans.

The final paper, The Cuba Company and the Expansion of American Business in Cuba, 1899-1905, by Juan Santamarina, provided a detailed analysis of the most important foreign enterprise in Cuba in the early twentieth century. Santamarina traced the form ation of the Cuba Railway by foreign investors, and focused on the ability of the company`s management to use their influence and political pull to construct their railway and make it a very profitable venture. Stanley J. Stein commented on the three pap ers placing emphasizing the larger economic patterns of Latin America in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. A lively and productive discussion followed involving most of the two dozen or so members of the audience.

Grassroots Identities and the Formation of the Modern Mexican Nation State - A respectably sized early morning audience attended this session chaired by Gilbert Joseph (Yale U.). Christopher Boyer (U. of Chicago) presented a paper entitled "Old Loves and New Loyalties in the Construction of Revolutionary Peasant Culture in Michoacán, Mexico" based on his dissertation research into agrarismo. Boyer's paper argued that recent scholarship has overemphasized popular resistance to post- revolutionary state formation and downplayed the actions of self-declared peasant revolutionaries. Boyer stated that agrarismo combined villagers' longtime concern over access to land with the new, post-revolutionary cultural politics of the 1920s. He contended that agrarista practice and revolutionary discourse had strong roots in villages' local histories and cultures as well in official revolutionary ideology.

The presentation of Stephen Lewis (U. of California, San Diego), "Nation and the Socialist School in Chiapas, 1930-1940," was also based on dissertation research. Lewis's paper discussed the educational project undertaken by the federal Ministry of Pub lic Education (SEP) during the Cárdenas presidency. Lewis stated that educators intended first and foremost to "Mexicanize" the inhabitants of Chiapas, whose nationalist sentiments the revolutionary leaders distrusted. As a result, schoolteachers a nd directors of frontier schools (escuelas fronterizas) attempted to encourage revolutionary nationalism through the use of civic rituals, economic development projects, and nationalist rhetoric. Lewis concluded that the nationalist symbolism adopt ed by neo-Zapatistas in the 1990s derives in part from the educational projects of the 1930s.

Luis Murillo (U. of California, San Diego) was unable to attend the session, but commentator Heather Fowler-Salamini (Bradley U.) summarized his paper. Murillo's contribution, entitled "Contesting the Sacred and the Civil: Local Religious Politics in P orfirian Michoacán," examined the correspondence that two neighboring Purepépecha villages wrote to ecclesiastical and government elites in the late nineteenth century. Murillo showed that village leaders' language both perpetuated an "in dígena" community identity and employed strikingly similar terms concerning their villages' economic solvency (in requests to the diocese for parish residences) or insolvency (in pleading for tax exemptions from the government).

Fowler-Salamini singled out a few themes common to all three papers. She stated that each paper took a decentered perspective on identity formation, each emphasized the role of cultural brokers or "hinge men," and each depicted cultural formation as th e hybrid product of local and regional influences. She found that the papers would benefit from a more thorough discussion of their respective spatial and sociological contexts, however. Joseph also briefly commented on the papers. He encouraged Boyer to specify more fully his point about "resistance-centric" scholarship and inquired into the possibilities of recapturing the popular memory of

Michoacano peasants regarding agrarian struggles over a medium to long duration. He suggested that Lewis might more effectively utilize oral history strategies to gauge the "reception" of state cultural projects and recommended that Lewis carefully del ineate the regional differences between central Chiapas and the borderlands with Guatemala. There was a lively and collegial discussion afterward. Among other comments, Mary Kay Vaughan (U. of Illinois, Chicago) pointed out that revolutionaries often used gendered language to code "counterrevolutionary" groups in feminine terms, and William French (U. of British Columbia) inquired about the distinction between ritual as a form of spectacle and ritual as an embodied form of political theater.

Submitted by Christopher Boyer and Gilbert Joseph

Myth, Ritual and the Institutionalization of the Nation State: Mexico and Brazil - The panel consisted of two papers one on Mexico and one on Brazil. Sam Brunks' paper on "The Martyr of Chinameca and the Mexican State, 1919-1940" discussed how t he myth of Emiliano Zapata was created, ritualized, and nationalized in civil society in the construction of a revolutionary tradition, in the making of political organizations and in pressuring the state for reforms. Simultaneously, the embryonic centra l state used the myth for purposes of consolidation of its rule and control. State appropriation and use of the myth began in earnest with the formation of the PNR in 1929 and culminated during the presidency of Lázaro Cárdenas. Brunk used a case study from rural Oaxaca to show how in the 1930s local appropriation of the figure of Zapata not only served the state's purposes of popular inclusion but became the basis for making local claims on and against the state. However, in his conclusi on, Brunk argued that because peasants received so little from the state after 1940, the symbol of Zapata became primarily one of resistance.

In his paper entitled "Festivals and the Mexican Revolution" David Lorey analyzed November 20 commem-orations honoring the revolution in Mexico City in the 1920s and 1930s. He stressed how the state used festival to demobilize and domesticate the mili tary, turning rowdy, violence-prone soldiers into parading and performing athletes; to incorporate women as workers, gymnasts, and patriots; and youth for whom the parades and rituals were a lesson in Mexican history. Lorey described the new version of h istory articulated in festival. Major heroes of the revolution were commemorated as one fraternity devoid of conflict, factionalism and violence; the revolution was interpreted as the third phase in a liberatory movement which bequeathed the state a mand ate to create economic and social conditions comparable to those of other countries. The revolution and Mexican history in general, Lorey argued, became a unified narrative linking disparate groups, regions, movements, and histories.

Carmen Nava presented material from her work in progress entitled "Patria and Patriotism: Nationalism and National Identity in Brazil, 1937-1974." She indicated that she was interested in uncovering images of the nation in the print and mass media and school textbooks over three decades. Rather than a formal paper, she presented and discussed a series of images in slides. These contrasted markedly with the Mexican case in their incorporation of religion and the Catholic church into official images o f the nation. The European and urban demeanor of images of Brazilian families, children, and citizens stood out in contrast to the celebration of mestizaje and Indian foundations typical of twentieth century Mexican revolutionary culture.

Following comments by myself stressing the above points, there was a lively discussion about ritual, myth and hegemony in Mexico with some people arguing that hegemony in the Gramscian sense of domination with consent had never been achieved through th e revolutionary process and others asserting that if it had been constructed, it was in rapid disintegration today. Mexican issues so engaged the audience that we had little time to compare the content of myth and ritual constituting modern nation-states in Mexico and Brazil.

Mary Kay Vaughan, U. of Illinois, Chicago

"Rhetoric and Policies: Latin American Rationalizations and State Developments in the Early Twentieth Century--the Experiences of Argentina, Mexico, and Peru."

The first presenter, Michael Monteon, summarized his paper on "Political Morality and Revolutionary Rhetoric Under Calles: Leader and Public in the Construction of the Mexican State, 194-1934." In it he noted that the Calles administration went beyond that of Obregon in carrying out the mandate of the 1917 constitution, working within the constraints posed by society and the United States. In particular, he pushed for more land reform and schools, while strengthening the labor movement. The most tra gic phase of his administration was the Cristero rebellion, the bloodiest religious war in the hemisphere in this century. Calles exhibited restraint in dealing with the Church. After Obregon's murder and the onset of the Depression, Calles's options wer e reduced. He had to curb labor, the military, farmers, and capitalists in order to survive economically. His response was to continue building Mexico's state institutions. He created the party which eventually became the modern PRI. His foremost goal was to build a Mexican middle class. He viewed moral uplift, fiscal austerity, anti-communism, and a middle class meritocracy as necessary for progress.

Marcela Calisto spoke on "Regional Elites and the Construction of the 'Backward' and 'Rebellious' Peasant in Peru's Southern Highlands, 1900-1930." She argued that mestizo and Indian farmers and laborers were oppressed and exploited by the landowning and merchant elites and they responded in reasonable ways to this treatment: they withheld goods from market, avoided public work levies, and kept aloof from Spanish society as much as possible. The national elite in Lima, however, misinterpreted this be havior as rebelliousness and backwardness, and used force to gain Indian compliance. Regional elites used whatever means they could, including forced labor and outright theft, to maintain their provincial status. Calisto argued that Indians wanted to be included in a national market, free of such exactions; if anything, they were a progressive force, advocating, for example, the education of their children. It was regional elites who convinced Limeno interests that Indians were backward in order to con tinue forms of coercion and income transfers that often dated from the colonial era. To this day, Peruvian peasants are stereotyped and denigrated because of this

misrepresentation of their behavior.

Adriana Novoa delivered her paper on "The Feminization of Men and the Construction of Political Fear in Modern Argentina," in which she juxtaposed Sarmiento's vision of the Argentine backlands with an ideal construct of modernity, as represented by Eur opean cities. She posited two moments in the growth of Buenos Aires, that in which the Liberals had to contend with their own fears of backwardness (Sarmiento's time) and, near the end of the century, when a new, urbanized elite came to fear the gender o rientation of porteno men. The earlier generation had seen the countryside as barbaric, the later generation came to view young porteno men as effeminate and worried that earlier, masculine qualities had been lost in the rush to become modern.

Allen Wells commented on these papers in some depth. He noted that Calisto's paper thoroughly and carefully showed beyond a shadow of a doubt how the regional elite and indigenistas perceived the indigenous, but the paper fell short of proving that Ay mara Indians in this region were aware of their condition and were committed to improving it. He also urged caution in using the concept of the Indians' improving themselves. Finally he notes that the paper paints with a very broad and sweeping brush h ow Indians and elites and responded to modernization.

In her paper, Prof. Novoa shows that Sarmiento needed to speak from a position of equality and even superiority, because he like many Argentines was insecure about who they were and Sarmiento shared with other exiled intellectuals a sense of rejection from their native Argentina as well as Europe. The two historical moments analyzed in the paper are 1845 and 1890. Wells argued that it would have been useful to spend more time providing historical context to understand generally why these two conjunct ures were chosen.

He noted that Monteon's paper asked the provocative question--how much difference did the Mexican Revolution make? By analyzing the regime of Plutarco Elias Calles who essentially ruled Mexico from 1924-34, Monteon looked at what he believes to be the key moment in the consolidation and the insti-tutionalization of the Mexican Revolution. To prove his point, Prof. Monteon provided a systematic overview of the Calles regime that outlined its principal characteristics. All of this produced in Monteon' s words a populist brand of bourgeois revolution. But what really separated Mexico from the rest of Latin America was the political system that Calles and Cardenas institutionalized. The one-party state that was created in the 1920s and 1930s would turn out to be a repressive, antidemocratic political apparatus that has uses both carrot and stick to maintain itself in power at all costs. Mexican political culture has shown the propensity to incorporate popular elements and movements, which react with su spicion, then cooperate cautiously and finally serve to legitimate the authoritarian, institutionalized regime.

Michael Conniff, Auburn U.

Straddling The Colonial Divide: Indigenous Leadership and The Politics of Legitimacy in Mesoamerica and The Andes - S. Elizabeth Penry, Matthew Restall, John Chance, and Karen Vieira Powers presented, and Kevin Gosner commented. Susan Ramirez, the second commentator, was unable to attend due to illness.

Beth Penry of New Mexico State University presented her paper, "Battles of Legitimacy: Contestations of Indigenous Authority in Eighteenth-Century Alto Peru," in which she delineated the shift inside indigenous communities from noble to commoner autho rity. As originally conceived in the Toledan Ordinances, indi-genous nobles and commoners were to share authority within the towns created by Spanish resettlement policies. However, the nobility retained a strangle hold over their villages until social upheavals in the late eighteenth century brought commoner-led town councils to the fore. Her paper examined this shift in authority as a reflection of a larger transformation in cultural identity. Penry concluded that by,the late eighteenth century, col lective "Indian" identity was no longer reproduced or represented in indigenous nobility and large scale pre-Columbian kingdoms. Instead, "Indian" identities and new legitimate authorities were now being forged through the social obligations of the hybri dized civil and religious institutions of reducción towns.

Matthew Restall of Boston College then presented "Risky Business: The Impact of Spanish Colonialism upon Maya Gubernatorial Legitimacy." Using Maya language notarial records, he examined the voluminous invest-igation that was made into the practices of one Spanish governor in the 1660s. Contrary to former claims that the Maya nobility of the Yucatan were reduced by Spanish rule to the economic status of commoners and to the political status of colonial cronies, Restall demonstrated that there was cons iderable continuity of status among the community nobility, who maintained their right to rule through their domination of political office, their control over economic resources, and the ongoing legitimacy of title and patronym. Often functioning as int ermediaries between colonial agents and Maya community members, the position of these Indigenous rulers could be as risky as it was rewarding. Yet even in times of excessive exploitation, while individuals might not survive the pressure of Spanish demand s on one side and the ire of exploited Maya subjects on the other, the Maya nobility was able to preserve its right to rule.

Next, John Chance presented his paper, "The Santiago Estate of Tecali, Puebla: A Colonial Nahua Caci-cazgo." The cacicazgo of don Miguel de Santiago was the largest in the community of Tecali, in the Valley of Puebla, and was legally recognized by the colonial government in 1591. Chance analyzed wills and law-suits to trace the tumultuous history of the estate and its owners, from their roots in a pre-conquest teccalli (noble house), through the dissolution of the Santiago family and its aftermath in the mid-eighteenth century. Despite the demise of the Santiago name, the cacicazgo continued in the hands of other descendants of don Miguel. Chance showed that Indigenous principles of descent and lineage organization held the key to an understanding o f this and other cacicazizos in Tecali.

Lastly, Karen Vieira Powers (Northern Arizona U.) presented "Inventing Legitimacy in the Colonial North Andes: The "Making" of the Duchisela Cacicazgo. Through exegesis of seven wills and several lawsuits over chiefly legitimacy, she reconstructed the Duchisela family's rise to and maintenance of power from the 1530s to the 1780s in the town of Yaruquies (Audiencia of Quito). She posited that at the time of Spanish colon-ization, the North Andean highlands were characterized by a multiplicity of smal l political units, each headed by an autonomous lord. In the interests of more efficient administration, the colonial regime carried out a program of centralization in which a number of independent groups were often aggregated into a cacicazgo and one of several leaders of equivalent rank was promoted to the position of cacique principal. Powers determined that the North Andean cacicazgo was a colonial invention, and, as such, its holders were left with the awesome responsibility of "inventing" their le gitimacy. She then delineated the imaginative strategies the Duchiselas utilized to "make" their cacicazgo and to legitimate their leadership both locally and regionally,in their scramble to integrate themselves into the new hegemonic formations of the S panish colonial regime.

Kevin Gosner (U. of Arizona then commented on all four papers, making astute observations about the implications of the research presented and offering helpful suggestions about how each of the papers could be revised. Substantive audience participati on followed, and the session was well attended in spite of its Sunday morning time slot.

Karen Powers, Northern Arizona U.

Urban History: A Roundtable - This panel was organized and chaired by James Baer and Ronn Pineo, contributing editors to the forthcoming book from Westview Press: Cities of Hope: People, Protests, and Progress in Urbanizing Latin America, 1870-1 930. Each of the panelists contributed a chapter to the book.

Sam Adamo insightful analysis of the campaign to improve public health in Rio de Janeiro shows that these measures did improve the looks and the sanitation of the city. But Adamo points out that their impact on the population varied, often by race.

James A. Baer, in his study of the 1921 rent law in Argentina, showed how a post-war crisis of rising rents created a coalition of Catholic reformers, politicians, and workers. This coalition came to support legislation for governmental regulation over housing costs and rental agreements that was a radical departure from past policies of Argentine governments.

John Lear explored the relationship between the defeat of the general strike in Mexico City in 1916 and the pro-labor codes written into the 1917 Constitution. Lear original contribution is that working-class mobil-ization became most effective when it extended beyond the traditional issues of the workplace and included questions of food supply for the capital during the Revolution.

Ronn F. Pineo used detailed analyses of hospital records and other sources to paint a grim picture of working class health conditions in Valparaiso, Chile. Pineo showed how the dynamics of national politics, and the elites' inherent belief in the infer iority of the city's working class, produced a multiplicity of responses that failed to improve effectively the lives of the urban poor.

Anton Rosenthal's stunningly perceptive paper discussed the introduction of the electric streetcar to Montevideo. Rosenthal showed how the need to improve urban transportation transformed the physical characteristics of Montevideo and shaped social int eractions and labor relations. The streetcar became a billboard for advertisements and political electioneering, and a stage for public spectacle where crimes of passion were committed. Foreign-owned electric streetcar companies became the largest landown ers in the city between 1911 and the 1930s.

David Sowell's innovative study of urban growth in Bogota and its impact on the social structure emphasized the importance of the city's working class in the shaping of Colombia's political culture. Urban growth produced problems for the working class and created opportunities for skilled laborers. This combination provided the opening for informal as well as formal politics by members of the city's working class. These activities included riots, assassinations, public intimidations, as well as strike s and demonstrations.

Housing was the focus of the research by Andrew G. Wood. Wood's innovative approach found that the tenant strike in Veracruz in 1922 demonstrated the significance of consumer issues within the on-going development of post-revolutionary politics. The ev ents in Veracruz brought together anarchist traditions of direct action, a growing crisis in the availability of affordable housing, and the political opportunity provided by Veracruz State governor Tejeda. This intricate combination allowed members of th e working class to demand urban reforms of the emerging post-revolutionary party.

James Baer, Northern Virginia Community College

Words and Deeds: Racial and Gender Dialogue, Identity, and Conflict in the Viceroyalty of New Spain, A Roundtable - Summary of papers: All four papers were based on the authors' very thorough archival research and thus contained colorful and con crete examples of real people acting within specific historical contexts. Boyer led off by presenting a theoretical typology of speech acts, illustrated by specific examples drawn from his research, with special attention to a case study from central Mex ico in the mid-seventeenth century. Lipsett-Rivera then proceeded to identify patterns of insults in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, concentrating not only on words but also on gestures and other forms of insult. Hanger then moved to a disc ussion of how free black women came to grips with the hierarchies of class, gender, and ethnicity that characterized Spanish New Orleans. Landers then explored similar issues for women of various ethnicities in eighteenth-century Florida.

Nature and amount of general discussion: About a dozen members of the audience directed questions or comments to the participants. Several questioners asked panel participants to expand upon specific points raised in their papers, and a particularly l ively discussion focused upon the variety and nature of specific insults used at various times and places throughout the viceroyalty of New Spain. At least two questions/comments from the audience drew comparisons between the papers presented and recent w ork on Spanish and Italian history, indicating that Europeanists are taking note of the kind of work that Latin Americanists are doing. More informal discussion among the panelists and audience continued for some twenty minutes after the session formally ended.

Comments from session chair: I received very favorable feedback after the session. It is obvious that we could have used a much larger room. Not only did we have a standing room only crowd; there were people standing in the hallway trying to hear, an d I noticed that some turned away when they realized that they couldn't get into the room. I would urge that, if at all possible, the future program committee take into account the popularity of CLAH-sponsored sessions when making room assignments.

Cheryl E. Martin, U. of Texas at El Paso