Essays in Brazilian History

Paulo Freire as Brazilian Activist (Lecture to student taught seminar on popular education in Latin America, 1990)

Black Robes & “Black Destiny”: Jesuit Views of African Slavery in 17th-Century Latin America (pdf

Explores writings of Alonso de Sandoval in New Granada, and of Antonio Vieira, Jorge Benci & Joao Antonio Andreoni [Antonil] in search of characterizations and legitimations of slavery as a Christian institution. Pub. in Revista de Historia de America 86 (7-12/71978):87-134.

On the Possibility of a People’s History of Latin America

Originally the first lecture in an introductory Latin American history course taught each year during the 1970s & 80s at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Pub. in Laurie Sears (ed.) Autonomous Histories, Particular Truths: Essays in Honor of John Smail (Madison: U. of Wisconsin Center for Southeast Asian Studies, 1993), pp. 281-300.

The Ibero-American Frontier Mission in Native American History

Offers a critique of Herbert Bolton’s classic view of this subject, and a new comparative approach to the history of Roman Catholic missions amongst the “uncivilized” peoples of North & South America between the 17th & 19th centuries. Pub. in Erick Langer & Robert H. Jackson (eds.) The New Latin American Mission History (Lincoln: U. of Nebraska Press, 1995), pp. 1-48. An abridged version, “Reflections on the Ibero-American Frontier Mission as an Institution in Native American History,” appeared earlier in David J. Weber & Jane M. Rausch (eds.) Where Cultures Meet: Frontiers in Latin American History (Wilmington DE: Scholarly Resources, 1994).