Some Franciscan Sources in the Archives and Libraries of America

1957 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 141-174 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lino G. Canedo

IT is well-known that the Franciscans had a very considerable influence on the history of America. From the days of the conquest up to the present time, their labors have been outstanding in the sphere of American spiritual life by their extensiveness, their intensity, and their brilliance. In the missionary field, Franciscan activity was particularly conspicuous. Up to the end of the sixteenth century, the Franciscan missions were almost as numerous as those of all the rest of the religious orders together; Franciscan primacy was maintained in the seventeenth century, and from 1767 onwards nearly all the missions among the pagans, both in North and South America, remained in their hands, once the Society of Jesus had been suppressed.

The Atlantic Ocean not only connected North and South America with Europe through trade but also provided the means for an exchange of knowledge and ideas, including political radicalism. Socialists and anarchists would use this “radical ocean” to escape state prosecution in their home countries and establish radical milieus abroad. However, this was often a rather unorganized development and therefore the connections that existed were quite diverse. The movement of individuals led to the establishment of organizational ties and the import and exchange of political publications between Europe and the Americas. The main aim of this book is to show how the transatlantic networks of political radicalism evolved with regard to socialist and anarchist milieus and in particular to look at the actors within the relevant processes—topics that have so far been neglected in the major histories of transnational political radicalism of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Individual case studies are examined within a wider context to show how networks were actually created, how they functioned and their impact on the broader history of the radical Atlantic.


Author(s):  
Marion Kaplan

This book describes the experience of Jewish refugees as they fled Hitler to live in limbo in Portugal until they could reach safer havens abroad. As the Nazis launched the Holocaust, Lisbon emerged as the best way station for Jews to escape Europe for North and South America. Jewish refugees had begun fleeing the continent in the mid-1930s from ports closer to home. But after Germany defeated Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and France, and Italy joined the war, all in the spring of 1940, Lisbon became the port of departure from Europe. Jewish refugees from western and eastern Europe aimed for Portugal. An emotional history of fleeing, the book probes how specific locations touched refugees' inner lives, including the borders they nervously crossed or the overcrowded transatlantic ships that signaled their liberation.


Author(s):  
Heather Andrea Williams

Slavery had long existed in Europe and Africa, but the history of the Atlantic slave trade begins in the 1440s with Portuguese exploration of West Africa. ‘The Atlantic slave trade’ charts the increased demand for slave labor in Portugal and the Christian justification of African enslavement. In the 1490s, the journeys of Christopher Columbus to the Caribbean and North and South America opened up mineral-rich and fertile lands on which European countries planted their flags and the Christian cross. More than 12 million Africans boarded the ships, but nearly 2 million died during the Middle Passage. Of those who survived, only about 5 percent went to North America, with most going to South America and the Caribbean.


2007 ◽  
Vol 51 (3) ◽  
pp. 353-361 ◽  
Author(s):  
James A. Doyle ◽  
Annick Le Thomas

ABSTRACT Whereas Takhtajan and Smith situated the origin of angiosperms between Southeast Asia and Australia, Walker and Le Thomas emphasized the concentration of primitive pollen types of Annonaceae in South America and Africa, suggesting instead a Northern Gondwanan origin for this family of primitive angiosperms. A cladistic analysis of Annonaceae shows a basal split of the family into Anaxagorea, the only genus with an Asian and Neotropical distribution, and a basically African and Neotropical line that includes the rest of the family. Several advanced lines occur in both Africa and Asia, one of which reaches Australia. This pattern may reflect the following history: (a) disjunction of Laurasian (Anaxagorea) and Northern Gondwanan lines in the Early Cretaceous, when interchanges across the Tethys were still easy and the major lines of Magnoliidae are documented by paleobotany; (b) radiation of the Northern Gondwanan line during the Late Cretaceous, while oceanic barriers were widening; (c) dispersal of African lines into Laurasia due to northward movement of Africa and India in the Early Tertiary, attested by the presence of fossil seeds of Annonaceae in Europe, and interchanges between North and South America at the end of the Tertiary.


1955 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-23 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Leddy Phelan

Magellan’s abortive attempts to introduce baptism among the natives of the island of Cebu during the month of April of 1521 and the more successful efforts of the Spanish missionaries to preach the Gospel following the arrival of the Legazpi-Urdaneta expedition at Cebu on February 13, 1565 occurred during the initial and the culminating chapters respectively of the “spiritual conquest” of those native peoples of America and the Far East who were to enter the orbit of Spanish culture. During April of 1521, as Magellan was transforming himself into a lay missionary, Hernán Cortés was making the final preparations for the siege of Tenochtitlán. Its successful issue on August 13, 1521 laid the foundation not only of the Spanish Empire in the New World, but also it provided the Spaniards with the base of operations from which eventually they could extend their power to the Philippines. It was Cortés’ conquest of the Aztec Confederation in 1521 which enabled the Catholic missionaries of Spain to undertake one of the most extensive expansions in the history of the Christian Church. In 1565 the Spanish Church for its Philippine enterprise was able to draw upon a vast storehouse of missionary experience acquired in both North and South America. Magellan’s apostolic labors, ill-starred and brief though they were, exemplify many of the permanent features of the Spanish missionary enterprise. The Magellan episode also illustrates how his successors after 1565 did in fact profit from the Circumnavigator’s errors of judgment and tactics.


1977 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 306-316

Presented by the Central American Actuarial Association (Asociacion Acturial Centroamericana) to the 13th ASTIN Colloquium.The Asociaciôn Actuarial Centroamericana (AAC) is a grouping of Actuaries from the Central American Republics of El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama. The AAC is a contributing ASTIN member of the International Actuarial Association.Earthquakes have been a constant scourge of mankind. Central America has not escaped this phenomenon, indeed the territory has been most affected by them precisely because of its condition as an isthmus that serves as a fragile union between the continental land masses of North and South America, and in consequence being subject to disturbances by the displacement of the continental plates. Our lands abound with beautiful volcanoes, which have also contributed to local seismic activity. Whatever their origin, the earthquakes that have struck our country have left their share of destruction of lives and property.In Annex 1 a table is presented, showing a history of seismic activity and volcanic eruptions in the countries on the Caribbean Platform, in which we can appreciate in detail the catastrophes that occurred from the XVI Century until 1976.


Author(s):  
Ana Luisa Santos

One of the main pillars of bioanthropological studies are the identified osteological collections. The goal of this document is to describe this heritage and show its importance. Since the nineteenth century, several countries have collected sets of skulls and skeletons from people about whom we know some biographical data; among other details, their age when they died and their sex. There are currently around fifty collections in different countries of North and South America, Africa, Europe, and Asia. Researching into them has applications for the study of human evolution, past populations, palaeopathology, and the history of medicine, among others. The need to increase the number of individuals and extend the geographic distribution of samples leads to the continuous development of these collections.


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