An Irish Rebel in New Spain recounts the story of the so-called Irish Zorro, who, in 1659, was burned at the stake for conspiring against the empire to make himself king of Mexico, restore the privileges of the Indigenous people, end the persecution of the Jews, and free the African slaves. William Lamport was an Irish rebel, a soldier, a poet, and a thinker. His Catholic family lost their land and their religious freedom after the English conquest of Ireland. In 1640, Lamport emigrated to New Spain, where he witnessed the abuses of the colonial system and later ran afoul of the Mexican Inquisition. Imprisoned in 1642, Lamport argued his own defense as well as that of the Jews who were in prison with him. Along with a concise biography, this volume provides an anthology of Lamport’s most representative writings: his detailed project for a Spanish-supported Irish insurrection; a manifesto and plan for a Mexican uprising against Spain; his self-defense, which he nailed to the doors of the cathedral when he managed to momentarily escape from prison; a selection of his poetry; and the court documents about the accusation that led him to the pyre. This concise, compelling, and original reflection on the systems of (in)justice in seventeenth-century Mexico is designed for classes on early modern Spain, colonial Latin America, and the Inquisition. Those with an affinity for Irish history will also enjoy learning about the colorful life of William Lamport.

This volume launches the book series of “Inquire – International Centre for Research on Inquisitions” of the University of Bologna, a research network that engages with the history of religious justice from the 13th to the 20th century. This first publication offers twenty chapters that take stock of the current historiography on medieval and early modern Inquisitions (the Spanish, Portuguese and Roman Inquisitions) and their modern continuations. Through the analysis of specific questions related to religious repression in Europe and the Iberian colonial territories extending from the Middle Ages to today, the contributions here examine the history of the perception of tribunals and the most recent historiographical trends. New research perspectives thus emerge on a subject that continues to intrigue those interested in the practices of justice and censorship, the history of religious dissent and the genesis of intolerance in the Western world and beyond.

Between 1810 and 1825, 7,000 English, Scottish and Irish mercenaries sailed to Gran Colombia to fight against Spanish colonial rule under the rebel forces of Simón Bolívar. Their motives were mixed. Some travelled for money, others travelled for honour. Adventuring Through Spanish Colonies explores the lives of these men – their encounters with other soldiers, indigenous people, local women and slaves – as recounted in documents that fall outside the usual remit of military, political and economic historians. Matthew Brown considers the social and cultural aspects of the presence of these ‘foreigners’, and shows how they were an essential part of the revolution which eventually gave South America its freedom. Using archival research from England, Scotland, Ireland, Spain, Ecuador, Venezuela, and Colombia, Adventuring Through Spanish Colonies clearly shows the active role that these mercenaries, informal outriders of the British Empire, played in the creation of Latin America as we know it today.

Published in 1557, Nikolaus Federmann’s Jndianische Historia is a fascinating narrative describing the German military commander’s incursion into what is now Venezuela. Designed not only for classroom use but also for the use of scholars, this English translation is accompanied by a critical introduction that contextualizes Federmann’s firsthand account within the broader Spanish colonial system. Having gained the rights to colonize Venezuela from the Spanish Crown in 1528, the Welser merchant house of Augsburg, Germany, sent mercenaries, settlers, and miners to set up colonial structures. The venture never turned a profit, and operations ceased in 1546 after two Welser officials were murdered. Federmann’s text gives an account of his foray into the interior of Venezuela in 1530–31. It describes violent first contact with Indigenous peoples as well as Federmann’s communication strategies, how he managed to prevail in hostile terrain, and how he related to other agents of the conquests. It also documents his unwavering belief in the intrinsic preeminence of European Christians and, ultimately, in the righteousness of his mission. The only detailed record of this incursion, Federmann’s text adds a unique and important perspective to our understanding of first colonial contact on the Caribbean coast of South America. It provides insight into the first-contact dynamic, the techniques of subjugation and dominance, and the web of diverging interests among stakeholders. This volume will be a valuable resource for courses and for scholarship on conquest and colonialism in Latin America.

In 1719, a deadly and highly contagious disease took hold of the Imperial Villa of Potosí, a silver mining metropolis in what is now Bolivia. Within a year, the pathogen had killed some 22,000 people, just over a third of the city’s residents. Victims collapsed with fever, body aches, and effusions of blood from the nose and mouth. Most died within days. The great Andean pandemic of 1717–22 was likely the most destructive disease to strike South America since the days of the Spanish conquest. Pandemic in Potosí features the single longest narrative of this nearly forgotten period, penned by local historian Bartolomé Arzáns de Orsúa y Vela, along with shorter treatments of the disease’s ravages in Cuzco, Arequipa, and the outskirts of Lima. The “Gran Peste,” as it was called, was a pivotal event about which Arzáns wrote at length because he lived through it, but also because it was believed to have cosmic significance. Kris Lane translates and contextualizes Arzáns’s account, which is rich in local detail that sheds light on a range of topics—from therapeutics, devotional life, class relations, gender, and race to conceptions of illness, sin, and human will and responsibility during a major public health crisis. Original narratives of the pandemic, translated here for the first time, help readers see commonalities and differences between past and present disease encounters. Designed for use in courses on Latin American history, this concise work will also interest scholars and students of the history of religion, history of medicine, urban studies, and epidemiology.

Analyses with rare impartiality what sets the Catalans apart from Spain, and how the separatist debate is playing out.

The outbreak of the Spanish Civil War threw Irish politics, north and south of the border, into turmoil. Ireland sent large organised bodies of men to fight on opposite sides in the Spanish Civil War, essentially enemy crusades.