It’s somewhat difficult to find good books about Latin America: Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean, and South America. Or maybe I just don’t know where to look. I have only a handful of historical fiction books to recommend that are set in Latin America and also not many books about the history of Latin America, although there are lots of books about explorers and exploration. There are a few more that cover culture and geography, usually part of a series, but in general I think Latin American history in books for children has been neglected.

Enter New Found World by Katherine Binney Shippen. Published in 1945 and updated in 1964, the book is still somewhat dated. And I found a few mistakes, including the inaccurate statement that Moses Austin came to Texas with a group of settlers in 1823 (p.216). Moses Austin died in 1821, and his son Stephen was the one who carried out Moses’ dream of bringing American settlers to Texas. Please. I know my Texas history, as should anyone who is writing about it.

Nevertheless, I found New Found World to be a fascinating and engrossing look at he history of Latin America from Texas in the north to the tip of Argentina in the south. Shippen writes about the Inca, Aztec, Maya, Carib, Arawak, and other groups of Native Americans, with respect and as much detailed information as would fit into an overview of the region. She does use the currently disused term “Indians” to refer to the entire haplogroup (got that word from my current binge-watch of Finding Your Roots) of Native Americans, but since the book was published mid-twentieth century, I don’t think we should hold that against her. When she is talking about distinct tribes or kingdoms, she uses the correct-for-that-time term to refer to them.

I learned lots of things that were new to me:

• The Native Americans had no domesticated animals, except for few pet dogs and llamas used as beasts of burden in South America. They also had not invented the wheel as a machine to enable transportation.
• Cortes was only thirty-five years old when he set out for the New World in command of a fleet of ships to conquer new territory for Spain.
• Pizarro never even learned to read or write.
• The Inca (king) Atahualpa paid the Spaniards a large ransom of gold and silver to get them to go away and leave the Inca people alone. The Spanish took the treasure and murdered Atahualpa.
• Simon Bolivar wanted to unite all of South America into a country he called El Gran Colombia. But according to Shippen, “in 1826 the people of South America were not yet ready for democracy.”
• The island of Hispaniola, especially the part that is now Haiti, was for many years a haven for pirates.

Much, much more is told about the vicissitudes of Latin American history in this volume. It would make a great spine for a year-long study of Latin American history. What books would you use to supplement this one? Historical fiction set in Latin America? History or geography of particular countries? Picture books? Folk tales or Native American lore? Language studies? Do you know of a more recently published survey of Latin American history that would bring that history up to the present day (not a textbook)?

The book ends with John F. Kennedy and the Alliance for Progress which was supposed to “build a hemisphere where all men can hope for the same high standard of living—and all men can live out their lives in dignity and freedom.” It’s sad that those words sound rather quaint and idealistic to me now. All of the Latin American nations, except for Cuba, joined the Alliance for Progress and “agreed to work together to help the depressed people of the southern continent.” What ever happened to the Alliance for Progress? Do you think of South and Central America as “depressed” and in need of our help now? Do they think of themselves that way?

“[I]f God took the trouble to tell us eight hundred times to be glad and rejoice, He must want us to do it—–SOME.” ~Pollyanna by Eleanor Porter.

Rejoice in the Lord always; again, I say, rejoice! ~Phillipians 4:4

1) I never read this poem by C.S. Lewis before, even though I’m a Lewis fan:

As the Ruin Falls
by C. S. Lewis
All this is flashy rhetoric about loving you.
I never had a selfless thought since I was born.
I am mercenary and self-seeking through and through:
I want God, you, all friends, merely to serve my turn.
Peace, re-assurance, pleasure, are the goals I seek,
I cannot crawl one inch outside my proper skin:
I talk of love –a scholar’s parrot may talk Greek–
But, self-imprisoned, always end where I begin.
Only that now you have taught me (but how late) my lack.
I see the chasm. And everything you are was making
My heart into a bridge by which I might get back
From exile, and grow man. And now the bridge is breaking.
For this I bless you as the ruin falls. The pains
You give me are more precious than all other gains.

It might seem an odd thing to be joyful about, falling ruins, but I think I get what he means. And I am happy to be made new.

2) Winterbound by Margery Williams Bianco. It is perfectly possible to live a happy, grateful life in less than ideal circumstances.

3) This prayer by Inca Pachacutec, to Pachacamac, “a god who was the creator and preserver of all mankind” and above even the Sun God whom the Incas had always worshipped:

O Pachacamac!

Thou who hast existed from the beginning,

Thou who shalt exist to the end,

Powerful, but merciful,

Who didst create man by saying,

“Let man be!”

Who defendest us from evil,

And preservest our life and our health,

Art Thou in the sky or upon the earth?

In the clouds or in the deeps?

Hear the voice of him who implores thee

And grant his petitions,

Give us life everlasting,

Preserve us and accept this our sacrifice. . . .

Prayer preserved by Spanish priests, copied from New Found World by Katherine B. Shippen

See Romans 1:19-20. God has always been revealing Himself to men through His creation, and He continues to do so through His Son, Jesus Christ.

4) I got to go to church last Sunday, and I will go again this Sunday, God willing, to worship the Lord with the saints in my congregation. What a blessing!

5) I’m adding lots and lots of new-to-me books to my library, Meriadoc Homeschool Library, books that I acquired from a school that was closing (sad), but that will now have a new opportunity to serve the patrons of my library.

6) I thought I’d posted this song, Joy by Scott Mulvahill, before, but I couldn’t find it. It still makes me smile:

7) I got to spend time with both of my baby grandchildren, Teddy and Hazel, this week. That’s joy, for sure!

I am NOT an expert genealogical researcher. I may have this all wrong. However, if I understand the information I have gathered in my reading and my rambling at sites like ancestry.com, my tenth great grandfather was possibly the first Italian to settle in New York, or New Amsterdam as it was then, in 1635.

Pietro Caesare Alberti, aka Peter Albertus, Pietro Cicero Alberti, Peter the Italian, and many other names and nicknames, was a sailor on a Dutch ship, De Coninck David (the King David), who perhaps because of a dispute with the ship’s captain, De Vries, decided to jump ship, more or less, and settle in New Amsterdam. He arrived in the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam on June 2, 1635, having sailed with DeVries from the Dutch island of Texel to Guiana in South America to Virginia and then finally to New Amsterdam where De Vries hoped to have repairs made to his leaky ship. For one reason or another Pietro Alberti decided to stay in America. He later sued De Vries in court for back pay that he said was owed to him for the part of the voyage he did complete. Alberti won a payment of ten guilders.

This Venetian thrown among the Dutch became a middle class farmer in a hard land. He acquired land for a tobacco plantation on Long Island in 1639, and in 1642 he married a Dutch Walloon girl, Judith Manje, in the Dutch Reformed Church in New Amsterdam. At first the couple lived on the Here Graft (Broad Canal, Manhattan), but they soon moved to their farm/plantation on the Long Island shore of the East River. This island was wild country at the time, disputed, settled, bought and sold between the English from Connecticut and Massachusetts colonies, the Dutch from New Netherlands, and the Native tribes who still lived on Long Island. And one Italian. Pietro Alberti and his wife Judith had six children over the course of twelve years of marriage: Jan, Marles, Aert, Marritje, Francyntie, and Willem, all baptized and recorded in the Dutch Reformed Church records.

Then, in about November 1655 both Pietro, age 47, and Judith, age 35, died, possibly in an Indian raid. They left five orphaned children (one child died as an infant), the oldest only eleven years old. That oldest child was my ninth great grandfather, Jan/John Albertus, and John’s daughter Elizabeth married a Stewart. My mother was a Stewart descended from these early inhabitants, Dutch and Italian and English, of New Amsterdam/New York.

Belloc is remembered in an annual celebration in Sussex, known as Belloc Night, that takes place on the writer’s birthday, 27 July, in the manner of Burns Night in Scotland. The celebration includes reading from Belloc’s work and partaking of a bread and cheese supper with pickles. ~Wikipedia, Hilaire Belloc

I think Mr. Belloc was incredibly prescient at times. For example apply the following insight to the present-day political situation in the United States:

In a word, the Barbarian is discoverable everywhere in this that he cannot make; that he can befog or destroy, but that he cannot sustain; and of every Barbarian in the decline or peril of every civilisation exactly that has been true.
We sit by and watch the Barbarian, we tolerate him; in the long stretches of peace we are not afraid.
We are tickled by his irreverence, his comic inversion of our old certitudes and our fixed creeds refreshes us: we laugh. But as we laugh we are watched by large and awful faces from beyond: and on these faces there is no smile.
Ch. XXXII : The Barbarians , p. 282

However, he could also be quite simply wrong:

I am opposed to women’s voting as men vote. I call it immoral, because I think the bringing of one’s women, one’s mothers and sisters, into the political arena, disturbs the relations between the sexes.

Often, he was funny:

When I am dead, I hope it may be said: “His sins were scarlet, but his books were read.

The Llama is a woolly sort of fleecy hairy goat, with an indolent expression and an undulating throat; like an unsuccessful literary man.

Then, sometimes he is just homely and lovely:

If I ever become a rich man,
Or if ever I grow to be old,
I will build a house with deep thatch
To shelter me from the cold,
And there shall the Sussex songs be sung
And the story of Sussex told.

I will hold my house in the high wood
Within a walk of the sea,
And the men that were boys when I was a boy
Shall sit and drink with me.

If you read my post last week about Sally Perry Stewart who was my great-great grandmother, then you read a little bit about my great-great grandfather, John William Stewart. Sally had the following to say about her husband, over sixty years after his death:

In 1863 Sally Perry was married to John William Stewart.  Mr. Stewart was a Texas Ranger and served in various parts of the state for over 10 years. . . . Mr. Stewart died in 1873 just 10 years after his marriage to Sally Perry.  His death occurred on Aug. 19, which was the ninth birthday of his eldest son, B. C.  During the time Mr. Stewart served as a Ranger he worked under Captain Chris Bitix, famous leader of the Texas Rangers.  His work included a close check on Indians and at one time a group of 300 of them were arrested near Austin and sent back across the border into Oklahoma. 

Newspaper article about Sally Perry, 1938

So, there’s a little more to the story than Sally told the reporter. John William Stewart was sometimes known as J.W., but even more often he went by his nickname, Buff. No one knows for sure how he got the nickname Buff, but there’s a story that as a young teenager he tried to ride a buffalo. I guess after such an exploit one might be able to carry off the nickname Buff with some confidence or even cockiness.

I say that Buff might have been a little cocky because of the rest of his story. He married Miss Sally Perry in July, 1863 at the height of the Civil War. Sally was twenty-one years old. Buff was only sixteen. He and Sally spent about six months together, maybe (unless Buff was out looking for a buffalo to lasso), until January of 1864 when Buff joined the Texas Ranger company formed and commanded by Captain G.C. (Christopher) Bittick, Burnet County, 3rd Frontier District, Texas State Troops. At this point Buff was still only seventeen years old, but he told the Rangers that he was eighteen. (The age for conscription in Texas at this time was eighteen. Buff wouldn’t actually be eighteen until December of 1864.) Captain Bittick’s Ranger Company was organized in Burnet County, where Buff and his wife lived, under a law passed in December, 1863 by the Texas Legislature:

The resulting law, which established the Frontier Organization and transferred the Frontier Regiment, passed the legislature on December 15, 1863. The law declared that all persons liable for military service who were actual residents of the frontier counties of Texas were to be enrolled into companies of from twenty-five to sixty-five men. The act defined the frontier line and the fifty-nine organized frontier counties of Texas. . . . Companies in the Frontier Organization normally averaged between fifty and fifty-five men in strength, usually with about fifteen men per squad for patrol duty. The length of service at any one time varied according to the task, presence of the enemy, and availability of supplies, but most squads on patrol duty expected to remain out for about ten days at a time. The Frontier Organization not only provided protection against Indian incursions but also enforced Confederate conscription, rounded up deserters, and provided protection to settlers from renegades and bandits. 

~Handbook of Texas, Volume 2

Before he went off to ride with his Texas Ranger Company, Buff did something else important: apparently sometime in November or December, he fathered his first son, Boling Christopher Stewart, born in August, 1864, and given the same middle name as Buff’s Ranger captain, Captain Bittick.

After war was over, Buff continued to serve with the Texas Rangers, but he managed to get home often enough to father three daughters: Frances (b. 1865), Luna (b.1868), and Sarah (b.1870). Then, in 1871, Buff and Sally had a second baby boy, John William Stewart, named for his father.

Buff was, I guess, supporting the family with his law enforcement duties and maybe a little extra work when he came home in between rotating patrol duty. But in 1873, something happened that changed the lives and fortunes of the entire Stewart family. Buff Stewart changed his place of residence from Burnet to Huntsville, Texas and became convict #2794. He was convicted in Burnet County in April, 1873 of attempted murder.

I can’t find any information about how Buff’s switch from one side of the law to the other took place or about whom he tried to kill or why. However, he died while incarcerated at Huntsville on August 19, 1873. His older boy was nine years old when his daddy died, and his younger son, my great grandfather, was almost but not even two years old. Sally, only thirty-one years old when her even-younger husband died, never remarried and managed to raise all five of her children alone. Maybe she got help from her family or her husband’s family, but she nevertheless lived a long life, died in 1939 at the age of ninety-seven, and apparently remembered only the good parts of her short marriage to Texas Ranger Buff Stewart.

In this sequel to Aunt Vinnie’s Invasion (which I haven’t read), the six Hallsenius children are staying with their aunt in the small town of Nordvik in Sweden while their parents photographing a scientific expedition in Africa. Over the course of the story, sixteen year old Annika acquires a boyfriend, and the oldest boy in the family, Anders, acquires a girlfriend. Twelve year old Lollie breaks a bowl and has an encounter with the police. Trina and Sam play supporting roles in the story, but we don’t get to know them much. However, it is Per, the youngest Hallsenius child, who does the most to upset and enhance Aunt Vinnie’s quiet life.

Aunt Vinnie has a remarkably matter-of-fact and trustful approach to life and to caring for six children. She lets them fend for themselves, and they come to her when they need help. The story itself feels just a little bit foreign, but not foreign enough to put readers off. I’m not sure it’s exciting enough for many of today’s readers, but for a thoughtful reader with a taste for quiet stories set in other places and times, it might hit the spot.

Karin Anckarsvärd is a Swedish author who wrote fourteen books for children, including Bonifacius the Green (about a playful dragon), The Mysterious Schoolmaster, and The Doctor’s Boy, a rather dark middle grade novel about poverty and class distinctions and coming of age. As in Doctor’s Boy, the children in Aunt Vinnie’s Victorious Six are remarkably free to roam the town and get into all sorts of adventures and scrapes on their own without much adult supervision. Oh, the nostalgia of a free-range childhood!

Well, this sort of Thai setting, Buddhist, dystopian fantasy middle grade novel is not exactly the kind of book I would have expected to enjoy, but I did. The author blurb says that Ms. Soontornvat grew up in Texas and lives in Austin, so maybe some of the Texan in her got into this novel, too? The blurb also calls the story Soontornvat’s twist on Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables, my favorite book ever, so maybe that’s why I liked it. Anyway, I thought it was quite fascinating with a positive message about light conquering darkness and change being difficult and costly but possible.

The book begins in a women’s prison in the city of Chattana. Pong and Somkit are orphan boys, born in the prison to convict mothers who died when the boys were infants. Children born in the prison are unjustly condemned to remain there until they reach the age of thirteen, but Pong escapes early and ends up in a monastery where he becomes the acolyte and disciple of a monk named Father Cham (Bishop Myriel).

Meanwhile, back in the city, the Governor who came to the city to bring light and order and goodness to Chattana has become a dictator who provides his orbs of colored light to those who serve him and keep the law perfectly while he imprisons all those who fail to please him or follow his ever-increasing number of rules. And those who fall in-between? They are sinking deeper and deeper into poverty and despair.

Pong becomes our boyish Jean Valjean as he flees the long arm of the law and sees himself as condemned to be always running, always sinning. He wants freedom and thinks that he will do anything to obtain it, but eventually he learns the lesson: “You can’t run away from darkness. It’s everywhere. The only way to see through it is to shine a light.”

As I said, I thought this was a great novel, but there are a couple of caveats that might give some readers pause. It is, as I said, Buddhist with Buddhist monks and visions and prayers and a statue of Buddha at the center of the monastery, but it’s Buddhism-lite with not much Buddhist theology thrown in that I could see. In addition, one of the adult characters talks about the extramarital affair he had in the past, no sordid details, but it’s a plot point. If those two aspects of the book aren’t a problem for you, then I highly recommend A Wish in the Dark.