The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 21, July 1917 - April, 1918 Page: 214

The Southwestern Historical Quarterly

BOOK REVIEWS AND NOTICES
Jose de Gdlvez, Visitor-General of New Spain?, 1765-1771, by
Herbert Ingraham Priestley. University of California
Publications in History, H. Morse Stephens and Herbert
E. Bolton, Editors. University of California Press, Berke-
ley, 1916. Pp. xi, 449.
Aside from being an account of the inspection (visita) of New
Spain and her northern provinces by Jose de Galvez from 1765
to 1771, Mr. Priestley's book is a veritable encyclopedia of Span-
ish colonial administration. It is quite the most substantial and
massive thing that has been done in this subject up to the present,
and is made possible by the unrivaled facilities which the Uni-
versity of California enjoys for the utilization of the documents
existing in Spain, not only in the local field but in the larger
and more closely related one of Spanish colonial history. Al-
though the activities of GAlvez as described in this volume are
chiefly concerned with New Spain and its northern frontier prov-
inces, the institutions and practices which are described so clearly
and in such an interesting manner were characteristic of the en-
tire colonial empire of Spain from Peru to California, and will
be of interest to all students of Latin-American history and gov-
ernment in Spain, Mexico and South America, as well as in the
United States. This book is of such merit, and of such conse-
quence are the problems which it discusses, that the volume should
be translated into Spanish for the more general convenience of
our Spanish-speaking contemporaries.
Although the main contribution of the work is to be found
from Chapters IV to IX, inclusive, for therein the visitation it-
self is described from documentary sources hitherto unused, the
first three chapters, as well as the last, are of great value to the
all-too-often confused student of Spanish colonial institutions. In
his Introduction, Mr. Priestley gives his work a quality of com-
pleteness by sketching the life of Galvez, supplying- the earlier
and later details of his career which are not identified with his
six years of service in New Spain.
The first three chapters serve as introductory to the general

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