ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This book has been quite a long time in the making, and over the course of the years I have received the assistance of many people and several institutions. I first went to Venezuela in 1974 with a fellowship from MUCIA, a consortium of Midwestern universities centered at Indiana University. In Venezuela I was the beneficiary of several years of financial support from the Biblioteca Nacional. More recently, the Graduate School of the University of Colorado provided funds for summer research and writing.

From the beginning, no one has provided more direction, help, and inspiration than Stuart Schwartz. John Lombardi read the manuscript several times and offered both his critical judgment and broad knowledge of colonial Venezuela. In Seville, John R. Fisher shared with me his generous company and his considerable experience in the Archivo General de Indias. At the University of Colorado, Phil Mitterling, my undergraduate thesis advisor two decades ago, has again given me the benefit of his own strong sense of effective prose. His infectious enthusiasm for the historical profession has not flagged, and I am fortunate to still be his student. I am also grateful for the no-holds-barred criticisms of several other Colorado colleagues: Fred Anderson, Steve Epstein, Gloria Main, and Ralph Mann.

I am especially grateful to Virginia Betancourt, director of the Biblioteca Nacional, Caracas. Thanks to her interest in my project, I was a research associate with the Biblioteca Nacional from 1976 to 1980. In an unusual reversal of our customary practice of receiving funds from North American agencies for study abroad, during the year 1978 the Biblioteca provided me with very generous support so that I could return to the University of Minnesota to do the computer-assisted family reconstitutions that are an essential part of this study.

In Venezuela I benefited from the companionship and professional friendship of many people, among them Ralph and Carmen Rosa Van Roy, Steve Ellner, Aurelio Alvarez Juan, Ana María Rodríguez, Kathy Waldron, Susan Berglund, Mike McKinley, Rob and Polly Wright and, in particular, Judy Ewell. It is also my good fortune to have had the support, assistance, and friendship of three pillars of Venezuelan historical scholarship: Germán Carrera Damas, Pedro Grases, and Manuel Pérez Vila.