Author: N. H. Gill

N. H. Gill is a historian of Latin America and the environment whose research focuses on natural resource struggles, oil production, and mining in the South American Andes and Amazon. He received his PhD in Latin American history from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2025. Gill is also an award-winning journalist and former bureau chief and news reporter for Bloomberg News in Latin America, where he covered governments, economies, markets, and daily life across the region for eleven years. His work has been published by the BBC, Bloomberg News, Bloomberg Businessweek Magazine, Bloomberg Markets Magazine, Christian Science Monitor, Mediato, National Public Radio, United Press International, and syndicated by global news agencies in English and Spanish.

Luis Gerónimo de Oré: The World of an Andean Franciscan from the Frontiers to the Centers of Power (Review)

In 1586, a 32-year-old Franciscan friar named Luis Gerónimo de Oré began his first job in an Indigenous parish in the Colca Valley in the Peruvian Andes as an “outsider and perhaps more alone among the ‘others’ than he had been at any time in his life” (p. 91). When he left the valley nine years later, he carried with him a set of religious manuals, dictionaries, and grammars that he had written and translated into Quechua and Aymara, that would reshape the Catholic Church’s missionary efforts in the Americas.… Read More Luis Gerónimo de Oré: The World of an Andean Franciscan from the Frontiers to the Centers of Power (Review)

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Mastering the Law: Slavery and Freedom in the Legal Ecology of the Spanish Empire (Review)

In 1629, Catalina Angola and Domingo Angola, two African-born captives enslaved near what is today the northern Colombian city of Cartagena, learned that Catalina’s enslaver was moving her to the city. Fearing their separation, the couple petitioned their parish priest for marriage, hoping the Catholic Church’s respect for the sacrament of matrimony would help them resist the move. Catlina’s enslaver, however, quickly uncovered the stratagem and did everything he could to prevent their union. While unable to intervene legally, he beat Catalina violently and shipped her downriver to separate the two. By the end of the next year, however, it was the enslaver who found himself excommunicated, publicly shamed, and forced to pay hefty fees and fines for his actions. In a society generally viewed as hostile to enslaved Africans, why did Catalina and Domingo win, and what does this tell us about slavery as an institution in the early colonial period?… Read More Mastering the Law: Slavery and Freedom in the Legal Ecology of the Spanish Empire (Review)

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Assassination Days Before Presidential Vote Shakes Ecuador – and Region

For years, Ecuador has been labeled a bastion of peace in a region racked by violence and political unrest. But the recent assassination of anti-corruption presidential hopeful Fernando Villavicencio shattered that perception, highlighting how the small South American nation is facing down a rapidly expanding war on organized crime amid political divisions and limited economic resources.… Read More Assassination Days Before Presidential Vote Shakes Ecuador – and Region

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Ecuador President Dissolves Congress as Impeachment Investigation Expands

Ecuador President Guillermo Lasso dissolved the Andean nation’s congressional assembly and called for new elections, citing “grave political crisis and internal commotion.” Lasso, a 67-year-old former banker who took office in May 2021, used a constitutional provision known as “muerte cruzada,” to end a congressional impeachment inquiry into corruption and embezzlement allegations. … Read More Ecuador President Dissolves Congress as Impeachment Investigation Expands

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