{"id":228,"date":"2009-07-10T16:35:29","date_gmt":"2009-07-10T20:35:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/clah.h-net.org\/?page_id=228"},"modified":"2026-01-15T17:45:06","modified_gmt":"2026-01-15T21:45:06","slug":"the-tibesar-prize","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/clah.h-net.org\/?page_id=228","title":{"rendered":"The Tibesar Prize"},"content":{"rendered":"

Best article in The Americas<\/em> in the previous year.\u00a0 The Conference on Latin American History in cooperation with The Americas<\/em> established the Tibesar Prize in December 1990.<\/p>\n

Winners:<\/h3>\n

2025<\/strong>
\nAna Vergara Sierra<\/strong>, \u201cThe Escribano <\/em>of Babel: Power, Exile, and Enslavement in the Venezuelan Llanos during the War of Independence (1806-1833),\u201d The Americas <\/em>81, no. 3 (July 2024): 435-462.
\nHonorable Mention:
\nTravis Knoll<\/strong>, \u201c\u2018In the Name of the God of All Names: Yahweh, Obatal\u00e1, Olorum\u2019: The 1981 Quilombos Mass as an Ecumenical Pilgrimage in Brazil,\u201d The Americas <\/em>81, no. 1 (January 2024): 123-158.<\/p>\n

2024
\nNancy E. van Deusen<\/strong>, \u201cWhy Indigenous Slavery Continued in Spanish America after the New Laws of 1542,\u201d The Americas <\/em>80, no. 3 (July 2023): 395-432.
\nHonorable Mention:
\nRachael de la Cruz<\/strong>, \u201cRevolutionary Refugee Policy: Salvadorans and Statecraft in Sandinista Nicaragua,\u201d The Americas <\/em>80, no. 1 (January 2023): 101-128.<\/p>\n

2023<\/strong>
\nBrianna Leavitt-Alc\u00e1ntara<\/strong>, “Of Madres and Mayordomas: Native Women and Religious Leadership in Colonial Chiapas,”\u00a0The Americas\u00a0<\/em>79, no. 4 (October 2022): 587-617.
\nHonorable Mention:
\nJos\u00e9 Manuel Moreno Vega<\/strong>, “Peace Came in the Sign of the Cross: Ritualized Diplomacy Among Natives and Spaniards in the Sonora-Arizona Borderlands, 1694-1836,”\u00a0The Americas\u00a0<\/em>79, no. 3 (July 2022): 399-424.<\/p>\n

2022<\/strong>
\nYesenia<\/strong> Barrag\u00e1n<\/strong>, “Commerce in Children: Slavery, Gradual Emancipation, and the Free Womb Trade in Colombia,” The Americas<\/em> 78, no. 2 (April 2021): 229-257.
\nHonorable Mention:
\nRobert M. Buffington<\/strong>, “Chin-Chun-Chan: Popular Sinophobia in Early Twentieth Century Mexico City,” The Americas <\/em>78, no. 2 (April 2021): 279-318.<\/p>\n

2021
\nBarbara Mundy<\/strong>, “The Emergence of Alphabetic Writing:\u00a0 Tlahcuiloh and Escribano in Sixteenth-Century Mexico,” The Americas<\/em> 77, no. 3 (July 2020): 361-407<\/p>\n

2020
\nAaron Coy Moulton<\/strong>, “Counterrevolutionary Friends: Caribbean Basin Dictators and Guatemalan Exiles Against the Guatemalan Revolution, 1945-50,” The Americas\u00a0<\/em>76, no. 1 (January 2019): 107-35.
\nHonorable Mention:
\nSara Kozameh<\/strong>, “Guerrillas, Peasants and Communists: Agrarian Reform in Cuba’s 1958 Liberated Territories,” The Americas\u00a0<\/em>76, no. 4 (October 2019): 641-73.<\/p>\n

2019
\nRyan Crewe,<\/strong> \u201cBuilding in the Shadow of Death: Monastery Construction and the Politics of Community Reconstitution in Sixteenth-Century Mexico,\u201d The Americas <\/em>75, no. 3 (July 2018): 489-523.
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

2018<\/strong>
\nScott Cave<\/strong>, “Madalena: The Entangled History of One Indigenous Floridian Woman in the Atlantic World,”\u00a0The Americas\u00a0<\/em>74, no. 2 (April 2017): 171-200.<\/p>\n

2017<\/strong>
\nCameron Jones<\/strong>, \u201cThe Evolution of Spanish Governance During the Early Bourbon Period in Peru: The Juan Santos Atahualpa Rebellion and the Missionaries of Ocopa,”\u00a0The Americas\u00a0<\/em>73, no. 3 (July 2016): 325-348.
\nHonorable Mention:
\nFabricio Prado<\/strong>, “Trans-Imperial Networks in the Crisis of the Spanish Monarchy: The Rio de Janeiro-Montevideo Connection, 1778-1805,” The Americas<\/em> 73, no. 2 (April 2016): 211-236.<\/p>\n

2016<\/strong>
\nAlan Shane Dillingham<\/strong>, \u201cIndigenismo Occupied: Indigenous Youth and Mexico\u2019s Democratic Opening (1968-1975),” The Americas<\/em> 72, no. 4 (October 2015): 549-582.<\/p>\n

2015<\/strong>
\nJos\u00e9 Carlos de la Puente<\/strong>, \u201cThat Which Belongs to All: Khipus, Community, and Indigenous Legal Activism in the Early Colonial Andes,\u201d The Americas<\/em> 72, no. 1 (January 2015): 19-54.<\/p>\n

2014<\/strong>
\nCaroline Williams<\/strong>, \u201cLiving Between Empires: Diplomacy and Politics in the Late-Eighteenth Century Mosquitia,\u201d The Americas<\/em> 70, no. 2 (October 2013): 237-268.<\/p>\n

2013<\/strong>
\nPaul Ram\u00edrez<\/strong>, \u201c’Like Herod’s Massacre’: Quarantines, Bourbon Reform, and Popular Protest in Oaxaca’s Smallpox Epidemic, 1796-1797,\u201d The Americas<\/em> 69, no. 2 (October 2012): 203-235.<\/p>\n

2012<\/strong>
\nOlga Gonz\u00e1lez-Silen<\/strong>, \u201cUnexpected Opposition: Independence and the 1809 Leva de Vagos in the Province of Caracas,\u201d The Americas<\/em> 68, no. 3 (January 2012): 347-375.<\/p>\n

2011<\/strong>
\nGeorge Reid Andrews<\/strong>, “Afro-World: African-Diaspora Thought and Practice in Montevideo, Uruguay, 1830-2000,” 67, no. 1 (July 2010): 83-107.
\nHonorable Mention:
\nStephen Lewis<\/strong>, “Modernizing Message, Mystical Messenger: The Teatro Petul in the Chiapas Highlands, 1954-1974,” The Americas <\/em>67, no. 3 (January 2011): 375-397.<\/p>\n

2010<\/strong>
\nHeather Flynn Roller<\/strong>, “Colonial Collecting Expeditions and the Pursuit of Opportunity in the Amazonian Sert\u00e3o, c. 1750-1800,”\u00a0The Americas<\/em> 66, no. 4 (April 2010): 435-467.
\nHonorable Mention:
\nPeter Beattie<\/strong>, “‘Born Under the Cruel Rigor of Captivity, the Supplicant Left It Unexpectedly by Committing a Crime’: Categorizing and Punishing Slave Convicts in Brazil, 1830-1897,” The Americas <\/em>66, no. 1 (July 2009): 11-55.<\/p>\n

2009<\/strong>
\nMichael Gismondi and Jeremy Mouat<\/strong>, “La Enojosa Cuesti\u00f3n de Emery: The Emery Claim in Nicaragua and American Foreign Policy, c. 1888-1910,”\u00a0The Americas<\/em> 65, no. 3 (January 2009): 375-409.
\nHonorable Mention:
\nYanna Yannakakis<\/strong>, “Witnesses, Spatial Practices, and a Land Dispute in Colonial Oaxaca,” The Americas <\/em>65, no. 2 (October 2008): 161-192.<\/p>\n

2008<\/span>
\nDavid Garret<\/span>, “In Spite of Her Sex: The Cacica and the Politics of the Pueblo in Late Colonial Cuzco,” The Americas <\/em>64, no. 4 (January 2008): 547-581.<\/p>\n

2007<\/span>
\nLeo Garofalo<\/span>, “Conjuring with Coca and the Inca: The Andeanization of Lima’s Afro-Peruvian Ritual Specialists, 1580-1690,” The Americas <\/em>63, no. 1 (July 2006): 53-80.
\nHonorable Mention:
\nWillia Hiatt<\/span>, “Flying ‘Cholo’: Incas, Airplanes, and the Construction of Andean Modernity in 1920s Cuzco, Peru,” The Americas <\/em>63, no. 3 (January 2007): 327-358.<\/p>\n

2006
\nCamilla Townsend<\/strong>, \u201c’What in the World Have You Done to Me, My Lover?’: Sex, Servitude and Politics among the Pre-Conquest Nahuas as seen in the Cantares Mexicanos,” The Americas <\/em>62, no. 3 (January 2005): 349-389.<\/p>\n

2005
\nHal Langfur<\/strong>, \u201cThe Return of the Bandeira: Economic Calamity, Historical Memory, and Armed Expeditions to the Sertao in Minas Gerais, Brazil, 1750-1808,\u201d The Americas <\/em>61, no. 3 (January 2005): 429-461.
\nHonorable Mention
\nJeanette Favrot Peterson<\/strong>, \u201cCreating the Virgin of Guadalupe: the Cloth, the Artist, and Sources in Sixteenth-Century New Spain,\u201d The Americas <\/em>61, no. 4 (April 2005): 571-610.
\nJohn F. Chuchiak IV<\/strong>, \u201cIn Servitio Dei: Fray Diego de Landa. The Franciscan Order and the Return of the Extirpation of Idolatry in the Colonial Diocese of Yucat\u00e1n, 1573-1579,\u201d The Americas <\/em>61, no. 4 (April 2005): 611-646.<\/p>\n

2004
\nMarie Francois<\/strong>, “Cloth and Silver: Pawning and Material Life in Mexico City at the Turn of the Nineteenth Century,” The Americas <\/em>60, no. 3 (January 2004): 325-362.<\/p>\n

2003
\nB.J. Barickman<\/strong>, \u201cReading the 1835 Parish Censuses from Bahia: Citizenship, Kinship, Slavery, and Household in Early Nineteenth-Century Brazil,\u201d The Americas <\/em>59, no. 3 (January 2003): 287-324.<\/p>\n

2002
\nJames D. Riley<\/strong>, \u201cPublic Works and Local Elites: The Politics of Taxation in Tlaxcala, 1780-1810,” The Americas <\/em>58, no. 3 (January 2002): 355-393.
\nHonorable Mention
\nJeffrey Shumway<\/strong>, \u201c\u2019The Purity of My Blood Cannot Put Food on My Table\u2019: Changing Attitudes Toward Interracial Marriage in Nineteenth-Century Buenos Aires,\u201d The Americas <\/em>58, no. 2 (October 2001): 201-220.<\/p>\n

2001 (co-winners)
\nKris E. Lane<\/strong>, \u201cCaptivity and Redemption: Aspects of Slave Life in Early Colonial Quito and Popay\u00e1n,\u201d The Americas <\/em>57, no. 2 (October 2000): 225-246.
\nBianca Premo<\/strong>, \u201cFrom the Pockets of Women: Gendering the Mita, Migration and Tribute in Colonial Chucuito, Peru\u201d 57, no. 1 (July 2000): 63-93.<\/p>\n

2000 (co-winners)
\nRobert Buffington and Pablo Piccato<\/strong>, (co-authors) \u201cTales of Two Women: The Narrative Construal of Porfirian Reality,\u201d The Americas <\/em>55, no. 3 (January 1999): 391-424.
\nVera Blinn Reber<\/strong>, \u201cMisery, Pain, and Death: Tuberculosis in Nineteenth Century Buenos Aires,” The Americas <\/em>56, no. 4 (April 2000): 497-528.<\/p>\n

1999
\nFrancie Chassen-Lopez<\/strong>, \u201cMaderismo or Mixtec Empire? Class and Ethnicity in the Mexican Revolution, Costa Chica of Oaxaca, 1911,” The Americas <\/em>55, no. 1 (July 1998): 91-127.
\nHonorable Mention:
\nCynthia Radding<\/strong>, \u201cCrosses, Caves, and Matachinis: Divergent Appropriations of Catholic Discourse in Northwestern New Spain,” The Americas <\/em>55, no. 2 (October 1998): 177-203.<\/p>\n

1998
\nLila M. Caimari<\/strong>, \u201cWhose Criminals Are These?: Church, State and Patronatos and the Rehabilitation of Female Convicts (Buenos Aires, 1890-1940),\u201d The Americas <\/em>54, no. 2 (October 1997): 185-208.<\/p>\n

1997
\nJeffrey M. Pilcher<\/strong>, \u201cTamales or Timbales: Cuisine and the Formation of Mexican National Identity, 1821-1911,\u201d The Americas <\/em>53, no. 2 (October 1996): 193-216.
\nHonorable Mention:
\nJeffrey Lesser<\/strong>, \u201c(Re)creating Ethnicity: Middle Eastern Immigration to Brazil,\u201d The Americas <\/em>53, no. 1 (July 1996): 45-65.<\/p>\n

1996
\nVictor M. Uribe<\/strong> \u201cKill all the Lawyers: Lawyers and the Independence Movement in New Granada, 1809-1820,” The Americas <\/em>52, no. 2 (October 1995): 175-210.
\nHonorable Mentions:
\nAlejandro Ca\u00f1eque,<\/strong> “Theater of Power: Writing and Representing the Auto de F\u00e9 in Colonial Mexico,\u201d The Americas <\/em>52, no. 3 (January 1996): 321-343.
\nLinda Curcio-Nagy<\/strong>, \u201cNative Icon to City Protectress to Royal Patroness: Ritual, Political Symbolism and the Virgin of Remedies,\u201d The Americas <\/em>52, no. 3 (January 1996): 367-391.<\/p>\n

1995
\nB. J. Barickman<\/strong>, \u201c\u2019Tame Indians,’ ‘Wild Heathens,’ and Settlers in Southern Bahia in the Late Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries,” The Americas <\/em>51, no. 3 (January 1995): 325-368.<\/p>\n

1994
\nJohn Garrigus<\/strong>, \u201cBlue and Brown: Contraband Indigo and the Rise of a Free Colored Planter Class in French Saint-Domingue,\u201d The Americas <\/em>50, no. 2 (October 1993): 233-263.<\/p>\n

1993
\nMuriel Nazzari<\/strong>, \u201cTransition Toward Slavery: Changing Legal Practice Regarding Indians in Seventeenth-Century S\u00e3o Paulo,\u201d The Americas <\/em>49, no. 2 (October 1992): 131-155.<\/p>\n

1992
\nSonya Lipsett-Rivera<\/strong>, \u201cIndigenous Communities and Water Rights in Colonial Puebla:\u00a0 Patterns and Resistance,” The Americas <\/em>48, no. 4 (April 1992): 463-483.
\nHonorable Mention:
\nLinda Lewin<\/strong>, \u201cNatural and Spurious Children in Brazilian Inheritance Law from Colony to Empire:\u00a0 A Methodological Essay,\u201d The Americas <\/em>48, no. 3 (January 1992): 351-396.<\/p>\n

1991
\nJoel Horowitz<\/strong>, \u201cIndustrialists and the Rise of Per\u00f3n, 1943-1946: Some Implications for the Conceptualization of Populism,” The Americas <\/em>47, no. 2 (October 1990): 199-217.<\/p>\n

Tibesar Prize Committees (Chair listed first):<\/h3>\n

2026 <\/strong>Tamara Walker, Oscar Aponte, Joseph Clark
\n2025 <\/strong>Corinna Zeltsman, Mark Rice, Brooke Larson
\n2024 <\/strong>Anne Hanley, Sara Kozameh, David Tamayo
\n2023 <\/strong>Erik Ching, Jaime Pensado, Anadelia Romo
\n2022<\/strong> Vanessa Freije, Sarah Sarzynsky, Robert Schwaller
\n2021 <\/strong>James Krippner, Tom Rogers, Karen Racine
\n2020 <\/strong>Paula Alonso, Robert Schwaller, Danielle Terrazas Williams
\n2019 <\/strong>Ben Bryce, Pamela Murray, Jessica Delgado
\n2018<\/strong> Adriana Brodsky, Kittiya Lee, Christopher Heaney
\n2016<\/strong> Charles Walker, Brenda Elsey, Celso Castilho
\n2016<\/strong> Julia Sarreal, Stephen Rabe, Frances Ramos
\n2015<\/strong> Matt O’Hara, Celia Cussen, Pablo Gomez
\n2014<\/strong> Paul Eiss, Nicola Foote, Scott Ickes
\n2013<\/strong> Kristin Huffine, Mark Christensen, Alcira Due\u00f1as
\n2012<\/strong> Kevin Terraciano, Geoffrey Spurling, Laura Shelton
\n2011<\/strong> Karen Caplan, Leo Garofalo, Robert Wilcox
\n2010<\/strong> Ann Blum, Yanna Yannakakis, Stephanie Bower
\n2009<\/strong> Karen Graubart, Mark Healy, Matt O’Hara
\n2008<\/strong> Jeremy Baskes, Lillian Guerra, Tiffany A. Thomas-Woodard
\n2007<\/strong> Hal Langfur, Jeanette Favort Peterson, John F. Chuchiak
\n2006<\/strong> Marjorie Becker, Bryan McCann, Elizabeth Quay Hutchinson
\n2005<\/strong> Ben Vinson III, Mark Cahill, Marie Francois
\n2004<\/strong> Jeffrey Pilcher, Jeff Shumway, Bianca Premo
\n2003<\/strong> Margaret Power, Pablo Piccato, Guiomar Due\u00f1as
\n2002<\/strong> Allan Kuethe, Sarah Chambers, John Green
\n2001<\/strong> Thomas Cohen, Barbara Potthast, Peter F. Klaren
\n2000<\/strong> Cheryl Martin, Thomas M. Klubock, Jeffrey Pilcher
\n1999<\/strong> Allen Wells, Susan Deans-Smith,\u00a0 James Green
\n1998<\/strong> Robert M. Levine, Nancy Van Deusen, Joel Horowitz
\n1997<\/strong> Vera Blinn Reber, Allan J. Kuethe, Robert M. Levine
\n1996 <\/strong> Heather Fowler-Salamini, Susan Ramirez, Ralph Della Cava
\n1995<\/strong> Charles Hale, Jos\u00e9 Moya, Karen Powers
\n1994<\/strong> Steven Topik, Dorothy Kerig, Todd Diacon
\n1993<\/strong> Lowell Gudmundson, Cheryl Martin, Gary Miller
\n1992<\/strong> Michael Conniff, Michael Burke, Joan Supplee
\n1991<\/strong> Roberta M. Delson, Silvia M. Arrom, Steven C. Topik<\/p>\n\n\n\n
< Prev<\/a><\/th>\n<\/td>\n Next ><\/a><\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Best article in The Americas in the previous year.\u00a0 The Conference on Latin American History in cooperation with The Americas established the Tibesar Prize in December 1990. Winners: 2025 Ana Vergara Sierra, \u201cThe Escribano of Babel: Power, Exile, and Enslavement in the Venezuelan Llanos during the War of Independence (1806-1833),\u201d The Americas 81, no. 3 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":169,"menu_order":9,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-228","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/clah.h-net.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/228","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/clah.h-net.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/clah.h-net.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clah.h-net.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clah.h-net.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=228"}],"version-history":[{"count":25,"href":"https:\/\/clah.h-net.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/228\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9575,"href":"https:\/\/clah.h-net.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/228\/revisions\/9575"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clah.h-net.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/clah.h-net.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=228"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}