"Six narratives on the lives of 'historically unimportant' figures (an African-descent family from slavery to freedom, an alleged separatist landowner, a Jesuit priest, a powerful local strongman, an anti-imperialist journalist, a popular outlaw) are woven together through vital statistics, records of the acquisition of property, descriptions of political activity, and the like. This work is author's response to postmodernist allegation that historical texts are another form of fiction. Actually, unearthing and analyzing primary data, he argues, is a more productive undertaking than engaging in debates"--Handbook of Latin American Studies, v. 58.