Christon I. Archer (1940–2021)

Christon I. Archer, distinguished scholar of the royalist army in New Spain, the wars of independence, military history, Pacific encounters, epidemic disease, and the early independence period in Mexico, died on December 19, 2021. He was 81.Archer was born in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, on August 24, 1940, and retained ties to Vancouver Island throughout his life. An early interest in the names that Spaniards imposed on many locations in the Northwest Coast in the eighteenth century led, first, to an honors BA in Latin American history at the University of Victoria (in 1965) and then to an MA and eventually a PhD degree (in 1971) at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. In conjunction with his training at Stony Brook, Archer studied in Mexico with María del Carmen Velázquez of El Colegio de México and began conducting research in the Archivo General de la Nación, an experience that determined, to a great degree, the trajectory and tenor of his professional life. The dissertation that resulted, under the supervision of Stanley Ross, eventually became The Army in Bourbon Mexico, 1760–1810, published by the University of New Mexico Press in 1977; the book received the Herbert E. Bolton Memorial Prize (now the Bolton-Johnson Prize) from the Conference on Latin American History, for the best English-language book on any aspect of Latin American history. It subsequently appeared in Spanish in 1983 as El ejército en el México borbónico, 1760–1810, published by the Fondo de Cultura Económica.A steady stream of publications followed, all characterized by exhaustive archival research and carried forward by Archer's conviction that the army, as an institution, offered a window on many aspects of Mexican society through which such topics as the daily life of soldiers, social relations, the history of medicine, and family history might be studied. Archer's interest in epidemic disease, one of the most original sections of his book, grew out of studying viceregal attempts to garrison the port of Veracruz, a place where thousands perished from yellow fever, a disease that exacted, along with smallpox, a tremendous toll on the military in the late eighteenth century. An expanding interest in epidemic disease and scurvy, as it pertained initially to the military and then to navigation, led to a series of publications concerning various aspects of Spain's presence on the Northwest Coast, including an award-winning 1980 article in the Canadian Historical Review; the article continues to be cited 40 years after its publication. An ongoing interest in the history of medicine took Archer to Australia, where, in 1995, La Trobe University awarded him a doctorate of letters honoris causa.The study of the army under Bourbon rule also served as a launching pad for Archer's subsequent research and publications on Mexico's wars of independence, focused particularly on the characteristics of insurgent guerrilla warfare and the counterinsurgency techniques of the military, especially as honed by the sanguinary Félix Calleja. Numerous articles resulted, as did two edited volumes, The Wars of Independence in Spanish America (2000) and The Birth of Modern Mexico, 1780–1824 (2003). Some of this work and additional publications, including an essay in La independencia de México: Temas y interpretaciones recientes (2007), resulted from Archer's close and productive relationship with a group of notable scholars of this period, including Jaime Rodríguez O., Virginia Guedea, and Alfredo Ávila. Collaboration with other colleagues at the University of Calgary led to publications on the broader history of warfare, another of his research interests.Archer joined the Department of History at the University of Calgary, in Alberta, Canada, in 1969. Over his long and productive career there, until his retirement in 2010, he helped make that institution a center in Canada for the creation of knowledge about the history of Mexico and for the study of Latin America more generally. Even though for much of that time the University of Calgary's terminal degree in history was the MA, Archer developed a lively graduate program that often involved bringing established scholars, including Paul Vanderwood, Brian Hamnett, Leon Campbell, and others, to discuss their work, convincing many in the process, including Luz María Hernández Sáenz, Alexander Dawson, Shawn England, Christopher Frazer, Ana Lilia Nieto Camacho, and me, to continue their studies, if at other institutions; Alex A. Taylor del Cid completed his doctoral degree under Archer's supervision in 2005. Archer served as head of the Department of History from 1986 to 1991 and was instrumental in the founding of the Latin American studies program and the Latin American Research Centre, which he directed from 2004 to 2010. He was also a mainstay in international organizations dedicated to the study of Latin America, including the Rocky Mountain Council for Latin American Studies and the Historiadores de México, Estados Unidos y Canadá (now the Historiadores de México), serving as president of the meeting of that organization held in Vancouver in 2006.In addition to his publications and service, Archer will be remembered for his excellent teaching; for supporting and mentoring students, and, especially, for listening to them; and for his collegiality, his sense of humor, and his memorable conference presentations (some more so than others) and field trips, especially one to Nootka Sound (Yuquot). On a personal note, when I was attending my first professional conference as a graduate student, Archer, noticing the dilapidated state of my shoes, immediately took up a collection from all gathered for the purchase of new footwear. Rather than embarrassing, it was humorous and touching. His loss has been deeply felt by students, colleagues, and friends in Canada, the United States, Mexico, and elsewhere. Condolences to family, friends, and colleagues and, especially, to Dr. Carol Archer, who, sharing an interest in Latin American history, completed her own doctorate on the history of Spanish and Mexican law in 2014.

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