This symposium brought together twelve original essays on Spain's presence in North America to understand the circumstances and application of social control. "Social control" refers to the use of coercion particularly in response to what dominant groups consider deviant behavior among subordinates. Spain attempted to maintain control of vast areas through persuasion, coercion, or indoctrination to make subordinates accept colonial government and behave according to Spanish expectations.

This volume considers how Spain's monarchs faced competing economic, political, and racial interests. In the New World, others besides the rulers, authorities, and elites sought to effect social control. Ethnic groups and socio-economic classes within colonial communities also exercised control within their own circles. Institutions including the Church, schools, fraternal organizations, and families labored to teach their members to understand their place in society.

An examination of social control mechanisms shows how groups and individuals, including native peoples, formed and understood their options in response to colonial rule. These essays seek to understand how people negotiated their relationships with the Spanish state and institutions, and with each other, while conceiving of the frontier region as an incubator of cultural and economic interactions ranging from acceptance to rejection of European norms, often altering those norms in the process.

The papers have been compiled into a book, Choice, Persuasion, and Coercion: Social Control on New Spain's North American Frontiers, edited by Frank de la Teja and Ross Frank, and published by University of New Mexico Press in 2005.  Contributors include Juliana Barr,  Susan M. Deeds, José Cuello, Gilbert C. Din, Alfredo Jiménez, Jane Landers, Patricia Osante, Cynthia Radding, James A. Sandos,  and Cecilia Sheridan.