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<p>Drawing upon letters never seen before and preserved at <i>Julian H. Steward Papers 1842–1976</i>, University of Illinois Archives, the article argues that the history behind the book <i>The people of Puerto Rico</i> was by no means the fancy academic tale anthropologists tend to portray. An unsettling Cold War epistolary affair tied Julian Steward to Raymond Scheele, by which surveillance was exercised against Marxist fieldworker John Víctor Murra. Unknown to the remarkable group of project fieldworkers, the “original thrust of the project” was to provide a formulation of forces triggering “resistance to change” in tropical countries engulfed in nationalist turmoil. Wrestling with the dangerous dimensions of a project fully aligned with the SSRC, Murra fell victim of surveillance, ideological compulsion, and vindictive and unscrupulous stances built in the letters of Julian Steward and Raymond Scheele. Unearthing these infamous letters matters today when we celebrate the 70th anniversary of <i>The people of Puerto Rico</i> and witness an empire resorting to surveillance and ideological warfare to crush dissent. Above all, these letters matter because they speak of a dangerous path U.S. anthropology crossed while inventing itself as a “science” in the service of empire.</p>

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The infamous letters of Julian Steward and Raymond Scheele: unearthing the Cold War history behind The people of Puerto Rico

  • 期刊论文

  • 发表日期：

    2026年7月28日

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  • Jeannette Graulau

摘要

Drawing upon letters never seen before and preserved at Julian H. Steward Papers 1842–1976, University of Illinois Archives, the article argues that the history behind the book The people of Puerto Rico was by no means the fancy academic tale anthropologists tend to portray. An unsettling Cold War epistolary affair tied Julian Steward to Raymond Scheele, by which surveillance was exercised against Marxist fieldworker John Víctor Murra. Unknown to the remarkable group of project fieldworkers, the “original thrust of the project” was to provide a formulation of forces triggering “resistance to change” in tropical countries engulfed in nationalist turmoil. Wrestling with the dangerous dimensions of a project fully aligned with the SSRC, Murra fell victim of surveillance, ideological compulsion, and vindictive and unscrupulous stances built in the letters of Julian Steward and Raymond Scheele. Unearthing these infamous letters matters today when we celebrate the 70th anniversary of The people of Puerto Rico and witness an empire resorting to surveillance and ideological warfare to crush dissent. Above all, these letters matter because they speak of a dangerous path U.S. anthropology crossed while inventing itself as a “science” in the service of empire.