2 ‘la gloriosa conquista é stata l'awenimento etico piú perverso della nostra storia, perché fu il male originario e l'inizio dell'oppressione strutturale che la storia ci trasmette in forme diverse al presente’, Dussel, Enrique, ‘Dallascoperta al desoccultamento’, Emergenze, Special Issue on the Conquest of the Americas, 2–3 (06 1988)Google Scholar.

3 Pagden, Anthony, The Fall of Natural Man: The American Indian and the Origins of Comparative Ethnology (Cambridge 1982).Google Scholar Also Gliozzi, Giuliano, Adamo e il nuovo mondo: la nascita dell'antropologia come ideologia coloniale: delle genealogie bibliche alle teorie razziali (1500–1700) (Florence 1977),Google Scholar as well as Landucci, Sergio, I filosofi e i selvaggi 1580–1780 (Bari 1972).Google Scholar See also Gliozzi's review of Pagden's book ‘Tre studi sulla scoperta culturale del nuovo mondo’, in: Rivista storica italiana (1985) 160–176,Google Scholar as well as Pagden's reply in the preface to the Italian translation.

4 A second edition was published in 1983. This version was much extended thanks to Gerbi's son Sandro, who has thus brought a number of hitherto unpublished works under the public's attention.

5 Gerbi wrote in the preface to the Disputa: ‘The origins of this work are to be found in a note in my first book, written fifty years ago (Lapolitica del Settecenlo [Bari 1928])Google Scholar where with respect to the myth of the Noble Savage, I recalled De Pauw's severe judgement on the American Indians and some replies to this assertion by Pernety, Buffon, Galiani, Jefferson and Carli.'

6 As Gerbi himself recalled in his preface, the Mexican historian O'Gorman, Edmundo in his ‘Trayectoria de America’, in: Fundamentos de la historia de America (Mexico 1942),Google Scholar ‘has identified in the works of Buffon and De Pauw the origins of Hegel's theories, but without entering into details, and giving in to an urge to apologize for them’.

7 Fernandez, GonzaloValdés, de Oviedo y, Historia general y natural de las Indias, islas y tierra firme del Mar oceano, por el capitan… (4 vols.; Madrid 1851–1853);Google ScholarAcosta, José de, Historia natural y moral de las Indias, en que se tratan las cosas notables del deb, y elementos, metales, plantas y animates deltas, y los ritos y cerimonias, leyes y gobierno de los indios, compuesta por el padre… de la Compania de Jesus (Madrid 1608)Google Scholar; Cobo, Bernabé, Historia del Nuevo Mundo (1635), Espada, Marcos Jimenez de la ed., (4 vols.; Seville 1890–1893)Google Scholar.

8 Ed. Lassan, Leipzig 1920, 189 sqq.

9 On this topic, see Maltby, William S., The Black Legend in England: The Development of Anti-Spanish Sentiment, 1558–1660 (Durham 1971)Google Scholar.

10 More than anyone else, Montesquieu grasped the actual nature of the relatonship between Spain and the Americas, in the famous chapter ‘Des richesses que l'Espagne tire de I'Amerique’: ‘Les Indes et l'Espagne sont deux puissances [my emphasis] sous un meme maftre; mais les Indes sont le principal, l'Espagne n'est que l'accessoire. C'est en vain que la politique veut ramener le principal a l'accessoire; les Indes attirent toujours l'Espagne a elles. D'environ cinquante millions des marchandises qui vont toutes les annees aux Indes, l'Espagne ne fournit que deux millions et demi: les Indes font done un commerce de cinquante millions, et l'Espagne de deux millions et demi'. De vesprit des lois XXI (Paris 1951) 648Google Scholar.

11 Ginzburg, Carlo, Il giudice e b storico. Considerazioni in margine alprocesso Sofri (Turin 1991) 9Google Scholar.

12 Actually, at least in a philological sense, the matter is slightly more complicated: in 1862, Carlos Calvo published llecueil Complel des Trailes de tous Us États de I'Amérique Laline, with a dedication to Napoleon III. Ideologically more important was the book by the ex-Saint-Simonian Chevalier, M., Le Mexique ancien el moderne (Paris 1864),Google Scholar who served Emperor Maximilian of Habsburg during his disastrous Mexican adventure. See also Ardao, A., ‘Uruguay y el nombre de America Latina’, Cuadernos de Marcha 1 (1979) 49–52;Google Scholar and Martiniére, Guy, ‘L'invention d'un concepte operatoire: la latinite bresilienne’, in: Aspects de Ui Cooperation Franco-Bresilienne (Paris and Grenoble 1982) 120–131Google Scholar.

13 See also the first chapter of Rossi, Pietro, Storia e storidsmo nella filosofin contemporanea (Milan 1991) 3–38Google Scholar.

14 Marx-Engels, , Werke XIV (Berlin 1961) 217–231Google Scholar.

15 See for an analysis of the works used by Marx: Scocozza, Antonio, Abbiamo arato il mart. L'utopia americana di Bolivar tra politica e storia (Naples 1990) 145–172Google Scholar.

16 Marx to Engels, 14 February 1858, Werke XXIX (Berlin 1963) 280–281Google Scholar.

17 Jellinek, Georg, Die Erklärung der Menschen und Bürgerrechte: Ein Beitrag zur modemen Verfassungsgeschichte (third edition; Munich 1919)Google Scholar; and Mcllwain, Charles Howard, Constitutionalism: Ancient and Modern (Ithaca 1947)Google Scholar.

18 It is characteristic for the state of the debate that Spanish American historiography has never paid very much attention to the Cadiz events. The only work, albeit only on one country, is still that of Benson, Nettie Lee, Mexico and the Spanish Cortes (Austin 1966)Google Scholar.

19 Barraclough, Geoffrey, Atlante delta storia 1945–1975 (Bari 1977) 177Google Scholar.

20 Romano, Ruggiero, ‘Algunas consideraciones alrededor de Natión, Estadó (y Libertad) en Europa y América centro-meridional’;, in: Annino, A. ed., America Lalina: dallo stato coloniale allo stato-nazione I (Milan 1987) 4–5Google Scholar.

21 Sarmiento, Domingo Faustino, Life in the Argentine Republic in the Dicys of the Tyrants; or Civilization and Barbarism (with Particular Reference to Juan Facundo Quiroga and Jose Felix Aldao) (New York 1868)Google Scholar.

22 Only recently, Argentine historiography has undertaken a serious revision of this idea, thanks especially to the excellent research of the historians working at the University of Tandil. The pampa was not the ‘realm’ of the gaucho, but a complex rural society, and above all an agricultural frontier in perpetual movement, with marked increases in population, as demonstrated by the work of Amaral, Samuel, ‘Rural Production and Labor in Late Colonial Buenos Aires’, Journal of Latin American Studies 19 (1987) 235–278;CrossRefGoogle ScholarGaravaglia, Juan Carlos, Economia, sociedad y regiones (Buenos Aires 1987)Google Scholar and ‘Ecosistemas y tecnologia agraria: elementos para una historia social de los ecosistemas agrarios riopla-tenses (1700–1830)’, Desarrollo Econdmico 28 (1989) 549–575;CrossRefGoogle ScholarGelman, Jorge, ‘Una region y una chacra en la campana rioplatense: las condiciones de la production triguera a fines de la epoca colonial’, Desarrollo Econdmico 28 (1989) 577–600.CrossRefGoogle Scholar See also Mayo, Carlos, ‘Landed but not Powerful: The Colonial Estancieros of Buenos Aires (1750–1812)’, HAHR 71/4 (1991) 761–779Google Scholar.

23 Annino, Antonio and Romanelli, Raffaele eds., ‘Notabili, Elettori, Elezioni’, Quaderni Storici 69 (1988)Google Scholar.

24 The influence of the Cadiz model spread all over the continent, with the exception of Chile. This country adopted a census-based electoral system. The Cadiz model prescribed that the requirement to vote, was a ‘modo honesto de vivir’, which clearly referred to a man's reputation in his own community. See Annino, Antonio, ‘Pratiche Creole e liberalis mo nella crisi dello spazio urbano coloniale. II 29 novembre 1812 a Citta del Messico’, Quademi Storici 69 (1988) 743–744Google Scholar.

25 See for an excellent bibliographical and critical analysis of this matter: Pietschmann, Horst, Uiteinamerika: Die staalliche Organisation des kolonialen Iberoamerika (Stuttgart 1980)Google Scholar.

26 Burkholder, Mark and Chandler, David, From Impotence to Authority: The Spanish Crown and the American Audiencias 1687–1808 (New York 1977),Google Scholar and Biographical Dictionary of Audiendas Ministers in the Americas 1687–1821 (Westport 1982)Google Scholar.

27 For a good overview of the treatise literature, see Brading, David, The First America: The Spanish Monarchy, Creole Patriots and the Liberal Slate 1492–1867 (Cambridge 1991),Google Scholar and the essay by Pagden, Anthony ‘La formazione dell'identitita creola nell'America spagnola’ in: Communita 191–192 (1989) 178–222.Google Scholar Some famous treatises on the Creole rights to office are: Cervantes, Juan Ortiz de, Informacion a favor del derecho que tienen los nacidos en las Indias a ser preferidos en las prelacias, dignidades, canongias y olros benefidos eclesiasticos y ojficios secuUires en ellas (Madrid 1619)Google Scholar; Figueroa, Luis de Betancurt y, Memorial i informacion par las iglesias metropolitans i catedrales de las Indias sobre que scan proveidas sus preladas en los naturales y capitulares de ellas (Madrid 1643)Google Scholar; Ahumada, Atonio de, Represenladon politico-legal, que haze a nuestro senor soberano Don Phelipe Quinlo… para que se sirva de declarar, no tienen los Espanoles Americanos obice para obtener los empleos polilicos y militares de la America, y deven ser preferidos en todos, assi eclesiaslicos como seculares (Madrid 1725).Google Scholar Then there is a famous document of the municipal council of Mexico City, Representation que hizo la ciudad de Mexico al rey D. Carlos III en 1771 sobre que los criollos deben ser preferidos a los europeos en la distribution de benefitios y empleos de estos reinos, in: Davalos, Jose E. Hernandez y ed., Colección de documentos para la historia de la guerra de independencia de México de 1808 a 1821 I (Mexico City 1877) 427–455.Google Scholar The literature on offices is varied and vast, and may be located in many important libraries in Europe and the Americas. A complete relevant bibliography is, however, still lacking. The printed materials are only one source, the most obvious one, and so to speak, the final result of long chains of written and oral discussions and debates. Much more is to be found in Spanish and Spanish American archives.

28 Loyseau, Charles, Cinq Livres du droil des offices (Paris 1613),Google Scholar cited by Mousnier, Roland, La venalite des offices sous Henri IV el Louis XIII (Paris 1971), 6–10Google Scholar.

29 The vast research on economic history of the 1970s has demonstrated the seigneurial character of Latin American landed elites. Some have termed this regime ‘feudal’, thereby initiating a debate that still goes on. An important contribution to this debate is Carmagnani, Marcello, L'America Latzna dal '500 a oggi. Nasala espansione e crisi di un sistema feudale (Milan 1975).Google Scholar This kind of historical research insists particularly on the mechanisms of economic coercion (debt peonage, unequal exchange, non-monetary circuits), but leaving in the air the political significance of such economic situations.

30 Annino, , ‘Pratiche Creole e liberalismo’, 730–737Google Scholar.

31 Koenigsberger, Helmut Georg, ‘I parlamenti in Europa e in Italia nell'eta moderna’, in: Carini, Carlo ed., 1M rappresentanza nelle istituzioni e nelle doltrinepoliliche (Florence 1986) 9–26Google Scholar.

32 On this Basque origin, see Clavero, Bartolome, Derecho de los reinos (Seville 1980) 112 sqqGoogle Scholar.

33 Here, one is reminded of another mechanism related to the venality of offices, that considerably expands its limits. Initially, Iberian officials were not allowed to marry Creole ladies. In the seventeenth century, this obstacle could be overcome with bought per-missions. The elites thus increasingly acquired a Hispanic-Creole outlook, at whose basis stood the exchange between prestige (office) and wealth (dowries of ritch families). This mechanism also strengthened family structures in the excercise of power. See for instance, Balmori, Diana, Voss, Stuart and Wortman, Miles, Notable Family Networks in Latin America (Chicago 1984),Google Scholar but also Socolow, Susan, The Merchants of Buenos Aires (1778–1810) (Cambridge 1978)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

34 Mateucci, Nicola, Organizzazione del potere e liberta. Sloria del coslituzionalismo modemo (Turin 1988) 125 sqqGoogle Scholar.

35 See also Ricardo Levene, Las indias no eran colonias.

36 The most important representative of this current of historical writing is Stoetzer, still Carlos, Las raices escoláslicas de la emantipacion de hi América Espaiiola (Madrid 1982),Google Scholar which is a synthesis of all his previous work.

37 This work was first published in Italian under the title Storia anlicti del Messico cavata da' migtiori storiti spagnuoli e da' manoscritli e dalle pillure anliche degli intliani (Cesena 1780–1784).Google Scholar There have since been five Mexican and three English editions, and one French and a German edition. Clavijero borrowed Vico's cyclical theory, and adapted the tradition of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century chronicles in such a way as to fight off the attack of the dispute. In this way, the prehispanic past of baroque mythology became an integral part of Mexican national identity. Cultural miscegenation (mestizaje), Jesuit universalist syncretism and Vicoan historicism made up the conceptual framework of Clavijero's work. The already cited document of the Mexican city council was drawn up to defend the Creoles against accusations of abalimienlo (weakness), which allegedly made them unfit for self-government. The word abalimienlo is part of the dispute, and was used especially by De Pauw, who thus established a causal link between nature and individuals, both obviously depraved.

38 Although it is controversial to do so, I believe that one may speak of an ‘Enlightenment Spanish America’, with its own areas of cultural sociability, different from Europe. In the 1950s, Sarrailh, Jean, L'Espagne cltiire de la seconde moitie du XVIIIe siecle (Paris 1957),Google Scholar has already called attention for Spanish leriulins and salons, as well as for the Sodedades de amigos del pnis in which local elites tried to foment local economies and reforms. All over Spanish America, similar groups were formed, but they have so far not been studied. But on the basis of related research, two matters may be underlined: 1) prohibited books could circulate because censorship was negotiated between the representatives of the Empire (especially the Intendentes) and the local authorities. This was seemingly quite similar to what happened in France, see Roche, Daniel, Les liepublicains des iMtres: gens de culture el Lumieres au XVIIIe siecle (Paris 1988) esp. 29–46.Google Scholar The tertulias were, to be sure, new ‘spaces’ but not like in France as alternatives to any existing ones. The established corporations, magistrates, convents, fraternities, etcetera, were all part of tertulias to read and discuss new ideas, with the sole objective of consolidating Creole society, not of undermining it.

39 See Pérez, José, ‘Tradition et innovation dans 1'Amerique des Bourbons’, in: L'Amerique Espagnole a I'Epoque des Lumieres: traditions, innovations, representations (Paris 1987) 237–246,Google Scholar in which the author discusses the so-alled cultural ‘eclecticism’, by which he under-stands the efforts by part of the Church hierarchy to extirpate Thomism from the universi-ties, not in order to put in doubt its theological foundations, but in order to foment the teaching of ‘new’ sciences such as economics and mathematics. However, Perez mentions political reasons as well: the continuation of the struggle against Jesuit culture after their expulsion from Spain in 1767, in other words the struggle against what was then officially called sanguinary (meaning antiabsolutist) doctrines. The problem is that Perez only refers to Mexico, perhaps the best studied country in this respect. For an important regional case, see Galue, Gonzalo Cardozo, Michoacan en el sigh de Uis Luces (Mexico 1973).Google Scholar It is still impossible to get an idea for all of Spanish America. A hopeful beginning for the rest of the continent was made by Keeding, Ekkehard, Das Aeilalter der Aujkltirung in der Provinz Quito (Cologne 1983),Google Scholar which analyzes the doctoral theses presented at the University of Quito between 1780 and 1810.

40 Donghi, Tulio Halperin, La disoluciòn de Ins imperial iberims (Madrid 1989)Google Scholar.

41 I owe this reference to Professor Ildefonso Leal of the Academia Nacional de la Historia of Venezuela, Caracas. To Professor Georges Baudot of the University of Toulouse, I owe the exact location of the file on Pufendorf in the Inquisition archives at Mexico City. It seems interesting that the only reason for putting Pufendorf on the Index was his doctrine of tolerance, which was seen as favora ble to Protestantism. There was no objection to the foundation of his theories on the principles of natural law.

42 Palladini, Fiammetta, Samuel Pufendorfdiscefiolo di Hobbes. Per una reinterpreliaione ilel giusnaluralismo modemo (Bologna 1990)Google Scholar.

43 See for instance, Vogel, Hans, Elements of NalionbuMing in Argentina: liuenos Aires, 1810–1828 (Minnesota 1988)Google Scholar; Klooster, Wim, ‘The Dutch Republic as an Economic and Political Example in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Hispanic America’, in: Hoefte, Rosemarijn and Kardux, Johanna eds., Connecting Cultures: The Netherlands in Five Centuries of Transatlantic Exchange (Amsterdam 1994) 229–237;Google Scholar and Burucúa, José Emilio and Campagne, Fabián Alejandro, ‘The Dutch Political Model in the Revolution of the Rio de la Plata’, in: Hoefte and Kardux eds., Connecting Cultures, 239–247Google Scholar.

44 Annino, , ‘Pratiche Creole e liberalismo’, 735Google Scholar.

45 Gellner, Ernest, Nations and Nationalism (London 1983)Google Scholar; Italian translation (Rome 1985) 9.