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The Royalist Army in New Spain: Civil-Military Relationships, 1810–1821

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2009

Christon I. Archer
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Extract

A late-comer in the privileged corporate structure of New Spain, the army struggled to wrest a position and to gain recognition. Other jurisdictions such as the merchant consulados, the Acordada, the Mining Guild, and the jealous creole-dominated ayuntamientos, contested military pretensions and triggered numerous judicial and jurisdictional disputes over how far the military could extend its legal powers. Representatives of the reformed Bourbon civil administration, unsure in some instances of the limits of their own authority, did not welcome a dynamic and grasping presence. For their own part, the army officers dispatched to command Mexican regular and militia units often represented the aggressively haughty airs of the European Spaniard – attitudes that rasped at the deep-rooted inferiority of the creoles and left them enraged. Little wonder that there was a constant stream of disputes, misunderstandings, and challenges directed against the army and the fucro militar.1

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Latin American Studies , Volume 13 , Issue 1 , May 1981 , pp. 57 - 82
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1981

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References

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