Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rdxmf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T18:16:13.092Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Identity, Enlightenment and Political Dissent in Late Colonial Spanish America

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 February 2009

Anthony McFarlane
Anthony McFarlane
Affiliation:
The Institute of Historical Research, London
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

During the long crisis of the Spanish empire between 1810 and 1825, the Creole leaders of Spanish American independence asserted a new identity for the citizens of the states which they sought to establish, calling them ‘Americanos’. This general title was paralleled and often supplanted by other political neologisms, as movements for independence and new polities took shape in the various territories of Spanish America. In New Spain, the insurgents who fought against royalist government during the decade after 1810 tried to rally fellow ‘Mexicans’ to a common cause; at independence in 1821, die Creole political leadership created a ‘Mexican empire’, the title of which, with its reference to the Aztec empire which had preceded Spain's conquest, was designed to evoke a ‘national’ history shared by all members of Mexican society. In South America, die leaders of the new republics also sought to promote patriotic feelings for territories which had been converted from administrative units of Spanish government into independent states. Thus, San Martín and O'Higgins convoked ‘Chileans’ to the cause of independence in the old Captaincy-General of Chile; shortly afterwards and with notably less success, San Martín called upon ‘Peruvians’ to throw off Spanish rule. Bolívar was, likewise, to call ‘Colombians’ to his banner in die erstwhile Viceroyalty of New Granada, before advancing south to liberate Peru in the name of ‘Peruvians’, and Upper Peru in the name of ‘Bolivians’, where the Republic which his military feats and political vision made possible was named after him.

Type
Identities and Empires
Information
Transactions of the Royal Historical Society , Volume 8 , December 1998 , pp. 309 - 335
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Historical Society 1998

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Anderson, Benedict, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (2nd ed., London and New York, 1991), xiiiGoogle Scholar.

2 Ibid., 50.

3 Ibid., 6.

4 Ibid., 47–65.

5 For an early, key essay on creole patriotism, see Brading, David A., Los origenes del nacionalismo mexicano (Mexico, 1978)Google Scholar.

6 Pagden, Anthony, Identity Formation in Spanish America in Colonial Identity in the Atlantic World, 1500–1800, ed. Canny, Nicholas and Pagden, Anthony (Princeton, 1987), 51–93Google Scholar. Also Lavallé, Bernard, Las promesas ambiguas: criollismo colonial en los Andes (lima, 1993), passimGoogle Scholar.

7 Brading, David A., The First America: The Spanish Monarchy, Creole Patriots and the Liberal State, 1492–1867 (Cambridge, 1991), 292–390Google Scholar; LaFaye, Jacques, Quetzalcoatl and Guadalupe: The Formation of Mexican National Consciousness, 1531–1813, trans. Keen, B. (Chicago and London, 1976), esp. 51–98Google Scholar; 177–253.

8 Phelan, John L., The Kingdom of Quito in the Seventeenth Century. Bureaucratic Politics in the Spanish Empire (Madison, Wisconsin, 1967), 120Google Scholar.

9 On Flórez de Ocariz, see , Juan A. and Villamarin, Judith E., ‘The Concept of Nobility in Colonial Santa Fe de Bogotá’ in Spalding, Karen (ed), Essays in the Political, Economic and Social History of Colonial Latin America (Newark, Delaware, 1982), 125–50Google Scholar.

10 For a general analysis of these phenomena, Lockhart, James, ‘Social organisation and social change in colonial Spanish America’ in Cambridge History of Latin America, (Cambridge, 1984), II, 265–319CrossRefGoogle Scholar; for studies of this process set in two colonial cities, see Chance, John K., Race and Class in Colonial Oaxaca (Stanford, Calif., 1978), 144–85Google Scholar, and Minchom, Martin, The People of Quito, 1690–1810: Change and Unrest in the Underclass (Boulder, San Francisco and Oxford, 1994), 158–90Google Scholar. On the blurring of ethnic and race divisions in colonial Peru, see Cahill, David, ‘Colour by Numbers: Racial and Ethnic Categories in the Viceroyalty of Peru, 1524–1824’, Journal of Latin American Studies, 26 (1994), 325–46CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

11 On Creoles' concern to protect their superior status against encroachments from people of colour, see Uribe, Jaime Jaramillo, ‘Mestizaje y differentiatión social en el Nuevo Reino de Granada en la segunda mitad del siglo XVIII’, in his Ensayos sobre Historia Social Colombiana (Bogotá, 1968), 163–233Google Scholar.

12 For examples of local political life, see McFarlane, Anthony, ‘Civil Disorders and Popular Protest in Late Colonial New Granada’, Hispanic American Historical Review, 64:1 (1984), 17–54CrossRefGoogle Scholar; also Garrido, Margarita, Reclamos y representaciones: Variaciones sobre la política en el Nuevo Reino de Granada, 1770–1815 (Bogotá, 1993), 116–225Google Scholar; and Cornblit, Oscar, Power and Violence in the Colonial City: Oruro from the Mining Renaissance to the Rebellion of Tupac Amaru, 1740–82 (Cambridge, 1995), 37–80CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

13 For a brief comparison of rebellions in the seventeenth-century Spanish monarchy, see McFarlane, Anthony, ‘Challenges from the Periphery: Rebellion in Colonial Spanish America’ in Rebelión y Resistencia en el Mundo Hispanico del Siglo XVII, ed. Thomas, Werner and de Groof, Bart (Leuven, 1992), 250–9Google Scholar.

14 Pagden, Anthony, Spanish Imperialism and the Political Imagination (New Haven and London, 1990), 97Google Scholar.

15 Anderson, , Imagined Communities, 62–5Google Scholar.

16 MacLachlan, Colin, Spain's Empire in the New World: The Role of Ideas in Institutional and Social Change (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1988), pp. 67–88Google Scholar.

17 On Creole penetration of the royal bureaucracy, Burkholder, Mark and Chandler, D. S., From Impotence to Authority: The Spanish Crown and the American Audiencias, 1697–1808 (Colombia, 1977)Google Scholar; on Creole elites in local government, see Marzhal, Peter, Town in the Empire: Government, Politics and Society in Seventeenth-Century Popayán (Austin, Texas, 1978)Google Scholar.

18 Juan, Jorge and de Ulloa, Antonio, Discourse and Political Reflections on the Kingdoms of Peru, trans. TePaske, John J. and Cement, Besse A. (Norman, Oklahoma, 1978), 217Google Scholar.

19 Quotations from Juan, and Ulloa, , Discourse and Political Reflections, pp. 218–22Google Scholar.

20 For an assessment of Antonio de Ulloa, the report's principal author, and the continuity of his writing with the Spanish imperial tradition of commentary on America, see Brading, , The First America, 424–8Google Scholar.

21 Juan, and Ulloa, , Discourse and Political Reflections, 231–2Google Scholar.

22 Ibid., 217.

23 ‘Representación que hizo la Ciudad de México al rey D. Carlos Il al rey D. Carlos III en 1771…’ in Latin American Revolutions, 1808–26: Old and New World Origins, ed. and trans. Lynch, John (Norman, Oklahoma and London, 1994), pp. 58–70Google Scholar; quotations from 59, 61, 62–3, 64, 66.

24 Ibid., 66.

25 For a general, comparative analysis of these rebellions, see McFarlane, Anthony, ‘Rebellions in Late Colonial Spanish America: A Comparative Perspective’, Bulletin of Latin American Research, 14:3 (1995), 313–38CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

26 Szeminski, Jan, ‘Why Kill the Spaniard? New Perspectives on Andean Insurrectionary Ideology in the 18th Century’ in Resistance, Rebellion, and Consciousness in the Andean Peasant World, 18th to 20th Centuries, ed. Stern, Steve (Madison, Wisconsin, 1987), 166–92Google Scholar; on rebel violence towards both Spaniards and non-Spaniards, see Godoy, Scarlett O'Phelan, La Gran Rebelión de los Andes: de Túpac Amaru a Tupac Catari (Lima, 1995), 105–37Google Scholar.

27 Rowe, John, ‘El movimiento nacional inca del siglo XVIII’, in Túpac Amaru II. Antología, ed. Galindo, Alberto Flores (lima, 1976), 13–62Google Scholar.

28 von Humboldt, Alexander, Political Essay on the Kingdom of New Spain (1811 edition, reprinted New York, 1966), I, 205Google Scholar.

29 For an account of one of these Creole conspiracies inspired by American and French revolutionary ideas, see McFarlane, Anthony, Colombia before Independence: Economy, Society and Politics under Bourbon Rule (Cambridge, 1993), 285–93CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

30 On Creole responses to the debate, see Gerbi, Antonello, The Dispute of the New World. The History of a Polemic, 1750–1900, trans. Moyle, Jeremy (Pittsburgh, 1955), pp. 289–324Google Scholar. For a Mexican response, from the Jesuit Clavijero, see Pagden, , Spanish Imperialism and the Political Imagination, 104–16Google Scholar; on Chile, see Collier, Simon, Ideas and Politics of Chilean Independence, 1808–30 (Cambridge, 1967), 21–30Google Scholar.

31 Glick, Thomas F., ‘Science and Independence in Latin America (with Special Reference to New Granada)’, Hispanic American Historical Review, 71:2 (1991), 307–34CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Chenu, Jeanne, De la Terre aux Etoiles: Quête Scientifique et Identité Culturelle en Nouvelle Granade, in L'Amérique Espagnole a l'Epoque des Lumières, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (Paris, 1987), 247–60Google Scholar.

32 For a general discussion of the emergence of modern forms of socialibility in Spanish America, see Guerra, François Xavier, Modernidad e Independendas. Ensayos sobre las revoluciones hispánicas (Madrid, 1992), pp. 85–113Google Scholar.

33 This discussion draws on the study of the Papel Periódico of Bogotá, in Silva, Renan, Prensa y revolucioń a finales del siglo XVIII: Contribution a un análisis de la formación de la ideología de independencia nacional (Bogotá, 1988), pp. 28–5Google Scholar; 104–6.

34 Anderson, , Imagined Communities, 61Google Scholar.

35 Garrido, Margarita, Reclamos y representaciones, 36–54Google Scholar.

36 On Hidalgo's career, see Hamill, Hugh, The Hidalgo Revolt; Prelude to Mexican Independence (Gainesville, Florida, 1966), pp. 53–88Google Scholar.

37 McFarlane, , Colombia before Independence, 314–21Google Scholar.

38 See, for example, the response of the Mexican nobility to the Consolidation decree of 1804 in Ladd, Doris, The Mexican Nobility at Independence, 1780–1826 (Austin, Texas, 1976), 95–104Google Scholar.

39 For a brief exposition of this position, see Guerra, François-Xavier, ‘The Spanish American Tradition of Representation and its European Roots’, Journal of Latin American Studies, 26 (1994), 1–33CrossRefGoogle Scholar; for a fuller account, see Guerre, François-Xavier, Modernidad e Independencias {Madrid, 1992)Google Scholar.

40 For a succinct narrative, see Anna, Timothy, Spain and the Loss of America, (Lincoln, Nebraska, and London, 1983), 15–63Google Scholar.

41 Carr, Raymond, Spain, 1808–1939 (Oxford, 1966), 86–92Google Scholar.

42 Guerra, , Modernidad e Independencias, 115–225Google Scholar.

43 Brading, D. A., Prophecy and Myth in Mexican History (Cambridge Centre of Latin American Studies, 1984), 43Google Scholar.

44 On the regional bases of the Mexican Insurgency, see Hamnett, Brian, Roots of Insurgency: Mexican Regions, 1750–1824 (Cambridge, 1986), 47–67, 178–201CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Tutino, John, From Insurrection to Revolution in Mexico: Social Bases of Agrarian Violence, 1950–1940 (Princeton, 1986), 99–122Google Scholar; Guardino, Peter, Peasants, Politics and the Formation of Mexico's National State: Guerrero, 1800–1857 (Stanford, 1996), 44–80Google Scholar.

45 On the problems of denning the ‘people’ and the ‘nation’ see Quijada, Monica, ‘Que Nación? Dinámicas y dicotomías de la nación en el imaginario hispanoamericano del siglo XIX’ in Imaginar la Nación, ed. Guerra, François-Xavier and Quijada, Monica (AHILA, Cuadernos de Historia, Münster and Hamburg, 1994), 19–31Google Scholar.

46 Venezuela moved quickly to secession, and in 1811 became the first, very short-lived independent republic in Spanish America. Elsewhere constitutions of a republican kind were drawn up without declarations of independence from Spain. Excellent examples of such constitutions are found in Pombo, Manuel Antonio and Guerra, José Joaquín (eds), Constituciones de Colombia (2 vols, Bogotá, 1951)Google Scholar.

47 Bolívar, Simon, ‘Memorial to the Citizens of New Granada’ (1812)Google Scholar, in Selected Writings of Bolívar, ed. Lecuna, Vicente and Bierck, H. A. (2 vols., New York, 1951), I, 21Google Scholar.

48 Bolívar, Simon, 'Reply of a South American to a Gentleman of this Island (Jamaica, 1815)Google Scholar, in Selected Writings, I, 112.

49 On Bolívar's nationalism, see Collier, Simon, ‘Nationalism, Nationalism, and Supranationalism in the Writings of Simón Bolívar’, Hispanic American Historical Review, 63:1 (1983). 37–64Google Scholar.

50 Costeloe, Michael, Response to Revolution: Imperial Spain and the Spanish American Revolutions, 1810–1840 (Cambridge, 1986), pp. 52–116Google Scholar.

51 Pagden, , Spanish Imperialism and the Political Imagination, 151Google Scholar.

51 On efforts to replace colonial with republican images and rituals in Mexico, see Lempérière, Annick, Nación moderna o república barroca? México, 1823–1857 in Imaginar la Nación, ed. Guerra, François-Xavier and Quijada, Monica (AHILA, Cuadernos de Historia, Münster and Hamburg, 1994), 135–77Google Scholar; on New Granada, Köenig, Hans-Joachim, ‘Símbolos nacionales y retorica política en la independencia: El caso de la Nueva Granada’, in Problemas de la Formación del Estado y de la Nación en Hispanoamérica, ed. Buisson, Ingeet al. (Cologne and Venna, 1984), 389–406Google Scholar; also, at greater length, his En el camino hacia la nación: Nacionalismo en el proceso de la formación del estado y de la nación de la Nueva Granada, 1750–1856 (Bogotá, 1994), 189–415Google Scholar.

53 For a study of the alienation of the enlightened political elites from their ‘national’ constituencies, see the analysis of Rivadavia's government in Argentina during the 1820s in Shumway, Nicholas, The Invention of Argentina (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1991), 81–111Google Scholar.

54 Selected Writings of Bolívar, I, 110.

55 See Guardino, , Peasants, Politics and the Formation of Mexico's National State, 81–109Google Scholar. On the linkages of popular, local and national politics later in the nineteenth century, see Thomson, Guy, ‘Popular Aspects of Liberalism in Mexico, 1848–88’, Bulletin of Latin American Research (1991), 265–92Google Scholar; Annino, Antonio, ‘Otras naciones: sincretismo político en el México decimonónico’ in Imagmar la Nación, ed. Guerra, and Quijada, , 215–55Google Scholar; Mallon, Florencia, Peasant and Nation: The Making of Post-Colonial Mexico and Peru (Berkeley, 1995)Google Scholar, esp. chaps. 2–3.

56 For examples, see Quijada, Monica, ‘Que Nación?’ 40–51Google Scholar; also Safford, Frank, ‘Race, Integration and Progress: Elite Attitudes and the Indian in Colombia, 1750–1870’, Hispanic American Historical Review, 71:1 (1991), 20–33CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For a contrary example, showing how Social Darwinism could be used to defend people of mixed race as the basis of the nation, see Brading, David, ‘Social Darwinism and Romantic Idealism: Andrés Molina Enríquez and José Vasconcelos in the Mexican Revolution’ in Brading, , Prophecy and Myth, pp. 63–71Google Scholar.

57 Brading, David A., ‘Nationalism and State-Building in Latin American History’ in Wars, Parties and Nationalism, ed. Posada-Carbó, Eduardo (London, 1995), 89–107Google Scholar.