Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Tables and illustrations
- Acknowledgments
- List of money and measures
- List of abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 Foundations
- PART I ECONOMY AND SOCIETY IN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY NEW GRANADA
- 2 Resources and regions
- 3 Mining frontiers and the gold economy
- PART II THE ECONOMICS OF BOURBON COLONIALISM: NEW GRANADA AND THE ATLANTIC ECONOMY
- PART III THE POLITICS OF BOURBON COLONIALISM: RECONSTRUCTING THE COLONIAL STATE
- PART IV GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS
- PART V CRISIS IN THE COLONIAL ORDER
- Epilogue
- Appendix A The population of New Granada
- Appendix B Gold production
- Appendix C Shipping and commerce
- Bibliography
- Index
- CAMBRIDGE LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES
2 - Resources and regions
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 September 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Tables and illustrations
- Acknowledgments
- List of money and measures
- List of abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 Foundations
- PART I ECONOMY AND SOCIETY IN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY NEW GRANADA
- 2 Resources and regions
- 3 Mining frontiers and the gold economy
- PART II THE ECONOMICS OF BOURBON COLONIALISM: NEW GRANADA AND THE ATLANTIC ECONOMY
- PART III THE POLITICS OF BOURBON COLONIALISM: RECONSTRUCTING THE COLONIAL STATE
- PART IV GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS
- PART V CRISIS IN THE COLONIAL ORDER
- Epilogue
- Appendix A The population of New Granada
- Appendix B Gold production
- Appendix C Shipping and commerce
- Bibliography
- Index
- CAMBRIDGE LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES
Summary
Seventeenth-century maps of New Granada show a country divided into four great administrative units, each a relic of the years of Spanish conquest. On the Caribbean coast were the two gobiernos of Santa Marta and Cartagena; in the interior, the Nuevo Reino de Granada dominated the east of the country; in the west and southwest lay the great governación de Popayán, extending to the borders of Ecuador. Eighteenth-century maps, by contrast, present a more detailed picture of the territory's topographical features and administrative divisions, showing all the provinces created by postconquest settlement and, in later maps, placing these provinces within the framework of the viceroyalty created by the Bourbon monarchy. Greater cartographical sophistication was in part a reflection of the progress of government under Bourbon rule, and the splendidly detailed Plan Geográfico del Vireynato de Santafé de Bogotá, Nuevo Reyno de Granada, drawn up in 1772, mirrors the new concern with ordering and controlling colonial territory. But if better maps present a more accurate definition of the land and its political boundaries, much is also concealed beneath their orderly surface. When New Granada first came under Bourbon rule, it was a mosaic of regions, each isolated from the others by long distances and difficult terrain, and distinguished by cultural differences arising from variations in the local blend of Europeans, Indians, and Africans.
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- Colombia before IndependenceEconomy, Society, and Politics under Bourbon Rule, pp. 31 - 70Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1993