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Rebellious Subjects, Greedy Rivals, and a Precarious Empire: Bourbon Dilemmas in Spanish America

Sat, May 30, 6:00 to 7:45pm, TBA

Session Submission Type: Panel

Abstract

The long eighteenth century presented numerous challenges to Spanish rule in the Americas. Royal functionaries had to deal with the effects of frequent wars in Europe, British naval dominance in the Atlantic Ocean, revolutions in North America and the Caribbean, and the encroaching power of revolutionary France. Moreover, they felt the precariousness of their dominance when they confronted colonial subjects who not only complained about the reforms imposed by the metropolis, but, at times, resorted to violence to make their voices heard. In the late 2000s a group of historians began to write a new political history of the Spanish empire capable of incorporating this complex reality. This line of research is providing a richer understanding of how the wheels of colonial government turned in Spanish America and Spain and the role of diverse individuals and groups in steering and sometimes even shifting their course.
This panel offers new approaches to study the ways people perceived and participated in public life either as subjects or as figures of authority to challenge notions that emphasized one-way relationships (bottom-up and top-down) between rulers and ruled.

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