Framing the Politics of Names: México in Bourbon New Spain

• In Event: Ficciones de la independencia y de las nuevas naciones

Abstract

A passage from David Brading’s study on Prophecy and Myth in Mexican History sheds a glint of light on a little-explored problem—the genesis of names as historical entities. Discussing the roles that Servando Teresa de Mier and Carlos María de Bustamante had in framing the 1821 Constitution, he writes that they “…played an influential role, [in] obtaining the recognition of Hidalgo and Morelos as the Founding Fathers—Padres de la Patria—of Mexico, even if their hopes of re-naming the country Anáhuac were disappointed” (44).

The object of this disappointment—a proper name marking a shift from New Spain towards an autonomous new entity—plays an obscure, ambivalent role in the way that history and names intermingle. For instance, when José Maria Liceaga addressed his “americano” insurgents in 1813, México, or rather the Spanish government in Mexico City, signifies the insurgency’s chief adversary. Thus, how did México become the name for a new nation in spite of an antipathy for the term among the insurgents?

Addressing this question presupposes noting the way dominant discourses framed México as a term. Discerning the ways that the name Mexico works during the period of the Bourbon reforms twill help illuminate the ways that social and political forces during the insurgency take flight in the struggles for a new nation. Drawing on insights on the role of names and nominalism in historical inquiry, this paper will examine the way that Mexico functions in Novohispanic Viceregal discourse, especially during Revillagigedo's Viceregency.

Author

• Richard A Grijalva, University of California/Berkeley