Early Bourbon Spanish America

The years between the accession of the house of Bourbon to the Spanish throne in 1700 and the coronation of Carlos III in 1759 have often been bundled up, and dismissed, together with the later years of Habsburg rule. Growing out of the first Anglophone academic workshop to focus exclusively on Early Bourbon Spanish America, this collective volume gives prominence to the first half of the eighteenth century as a distinct historical period. Discussing from different methodological and geographical perspectives the ways in which the Bourbon succession, international competition over access to Spanish American resources, and war affected the Indies, the contributors examine some of the key changes experienced in Spanish America at the local, provincial and imperial level.

Integrating the political and governmental histories of Spain and the American colonies, this book focuses on the political and governmental history of the Viceroyalty of Peru during the 'early Bourbon' period and provides a new interpretation of the period's broader significance within Spanish American history.

In The Spanish Monarchy and the Creation of the Viceroyalty of New Granada (1717-1739), Francisco A. Eissa-Barroso analyzes the politics behind the most salient Bourbon reform introduced in Spanish America during the early eighteenth century.

A brief general history of Latin America in the period between the European conquest and the independence of the Spanish American countries and Brazil serves as an introduction to this quickly changing field of study.

This book covers the evolution of royal policy in Spanish America as eighteenth-century Spain modernized its empire and transformed itself into a power of the first order. Tracing the interplay between war and reform, the analysis confronts the diverse realities of the Spanish Atlantic world, which stretched from the northern Mexican borderlands to Argentina and Chile. Unlike earlier studies on eighteenth-century Spain, this work incorporates the early Bourbon experience into the narrative and integrates the impressive reemergence of the Royal Armada into a fuller picture of administrative, commercial, fiscal, ecclesiastical, and military change.

Silver, Trade, and War is about men and markets, national rivalries, diplomacy and conflict, and the advancement or stagnation of states. Chosen by Choice Magazine as an Outstanding Academic Title The 250 years covered by Silver, Trade, and War marked the era of commercial capitalism, that bridge between late medieval and modern times. Spain, peripheral to western Europe in 1500, produced American treasure in silver, which Spanish convoys bore from Portobelo and Veracruz on the Carribbean coast across the Atlantic to Spain in exchange for European goods shipped from Sevilla (later, Cadiz). Spanish colonialism, the authors suggest, was the cutting edge of the early global economy. America's silver permitted Spain to graft early capitalistic elements onto its late medieval structures, reinforcing its patrimonialism and dynasticism. However, the authors argue, silver gave Spain an illusion of wealth, security, and hegemony, while its system of "managed" transatlantic trade failed to monitor silver flows that were beyond the control of government officials. While Spain's intervention buttressed Hapsburg efforts at hegemony in Europe, it induced the formation of protonationalist state formations, notably in England and France. The treaty of Utrecht (1714) emphasized the lag between developing England and France, and stagnating Spain, and the persistence of Spain's late medieval structures. These were basic elements of what the authors term Spain's Hapsburg "legacy." Over the first half of the eighteenth century, Spain under the Bourbons tried to contain expansionist France and England in the Caribbean and to formulate and implement policies competitors seemed to apply successfully to their overseas possessions, namely, a colonial compact. Spain's policy planners (proyectistas) scanned abroad for models of modernization adaptable to Spain and its American colonies without risking institutional change. The second part of the book, "Toward a Spanish-Bourbon Paradigm," analyzes the projectors' works and their minimal impact in the context of the changing Atlantic scene until 1759. By then, despite its efforts, Spain could no longer compete successfully with England and France in the international economy. Throughout the book a colonial rather than metropolitan prism informs the authors' interpretation of the major themes examined.

During the eighteenth century the Spanish Bourbon monarchs attempted to transform Spanish America. This study analyses the efforts to transform frontier missions, and the consequences and particularly demographic consequences for the indigenous peoples that lived on the missions.

Using El lazarillo de ciegos caminantes (the "Guide for Blind Rovers" by Alonso Carrio de Lavandera, the best known work of the era) as a jumping off point for a sprawling discussion of 18th-century Spanish America, Ruth Hill argues for a richer, more nuanced understanding of the relationship between Spain and its western colonies. Armed with primary sources including literature, maps, census data, letters, and diaries, Hill reveals a rich world of intrigue and artifice, where identity is surprisingly fluid and always in question. More importantly, Hill crafts a complex argument for reassessing our understanding of race and class distinctions at the time, with enormous implications for how we view conceptions of race and class today.