Spanish America After Independence, 1825-1900
- LAST REVIEWED: 28 January 2013
- LAST MODIFIED: 28 January 2013
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199730414-0178
- LAST REVIEWED: 28 January 2013
- LAST MODIFIED: 28 January 2013
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199730414-0178
Introduction
The independence of Spanish America was the unexpected outcome of the monarchy’s rupture following the 1808 Napoleonic invasion. It resulted in an ensemble of motley republics that were confronted by serious difficulties throughout the 19th century. Independence had, in effect, created nations with blurred boundaries and precarious identities. Above all, the legacies of the colonial era were maintained since the new republics did not abolish old Spanish law. It remained in force nearly everywhere in the region up until the end of the 19th century. Social distinctions founded on honor, labor, race, and gender had admittedly been destroyed on a constitutional level, but they still remained rooted in society. Nearly everywhere, the construction of the nation and the modern state was a task made all the more complex by the preservation of a complicated corporate framework and the affirmation of local and regional authorities’ power. Thus, the fact that the legacies of the Spanish monarchy remained very much alive in the republics until the end of the 19th century justifies the inclusion of this century within the field of Atlantic history. This bibliographical choice has selected works that illustrate the tensions particular to Spanish America throughout the republican period following the creation of the Republic of Bolivia, which marked the end of the Wars of Independence (1825). Indeed, these are divided between the desire to create a set of modern republics, founded on equal citizenship and forward progress, and the postcolonial persistence of social practices and institutions of the ancien régime. It is for this reason that so much emphasis has been placed on the 19th century herein, as political, cultural, and social episodes marked the relative, but progressive, erosion of colonial practices. The “modern” mutation of South America was thus regulated by important moments which appear in the chronological and thematic choice of the works cited: the maintenance and abolition of slavery, the granting of citizenship to Indians and Afro-descendants, yet the persistence of discriminations based on color and race; grand midcentury liberal reforms and the preservation of influence by privileged entities like the Church and the army, the difficult construction of the modern state, the nation, and democratic systems; the progressive deterioration of corporate social structures and of the fueros; and the end of the Spanish presence in Cuba and Puerto Rico in 1898 and the reinsertion of Latin America into the networks of the global economy at the end of the century and, finally, a new wave of European immigration. I have hardly sketched out the economic themes in this bibliography except for in the section International Relations: From Spanish Empire to British “Informal Empire”?. These themes are fundamental to understanding the history, Atlantic or otherwise, of South America in the 19th century. Additionally, an emphasis has been placed on those political and social works that tend to be included, more or less, in an Atlantic perspective. Books in English and Spanish, the principal scientific languages in this field of study, are favored, and translations in these languages are cited where available. However, good books exist in German, Italian, French, and Portuguese, many of which deserved, in all fairness, to be included in this selection. Translated from French by Andrew H. Bellisari.
General Overviews
General works on modern Spanish America do not exist in the methodological field of Atlantic history yet. Chronologically, this perspective is still associated with early modern history. Furthermore, until now, many Latin American historians have remained hostile to the Atlantic perspective, which they judge to be too marked by US academic influence. Since the 1990s, the transplantation of subaltern studies to the Hispano-American realm under the impulsion of Florencia Mallon (see Mallon 1995, cited under Class and Race Relations) has nonetheless introduced a certain number of social and racial thematics close to Atlantic history in general. Moreover, it is necessary to underline that the influence of “new political history,” dear to François-Xavier Guerra (see Guerra 1992, cited under A New Political Culture), was instrumental in precipitating a remarkable renewal in the study of a 19th century heretofore snubbed by researchers. This historiographical paradigm belongs fully to Atlantic history, as it analyzes the sociopolitical effects of Atlantic revolutions in the long term at the Euro-American scale (Africa remaining, it is true, little present in this approach). General works, such as Bethell 1986, Chevalier 1999, Vázquez and Miño Grijalva 2003, and Ayala Mora and Posada Carbó 2008, are thus consecrated to the history of Latin America in general without particular reference to Atlantic history, but they constitute an obligatory point of departure.
Ayala Mora, Enrique, and Eduardo Posada Carbó. Historia general de América Latina. Vol. 7, Los proyectos nacionales latinoamericanos: Sus instrumentos y articulación, 1870–1930. Madrid: Editorial Trotta, 2008.
The work addresses the period in a thematic way, with chapters dedicated to important events such as the Mexican Revolution, and a particular insistence on political transformations.
Bernecker, Walther L., Raymond T. Buve, John Robert Fisher, et al., eds. Handbuch der Geschichte Lateinamerikas. Vol. 2, Lateinamerika von 1760 bis 1900. Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1992.
This survey in German adopts both a regional and a thematic outline (demography, economy, society, culture) with specialized bibliographies. A good starting point for undergraduate students.
Bethell, Leslie, ed. The Cambridge History of Latin America. Vols. 3–5. London: Cambridge University Press, 1986.
The third volume of this collection collects an ensemble of surveys organized by country that favors a political approach while emphasizing the dialectic between rupture and continuity with the colonial regime from Independence to 1870. It also brings together complete bibliographic essays that take stock of Anglo-American works in particular. The fourth volume addresses economic, demographic, social, and cultural topics with all the usual important rubrics for the period 1870–1930. Additionally, it favors serial history and provides a good statistical summary of the principal evolutions that characterize the end of the 19th century. Contains a number of useful maps and graphics. The fifth volume (1870–1930), divided up by large regions and nations, reverts to the structure of the third.
Chevalier, François. América Latina: De la Independencia a nuestros días. Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1999.
Translated from the 1993 French edition, this work combines socioeconomic and political approaches from Independence to the present. Contains a bibliography of 1,427 works, most of which are in Spanish and French, a detailed chronology, and maps and figures. Presents the principal results of research from the postwar era up through the “political turn” of the 1990s. A good starting point for graduate students.
Vázquez, Josefina, and Manuel Miño Grijalva, dir. Historia general de América Latina. Vol. 6, La construcción de las naciones latinoamericanas, 1820–1870. Madrid: Editorial Trotta, 2003.
This volume presents comprehensive and up-to-date summaries of different political, social, and cultural topics. Aimed primarily at an educated audience and undergraduates. Contains a complete general bibliography for publications in Spanish.
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Article
- Abolition of Slavery
- Abolitionism and Africa
- Africa and the Atlantic World
- African American Religions
- African Religion and Culture
- African Retailers and Small Artisans in the Atlantic World
- Age of Atlantic Revolutions, The
- Alexander von Humboldt and Transatlantic Studies
- America, Pre-Contact
- American Revolution, The
- Anti-Catholicism and Anti-Popery
- Argentina
- Army, British
- Arsenals
- Art and Artists
- Asia and the Americas and the Iberian Empires
- Atlantic Biographies
- Atlantic Creoles
- Atlantic History and Hemispheric History
- Atlantic Migration
- Atlantic New Orleans: 18th and 19th Centuries
- Atlantic Trade and the British Economy
- Atlantic Trade and the European Economy
- Bacon's Rebellion
- Baltic Sea
- Baptists
- Barbados in the Atlantic World
- Barbary States
- Benguela
- Berbice in the Atlantic World
- Black Atlantic in the Age of Revolutions, The
- Bolívar, Simón
- Borderlands
- Bourbon Reforms in the Spanish Atlantic, The
- Brazil
- Brazil and Africa
- Brazilian Independence
- Britain and Empire, 1685-1730
- British Atlantic Architectures
- British Atlantic World
- Buenos Aires in the Atlantic World
- Cabato, Giovanni (John Cabot)
- Cannibalism
- Capitalism
- Captain John Smith
- Captivity
- Captivity in Africa
- Captivity in North America
- Caribbean, The
- Cartier, Jacques
- Castas
- Catholicism
- Cattle in the Atlantic World
- Central American Independence
- Central Europe and the Atlantic World
- Charleston
- Chartered Companies, British and Dutch
- Cherokee
- Childhood
- Chinese Indentured Servitude in the Atlantic World
- Chocolate
- Church and Slavery
- Cities and Urbanization in Portuguese America
- Citizenship in the Atlantic World
- Class and Social Structure
- Climate
- Clothing
- Coastal/Coastwide Trade
- Cod in the Atlantic World
- Coffee
- Colonial Governance in Spanish America
- Colonial Governance in the Atlantic World
- Colonialism and Postcolonialism
- Colonization, Ideologies of
- Colonization of English America
- Communications in the Atlantic World
- Comparative Indigenous History of the Americas
- Confraternities
- Constitutions
- Continental America
- Cook, Captain James
- Cortes of Cádiz
- Cosmopolitanism
- Cotton
- Credit and Debt
- Creek Indians in the Atlantic World, The
- Creolization
- Criminal Transportation in the Atlantic World
- Crowds in the Atlantic World
- Cuba
- Currency
- Death in the Atlantic World
- Demography of the Atlantic World
- Diaspora, Jewish
- Diaspora, The Acadian
- Disease in the Atlantic World
- Domestic Production and Consumption in the Atlantic World
- Domestic Slave Trades in the Americas
- Dreams and Dreaming
- Dutch Atlantic World
- Dutch Brazil
- Dutch Caribbean and Guianas, The
- Early Modern Amazonia
- Early Modern France
- Economy and Consumption in the Atlantic World
- Economy of British America, The
- Edwards, Jonathan
- Elites
- Emancipation
- Emotions
- Empire and State Formation
- Enlightenment, The
- Environment and the Natural World
- Ethnicity
- Europe and Africa
- Europe and the Atlantic World, Northern
- Europe and the Atlantic World, Western
- European Enslavement of Indigenous People in the Americas
- European, Javanese and African and Indentured Servitude in...
- Evangelicalism and Conversion
- Female Slave Owners
- Feminism
- First Contact and Early Colonization of Brazil
- Fiscality
- Fiscal-Military State
- Food
- Forts, Fortresses, and Fortifications
- Founding Myths of the Americas
- France and Empire
- France and its Empire in the Indian Ocean
- France and the British Isles from 1640 to 1789
- Free People of Color
- Free Ports in the Atlantic World
- French Army and the Atlantic World, The
- French Atlantic World
- French Emancipation
- French Revolution, The
- Gardens
- Gender in Iberian America
- Gender in North America
- Gender in the Atlantic World
- Gender in the Caribbean
- George Montagu Dunk, Second Earl of Halifax
- Georgia in the Atlantic World
- German Influences in America
- Germans in the Atlantic World
- Giovanni da Verrazzano, Explorer
- Glasgow
- Glorious Revolution
- Godparents and Godparenting
- Great Awakening
- Green Atlantic: the Irish in the Atlantic World
- Guianas, The
- Haitian Revolution, The
- Hanoverian Britain
- Havana in the Atlantic World
- Hinterlands of the Atlantic World
- Histories and Historiographies of the Atlantic World
- Honor
- Huguenots
- Hunger and Food Shortages
- Iberian Atlantic World, 1600-1800
- Iberian Empires, 1600-1800
- Iberian Inquisitions
- Idea of Atlantic History, The
- Impact of the French Revolution on the Caribbean, The
- Indentured Servitude
- Indentured Servitude in the Atlantic World, Indian
- India, The Atlantic Ocean and
- Indigenous Knowledge
- Indigo in the Atlantic World
- Insurance
- Internal Slave Migrations in the Americas
- Interracial Marriage in the Atlantic World
- Ireland and the Atlantic World
- Iroquois (Haudenosaunee)
- Islam and the Atlantic World
- Itinerant Traders, Peddlers, and Hawkers
- Jamaica in the Atlantic World
- Jefferson, Thomas
- Jesuits
- Jews and Blacks
- Labor Systems
- Land and Propert in the Atlantic World
- Language, State, and Empire
- Languages, Caribbean Creole
- Latin American Independence
- Law and Slavery
- Legal Culture
- Leisure in the British Atlantic World
- Letters and Letter Writing
- Lima
- Literature and Culture
- Literature of the British Caribbean
- Literature, Slavery and Colonization
- Liverpool in The Atlantic World 1500-1833
- Louverture, Toussaint
- Loyalism
- Lutherans
- Mahogany
- Manumission
- Maps in the Atlantic World
- Maritime Atlantic in the Age of Revolutions, The
- Maritime Literature
- Markets in the Atlantic World
- Maroons and Marronage
- Marriage and Family in the Atlantic World
- Maryland
- Material Culture in the Atlantic World
- Material Culture of Slavery in the British Atlantic
- Medicine in the Atlantic World
- Mennonites
- Mental Disorder in the Atlantic World
- Mercantilism
- Merchants in the Atlantic World
- Merchants' Networks
- Mestizos
- Mexico
- Migrations and Diasporas
- Minas Gerais
- Miners
- Mining, Gold, and Silver
- Missionaries
- Missionaries, Native American
- Money and Banking in the Atlantic Economy
- Monroe, James
- Moravians
- Morris, Gouverneur
- Music and Music Making
- Napoléon Bonaparte and the Atlantic World
- Nation and Empire in Northern Atlantic History
- Nation, Nationhood, and Nationalism
- Native American Histories in North America
- Native American Networks
- Native American Religions
- Native Americans and Africans
- Native Americans and the American Revolution
- Native Americans and the Atlantic World
- Native Americans in Cities
- Native Americans in Europe
- Native North American Women
- Native Peoples of Brazil
- Natural History
- Networks for Migrations and Mobility
- Networks of Science and Scientists
- New England in the Atlantic World
- New France and Louisiana
- New York City
- News
- Nineteenth-Century Atlantic World
- Nineteenth-Century France
- Nobility and Gentry in the Early Modern Atlantic World
- North Africa and the Atlantic World
- Northern New Spain
- Novel in the Age of Revolution, The
- Oceanic History
- Oceans
- Pacific, The
- Paine, Thomas
- Papacy and the Atlantic World
- Paris
- People of African Descent in Early Modern Europe
- Peru
- Pets and Domesticated Animals in the Atlantic World
- Philadelphia
- Philanthropy
- Phillis Wheatley
- Piracy
- Plantations in the Atlantic World
- Plants
- Poetry in the British Atlantic
- Political Participation in the Nineteenth Century Atlantic...
- Polygamy and Bigamy
- Port Cities, British
- Port Cities, British American
- Port Cities, French
- Port Cities, French American
- Port Cities, Iberian
- Ports, African
- Portugal and Brazile in the Age of Revolutions
- Portugal, Early Modern
- Portuguese Atlantic World
- Potosi
- Poverty in the Early Modern English Atlantic
- Pre-Columbian Transatlantic Voyages
- Pregnancy and Reproduction
- Print Culture in the British Atlantic
- Proprietary Colonies
- Protestantism
- Puritanism
- Quakers
- Quebec and the Atlantic World, 1760–1867
- Quilombos
- Race and Racism
- Race, The Idea of
- Reconstruction, Democracy, and United States Imperialism
- Red Atlantic
- Refugees, Saint-Domingue
- Religion
- Religion and Colonization
- Religion in the British Civil Wars
- Religious Border-Crossing
- Religious Networks
- Representations of Slavery
- Republicanism
- Rice in the Atlantic World
- Rio de Janeiro
- Rum
- Rumor
- Russia and North America
- Sailors
- Saint Domingue
- Saint-Louis, Senegal
- Salvador da Bahia
- Scandinavian Chartered Companies
- Science and Technology (in Literature of the Atlantic Worl...
- Science, History of
- Scotland and the Atlantic World
- Sea Creatures in the Atlantic World
- Second-Hand Trade
- Settlement and Region in British America, 1607-1763
- Seven Years' War, The
- Seville
- Sex and Sexuality in the Atlantic World
- Shakers
- Shakespeare and the Atlantic World
- Ships and Shipping
- Signares
- Silk
- Slave Codes
- Slave Names and Naming in the Anglophone Atlantic
- Slave Owners In The British Atlantic
- Slave Rebellions
- Slave Resistance in the Atlantic World
- Slave Trade and Natural Science, The
- Slave Trade, The Atlantic
- Slavery and Empire
- Slavery and Fear
- Slavery and Gender
- Slavery and the Family
- Slavery, Atlantic
- Slavery, Health, and Medicine
- Slavery in Africa
- Slavery in Brazil
- Slavery in British America
- Slavery in British and American Literature
- Slavery in Danish America
- Slavery in Dutch America and the West Indies
- Slavery in New England
- Slavery in North America, The Growth and Decline of
- Slavery in the Cape Colony, South Africa
- Slavery in the French Atlantic World
- Slavery, Native American
- Slavery, Public Memory and Heritage of
- Slavery, The Origins of
- Slavery, Urban
- Smuggling
- São Paulo
- Sociability in the British Atlantic
- Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts...
- Soldiers
- South Atlantic
- South Atlantic Creole Archipelagos
- South Carolina
- Sovereignty and the Law
- Spain, Early Modern
- Spanish America After Independence, 1825-1900
- Spanish American Port Cities
- Spanish Atlantic World
- Spanish Colonization to 1650
- Subjecthood in the Atlantic World
- Sugar in the Atlantic World
- Swedish Atlantic World, The
- Technology, Inventing, and Patenting
- Textiles in the Atlantic World
- Texts, Printing, and the Book
- The American West
- The Danish Atlantic World
- The French Lesser Antilles
- The Fur Trade
- The Spanish Caribbean
- Theater
- Time(scapes) in the Atlantic World
- Tobacco
- Toleration in the Atlantic World
- Transatlantic Political Economy
- Travel Writing (in the Atlantic World)
- Tudor and Stuart Britain in the Wider World, 1485-1685
- Universities
- USA and Empire in the 19th Century
- Venezuela and the Atlantic World
- Violence
- Visual Art and Representation
- War and Trade
- War of 1812
- War of the Spanish Succession
- Warfare
- Warfare in Spanish America
- Warfare in 17th-Century North America
- Warfare, Medicine, and Disease in the Atlantic World
- Weavers
- West Indian Economic Decline
- Whitefield, George
- Whiteness in the Atlantic World
- William Blackstone
- William Shakespeare, The Tempest (1611)
- William Wilberforce
- Wine
- Witchcraft in the Atlantic World
- Women and the Law
- Women Prophets