Patrons, Partisans, and Palace Intrigues

Patrons, Partisans, and Palace Intrigues
Title Patrons, Partisans, and Palace Intrigues PDF eBook
Author Christoph Rosenmüller
Publisher University of Calgary Press
Pages 290
Release 2008
Genre Mexico
ISBN 1552382346

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Palace intrigues and clientelism drove politics at the viceregal court of colonial Mexico. By carefully reconstructing social networks in the court of Viceroy Duke of Alburquerque (1702-1710), Christoph Rosenm ller reveals that the Duke presided over one of the most corrupt viceregal terms in Mexican history. Alburquerque was appointed by Spain's King Philip V at a time when expanding state power was beginning to meet with opposition in colonial Mexico. The Duke and his retainers, though seemingly working for the crown, actually built close alliances with locals to thwart the reform efforts emanating from Spain. Alburquerque collaborated with contraband traders and opposed the secularization of Indian parishes. He persecuted several local craftsmen and merchants, some of whom died after languishing in jail, accusing them of treason to bolster his own credentials as a loyal official. In the end, however, the dominant clique at the royal court in Madrid sought revenge. Alburquerque was forced to pay an unheard-of indemnity of 700,000 silver pesos to regain the king's favour. Dealing with a topic and period largely ignored by historiography, Rosenm ller exposes the vast patronage power of the viceroy at the historical watershed between the expiring Habsburg dynasty and the incoming Bourbon rulers. His analysis reveals that precursors of the Bourbon reforms and the struggle for Mexican independence were already at play in the early eighteenth century.

Death in Old Mexico

Death in Old Mexico
Title Death in Old Mexico PDF eBook
Author Nicole von Germeten
Publisher Cambridge University Press
Pages 285
Release 2023-03-31
Genre History
ISBN 1009261525

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An evocative history of colonial Mexico's 'crime of the century' and its lasting impact on the new Mexican nation in the nineteenth century.

Early Bourbon Spanish America

Early Bourbon Spanish America
Title Early Bourbon Spanish America PDF eBook
Author
Publisher BRILL
Pages 254
Release 2013-05-23
Genre History
ISBN 9004253157

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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.

A Companion to Viceregal Mexico City, 1519-1821

A Companion to Viceregal Mexico City, 1519-1821
Title A Companion to Viceregal Mexico City, 1519-1821 PDF eBook
Author
Publisher BRILL
Pages 514
Release 2021-08-16
Genre History
ISBN 9004335579

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This book presents a historical overview of colonial Mexico City and the important role it played in the creation of the early modern Hispanic world.

After Moctezuma

After Moctezuma
Title After Moctezuma PDF eBook
Author William F. Connell
Publisher University of Oklahoma Press
Pages 336
Release 2012-09-24
Genre History
ISBN 0806185430

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The Spanish invasion of Mexico in 1519 left the capital city, Tenochtitlan, in ruins. Conquistador Hernán Cortés, following the city's surrender in 1521, established a governing body to organize its reconstruction. Cortés was careful to appoint native people to govern who had held positions of authority before his arrival, establishing a pattern that endured for centuries. William F. Connell's After Moctezuma: Indigenous Politics and Self-Government in Mexico City, 1524–1730 reveals how native self-government in former Tenochtitlan evolved over time as the city and its population changed. Drawing on extensive research in Mexico's Archivo General de la Nación, Connell shows how the hereditary political system of the Mexica was converted into a government by elected town councilmen, patterned after the Spanish cabildo, or municipal council. In the process, the Spanish relied upon existing Mexica administrative entities—the native ethnic state, or altepetl of Mexico Tenochtitlan, became the parcialidad of San Juan Tenochtitlan, for instance—preserving indigenous ideas of government within an imposed Spanish structure. Over time, the electoral system undermined the preconquest elite and introduced new native political players, facilitating social change. By the early eighteenth century, a process that had begun in the 1500s with the demise of Moctezuma and the royal line of Tenochtitlan had resulted in a politically independent indigenous cabildo. After Moctezuma is the first systematic study of the indigenous political structures at the heart of New Spain. With careful attention to relations among colonial officials and indigenous power brokers, Connell shows that the ongoing contest for control of indigenous government in Mexico City made possible a new kind of political system neither wholly indigenous nor entirely Spanish. Ultimately, he offers insight into the political voice Tenochtitlan's indigenous people gained with the ability to choose their own leaders—exercising power that endured through the end of the colonial period and beyond.

The Smugglers' World

The Smugglers' World
Title The Smugglers' World PDF eBook
Author Jesse Cromwell
Publisher UNC Press Books
Pages 331
Release 2018-11-05
Genre History
ISBN 1469636913

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The Smugglers' World examines a critical part of Atlantic trade for a neglected corner of the Spanish Empire. Testimonies of smugglers, buyers, and royal officials found in Venezuelan prize court records reveal a colony enmeshed in covert commerce. Forsaken by the Spanish fleet system, Venezuelan colonists struggled to obtain European foods and goods. They found a solution in exchanging cacao, a coveted luxury, for the necessities of life provided by contrabandists from the Dutch, English, and French Caribbean. Jesse Cromwell paints a vivid picture of the lives of littoral peoples who normalized their subversions of imperial law. Yet laws and borders began to matter when the Spanish state cracked down on illicit commerce in the 1720s as part of early Bourbon reforms. Now successful merchants could become convict laborers just as easily as enslaved Africans could become free traders along the unruly coastlines of the Spanish Main. Smuggling became more than an economic transaction or imperial worry; persistent local need elevated the practice to a communal ethos, and Venezuelans defended their commercial autonomy through passive measures and even violent political protests. Negotiations between the Spanish state and its subjects over smuggling formed a key part of empire making and maintenance in the eighteenth century.

The Spanish Monarchy and the Creation of the Viceroyalty of New Granada (1717-1739)

The Spanish Monarchy and the Creation of the Viceroyalty of New Granada (1717-1739)
Title The Spanish Monarchy and the Creation of the Viceroyalty of New Granada (1717-1739) PDF eBook
Author Francisco A. Eissa-Barroso
Publisher BRILL
Pages 340
Release 2016-10-05
Genre History
ISBN 9004308792

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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.