Politics, economy, and society in Bourbon Central America, 1759-1821

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Politics, economy, and society in Bourbon Central America, 1759-1821

edited by Jordana Dym & Christophe Belaubre

University Press of Colorado, c2007

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Includes bibliographical references (p. 279-302) and index

Description and Table of Contents

Description

This book examines how the Spanish policies known broadly as the Bourbon Reforms affected Central American social, economic, and political institutions. Although historians have devoted significant attention to the purpose and impact of these reforms in Spain and some of Spains other New World colonies, this book is the first to explore their impact on Central America. These reforms profoundly changed aspects of Central America's politics and society; however, these essays reveal that changes in the region were shaped both internally and externally and that they weakened the regions ties to metropolitan Spain as often as they reinforced them. Contributors focus on specific policy changes and their consequences as well as transformations throughout the region for which no direct Bourbon inspiration appears to be responsible. Together they demonstrate that whether or not the Crown achieved its primary goals of centralisation and control, its policies nevertheless provided opportunities for evident, often subtle, and occasionally unintentional shifts in the colonial governments relationship to its constituent populations.

Table of Contents

Contents Illustrations Abbreviations Introduction, Jordana Dym and Christophe Belaubre Chapter 1: Primary Education in Bourbon San Salvador and Sonsonate, 1750'1808'Sajid Alfredo Herrera Chapter 2: In the Shadow of the Great: Church Financiers' Everyday Resistance to the Bourbon Reforms, Guatemala City, 1773'1821'Christophe Belaubre Chapter 3: Bourbon Reforms and City Government in Central America, 1759'1808'Jordana Dym Chapter 4: Between Fidelity and Pragmatism: Guatemala's Commercial Elite Responds to Bourbon Reforms on Trade and Contraband'Gustavo Palma Murga Chapter 5: State Reform, Popular Resistance, and the Negotiation of Rule in Late Bourbon Guatemala: The Quetzaltenango Aguardiente Monopoly, 1785'1807'Jorge H. Gonz lez Chapter 6: The Establecimientos Costeros of Bourbon Central America, 1787'1800: Problems and Paradox in Spain's Occupation of the Atlantic Coast'Doug Tompson Chapter 7: 'Relaciones Ilicitas y Matrimonios Desiguales': Bourbon Reforms and the Regulation of Sexual Mores in Eighteenth-Century Costa Rica'Eugenia Rodriguez-S enz Chapter 8: A Bourbon Reformer During the Age of Independence: Jose de Bustamante in Central America, 1811'1818'Timothy Hawkins Chapter 9: Guatemala Social Elites on the Eve of Independence: Internal Structures and Dynamics' Michel Bertrand Conclusion, Stephen Webre About the Authors Bibliography Index

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