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Visiones y revisiones de la independencia americana

2006; Duke University Press; Volume: 86; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1215/00182168-2006-005

1527-1900

Timothy Hawkins,

Argentine historical studies

For philosophical and nationalist reasons, many Latin American historians of the early nineteenth century sought to distance their respective countries from the legacy of three centuries of Spanish political, economic, and social domination. Their accounts of independence underscored an emerging and distinctive American consciousness, emphasized a clean break with Spain, and celebrated the region’s future connections to the liberal West. This view of the Latin American independence period as a well-defined pivot point between the colonial and modern history of the region remained a fixture in the historiography for the next 150 years. However, Visiones y revisiones de la independencia americana, an engaging collection of papers drawn from the Third International Colloquium of the History of America (Salamanca, 2001), makes and supports the compelling argument that historians should take advantage of the upcoming bicentennial of the collapse of the Spanish Empire in the Americas to reconsider long-standing presumptions and reassess time-worn conclusions about the period. In fact, as these papers suggest, Spanish (and Portuguese) traditions had a profound impact on the nature and trajectory of many elements of the autonomy/independence movements in the region.As Juan Carlos Garavaglia explains in the introduction, the participants hoped to bring about a deeper understanding of the period through a more detailed examination and analysis of the process of secession and the establishment of new states in the Americas. For the most part, the papers conform to this stated preference for microhistory, though at first glance the topics appear wide ranging and unconnected. Rafael Dobado González reassesses the persistent debate over the impact of Hispanic and English colonialism on economic development. Horst Pietschmann traces the emergence of a progressive strain of Spanish politics in the court of Charles III. François-Xavier Guerra analyzes the shift from “faithful vassals” to “virtuous republicans” as the myths of independence emerged in the Americas. Juan Carlos Garavaglia focuses on the emergence of new forms of political participation in the Río de la Plata. Juan Marchena Fernández studies the question of representation in the imperial Cortes and its impact on the relationship between Spaniards and Americans. José A. Piqueras Arenas reviews the loyalty of the Cuban creole elite during the wars of independence. And Carlos Guilherme Mota brings Brazil into the discussion with an essay addressing that country’s fitful decolonization process, viewed through the lens of slavery.On the surface, this thematic variety challenges the reader to construct a viable interpretive framework for the collection as a whole. However, as the introduction makes clear, the papers share the presumption that the independence process was a painful and prolonged childbirth-like transition that proved a shock to all participants and that, as in the case of Brazil, sometimes required decades to complete. In this respect, Visiones y revisiones adds important voices (many of whom deserve greater access to a North American audience) to a recent historiographic trend, illustrated by Stuart Voss’s Latin America in the Middle Period, 1750 – 1929 (Scholarly Resources, 2002), that deemphasizes the political rupture with Spain in an effort to underscore the persistence of certain “colonial” elements into the national period. At the same time, a number of the contributors directly challenge the image of Spain as an out-of-touch, reactionary, and negative influence on the American colonies. Instead, the portrait drawn by many of the papers is of a progressive metropolis that retained — with very few exceptions — the solid allegiance of its subjects until 1808, when Napoleon’s overthrow of the Spanish Bourbons produced a series of political shock waves that proved impossible to control in the long term. While the exploits of national heroes such as Simón Bolívar or José María Morelos and their followers will no doubt remain central to future histories of Latin American independence, these papers demonstrate the urgent need to reassess the role of Spain in this process. Few contemporary studies acknowledge the important point at the heart of the contribution of the late François-Xavier Guerra: that nationalist historians in Latin America constructed powerful myths to overcome the extreme uncertainty, lack of unanimity of purpose or civic consensus, and intense insecurity set in motion by the events of 1808.In the final essay, Ignacio González Casanovas summarizes the intention of the Fundación MAPFRE Tavera to mark the decade leading up to the bicentennial of the independence period by sponsoring a series of conferences, grants, a digital library, and a new general history of the independence movements. There can be no better time than the present to undertake these efforts. Despite 180 years of careful examination, the Latin American independence period remains a rich and vital area of study. A provocative and creative opening salvo in what one hopes will be an extended debate about the period, Visiones y revisiones de la independencia americana will provide specialists with many sources of inspiration for future research.