absolutism & colonial americas

Lecture 01.09.25: Absolutism and the Colonial Order

The Spanish Empire in the 18th Century

• Treaty of Tordesillas: post-discovery of Americas, Spanish and Portuguese kings give lands to west to Spain, and lands to east to Portugal to avoid wars

• Spain had strong interest in Latin America, but for them, the main objective was hegemony in Europe

  • Everything they did in the Americas all went back to regaining the political and military hegemony that was lost at the beginning of the 17th century

• Spain had a lot of influence in Italy (around the boot + Milan) → but beginning of 18th century, they lost control of many areas of Italy

• The Bourbon Reforms of the 18th century aimed to allow the Spanish Kingdom to be able to compete

• In addition to Europe, the second part of the Spanish Empire was based in Asia

  • Initial aim was to build a commercial and diplomatic relationship devolved into imperialist empire

• The wars of independence at the end of the 18th century began at a point of mass expansion for the Spanish Empire

• Spain claimed a huge part of what is now the US, but control of those areas was very weak

• Both Spain and Portugal would claim what is now the Amazon basin, couldn’t decide on limits for each country so it went unexplored until the 19th century

The Spanish Empire Prior to the 18th Century

• Dominance of the Spanish Habsburgs → key rulers were Charles I, Philip II, Philip III, Philip IV, and Charles II

  • Associated with the expansion of the Spanish Empire

  • Considered themselves kings of all the regions they ruled

• Decentralized Monarchy: the king ruled over multiple kingdoms, each with its own interests in power groups (were allowed to keep their own rules and sometimes even own language); composite monarchy

• Major viceroyalties were “New Spain” (modern day Mexico and surrounding areas) and Peru

• Colonial rule was based on the fiction of “consent” – governance maintained the illusion of agreement from the colonies

  • Believed that the different kingdoms had sworn allegiance to the king, and in return the king must provide them with something

  • Both the people of the kingdom and the king were involved in a social contract

  • The Spanish elites who had settled in the Americas had truly believed that they deserved this kind of pact to be enforced

    • They were given a significant amount of colonial power → good move in terms of guaranteeing political stability, but was a bad economic decision because the elite did not take a particular interest in getting the king richer (were instead self-interested)

• The white Creole elite/Criollo were actively involved in colonial politics and religious life

• The colonial population was divided into two separate legal systems:

  • The Republic of Indians: indigenous peoples and their communities

  • The Republic of Spaniards: encompassing Spaniards, Afro-descendants, Mestizos, and Criollos

• This means that there were two different sets of laws and two different sets of justice applied in the Spanish Empire

• They wanted population to grow because that population was subject to taxation

• Spanish monarchy quickly realized that if they let those territories fall into the hands of the conquistadores, they run the risk of 

  • [1] obliterating indigenous populations (bad economically for Spain, taxes)

  • [2] those encomenderos/land owners could grow powerful enough to challenge the monarchy

• While clearly unfair and profitable for the Spanish monarchy, this legal method did allow for the continued existence of indigenous communities within their ancestral lands

  • Right after independence, Latin American countries get rid of this system

  • Thus erased indigenous claims to ancestral land because they shifted to a new, private landowner based system

    • They lost their land, and it began to be integrated into land accessible for descendents of conquistadors 

• The Jesuits and other Catholic orders were particularly powerful religious forces

  • Became the order that was most closely associated with the colonial elite

• 16th century mining boom (silver mining, especially in regions like Potosí), drove the economy before stagnation set it due to depletion of key silver veins

• Challenges in Spain: ongoing wars in Europe and population decline at home

  • Economic struggles, including inflation and fiscal crises, worsened by low colonial tax revenues

• King Charles II (“The Bewitched”), the last Habsburg ruler, died in 1700 without an heir → War of Spanish succession ensued

The Spanish Empire After the 18th Century

• War of Spanish Succession resulted in the establishment of the new Bourbon dynasty (French origin), ruled Spain for over 3 centuries

• The first three Bourbon Monarchs will start an ambitious program of reform to restore Spanish position in European and world affairs known as the “Bourbon Reforms”

  • Came from a political philosophy of Centralism and Enlightened Despotism 

  • Compacted multiple kingdoms into one empire

    • Legal and administrative restructuring of the Spanish Viceroyalties

    • Bourbon kings were trying to create a unified entity where trade and economic activity can actually grow → not possible if you have borders between each of the kingdoms, and if you have different laws governing each = trying to create a unified set of laws

    • They also create new bureaucratic positions that will be directly responsible for the king in order to enforce changes (didn’t want to leave it out to the locals)

      • Rule by “imposition”/“despotism”: the creole elite were displaced from key political positions in favor of royal officials of Peninsular origin

  • Rise of mercantilism, “liberalization” of commerce, and a hierarchical economy

    • Spain becomes exporter of raw materials and manufactured goods

  • New emphasis on education and applied sciences → new mining techniques are introduced = growth of agricultural output

  • Emphasis on population growth and expansion of the empire’s tax base

  • Close royal control of the Church and religious organizations = expulsions of the Jesuits in 1767

    • Omits the message that the king is now the one in charge

  • Alliance between Spain and France (with France increasingly as the hegemonic power)

• If the Habsburgs were in favor of a composite monarchy where every region had their own political society and laws, the Bourbons had the opposite idea: the king was the state

• The political decisions taken by King Charles IV and Ferdinand VII will play a fundamental role in the start of the Wars of Independence in Spanish America

• The Bourbon Reforms were very successful (Spain still did not surpass France and England hegemony)

  • Economic growth and improved tax base, population increase in the Americas and Spain, improved geostrategic position, further territorial expansion (maximum extension of the Spanish empire), Church and administrative reform, emphasis on applied science/“Christian” Enlightenment

• Negative effects of the reforms: slave and Indian rebellions, urban criminality, opposition to the expulsion of the Jesuits and the King’s control of the Church, foreign threats (rise of English sea power + subordinate role to French interests), radical Enlightenment, dissatisfied creoles, new geopolitical realities: American Revolution, Haitian Revolution, French Revolution, Napoleonic Wars

Political and Administrative Structure of Spanish Empire

KING

↑

Council of the Indies (Policy) + Casa de Contratación (Economy) [IN SPAIN]

↑

Viceroyalties: New Spain and Peru

↑

Audiencias + Capitanías (the subdivisions of a Viceroyalty)

↑

Corregimientos (subdivisions of an Audencia; similar to a governor)

↑

City Councils/Indian Towns and communities

Nueva Granada

• In the 18th century, there was an attempt to create a country called Gran Colombia which followed the lines of Nueva Granada

• Not possible: Nueva Granada was subdivided into many separate regions

  • Each subdivision could be associated with a very specific political elite

• When the War of Independence began, they all fought against the Spanish – but once the Spanish left, infighting began

• Viceroyalties did not always lead to a country

  • Quito and Guayaquil were able to merge into a country (Ecuador) but those in the Gran Colombia region could not

• In Venezuela, the elites in larger subdivisions began fighting among themselves for control of that territory

• Explains not only while Latin America broke up into different nations, but also why those nations oftentimes were then engulfed in civil war afterwards

The Collapse of the Spanish Empire

• Debate over whether or not the collapse of Spain was inevitable

• The Spanish Empire had already survived a legitimacy crisis in the early 1700s: the War of Spanish Succession

• There were no major systemic risks to the Spanish hegemony before the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805 (this battle did cripple the Spanish navy and its ability to project power in the Americas)

• Support for independence was low among the mainstream criollo and mestizo population before 1800

• There were few structures of self-government that could articulate a future state

• There were fears of losing control of the indigenous, black population, and castas → the example of Tupac Amaru II in Peru (1780-1782) and the Haitian Revolution (1791-1804) served as a cautionary tale of the risks of Revolution

• There was little sympathy for the French Revolution (1789-1799) in the mainstream sectors of colonial society due to the anti-clerical/anti-religious stance of the French revolutionaries

• Most criollos considered that the principles of the American Revolution (1775-1783) and representative democracy would not work in Latin America