The Abbot, the Council, and the Viceroyalty: Court Politics and the First Creation of the Viceroyalty of New Granada, 1717–23

This paper re-examines the processes which led to the first creation (1717) and subsequent suppression (1723) of the viceroyalty of the New Kingdom of Granada by exploring the interplay between perceived local conditions and court politics which proved fundamental in determining royal policy towards Spanish America. The paper argues that while the creation of the new viceroyalty was certainly meant to address a series of perceived problems in New Granada, the timing, personnel involved and manner in which the viceroyalty was first created were a direct consequence of the power struggle taking place in Madrid between Abbot Giulio Alberoni and the Council of the Indies, from which the former emerged triumphant in early 1717. By the same token the paper shows how the suppression of the viceroyalty five years later reflected the changing balance of powers in Madrid rather than the alleged poor performance of Santa Fe’s first viceroy. The paper intends to contest the tendency, all too common among historians of colonial Spanish America, to assume that the Spanish Crown was a unified entity which produced policy by looking at perceived conditions in Spanish America through a clearly defined set of ‘royal interests’. By contrasts, it is suggested, that we should look at Madrid as a political arena where policy was often the result of internal power struggles which need to be studied in order to fully grasp the rich Atlantic dimension of the political and institutional history of colonial Spanish America.