Revolution and Royalism in Pacific South America, 1780–1825

The Age of Revolutions historiography has evolved significantly in the past decade, in large measure as a consequence of the inclusion of the Haitian Revolution in the repertoire of revolutionary movements. For the most part, the Spanish Empire remains peripheral to these renderings of the Age of Revolutions that insist on focusing in the eighteenth century. Yet other approaches suggest that the period extends to the 1850s. This broader definition of the era encompasses the long path towards the abolition of Atlantic slavery and includes the transformations of the Iberian empires.

My paper contributes to the panel’s discussion about periodization by focusing on Pacific South America between 1780-1825, specifically the North Andean Province of Popayán. My research on New Granada’s long-lasting multi-ethnic royalist alliances explores the importance of analyzing the diversity, complexity, and impact of the politics of Indians, slaves, and free blacks during the Age of Revolutions. From the Hispanic perspective, my work speaks to the growing debate about Indian and black political thought and action in Atlantic revolutions, also contributing to the historiographical turn to incorporate the Pacific into new imperial histories of the Atlantic world. 

I join the efforts of other scholars of loyalism, one of the least understood aspects of the Age of Revolutions, whose work gives life to “the other side” of revolutionary movements in the Atlantic world.  Countering portrayals of royalism as backward or static, my work illustrates the dynamism of royalism by exploring its shifts and tensions, particularly the relationship between royalism and liberalism in the royalist territories of Pacific South America. I describe how the imperial identities that the royalists envisioned and shaped through their legal and military strategies provide evidence of competing visions of empire, independence, freedom, and revolution present in the Atlantic world between 1780 and 1825.