Were empires reformable? Construction and reform of colonial societies: a comparative framework of the Spanish empire and its European rivals (17th to 20th centuries)

 

The GRIMSE has dedicated the last 25 years to the study of the construction and consolidation of colonial empires, in particular the Spanish empire of the 18th and 19th centuries. This has allowed us to open relevant fields in aspects such as tariff and tax policy, as well as colonial policy as a whole, with specialized projections around Antillean and American slavery in general or towards the history of the Philippines in its relationship with Southeast Asia, China and the Pacific world and the Hispanic world thanks to the secular galleon trade that linked it through Acapulco with the New Spanish Viceroyalty and the Peninsula. 

 

In this new stage we have decided to go even further and focus on social reforms. We are interested in exploring the capacity of its administrators and managed to conceive and carry out those reforms. In other words, the paths of social and legal thought of the time, of the work of observers from outside (travelers, diplomats, observers from other powers, natural and social scientists), to explain their nature and to try to reform conditions on some occasions and on others to alleviate the social conflict or violence that harmed metropolitan interests. Beyond those reforms that from the metropolitan administrations sought to increase the income of the State or the benefits that it has always shared with the colonial elites, we are interested in a particular reform that has been fundamental and far-reaching: the abolition of the slave trade in the Atlantic and mass slavery that completely altered the frameworks of work and political organization in America throughout the nineteenth century. These reforms destroyed interests forged over centuries from the ground up, forged a different world, but showed equally noticeable limits throughout the Americas, North Central and South, and Africa. It is necessary to explore on various levels before providing a scientifically demonstrable answer to the question/incitement formulated in such a forceful and provocative way.