Mexico City, 1808
Mexico City, 1808
Power, Sovereignty, and Silver in an Age of War and Revolution
In 1800 Mexico City was the largest, richest, most powerful city in the Americas, its vibrant silver economy an engine of world trade. Then Napoleon invaded Spain in 1808, desperate to gain New Spain’s silver. He broke Spain’s monarchy, setting off a summer of ferment in Mexico City. People took to the streets, dreaming of an absent king, seeking popular sovereignty, and imagining that the wealth of silver should serve New Spain and its people—until a military coup closed public debate. Political ferment continued while drought and famine stalked the land. Together they fueled the political and popular risings that exploded north of the capital in 1810.
Tutino offers a new vision of the political violence and social conflicts that led to the fall of silver capitalism and Mexican independence in 1821. People demanding rights faced military defenders of power and privilege—the legacy of 1808 that shaped Mexican history.
A valuable and timely contribution that helps the reader to consider the subject anew and go beyond a nationalism anchored in the nineteenth century.
Tutino meticulously reconstructs the class and economic factions that built and maintained the ‘Silver Metropolis’ (Mexico City) during the eighteenth century to set the stage for the tumultuous events of 1808.
Tutino’s careful reconstruction of the varied, sometimes contradictory responses of the city’s oligarchs—the greatest stakeholders in New Spain’s colonial order—to silver bonanzas, devastating droughts, rural revolts, imperial wars, and fiscal crises is illuminating.
John Tutino is a professor of history and international affairs at Georgetown University. He is also the author of Making a New World: Founding Capitalism in the Bajío and Spanish North America and The Mexican Heartland: How Communities Shaped Capitalism, a Nation, and World History, 1500-2000.
List of Illustrations
Preface: Pivotal Years and Historical Dialogues
Terms of Analysis: New Spain in Spanish America
Introduction. Imperial Crisis and Regime Transformation in the Silver Metropolis
Part I. City of Silver: Power and Social Order, 1760-1810
Chapter One. From Mexica Capital to Silver Metropolis, 1350-1770
Chapter Two. Oligarchy: Power in the Capital of Silver Capitalism
Chapter Three. In the Shadows of Power: Oligarchs, Provincials, and Professionals
Chapter Four. Getting By: Life and Work in the Barrios
Chapter Five. Keys to the City: Stabilizing Power and Inequity
Part II. The Politics of Empire, 1765-1810: From Mediation to Revolution
Chapter Six. Time of Trial: Bourbon Reforms, Regional Risings, and Regime Restoration, 1765-1771
Chapter Seven. Carrying On: War, Silver Capitalism, and Social Peace, 1770-1800
Chapter Eight. Toward Crisis: War, Revenue, Faction, and the Fall of the Monarchy, 1800-1808
Chapter Nine. Summer of Politics, 1808: Contesting Power and Popular Sovereignties
Chapter Ten. September Coup, 1808: Military Power and Imagined Revolutions
Chapter Eleven. The Fall: From Silver Capitalism to Social Revolution, 1808-1810
Conclusion. Popular Politics and Coercive Powers: Mexico and the World
Notes
Bibliography
Index
