La conspiración del silencio. Etnografía histórica de los cabildos del Tucumán colonial (1764-1769)

LORANDI, ANA MARÍA; SMIETNIANSKY, SILVINA

Jahrbuch für Geschichte Lateinamerikas

Böhlau Verlag

Lugar: Köln; Año: 2004 p. 65 - 90

1438-4752

The aim of this work is to depict the behaviour of members of the colonial Tucumán Town Councils ("cabildos del Tucumán colonial") by mid XVIII century. It is based on the impeachment proceedings to governor don Manuel Fernández Campero. The questionnaire has been analysed and the conditions under which life is developed in these small provincial towns have been described. We focus on the types of responses as well as silences as a hint of corporativism and rejection to the control that royal authorities intended to install over the management of local public matters. The impeachment proceedings reveal an environment of internal conflicts, concealed to agents from out of the community. The small quantity of neighbours ("vecinos") concentrated the control of the Town Council in the hands of a few families that seem to have developed both public and private businesses with no frontiers.