Roots of Revolution: Frontier Settlement Policy and the Emergence of New Spaces of Power in the Río de la Plata Borderlands, 1777?1810

DJENDEREDJIAN, JULIO

HISPANIC AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW, THE

DUKE UNIVERSITY PRESS

Lugar: DUKE; Año: 2008 vol. 88 p. 639 - 668

0018-2168

This article examines the effects of the settlement policy that the Spanish Crown enacted in the last quarter of the eighteenth century in the Río de la Plata region, basically to guard its frontiers with Portuguese settlements. That policy involved the creation and dissemination of local instruments of power, which, in turn, allowed new actors to gain full control of these borderlands? resources. These actors were thus able to produce and accumulate remarkable wealth, due to the expansion of a cattle-export-oriented economy. This situation also resulted in the displacement of indigenous groups, who were not able to resist the pressure of the beneficiaries of the settlement policy. When that policy had shown its strategic uselessness and was discarded, these new and powerful actors were able to challenge the authority of the old viceregal capital, even defeating its armies.