Families in War and Peace

Chile from Colony to Nation

Bibliographic Data

ID2814732
AuthorsMark D Szuchman (corresponding author)
Year2016
Volume96
Issue2
Pages374-376
Publication date2016-05-01
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueHispanic American Historical Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0018-2168 • E-ISSN: 1527-1900
PublisherDuke University Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1215/00182168-3484522
OpenAlexW2343850594
LanguageEN
Citations received9

This study begins with all-too-obvious premises: that war shreds to pieces the emotional and material fabric of families and that the consequences take generations to mend. Less obvious are the mechanisms by which incipient Spanish American nations undertook the processes of repair, and it is here that Sarah C. Chambers's book provides its special contribution, in its meticulous treatment of how Chilean political elites addressed the wreckage of war from independence to the mid-nineteenth century.Military struggles for independence in Spanish America often prolonged the winner/loser binary through subsequent periods of civil war that deepened enmities. Liberals and conservatives, federalists and centralists, Catholics and anticlericals all fought. Long after battles were settled, the vilification of adversaries continued through tropes feral in content and persistent in application. By contrast, Chile is presented as having taken the path of reconciliation. The discursive theme that instrumentalized reconciliation was the family, seen as a fundamentally moral and inclusively political community that defined a Chilean nation that stood above internal divisions. The term family, as Chambers observes, is frequently found within Chile's political and judicial documentation as a metaphor through which policy formulations were advocated by executive authorities, advanced by congressional legislation, and reasoned by the judiciary. Here, the book argues, rhetoric matched reality insofar as family metaphors would be reflected in political action.The author focuses on three issues central to Chilean families: policies and judicial determinations involving the disposition of properties confiscated during the independence war, the material well-being of war widows and children, and legal battles over custody and provisioning of offspring. Both royalist and patriot military commanders punished their adversaries through confiscation of properties (“sequestration”), a poorly considered strategy with long-term complications for families and the state. Claims for the restoration of sequestered properties that had been subsequently sold to third parties presented the most intractable problems. In many cases, such claims spanned generations and made judicial fairness seemingly impossible. Legislation regarding property restoration was complicated and inconsistently applied, which effectively left the matter to the courts. Cases were not fully settled until the mid-1850s, when resolution was impelled by the state's interest in successfully negotiating with Spain the consolidation of the national debt. By then, most claimants had died.The subject of pensions claimed by war widows was similarly vexing, although here the legislative process played a more decisive role. Central to military pensions was the continued use of the montepío, the colonial financial institution that administered military officers' contributions and pensions to their widows. Colonial regulations had strictly governed participants' military ranks and had established criteria for family members to be able to receive benefits. The wreckage of wars challenged policymakers to expand the pool of those who could get the benefits and to relax the requirements of claimants, all of which exposed the Treasury to unsustainable expenditures and revealed the conundrum of the early patrimonial state: how to expand protections under constricted resources. In the end, financial exigencies forced alternative measures designed to restrict eligibility, enforce more stringent requirements among claimants, and limit pension outlays.Finally, Chambers closely examines lawsuits filed in the Santiago courts between 1804 and 1855 over custody and support of offspring. While details varied considerably among the cases, several patterns are noted. The incidence of lawsuits over custody was not random: three-quarters of the cases were filed in the last 15 years of the period studied by Chambers, suggesting an increasingly contentious environment surrounding custody rights among providers. Class position and family reputations were significant components in the judges' determinations. The courts saw the child's moral environment as an important consideration, to the point that children were placed in boarding schools rather than kept with a parent deemed unsuitable, such as, for example, an unwed mother. At the same time, fathers of children born out of wedlock were rarely granted custody but were seldom released from the obligation to provide sustenance.A central argument of the book is that the Chilean state sought and garnered legitimacy by enacting policies that supported families. Thus the question is raised as to whether Chile was an exception to Spanish American experiences, in that it enjoyed relative stability after 1830. But noting the centrality of family to social organization throughout Spanish America, the author, in calling for more comparative study of the early republican years, points to the likelihood that national differences were of degree rather than kind. That may be, but if comparative research is likely to find that the family was widely seen as fundamental to social organization, the nature and efficacy of the state will be shown to vary significantly. To be sure, Sarah C. Chambers's study is not of the Chilean state itself, but the state is presented as consisting of a precociously effective tripartite constitutional sharing of power, at least by Spanish American standards. Executive leaders requested Congress to take up vital issues. The legislative venue appears to have been a fertile forum for debates. The judiciary is represented as relatively free and respected, devoid of corrosive undermining by the executive branch. Thus the challenge for future comparative research lies, in part, in studies of state organization and policymaking performance.This is a richly documented study, detailed in its findings and replete with narratives drawn from personal correspondence and thus closely grounded in the human side of violent conflict

Battle · Independence (probability theory) · Legislation · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Rhetoric · Sociology · Spanish Civil War · Theme (computing) · Historical Studies in Latin America · History · Law · Philosophy · Political and Social Dynamics in Chile and Latin America

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