Marcela Echeverri. Indian and Slave Royalists in the Age of Revolution

Royalism in the Americas during the Age of Revolution has received greater scholarly attention in recent years. Studies of independence in Latin America increasingly recognize that many local (creole) elites had strong loyalties to empire and options for seeking reform without embracing separatist movements. In Indian and Slave Royalists in the Age of Revolution: Reform, Revolution, and Royalism in the Northern Andes, 1780–1825, Marcela Echeverri makes a major contribution to that historical literature with a deep and subtle analysis of the motivations of some non-elites—Indians and slaves of African descent—to opt for loyalty rather than revolution. Her case study of the province of Popayán in the Viceroyalty of New Granada (today Colombia) encompasses the parallel and sometimes intersecting narratives of indigenous communities, especially around Pasto, and slaves in the Pacific coast mining region around Barbacoas from the late eighteenth century through 1825. This region formed a key zone between the largely royalist western Andes, anchored by Lima, and the region of northern New Granada, where separatists established bases in cities such as Santa Fé, Cartagena, and Caracas.

Ancient history · Economic history · Empire · Ethnology · Geography · Independence (probability theory) · Indigenous · Colonialism, slavery, and trade · Historical Studies in Latin America · History · History and Politics in Latin America