Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Spanish Empire'

Volunteers of the Empire (1855-1898) explores the history of the Volunteer units that existed in Cuba, Puerto Rico, Santo Domingo, and the Philippines during the second half of the 19th century. These units were closely associated with the continuity of Spanish sovereignty, and to understandings of the empire as an extension of the Spanish Nation. The Volunteers have traditionally been considered the private militia of the Spanish colonial elite, politically conservative, and made up almost exclusively of Spaniards from the metropolis, the so-called peninsulares. This thesis challenges this view and explores the history of the Volunteers in a new light. Principally drawing on unpublished documents consulted in Spain, Cuba, and Puerto Rico (encompassing military records, letters, and memoirs), this thesis explores four main aspects: the reasons that motivated the creation of the Volunteers, the participation of colonial societies, the Volunteers’ relationship with the Spanish authorities, and their social and political cohesion. In a major revision of the existing historiography, this thesis demonstrates that both "peninsulares" and creoles participated in the Volunteers. This heterogeneity meant that the Volunteers’ relationship with the Spanish authorities fluctuated between loyalty and confrontation depending on the challenges posed to the colonial statu quo by the colonial policy designed in Madrid. The Volunteers were also diverse in social (there were "peninsulares" and creoles, working-class, middle-class and affluent members), and political terms. Conservatives, liberals, republicans, and socialists filled their ranks. The cohesive principle of the Volunteers resided in adherence to the idea of the Spanish Nation’s unity, rather than in loyalty to the imperial authorities. This thesis argues that the Volunteers can be held to represent the ambivalent relationship between Nation and Empire, something which is still poorly understood in the Spanish case despite recent advances. It reveals the existence of a loyalist sentiment among significant sectors of the colonial societies, inviting us to reconsider the political and social dimensions of the struggles for independence in the Spanish colonies.

This thesis analyses the impact of the Araucanian revolt of 1598-99 on the southernmost Spanish colonies. In North America, military posts (presidios) were the cutting edge of settlement, and the border between whites and natives separated different economies. In the Southern Cone, however, feral horses and cattle were as important to Spaniards as to Indians, and presidios were conduits draining the wealth of the Andes towards the frontier. The focus of the work is the west-to-east articulation of this border in the seventeenth century. The Great Revolt forced the Crown to establish an army on the Bio Bio. The resources needed, however, provoked recurring political struggle between its agents and Santiago's elite, since both needed access to local products and aspired to use Peru's aid as they wished. The socio-political situation thereby created defined the salient characteristics of this frontier. The conflict was ultimately resolved by creating a corridor which extended frontier activities and characteristics eastward, to Cuyo, Tucuman and the Rio de La Plata. Through this movement, the experience of Santiago was recreated until, eventually, even distant Buenos Aires was transformed into a "frontier society". That change, of course, was peculiarly appropriate for even as the Spanish frontier spread eastward, the Araucanians were driving towards the Atlantic.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, Dept. of Spanish and Portuguese, 2008.
Title from PDF t.p. (viewed on Oct. 8, 2009). Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 70-03, Section: A, page: 0890. Adviser: Steven Wagschal.

Defence date: 28 October 2019
Examining Board: Prof Regina Grafe, European University Institute (Supervisor); Prof Lucy Riall, European University Institute (Second Reader); Prof David Marcilhacy, Sorbonne Université; Dr Christian Goeschel, University of Manchester
This thesis focuses on the practice of cultural diplomacy in post-imperial contexts through the study of the Spanish-Latin American case (Hispano-Americanism) during the 1920s. It advances the concept of ‘spiritual empire’ to make sense of the weight of imperial legacies in multilateral international relations. It highlights the intangible and imagined nature of these legacies, and examines their use in foreign policy. It thus offers broader definitions of what is usually called ‘soft power’, with a specific emphasis on its European roots and on its intertwinement with empire and multilateralism during the interwar period, especially in the context of the League of Nations. The specific object of this inquiry is the set of practices of Hispano-Americanism developed under General Miguel Primo de Rivera’s authoritarian regime (1923-1930). Calls for closer relations between Spain and the Spanish-speaking American countries dated back to the late nineteenth century, in the form of intellectual pleas and some political projects. Only in the 1920s, however, was Hispano-Americanism built up as a relatively coherent set of diplomatic practices. Asking why these practices emerged in the 1920s in particular, the thesis explores this decade as a key moment for both empire and diplomacy. Building mostly on archival material from the Spanish administration, the League of Nations, and US public and private institutions, this research inserts Spanish diplomacy at the heart of the narrative of power politics in Europe and the Americas. The aim is not to prove that Spain actually mattered, but to use this specific case study to pose alternative questions about power in world politics. Rather than asking where power is, this thesis seeks to understand what power is and how it is fabricated. The notion of spiritual empire illustrates how the imperial logics of power resist the formal end of empires and are reused in the shape of diplomatic and administrative practices. It explains how Spanish diplomats and foreign-policy makers tried to hang on to a status of power granted by Spain’s imperial past. It also opens the way to diachronic comparisons between Spain’s Hispano-Americanism, Portugal’s politics of Lusophony, France’s politics of Francophony, or the British Commonwealth, among others.

This PhD thesis examines the different means through which Spain is revisiting its ex-colonial empire in the Philippines in the 21st Century. The turn of the century was an important time for Spanish international relations, as it marked the launch of a new set of foreign affairs policies towards Asia, which led to the implementation of three major political plans (2000, 2005 and 2009) for Spain to increase its visibility in Asia. This research analyses these plans, focusing on their cultural policies, which, in turn, leads to a discussion on the Spanish approach to cultural exchange in the Philippines, funding politics, and their consequences. In this context, focusing on 7 major exhibitions organised in the period 1998-2012, the ‘poetics’ (narratives and meanings) and ‘politics’ (institutional power) of those Spanish representations of the Philippines are examined. The main argument is that, even though Spain’s intention is to offer a fresh and updated look at the Philippines in exhibitions and cultural events, there is a tendency to refer back and recreate a colonial past. This implies the establishment of relationships based on an ambivalent view of the ‘other’ as both ‘familiar’ and ‘unknown’, characteristics that are closely connected to traditional colonial discourses. The focus on the ‘achievements’ of Spain as an ex-empire in Asia, and the non-problematised, non-conflicted representation of colonialism feeds into a political agenda in which Spain redefined its foreign affairs policies. Through revisiting the Philippines, Spain has represented itself as a nation with a long history in global politics. In this context, the Spanish processes of cultural representation can be understood as political tools, which are at the core of Spain’s intention of revisiting its old empire.

This thesis retells the history of the Spanish project of empire in the Pacific in the seventeenth century from the perspective of the agents of empire – principally Spanish and indigenous soldiers responsible for consolidating Spanish control over indigenous populations. Refocusing on who laboured for empire and what motivated them challenges many of the most prevalent assumptions about the nature of Spanish imperialism in the Pacific. Drawn from the multiethnic lower classes of the empire, ordinary soldiers serving in the presidios of the Philippines are shown to be for the most part unfree and unwilling participants in empire construction. A focus on the widespread participation of indigenous Filipinos in projects of conquest and defence challenges the traditional myths of the conquered-conqueror dichotomy which are still hallmarks of nationalist Filipino historiography. The prism of loyalty and disobedience helps show how both Spanish and Filipino communities oscillated between integration and resistance to empire. Although indigenous loyalty was essential to the ongoing survival of the Spanish presence in the region, the process of expanding Spanish power was curtailed by almost constant rebellion, resistance and contestation across the breadth of the archipelago. Meanwhile, conditions of deprivation, isolation and unfreedom drove Spanish soldiers to desertion and mutiny, destabilising the project of empire in their own way. A major conclusion of this thesis is that the Spanish presence in the seventeenth century Pacific was highly precarious; it was tenuous rather than hegemonic, facing almost constant conflict and contestation from both within and without. This conclusion deviates from the traditional depiction of a hegemonic empire. Extensive new archival research helps to retell this history of empire, focussing in particular on breaking down the barriers that have traditionally separated Filipinos and Spaniards within their own histories of empire.

The Napoleonic invasion of Iberia shattered the Spanish empire in 1808. The French emperor occupied Spain and forced Ferdinand VII to abdicate the throne. Once the war against the French began, most vassals also rejected the Spanish imperial government in Madrid that had recognized the change of dynasty. The implosion of the Crown severely tested the hierarchical, centralized, and interdependent nature of the empire. Historians of the Spanish Bourbon empire have rightly argued that the invasion catalyzed the emergence of the new nations from 1810 onward. Many of them, however, have failed to notice the concurrent and extraordinary efforts to reconstitute the empire--a critical history that contextualizes the decisions Spanish Americans faced in this tumultuous period.
History

This study is an attempt to challenge the conventional decline-irrationality literature in the Ottoman historiography. Conventional view presented a way of thinking that is unfavorable to the rational economic behavior as the explanatory factor for the so-called decline of Ottoman Empire. Using an explicitly comparative approach, main aim of the study is to account for the specific trajectory of the Ottoman transformation without recourse to the conventional view. Juxtaposing the Ottoman and Western experience, the traditional explanation runs through the specific trajectory of Ottoman transformation in terms of its mental inferiority with respect to the so-called Western rationale. In contradistinction, this study aims to demonstrate that the Ottoman and Spanish experiences can be analyzed within the same comparative framework without an eye to such factors as &lsquo
irrationality&rsquo
.

Through the investigation of the strategies and tactics the San Juan de Santa Cruz family used in local contexts, this study demonstrates how Spanish colonists were able to access the global economy. Beyond the construction of family and political networks, the brothers connected the peripheries of Manila- Acapulco, Veracruz, and Nueva Vizcaya in order to manage and expand their family business empire beyond the cores of Mexico City or the crown in Spain. Each chapter of the dissertation focuses on the local strategies employed by Francisco and Manuel in particular peripheries, and investigates the links created by the family between peripheral locations in an effort to access the global economy, avoiding core areas in the process. Relying on the conceptual language of Immanuel Wallerstein's world-system, but following a creative opening cracked by Andre Gunder Frank, this study posits a multi- polar world system in which there were multiple cores, namely Asia, Mexico, and Europe. Mexico is centered in this study as a core that controls aspects of Europe's access to the commanding Asian export economy. The role of peripheries within the Mexican core provides an opportunity to reevaluate the relationship of cores to peripheries, and illustrates the role of merchant- bureaucrats, located in the Americas, in the early modern world economy.

British relations with the United States during the period 1895 to 1902 shifted from an attitude defined by suspicion and hostility to one of friendship. The relationship endured three main trials; the Venezuelan boundary crisis, the Spanish-American War, and simultaneous colonial struggles; the United States in the Philippines and Great Britain in South Africa. What developed was a greater mutual understanding, laying foundations for the enduring special relationship of the twentieth century. Public opinion was critical to the development of the relationship with the United States, especially in view of existing suspicions and conflicting interest groups in both countries. Great Britain, with her naval power and the vast resources of the British Empire, was undoubtedly the most powerful nation-state for much of the nineteenth century, and had stood in 'Splendid Isolation' secure in the knowledge that each threat to her supremacy could be met in turn. However, in the latter years of the century, over-stretched from her imperial possessions, Britain faced more serious threats to her security and increasing demands for a formal relationship with a power with similar interests, the United States was advanced as that partner. The Spanish-American War was a brief but successful war for the United States of America, eclipsing the bad memories of the civil war. A renewed belief in the republic was instilled, and with it an end to the isolationist characteristic of American foreign policy from the time of Washington's farewell address. The Spanish-American War was also a turning point in the relations between the United States and Great Britain. This has prompted several historians to examine why the two nations, over a relatively short period, managed to settle their differences. Most studies of Anglo-American relations at the turn of the century have centred upon the diplomatic overtures. Others examining public opinion have focused upon the reaction of the London press. While providing valuable insight into opinion prevalent in the capital of the British Empire they neglect to examine British attitudes outside of the centre, in particular in Scotland. Scottish public opinion, within the larger British context, towards the Spanish-American War and American Imperialism, provides an insight into the growth of Anglo-American relations from a new perspective.

Gambling in the United States has been in existence since the 1800’s. For over two hundred years, gambling has brought in revenue and entertainment for consumers in the United States. As the population has diversified and the technology has advanced, the access to gambling has grown to be convenient and accessible for the consumer to enjoy. The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore the barriers and motivators from gamblers who sought recovery programs in Spanish. Fourteen current members of Spanish Gamblers Anonymous group were interviewed in small focus groups. The findings indicated that those who sought Spanish recovery programs underwent obstacles that where beyond finding and attending a program. Many barriers stood in their way including struggle with emotional feelings, language barriers, expectations of program, and inadequate support and resources. The majority of those interviewed did not seek the program entirely on their own behalf and the primary reason was not due to loss of money alone. This study reveals the emotional loss and personal gain from each participant. The lack of resources and poor public relations for problem gamblers who wish to attend meetings in Spanish continues to be a problem in the Inland Empire of Southern California, home of an ever growing population of Spanish speaking individuals and also home to some of the most visited casinos in Southern California.

During the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) a mix of right-wing ideologies existed among the Francoist forces. In sharp contrast with the Republican forces, the Francoist insurgents were successful in banding together despite their ideological differences. However, in the postwar era, this relative unity gave way to a struggle among the different ideological positions, each striving to impose its agenda for the new State. The party Falange Española Tradicionalista y de las Juntas de Ofensiva Nacional Sindicalista (FET y de las JONS) assumed power, but was not entirely successful in advancing its totalitarian project, which it had inherited from the prewar FE de las JONS party. Unsatisfied with this outcome, staunch Falangists employed political strategies to squelch the opposition of the military, conservatives, royalists and the Church, whose ideals differed in many ways. The purpose of this dissertation is to demonstrate how the political strategies used by the Falangists against opposing factions are mirrored in the cultural sphere, especially in literary and cinematographic portrayals of war. The propagandistic nature of these works is reflected in their narrative structures and literary characters, as in what Susan Suleiman refers to as “authoritarian fictions.” This study examines the ways in which Falangists propaganda exploits distinct features of the Rif War, the Civil War, and the Second World War, in order to promote key parts of the Nationalist Syndicalist ideology endorsed by core Falangists. This essay traces the transformation of these authoritarian narrative schemes as the hegemonic political position of National Syndicalism begins to deteriorate. In response to this unwelcome political change, Falangists propaganda becomes increasingly critical toward the other ideological positions of the Francoist Regime. This dissertation thus shows the way in which shifting political tides are mirrored in the cultural production of Falangist propaganda.

Throughout the history of international law, there have been diverse interpretations about the nature of Francisco de Vitoria’s ideas. Among the most influential are Critical Legal Studies’ views. According to them, Francisco de Vitoria was the founder of an international legal discourse that was ethnocentric, pro-colonial and imperialistic. As an original contribution to the study of international legal ideas and contrary to CLS interpretations, this study demonstrates that Vitoria’s international normative doctrines were a 16th century effort to promote universal ideas, which had some ethnocentric and pro-colonial distortions. This study considers the importance of the philosophical, theological and anthropological dimensions of Vitoria’s international legal doctrines. It analyses Vitoria’s views on the status of indigenous people, especially the Inca, in the 16th century historical context of the Spanish conquest of indigenous nations. Vitoria’s doctrine on the human nature of indigenous people was the foundation for his recognition of the existence of political communities in the New World, and the participation of indigenous nations in the international community. Vitoria’s rejection of medieval doctrines, on the universal authority of the pope, was the foundation for his dismissal of Spanish legal instruments, such as the Requerimiento, which justified the conquest of the Inca and other indigenous nations. Vitoria’s doctrines on the natural law of nations’ norms of trade, travel and evangelism were a central aspect of his normative justification for the Spanish presence in the New World. In the 16th century Spanish intellectual context, these norms were not inherently ethnocentric. However, because of Vitoria’s disregard of the consequences of the implementation of these norms in the historical context of the Spanish-indigenous nations’ international relations, they could have served to justify the Spanish conquest and colonization of the New World. This study shows that Vitoria’s most compelling justification for the Spanish use of force was the ending of the indigenous custom of human sacrifice, which was a violation of the right to life in the internal jurisdictions of indigenous nations.

Rezensiertes Werk: Benaim: Annette: Sixteenth-Century Judeo-Spanish Testimonies. An Edition of Eighty-four Testimonies from the Sephardic Responsa in the Ottoman Empire. - Leiden: Brill 2012. XXVI. 576 S. - (= Études sur le Judaïsme Médiéval, Bd. 52)

My dissertation examines the transmission and establishment of the institution of slavery from medieval Iberia into the expanding Spanish Empire and its subsequent development. This involves understanding the dynamic interactions between the law, imperial institutions, slave owners, and the enslaved. I embarked upon this subject in response to a lacuna of historical knowledge of the transition and development of slavery as it moved between the Iberian Kingdoms and took root in the expanding Atlantic Empires. Without understanding the medieval background of imperial law it is impossible to understand the particular development of the institution of slavery in Spanish America.
History

The Spanish colonisation of the Philippines in 1565 opened up trade between China, Latin America and Europe via the Pacific crossing, changing the history of global trade forever. The traditional understanding of the early colonial period in the Philippines suggests that colonial control spread rapidly and peacefully across the islands, ushering in dramatic changes to the social, political and economic environment of the archipelago. This dissertation argues by contrast that the extent of Spanish control has been overstated - partially as a by-product of an over-reliance on religious and secular chronicles that sought to magnify the role and interests of the colonial state. Through extensive archival work examining different sites of colonial authority and power, I demonstrate that Philippine communities contested and limited the nature of colonisation in their archipelago. In making this argument, I challenge prevalent assumptions of indigenous passivity in the face of imperial expansion. By demonstrating the agency of Southeast Asians, particular actors come to the fore in each of the chapters: Chinese labourers, indigenous elites, fugitives and apostates, unpacified mountain communities, native priestesses and Moro slave raiders. The culture and social organisation of these Southeast Asian communities impacted on the nature of Spanish imperialism and the capacity for the Spanish to retain and extend their control. Throughout the seventeenth century, the Spanish presence within the archipelago was always tenuous. A number of communities remained outside of Spanish control for the duration of the century, while still others oscillated between integration and rebellion, by turns participating in and resisting the consolidation of empire. These communities continued to maintain their local and regional economies and customs. Thus, by the end of the seventeenth century, imperial control remained fragmented, partial and incomplete. The dissertation contributes not only to the historiography of the Philippines - which remains under-explored - but also to the historiographies of Colonial Latin America, Southeast Asia and early modern empires. Conceptualising the Philippines as a frontier space helps to overturn the foundations of the myth of a completed conquest. This dissertation thus raises questions about the inevitability of empire by arguing that indigenous communities were active respondents to Spanish colonisation attempts and that indigenous traditions and culture in this region were both resilient and enduring in the face of colonial oppression.

This thesis examines Anglo-French perceptions of power within the context of the rise of the United States of America. It uses several overlapping events falling within a moment at the end of the nineteenth century (1898-1899) - the Spanish-American War, the Dreyfus Affair and the Fashoda crisis - to explore various British and French actors' perceptions of national power, decline, and international competition. It draws heavily on diplomatic material, but its methodology is primarily cultural. It examines ways in which various cultural assumptions affected perceptions of power and global events. It takes a particular interest in the relationship between ideas about gender and dimensions of national power. It focuses on contemporary preoccupations and assumptions, whether spoken or unspoken, and argues that they could prove determinative. External realities were refracted into perceptions that in turn drove prescriptions and policy. The thesis juxtaposes perspectives from multiple states, thereby contextualizing or comparing British, French and occasionally American preoccupations with those of their transatlantic contemporaries. It draws upon archival sources which previously have been under-examined or approached from different perspectives and research priorities. Its exploration of the cultural dimensions of thought about national power and success is grounded in an awareness of the analysis and actions of certain diplomats and politicians involved in the more practical business of international affairs. Conversely, diplomatic and other records are situated within their cultural milieu, to better understand the context in which views about the international order were shaped. The thesis necessarily makes excursions into the history of emotions, since its actors' political analyses at times appear entangled and aligned with their emotional responses. The thesis therefore serves as an example of an international history that integrates diplomatic with cultural and emotional elements and demonstrates their mutual illumination.

The PhD project Siblings Overseas aims to contribute to the global urban history of Hispanic grid cities, building connections between practices, morphologies, and ideas from both shores of the Atlantic Ocean. This line of research has its precedent in the previous work Granada Des-Granada, published in Colombia in 2018 (Ed. Uniande9, which offered a survey on Muslim medinas and the evolution of Christian grid cities between the 11th and 15th centuries. Siblings Overseas takes over where Granada Des-Granada ended and focuses on grid cities founded in Spanish domains during the early modern period. After the first fortified settlements in the American coastline were created, the 16th century brought diverse transformations to Spanish colonial new towns both in the Iberian Peninsula, the Mediterranean, and the American frontier. Urban laws and foundational acts gained relevance, shifting the main urban efforts in America from fortified positions in the early 1500s to open grid cities in the 1530s. Despite the ample literature studied this phenomenon in America, its presence in Europe and the Mediterranean has received less attention. Spanish archives conserve original 16th-century settlement books and logs of several cities founded in the Iberian south and the former Andalusian frontier, which have been studied and transcribed by local historians who signaled their familiarity with their American sisters. No comparative analysis has been developed in this sense, keeping these "Andalusian colonies" away from international historiography. The objective of this dissertation is to present an in-depth comparative study of European and American urban plantation protocols, focusing on unfortified new towns whose foundational processes evolved during the 16th century. The general hypothesis is that Spanish practices for the plantation of cities in Europe and America present a set of shared aspects based on their common frame of laws, institutions, agents, and beliefs. These elements were in constant evolution in both shores of the Atlantic due to their dynamic socio-political situation. Their similarities and differences have been studied and evidenced through the analysis of primary written sources, historical cartographies, and detailed foundational records. The urban grid is the most visible of these cities’ traits, even an archetypical one; but it did not operate by itself. The evidence presented in Siblings Overseas show that there was no pre-established model for all these new towns around the global Spanish Empire, but a shared set of urban protocols organically applied in diverse contexts. The leading case of study in this project is the foundational process of four new towns in Sierra Sur de Jaen (Andalusia), which took place between 1508 and 1539 and includes the settlements of Mancha Real, Valdepeñas de Jaén, Los Villares, and Campillo de Arenas. Sierra Sur was the main friction point between the kingdoms of Jaen and Granada during the last centuries of the Reconquista, making it a strategic territory for colonization after the Granada War (1582-92). Available primary sources are mainly written documents: instructions for founding agents, judicial processes, lawsuits over land rights, independence privileges, etc. Only one of the four foundational plans survives but is well conserved and show with precision the layout of streets and the distribution of urban parcels. American cases include two cities, both influenced by urban principles stated in the Indies Laws. This legal body reunites edicts from the earliest 16th century until its publication in 1681, each with its respective date and ordering king/queen. Its analysis shows how Laws enacted by monarchs like the Catholic Kings, Juana I, Charles V, and Philip II recommend the same principles and rules for America as those applied in Sierra Sur. However, official records and foundational plans of most early Spanish colonial settlements have not survived. The oldest partition plan conserved of an American foundation is the one of Mendoza, first Spanish city in the province of Cuyo (1561-2), originally under the jurisdiction of Capitanía General de Chile and later included in the Viceroyalty of La Plata (Argentina). Mendoza was founded in two acts,with plans and written records conserved for each of them at the Archivo General de Indias (Seville). The second American case is Villa de Leyva in the Kingdom of New Granada (Colombia), firstly planted in 1572 and then moved in 1582. The foundational acts conserved for this city are some of the oldest in Colombia and South America. Villa de Leyva depended on Tunja's jurisdiction, forty kilometers away, in the same manner that Sierra Sur's new towns were under the authority of Jaen.
El Proyecto de doctorado Siblings Overseas tiene como objetivo contribuir a la historia urbana global de las ciudades hispanas en retícula, construyendo conexiones entre prácticas, morfologías e ideas provenientes de ambas orillas del océano Atlántico. Esta línea de trabajo tiene un precedente directo en el trabajo previo Granada Des-Granada, publicado en Colombia en 2018 (Ed. Uniandes), en donde se ofrecía una exploración del urbanismo de medina islámica y grilla cristiana en España entre los siglos XI y XV. Siblings Overseas toma el relevo donde Granada Des-Granada terminó, concentrándose en ciudades de trama ortogonal fundadas en reinos españoles durante la modernidad temprana. Tras la creación de los primeros asentamientos costeros fortificados en América, el siglo XVI trajo consigo diversas transformaciones urbanas en ciudades de tipo colonial creadas tanto en la Península Ibérica y el contexto mediterráneo como en la frontera americana. Leyes urbanas y actas fundacionales ganaron relevancia, redirigiendo los principales esfuerzos urbanos en América desde las posiciones fortificadas de principios de la década de 1500 a los asentamientos reticulares abiertos en la década de 1530. A pesar de la amplia literatura existente en cuanto al estudio de este fenómeno en América, su presencia en Europa y el Mediterráneo ha recibido mucha menos atención. Diversos archivos españoles conservan libros y registros de fundación originales de diversas ciudades del siglo XVI creadas en el sur ibérico y la antigua frontera andaluza, los cuales han sido estudiados transcritos y estudiados por historiadores locales que han señalado su familiaridad con sus “hermanas” americanas. Sin embargo, ningún análisis comparativo ha sido desarrollado en este sentido, manteniendo así a las fundaciones “coloniales” andaluzas del XVI apartadas de la historiografía internacional. El objetivo de esta tesis doctoral es presentar un estudio comparativo profundo entre protocolos de fundación de ciudades aplicados en Europa y América, concentrándose en ciudades de nueva planta no fortificadas cuyos procesos fundacionales se desarrollaron a lo largo del siglo XVI. La hipótesis general se basa en la idea de que las prácticas fundacionales españolas aplicadas en Europa y América presentan una serie de aspectos comunes basados en su marco legal compartido a nivel de leyes, instituciones, agentes y creencias, entre otros factores. A lo largo del siglo XVI, estos elementos experimentaron una evolución constante a ambos lados del Atlántico dada su divergente situación sociopolítica. Sus similitudes y diferencias han sido estudiadas y evidenciadas en este proyecto a través del análisis de fuentes escritas de carácter notarial, registros de procesos de fundación, así como mapas y cartografías históricas. La grilla urbana es la más visible de estas características comunes, incluso la más arquetípica, más sin embargo no operaba por si misma. La evidencia presentada en Siblings Overseas demuestra que no existía ningún modelo preestablecido para todas estas ciudades a lo largo del imperio español global, sino más bien una serie de protocolos urbanos comunes aplicados orgánicamente en contextos diversos que arrojaban, por tanto, resultados igualmente diversos. El caso de estudio principal de este proyecto es el proceso fundacional de cuatro ciudades de nueva planta en la Sierra Sur de Jaén (Andalucía) llevado a cabo entre 1508 y 1539 y que incluye las poblaciones de Mancha Real, Valdepeñas de Jaén, Los Villares y Campillo de Arenas. Sierra Sur había sido el principal punto de fricción entre los reinos de Jaén y Granada durante los últimos siglos de la Reconquista, haciendo de ella un territorio altamente estratégico de cara a ser colonizado tras la Guerra de Granada (1482-1492). Las fuentes primarias disponibles al respecto de este proceso fundacional son principalmente documentos escritos: instrucciones impuestas a los agentes fundadores, procesos judiciales, demandas sobre derechos de propiedad de la tierra, privilegios de independencia, etc. Sólo uno de los cuatro planos fundacionales de estas villas ha sobrevivido, si bien se encuentra bien conservado y muestra con precisión la distribución de vías y parcelas urbanas. El grupo de casos americanos incluidos en este trabajo consta principalmente de dos ciudades, ambas influenciadas por los principios urbanos recogidos más adelante en las llamadas Leyes de Indias. Este cuerpo legal reúne edictos y normas emitidas desde principios del siglo XVI hasta su compilación en 1681. En dicha edición, cada ley o norma incluye una nota indicativa de la fecha en que fue hecha oficial y el monarca a cargo de su firma. Su análisis muestra cómo las leyes aprobadas por reyes y reinas tales como los Reyes Católicos, Juana I, Carlos V o Felipe II recomendaba los mismos principios y reglas para América que ya se venían aplicando en la Sierra Sur. A pesar de la existencia de esta base legal común abundantemente documentada, casi ningún asentamiento colonial de primera generación en América conserva documentación de su fundación. El plan de repartimiento colonial americano más antiguo que se conserva es el de Mendoza (1561-2), la primera ciudad española en la provincia de Cuyo, originalmente en la jurisdicción de la Capitanía General de Chile y más adelante integrada en el Virreinato de La Plata con capital en Buenos Aires, hoy Argentina. Mendoza fue fundada a través de dos actas distintas, cada una con sus propios registros y planos conservados en el Archivo General de Indias, Sevilla. El segundo caso americano es Villa de Leyva, en el Reino de Nueva Granada (Colombia), fundada por primera vez en 1572 y más adelante desplazada a una nueva localización en 1582. Las actas de fundación que conserva esta ciudad son algunas de las más antiguas tanto de Colombia como de América Latina, con Mendoza como antecedente cercano en el tiempo más no en el espacio. Villa de Leyva dependía de la jurisdicción de Tunja, a cuarenta kilómetros de distancia, de un modo similar a como las nuevas fundaciones de la Sierra Sur dependían de la autoridad provincial en Jaén

Conquises par les forces hispaniques au seuil du XVIe siècle, les places d’Oran et de Mers el-Kébir accueillirent une expérience frontalière originale aux portes du Maghreb. Depuis ses premières heures jusqu’à nos jours, ce presidio a souffert d’une considération ambiguë et biaisée. En effet, plusieurs témoignages historiques et les discours historiographiques dominants, à l’instar du paradigme de l’« occupation restreinte », ont ensemble consolidé le recours aux concepts du déclin, de l’échec, de la crise ou de l’obsolescence pour définir et analyser l’entreprise et l’expérience hispaniques à Oran et la situation plus générale de l’empire hispanique à partir du tournant des XVIe et XVIIe siècles. Tout aurait été dit dès lors, nul besoin de s’attarder en profondeur sur ce qu’il advint après ce tournant chronologique.Le premier objet de ce travail consiste à décrypter les fondements scientifiques, les hiérarchisations ou les partis-pris plus idéologiques sur lesquels se sont appuyés ces discours, afin de mettre en avant les filtres posés sur l’histoire du presidio d’Oran et de Mers el-Kébir. Une corrélation et un enchevêtrement loin d’être anodins peuvent alors être perçus entre les discours sur l’Espagne ou sur la Monarchie Hispanique, sur la Méditerranée et sur l’Afrique du Nord qui défendent l’idée d’une crise ou d’un déclin depuis la fin du XVIe siècle. Une recherche affranchie de ces filtres a été entreprise dans les archives et les bibliothèques espagnoles, principalement, à la lumière des avancées historiographiques plus ou moins récentes nuançant les connaissances établies sur la Méditerranée, la Monarchie Hispanique, les sociétés maghrébines ou les grandes puissances islamiques de l’Époque moderne. Les sources alors consultées livrent d’autres témoignages que le déclin, l’échec ou la crise.Depuis le zénith de la première occupation hispanique d’Oran et de Mers el-Kébir, à savoir le tournant des XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles, période relativement esquivée des études, cette enquête propose une histoire alternative fondée sur une focale d’abord méditerranéenne (et ibéro-maghrébine) puis hispanique du sujet et sur une conception des situations et des phénomènes frontaliers attentive aux effets de porosité et d’incertitude. Au rebours d’une majorité des conclusions du paradigme de l’« occupation restreinte », un autre visage de l’entreprise et des expériences hispaniques frontalières a été mis à jour. Pour dépasser l’enclavement géographique et historiographique du presidio, cette enquête s’est montrée attentive aux différentes manifestations et expansions du « royaume d’Oran », un vaste système humain et matériel dans lequel s’inscrivait le projet hispanique dans l’Ouest algérien. Compte tenu de l’instabilité et de l’incertitude fondamentales de cette charnière de la Méditerranée occidentale, la Monarchie Hispanique sous Charles II de Habsbourg et Philippe V de Bourbon, elle-même soumise aux vicissitudes d’une longue et heurtée résilience, s’est engagé dans un projet de domination frontalière ajusté à ses propres ressources et aux circonstances endurées. Loin d’être anachronique et incohérent, ce projet frontalier mérite une analyse plus profonde de ses résultats. De sorte que jamais, le presidio d’Oran et de Mers el-Kébir ne fut abandonné, ni enclavé au sein de l’empire hispanique. Cette enquête propose en ce sens une première approche de la constellation des forces variées qui contribuèrent à la sauvegarde du presidio jusqu’à la défaite lors du siège de 1707-1708
Conquered by the Hispanic Monarchy at the very beginning of the 16th century, the places of Oran and Mers el-Kébir hosted an original border experience at the gates of the Maghreb. From its early moments to the present days, that presidio has been suffering from an ambiguous and biased consideration. Indeed, several historic records and the predominant historiographical discourses have both strengthened the solution of the concepts of decline, failure, crisis or obsolescence to describe and analyze the Hispanic undertaking and experience in Oran and the more general situation of the Spanish Empire at the turn of the 17th and 18th century. Everything would have been said then; there would be no need to linger deeply over what happened after that chronological turn.The first purpose of work consists in decrypting the scientific principles, the creation of hierarchies or the bias more ideological on which these discourses have been based, in order to unveil the filters laid upon the history of the presidio of Oran and Mers el-Kébir. A correlation and an entanglement, far from being insignificant, can in that case be perceived between the discourses about Spain or the Hispanic Monarchy, about the Mediterranean and about North Africa which defend the idea of a crisis or a decline since the end of the 16th century. An investigation freed from those filters has been undertaken mainly among the Spanish archives and libraries, in the light of the more or less recent historiographical advances which discuss the established knowledge about the Mediterranean, the Hispanic Monarchy, the North-African societies or the great Islamic powers of the Early Modern times. The pieces of archives read provide other accounts than decline, failure or crisis.From the zenith of the first Hispanic occupation of Oran and Mers el-Kébir, namely at the turn of the 17th and the 18th centuries, a period which has been quite avoided by the researches, this investigation suggests an alternative history first based on a Mediterranean (and Iberian-North-African) insight and then on an Hispanic one and based on conception of border situations and phenomena mindful of the effects of porosity and uncertainty. Contrary to most of the conclusions of the paradigm of the “occupation restreinte”, another image of the Hispanic border undertaking and experiences has been revealed. To go beyond the geographical and historiographical enclaving of that presidio, this investigation pays attention to the different manifestations and expansions of the “kingdom of Oran”, a wide human and material system into which entered the Hispanic project in West Algeria. Given the fundamental instability and uncertainty of that crossroad region of the Western Mediterranean, the Hispanic Monarchy under Charles II of Habsburg and Philippe V of Bourbon, itself subjected to the vicissitudes of a long and jolting resilience, embarked on a project of border domination which had been adjusted to its own resources and to the circumstances endured. Far from being anachronistic and incoherent, that border project deserves a deeper analysis of its results. So that the presidio of Oran and Mers el-Kébir had never been abandoned nor isolated from the Spanish Empire. To that extent, this investigation suggests a first approach of the galaxy of the varied forces compromised in the conservation of the presidio until the defeat during the siege of 1707-1708

L’esercito italiano e la conquista della Catalogna (1808-1811) Uno studio di Military Effectiveness nell’Europa napoleonica Settori scientifico-disciplinari SPS/03 – M-STO/02 La ricerca ha lo scopo di ricostruire e valutare l’effettività militare dell’esercito italiano al servizio di Napoleone I. In primo luogo attraverso un’analisi statistica e strategica della costruzione, e del successivo impiego, dell’istituzione militare del Regno d’Italia durante gli anni della sua esistenza (1805-14); successivamente, è stato scelto un caso di studi particolarmente significativo, come la campagna di Catalogna (1808-11, nel contesto della guerra di Indipendenza spagnola), per poter valutare il contributo operazionale e tattico dei corpi inviati dal governo di Milano e la loro integrazione con l’apparato militare complessivo del Primo Impero. La tesi ha voluto rispondere alla mancanza di studi sul comportamento in guerra dell’esercito italiano e, allo stesso tempo, introdurre nella storiografia militare italiana la metodologia di studi, d’origine anglosassone e ormai di tradizione trentennale, di Military Effectiveness. La ricerca si è primariamente basata, oltre che sulla copiosa memorialistica a stampa italiana e francese, sulla documentazione d’archivio della Secrétairerie d’état impériale (Archives Nationales di Pierrefitte-sur-Seine, Parigi), del Ministère de la Guerre francese (Service historique de la Défence, di Vincennes, Parigi) e del Ministero della Guerra del Regno d’Italia (Archivio di Stato di Milano). Dal punto di vista dei risultati è stato possibile verificare come l’esercito italiano abbia rappresentato, per Bonaparte, uno strumento duttile e di facile impiego, pur in un contesto di sostanziale marginalità numerica complessiva di fronte alle altre (e cospicue) forze messe in campo da parte dell’Impero e dei suoi altri Stati satellite e alleati. Per quanto riguarda la campagna di conquista della Catalogna è stato invece possibile appurare il fondamentale contributo dato dal contingente italiano, sotto i punti di vista operazionale e tattico, per la buona riuscita dell’invasione; questo primariamente grazie alle elevate caratteristiche generali mostrate dallo stesso, ma anche per peculiarità disciplinari e organizzative che resero i corpi italiani adatti a operazioni particolarmente aggressive.
The Italian Army and the Conquest of Catalonia (1808-1811) A Study of Military Effectiveness in Napoleonic Europe Academic Fields and Disciplines SPS/03 – M-STO/02 The research has the purpose of reconstruct and evaluate the military effectiveness of the Italian Army existed under the reign of Napoleon I. Firstly through a statistic and strategic analysis of the development, and the following deployment, of the military institution of the Kingdom of Italy in the years of its existence (1805-14). Afterwards, a particularly significant case study was chosen, as the campaign of Catalonia (1808-11, in the context of the Peninsular War), in order to assess the operational and tactical contribution of the regiments sent by the Government of Milan and their integration in the overall military apparatus of the First Empire. The thesis wanted to respond to the lack of studies on the Italian army’s behavior in war and, at the same time, to introduce the methodology of the Military Effectiveness Studies (of British and American origin and, by now, enriched by a thirty-year old tradition) in the Italian historiography. The research is primarily based, besides the numerous memoirs of the Italian and French veterans, on the archive documentation of the Secrétairerie d’état impériale (Archives Nationales of Pierrefitte-sur-Seine, Paris), of the French Ministère de la Guerre (Service historique de la Défence, of Vincennes, Paris) and of the Italian Ministero della Guerra (Archivio di Stato di Milano). About the results, it has been verified how the Italian army has become a flexible and suitable instrument for Bonaparte, albeit in a context of substantial overall numerical marginality in comparison to the heterogeneous forces available to the Empire and its others satellites and allied states. Regarding the campaign of Catalonia, instead, it was possible to ascertain the fundamental contribution of the Italian regiments, in an operational and tactical perspective, for the success of the invasion. This was primarily due to the excellent general characteristics shown by the expeditionary force, but also to disciplinary and organizational peculiarities that have made the Italian corps suitable for particularly aggressive operations.

L'antispagnolismo in Italia tra storiografia (XVIII-XIX sec.) e letteratura (XVI-XVII sec.); antispagnolismo e decadenza nel Settecento; antispagnolismo tra libertà e indipendenza nazionale nell'Ottocento; la tematizzazione dell'antispagnolismo nella letteratura: pensiero politico e scelte stilistiche di Traiano Boccalini

My dissertation, Making Imperial Futures: Concepts of Empire in the Anglo-Spanish Sphere, 1763-71, engages the grand narrative of exploration at the point at which that very concept was reaching the point of exhaustion and argues that the rough completion of European cartographical knowledge of the world had a profound impact on the evolution of the imperial experience. I examine the evolving concept of empire within a context of cross-imperial knowledge and rivalry, Enlightenment ideals and the changing ways in which Europeans related to the concept of a progressive future. Furthermore, I challenge the historiographically dominant notion that the British and Spanish experiences of empire are best categorized and isolated as distinct historical subjects. The first section shows that British successes in the Seven Years’ War energised the British imperial imagination, generating a broad-based debate on how best to exploit the situation and opening up the opportunity to put more than one approach into action when Britain and Spain went to war in 1762. But the Peace of Paris brought discord, and a perceived need for the government to discipline the imperial imagination and to establish an approved pathway for the future of empire in the Atlantic world. The second part looks at how the Spanish government applied state power in direct pursuit of the pan-Atlantic imperial project. In particular, it re-examines the expulsion of the Jesuits from the Spanish empire in 1767 and makes the argument that the expulsion was a response to the perceived Jesuit threat to pan-Atlantic imperial norms. My third section suggests that the experimental burst of modern, state-centric imperialism that began in the wake of the Seven Years’ War suffered a reversal during the Falklands Crisis of 1770-1, during the general historical moment in which Europeans finished constructing their shared cartographical conception of the world. Although the growth of state power and impetus was temporarily reversed to some extent in the 1770s, this period helps prefigure the more extensive shift from empires primarily based on exploration and tenuous consolidation to empires that depended on dense, active exploitation to lend validity to their ontological claims.

During the ten years following the Spanish American War (1898 to 1908), Major General Leonard Wood served as the primary agent of American imperialism. Wood was not only a proconsul of the new American Empire; he was a symbol of the empire and the age in which he served. He had the distinction of directing civil and military government in Cuba and the Philippines where he implemented the imperial policies given to him by the administrations of William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt. In Cuba, he labored to rebuild a state and a civil society crippled by decades of revolutionary ferment and guided the administration's policy through the dangerous channels of Cuban politics in a way that satisfied – at least to the point of avoiding another revolution – both the Cubans and the United States. In the Philippines, Wood took control of the Moro Province and attempted to smash the tribal-religious leadership of Moro society in order to bring it under direct American rule. His personal ideology, the imperial policies he shepherded, and the guidance he provided to fellow military officers and the administrations he served in matters of colonial administration and defense shaped the American Empire and endowed it with his personal stamp.

This dissertation is about the long-distance navigators who constructed a global marine world as agents of the sixteenth-century Spanish maritime empire. The hard-won pragmatic and empirical expertise on which they relied developed in an uneasy tension with the priorities of the bureaucracy centered at the Casa de la Contratación in Seville. In the Atlantic, bureaucratic standardization driven by the Casa made commercial ocean travel increasingly routine, while exploratory sailors, particularly in the Pacific, continued to apply their expertise in unknown and unpredictable waters. The quotidian and the pragmatic defined these long-distance mariners’ relationship to their environment. They organized space into networks of knowable pathways that connected places identified by names and markers that communicated the sailors’ experience to future navigators; they interpreted local conditions based on inferences from distant stimuli and ocean-scale systems; and they introduced their natural and human surroundings to metropolitan and colonial scholars and administrators. The resources and instruments developed by the Casa informed these practices, but voyages of discovery always remained outside of direct institutional control from Seville. This relationship—between the local, individual, and contingent on the one hand and the universal, bureaucratic, and synthetic on the other—not only defined the dynamics of intellectual authority governing scientific endeavors under the Spanish monarchy, but also shaped strategies for projecting imperial claims across areas of uneven and limited physical control, whether marine or terrestrial. Reevaluating the balance between marine and terrestrial territorial claims recasts the Americas as a waypoint into the Pacific and beyond for the globally-aware westward gaze of Spanish imperial ambition. More fundamentally, it highlights the multicentric and networked arrangement of power in the early modern period by refocusing our attention on those islands, whether literal or figurative, of physical Spanish presence surrounded by spaces of hypothetical control. The Spanish empire’s maritime orientation during the sixteenth century developed the intellectual, political, and institutional strategies to balance and resolve these tensions between embodied and archival knowledges, local contingencies and universal frameworks that defined the distribution of power under the Spanish monarchy.
text

The Western Ledge Reef Wreck, discovered and later excavated in Bermuda between 1989 and 1991, is a prime example of Iberian shipbuilding within a broader Atlantic context. Operating during the late 16th-century, arguably one of the most fascinating periods of Spanish maritime history, the ship epitomizes the culture and technology identified with the celebrated fleets of the Carrera de Indias. By combining the new and previously unavailable data with that of the original reports, this dissertation outlines the structural details of this small utilitarian vessel which plowed the Atlantic Ocean between Spain and the Spanish America. Regarded as one of the better preserved Iberian shipwrecks in the New World, the hull timbers were disassembled and raised to the surface for detailed recording and analysis; the most comprehensive being the study and reconstruction presented in this dissertation. This data not only illustrates the transition from late medieval ship construction founded on the unempirical and intuitive style of local shipwrights to that of the geometrically- and scientific-rooted Renaissance design philosophy, but also to a frame-led assembly sequence. The hull remains and associated cultural material excavated from the site prove to be an important 16th- and 17th-century collection of Spanish and New World origin, which collectively reinforce the notion that the Western Ledge Reef Wreck was on its homebound course when it sunk among treacherous Bermuda reefs sometime between 1560 and 1600.

The thesis The Attempts of Spain at Power Recuperation in the sixties of the 19th Century analyzes five actions of military and naval character undertaken by the Spanish Monarchy out of its territories roughly between the years 1858 and 1866, along with their preconditions, circumstances, course, and results. In the comparison with two actions realized or initiated by Spain as early as towards the close of the 1850s (her participation in the French intervention in Vietnam in 1858-1863, the war against Morocco in 1859-1860), an profounder attention is paid to three interventions effectuated from 1861 in the American countries which still approximately four decades before had been creating components of her great overseas empire (the reannexation of Santo Domingo in 1861- 1865; the participation in the so-called Tripartite Intervention in Mexico in 1861-1862; the naval expedition towards the South America's Pacific watersides that culminated in Spanish-Peruvian controversy of 1864 and afterwards, in the so-called First Pacific War, managed in 1865-1866 by Spain against the South America's Pacific republics, primarily against Chile and Peru). After all, just the Hispanic American emancipation, consummated in the 1820s (and thus, the decomposition of the great Spanish empire in continental America, after three...

The aim of this thesis was to fully understand and interpret the early texts focused on the culture of the Inca Empire and the image of an Indian in the Spanish colony - Peru, as well as establishing the main reasons of publishing work of each of the selected authors and introducing their basic opinions and views on the native culture of the Ands' area. The research is focused on the Inca Empire and each data is divided into thematic groups. Apart from the basic data, the thoroughly studied materials give us details on many details of the society and culture. The subjects of the analysis were the ten main sources of Spanish conquista, whose authors are: Antonio de Hererra, Pedro Pizarro Méndez, Cristóbal de Mena, Francisco de Xeréz, José de Acosta, Pedro Cieza de León, Juan de Betanzos, Bartolomé de Las Casas, Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa a Martín de Murúa.

Comprendre les présupposés qui fondent les rapports au monde des individus selon leur appartenance civilisationnelle nécessite des outils et une méthode permettant de répondre à trois questions principales. D’abord, comment aborder le rapport que des individus et leurs collectivités entretiennent avec le monde et avec l’Autre selon leur propre système d’interprétations et d’explications de ces réalités? Ensuite, comment penser la diversité des collectivités humaines qui établissent de tels rapports? Finalement, comment aborder les dimensions collectives à travers les discours limités d’individus? Deux outils m’ont permis de prendre du recul face à ma subjectivité et d’accéder à un certain niveau de réalité et de validité quant aux faits rapportés et aux résultats atteints. Dans un premier temps, le réseau notionnel articulant les conceptions du monde (Ikenga-Metuh, 1987) comme phénomènes de civilisations (Mauss, 1929) accessibles par l’analyse des représentations sociales (Jodelet, 1997) permet de définir et d’étudier l’interface entre l’individuel et le collectif. Dans un deuxième temps, l’opérationnalisation de la recherche permet de cerner le XVIe siècle comme moment de rencontre propice à l’étude des civilisations andines et occidentales à travers les représentations du Soi espagnol et de l’Autre inca du chroniqueur Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa. Finalement, la méthode d’analyse de discours (Sabourin, 2009) lève le voile sur une grammaire sociale polarisante entre le Soi et l’Autre, laquelle traverse les trois univers de sens (religieux, intellectuel et politique) observés dans le discours de Sarmiento. La mise à jour des positions théologiques, intellectuelles et politiques de l’auteur ouvre à son tour sur les récits et discours collectifs propres aux civilisations occidentales et andines de son époque, et permet un questionnement nouveau : cette polarisation est-elle unique à la localisation sociale de Sarmiento ou constitue-t-elle un phénomène civilisationnel proprement occidental ?
Understanding the assumptions underlying the relationships between individuals and the world according to their civilizational affiliation requires tools and a method to address three main questions. First, how to approach the relationship individuals and their collectivities maintain with the world and with the Other according to their own set of interpretations and meanings of these realities? Second, how to envision the diversity of human collectivities which establish such relations? Finally, how to approach the collective dimensions through limited individual discourse? Two tools enabled me to distance myself from my own subjectiveness and to attain a certain degree of reality and validity as to the stated facts and the achieved results. First, the notional network linking worldviews (Ikenga-Metuh, 1987) as a civilizational phenomenon (Mauss, 1929) accessible through the analysis of social representations (Jodelet, 1997), enables the identification of an interface which can be studied between the individual and the collective. Secondly, research operationalization makes it possible to identify the sixteenth century as a significant crossroad for the study of Western and Andean civilizations through Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa’s representations of the Spanish Self and the Inca Other. Finally, discourse analysis (Sabourin, 2009) unveils a polarizing social grammar between the Self and the Other which involves the three realms of meaning (religious, intellectual and political) observed in Sarmiento’s discourse. The author’s theological, intellectual and political positions thus revealed lead, in turn, to the collective stories and discourses which prevailed in Western and Andean civilizations at the time, and invites a further question: Is this polarization unique to Sarmiento’s social location or does it constitute a truly Western civilizational phenomenon?