Empire's End

Description

The fall of the Spanish Empire: that period in the nineteenth century when it lost its colonies in Spanish America and the Philippines. How did it happen? What did the process of the "end of empire" look like? Empire's End considers the nation's imperial legacy beyond this period, all the way up to the present moment. In addition to scrutinizing the political, economic, and social implications of this "end," these chapters emphasize the cultural impact of this process through an analysis of a wide range of representations—literature, literary histories, periodical publications, scientific texts, national symbols, museums, architectural monuments, and tourist routes—that formed the basis of transnational connections and exchange. The book breaks new ground by addressing the ramifications of Spain's imperial project in relation to its former colonies, not only in Spanish America, but also in North Africa and the Philippines, thus generating new insights into the circuits of cultural exchange that link these four geographical areas that are rarely considered together.

Empire's End showcases the work of scholars of literature, cultural studies, and history, centering on four interrelated issues crucial to understanding the end of the Spanish empire: the mappings of the Hispanic Atlantic, race, human rights, and the legacies of empire.

Sujets

• Latin American Studies
• Histoire
• Americas
• History

Informations

• Publié par: Vanderbilt University Press
• Date de parution: 29 mars 2016
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780826520784
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

EMPIRE’S END
EMPIRE’S END
Transnational Connections in the Hispanic World
Edited by Akiko Tsuchiya & William Acree
Vanderbilt University Press
Nashville
© 2016 by Vanderbilt University Press
Nashville, Tennessee 37235
All rights reserved
First printing 2016
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
Manufactured in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data on file
LC control number 2014047487
LC classification number JV4017.E47 2015
Dewey class number 303.48'21756—dc23
ISBN 978-0-8265-2076-0 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-0-8265-2077-7 (paperback)
ISBN 978-0-8265-2078-4 (ebook)
DEDICATED TO THE MEMORY OF
Christopher Schmidt-Nowara (1966–2015)
In the last stages of producing this book, the contributors and editors lost a dear friend and colleague, Christopher Schmidt-Nowara. Vanderbilt University Press has graciously allowed us to add this in memoriam note to acknowledge a person whose contributions to the various fields represented in these pages and to the various scholars writing here cannot be easily measured and certainly far outpaced his age. Chris was both a stalwart and a central pivot in the developing fields of transatlantic intellectual, political, social, and cultural history and was keenly attuned to the place of literature in modern life. This volume speaks to his key interests and the kind of scholarship that was his hallmark. Not just ideas but their application, how history moves in currents defined not just by the ideas that motivated people but also how these ideas played out in practice were always Chris’ key concerns. We are profoundly saddened that he is not here to see this work completed.
Perhaps more importantly, Chris was a model of collegiality and a lovely person. All those who knew him knew he was an equal opportunity mensch, always generous, always available for advice, conversation, and laughter. His passing is a shock and a tremendous loss. While his absence from the many fields of historical study will be long lamented, the impact from his scholarship and life will always remain.
Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction , by Akiko Tsuchiya
PART I: Atlantic Cartographies
1. Hispanism, Transatlantic Studies, and the Problem of Cultural History , by Sebastiaan Faber
2. Liverpool and the Luso-Hispanic World: Negotiating Global Histories at Empire’s End , by Kirsty Hooper
PART II: Racial Theory: From Imperial Formation to Nostalgic Celebration
3. The Genius of Columbus and the Mixture of Races: How the Rhetoric of Fusion Defined the End and Beginning of Empire in Nineteenth- and Early Twentieth-Century Spain , by Joshua Goode
4. Theorizing Racial Hybridity in Nineteenth-Century Spain and Spanish America , by Alda Blanco
5. “El color nacional”: Race, Nation, and the Philippine Ilustrados , by Joyce Tolliver
PART III: Slavery, Empire, and the Problem of Freedom
6. Spanish Prisoners: War and Captivity in Spain’s Imperial Crisis , by Christopher Schmidt-Nowara
7. Empire’s End; Long Live the Empire: The Rise and Fall of Empires in the Spanish Caribbean in the Nineteenth Century , by William Luis
PART IV: Cultural Legacies of Empire
8. The Spanish Empire on the Wane: Africa, Galdós, and the Moroccan Wars , by Michael Ugarte
9. Inscribing Indianos into Modern Imperial Histories , by Lisa Surwillo
10. Hispanic Studies and the Legacy of Empire , by Alejandro Mejías-López
Index
Acknowledgments
The studies included in this volume originated in a symposium, “Empire’s End: Transnational Connections in the Hispanic World, 1808–1898,” which was held at Washington University in St. Louis in February 2012. The essays that form the chapters of this book represent the product of the intellectual debate and dialogue that grew out of the symposium, and we thank all of the participants, as well as our colleagues at Washington University, for partaking in this exchange.
We appreciate the institutional support that made the symposium possible. In particular, we thank Elzbieta Sklodowska and Harriet Stone, former chairs of the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures, and Gary Wihl, former dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Washington University for sponsoring the symposium with the Program for Cultural Cooperation between Spain’s Ministry of Culture and United States’ Universities. We also acknowledge the support of our wonderful departmental staff, Rita Kuehler, Kathy Loepker, and Anne Eggemeyer, as well as our graduate students, present and past, Irene Domingo and Megan Havard, who provided invaluable help in organizing the symposium. Finally, we thank Roberta Johnson and Jo Labanyi for their assistance during the grant application process.
We are grateful to Eli Bortz and the entire team at Vanderbilt University Press for supporting this project and shepherding it through the publication process, and to the two anonymous readers, whose comments were invaluable in improving the final manuscript.
Introduction
Akiko Tsuchiya
Washington University in St. Louis
When Napoleon’s forces invaded the Iberian Peninsula in 1808, the world’s most powerful empire was already beginning to fracture. 1 During Charles IV’s reign, the ministerial tradition in force during his father’s monarchy weakened following the second appointment of Manuel Godoy as Spain’s prime minister (1801). This appointment led to an endless series of political crises resulting from the repercussions of the French revolution, as well as from challenges to the absolute monarchy from both within the Iberian Peninsula (Catalonia and the Basque Country) and the colonies abroad in Spanish America. The crisis of the ancien régime, provoked by a mob of soldiers and peasants who forced Charles IV to remove Godoy from office in March 1808, led two days later to Charles IV’s own abdication in favor of his son Ferdinand VII. The latter, in turn, was forced by Napoleon to relinquish the throne in favor of the French emperor’s brother Joseph. 2 With the Napoleonic invasion, the end of the Spanish empire was all the more imminent; in fact, the independence wars marked a critical step toward decentralizing power and loosening the stronghold of absolutist monarchy. While Ferdinand VII remained in captivity in France, provincial juntas sprouted to rule in his absence, and a constitution was forged in Cádiz that was to form a framework for the future of the republican nation.
The idea of Spain as a democratic nation crystallized with the ratification of the Constitution of Cádiz in 1812, which marked the beginnings of a modern liberal society. This document established the sovereignty of the nation and fundamental rights for citizens, such as the freedom of expression, “universal” (masculine) suffrage, and the right to property. The new idea, formulated by this constitution, “of the Spanish nation as a unified and self-determining entity,” however, did not come into being without a prolonged process of conflict and compromise (Kirkpatrick 230). In fact, the Constitution of 1812 gave rise to a political debate about exactly which subjects, according to liberal discourse, could be considered citizens of this nation. In spite of the democratic ideals the Cádiz delegates believed themselves to be implementing, Spanish nationality did not always translate into citizenship with the right to exercise full political rights, as political expediency dictated that differentiations be built into the definition of citizenship on the basis of gender, class/estate, and race. Some groups of individuals could be recognized as Spaniards, but not as citizens of the state (Herzog 159). 3
Susan Kirkpatrick has shown how the Cádiz delegates struggled with the contradictions between “inclusive and exclusive definitions of citizenship” (237). Women were automatically excluded from citizenship through the Constitution’s Article 5, which defined Spaniards as “all men born free within the kingdoms of Spain, and the descendants of these” (qtd. in Kirkpatrick 230, my emphasis). Class distinctions were implicit in Article 25 of the constitution, which stipulated a number of conditions under which citizenship could be suspended: “in cases of debt, domestic servitude, lack of employment, and from 1830s onward, illiteracy” (Herzog 158). And while the constitution granted universal suffrage to white and indigenous men, it barred those of African descent from citizenship, thereby diminishing the representation of the colonies in relation to the metropolis and guaranteeing the supremacy of the latter (Schmidt-Nowara, Slavery 110–11). Thus, distinctions between the metropolis and the Spanish colonies most frequently surfaced as questions of race, and the exclusion of sectors of the colonial population from definitions of the nation created divisions that would influence significantly the course of history on both sides of the Atlantic.
While Spanish liberals in Cádiz were working out their definitions of nation and citizenship, they did so against the backdrop not only of Napoleonic invasions but also of the dissolution of their largest colonies. Two years before, in 1810, Mexico, Argentina, and Chile formed juntas to govern in the name of the king (held prisoner in France), launching a period of over ten years of devastating wars in the Americas. By 1825 Spain had lost all of its American empire except for Cuba and Puerto Rico. The independence movement would eventually culminate in the Spanish-American War, with the loss of Cuba and Puerto Rico, Spain’s last colonies in the Americas—and with the simultaneous loss of the Philippine Islands in the Pacific. Though undoubtedly a significan