Abstract

ESCRIG ROSA, Josep. The Ideological Construction of the Restoration in New Spain (1814- 1816). Hist. mex. [online]. 2020, vol.69, n.4, pp.1493-1548.  Epub June 02, 2020. ISSN 2448-6531.  https://doi.org/10.24201/hm.v69i4.4051.

The return of Ferdinand VII to Spain in 1814 and the coup d’état that led to the revocation of the Constitution of Cadiz did not imply, on either side of the Atlantic, a return to the situation in place before the Crisis of 1808. This article examines this problem in the Viceroyalty of New Spain in terms of the political discourses employed between 1814 and 1816. First, it scrutinizes the different absolutist projects that sought to carry out a restoration. Second, it examines those theoretical elements that counterrevolutionary intellectuals used to legitimize this project, which was a construct that would become utopian, based as it was on the stabilization of historic time and a return to the natural order lost to the revolution. Finally, it addresses the challenge to the project of restoration implied by the continued conflict with insurgents. The authors and documents examined herein reveal the capacity of counterrevolutionary realists to adapt their discourses and offer solid, novel arguments when confronting their opponents and designing plausible alternatives for governance. Tracing the shared worldviews and ideological codes that oriented some of these actors allows us to take a new approach to a complex period, which continues to be overlooked in favor of others that have received more attention in the historiography: the outbreak of Hidalgo’s rebellion in 1810 and the consummation of independence in 1821.

Keywords : Monarchical Restoration; Absolutism; Counter-Revolution; Anti-Liberalism; New Spain.

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