Skip to Main Content
 

Global Search Box

 
 
 

ETD Abstract Container

Abstract Header

Los “más alentados y empolvados comerciantes”. Sujetos mercantiles y escritura en el Tucumán colonial

Marquez, Maria Victoria
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1534436661290032

Abstract Details

2018, Doctor of Philosophy, Ohio State University, Spanish and Portuguese.
This dissertation analyzes emerging colonial subjectivities in eighteenth-century Spanish America. It focuses on Tucuman (center and northwest of Argentina), a border region of the Viceroyalty of Peru that became an intercolonial mercantile hub in eighteenth century. It analyzes texts on commerce and economy that circulated there during the last century of Spanish domination, alongside literary accounts produced from and about this region. Chapter 1 surveys seventeenth- and eighteenth-century mercantilist treatises dealing with the morality of commerce and its agents within the Spanish imperial project. This literature praised commerce beyond its economic role as a source of communication between Europe and the New World, and as a carrier of civilized values across society. It also created a discourse of virtue and utility around the figure of the merchant that informed accounts of eighteenth-century Tucuman society. Merchants active in this peripheral but pivotal area of the colonial economy reflected in writing on their position within the Spanish monarchy, resulting in a rich textual production. Chapter 2 examines the travel narrative, "El lazarillo de ciegos caminantes" (Lima, 1775) by Carrio de la Vandera, which dedicates several pages to Tucuman, where most of his informants were itinerant merchants of the inner colonial markets. Carrio outlines the contours of a mercantile subject with a utilitarian mindset that makes him a desired agent for an enlightened reform of the viceroyalty. Chapters 3 and 4 deal with "Fracasos de la fortuna" by Miguel de Learte (1770-1788), an autobiography meant to restore the author’s reputation after falling in disgrace with the Spanish administration. Learte codifies his experience through his insertion in colonial markets. He suggests he is an honorable individual by defining himself as an agent of the colonial trade. These texts convey imaginaries and discourses of the world of commerce through which Tucuman’s traders inscribed themselves as a reputable and beneficial component of the imperial project. I argue that these texts reveal a subject who developed along the inner roads of the colonial market and represented himself as essentially virtuous and adept in a historical context of imperial, enlightened reforms. This mercantile subject was conscious of the significance of the written word—the political power of the colonial archive. Furthermore, this study ultimately illuminates how the colonial trade offered a productive language for provincial Spanish and Spanish American elites whose ranks these merchants integrated. This approach, from a peripheral area of the Indies, challenges established narratives of the emergence of the criollo identity (Spaniards born in America). Scholarship usually presents the criollo subject as the only autonomous consciousness adopted by Spanish American elites, and a forerunner to national identity. While this is a critical tool for the study of the major colonial power hubs (e.g., Mexico City and Lima), it is insufficient to account for the more mobile and unstable experience of the residents of Tucuman. This study builds a productive bridge between economic history, Latin American studies and literature. It also opens new leads to explore the cultural articulations of eighteenth-century political and economic changes at the borders of the Spanish dominions in the Americas.
Lisa Voigt (Advisor)
Fernando Unzueta (Advisor)
Alcira Dueñas (Committee Member)
336 p.
Latin American History; Latin American Literature; Latin American Studies; Literature; Romance Literature
Spanish American commerce; mercantilism; eighteenth century Spanish America; subjectivity; colonial subject; merchants; colonial archive; Tucuman; Peru; Rio de la Plata; autobiography; Spanish American literature

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Marquez, M. V. (2018). Los “más alentados y empolvados comerciantes”. Sujetos mercantiles y escritura en el Tucumán colonial [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1534436661290032

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Marquez, Maria. Los “más alentados y empolvados comerciantes”. Sujetos mercantiles y escritura en el Tucumán colonial. 2018. Ohio State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1534436661290032.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Marquez, Maria. "Los “más alentados y empolvados comerciantes”. Sujetos mercantiles y escritura en el Tucumán colonial." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 2018. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1534436661290032

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

osu1534436661290032
218
© 2018, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by The Ohio State University and OhioLINK.