9 - Power, politics, and protest

Summary

Of all the influences on the development of New Granada's political life during the eighteenth century, Bourbon policies are the most obvious. We have seen how, throughout the century, ministers of Bourbon monarchs sought to enhance royal authority and improve Spain's command of the region's resources, with varying degrees of intensity and success. The first conjuncture of Bourbon reform in New Granada, in 1717–23, was ineffectual, if not entirely futile. It did, however, clear the ground for a second conjuncture of administrative and commercial reorganization in 1739–40, from which New Granada emerged with a new framework for government, under the command of the viceroys, and a new framework for its overseas trade, carried by individual register-ships. Then, after a long phase of piecemeal, incremental reform, the government of Charles III inaugurated Bourbon New Granada's third and most radical reformist conjuncture in 1778, when Gálvez's new colonial program was applied to the region in the visita general of 1778–83.

New Granada's political system was therefore affected by three major moments of reform during the eighteenth century. In the first, the crown reasserted royal authority, but failed to sustain its reorganization of New Granada's system of government. In the second, Madrid established a permanent viceregal government, which strengthened the networks of royal command in New Granada by installing a strong authority at the heart of the territory.