Recent studies on the figuration of the nation in nineteenth-century Hispanic America have used sophisticated analyses of different media to suggest that Indigenous references were progressively excluded from urban public space as national symbols. In these spaces, the creole authorities placed themselves and their ancestors centre stage. However, these studies have neglected a highly representative medium: street names. This article demonstrates that street nomenclature was key in figuring the nation in a capital city and shows a different trend from that established using other media. Specifically, after the 1861 municipal reform of street names in Lima, Peru, the majority of official names were Indigenous and did not celebrate creole or military elites. This article examines this reform and the conflicts it provoked.

While global history’s emphasis on networks and its de-emphasis on the nation has brought about a fruitful platform for exploring interregional connections, this article argues that a global history recentered in the periphery and willing to draw from its rich national historiographies has the potential to reveal new forms of globalization and connection. It takes Argentina as an exemplary case to consider the ways in which tracing one nation’s many transnational and global orientations might bring to light motivations, geographical dimensions, and fields of power previously unseen.