Bourbon policy on the “Guarani Missions” : Stratification, mestizaje and selective integration.

Abstract

The last decades of the 18th century, in Hispano-America, expressed significant population movements and several demographic transformations. In the “Guarani missions”, in particular, a new fiscal and demographic policy was applied. The new policy of assimilation and miscegenation will involve the incorporation of certain cultural patterns of Hispanic origin as the language, the administrative hierarchies, clothing, production, marketing and mixed marriages. Specific literature has described the consequences of the application of a model with multiple cracks. In this respect I will show how the mobility and fusion were promoted in this case with the expectation that this policy doesn’t will damage fiscal interests and internal hierarchies. To account for this last discussion is that I will analyze in particular the instructions of the Governor Francisco de Bucareli y Ursúa (1768-1770) as well as the subsequent ordinances of viceroys or Governors (1770-1807), to investigate the ideological bases and the real objectives, the demographic policies and the fiscal and material consequences.