Catholic Republicanism: The Creation of the Spanish American Republics during Revolution

Abstract

The crisis of the Spanish Catholic monarchy paved the way for the creation of more than twenty republics in Latin America between 1810 and 1825. This paper analyzes early nineteenth-century Spanish American republican experiences, which have been generally neglected in the historiography, as constitutive parts of Atlantic republicanism. It focuses on the theologico-political considerations of the res publica from the seventeenth century onwards, the articulation of a patriotic discourse in the American colonies of Spain during the eighteenth century, and how Spanish-American revolutionaries used republican languages based on Roman references, natural rights, and Catholicism to create new political legitimacy.