MARIA TERESA CALDERON and CLEMENT THIBAUD. La majestad de los pueblos en la Nueva Granada y Venezuela, 1780-1832.

Abstract

Listen

Translate article

Many works on Latin American independence focus on the influence of North Atlantic liberal ideas on the formation of republics. María Teresa Calderón and Clément Thibaud demonstrate that there was a well-established political culture before 1808 that informed the ways in which New Granada and Venezuela dealt with the absence of the Spanish king. In effect, they show that the Venezuelan nation was built upon pre-existing political ideas surrounding the concept of majestad (majesty). In particular, the authors argue that the absence of a legitimate Spanish king in 1808 caused colonies to reformulate their understanding of sovereignty. They demonstrate that new political forms were rearticulated from previous religious and hierarchical traditions based on corporatism, and not on modern, liberal ideas imported from Europe. Contrary to the modern idea of sovereignty, in which people and places are equal and homogeneous, the principle of majesty then entrenched in the Spanish world presumed that the king reigned, with God's blessing, over a number of communities that were unequal yet somewhat autonomous. The majesty of the king was a sacred place from which the other ranks emanated. He was fair and just, and his fairness ensured social equilibrium. The monarch held the place of God and, when he or she made the people happy, was an instrument of eternal goodness; but when this failed to happen, the monarch could be punished by God. These principles warranted the veneration and obedience of the people. The preservation of the symbolic order that associated God with the political system rendered legitimacy to authority. Thus, anyone who diminished the greatness of the king was considered a traitor, guilty of the crime of lesa majestad, because he/she was rebelling against God, and, hence, a menace to the whole political body. Yet, in practice, the concepts of sovereignty and majesty overlap, and so there was no evolution in practice from one to another.