Markings on the map and pillars in the land: the legacy of Spanish imperial geography

Abstract

ABSTRACTFollowing the War of the Spanish Succession (1700–15), the Spanish monarchy began a reform program to centralize the state, curb monarchial inefficiency, and defend Spanish territorial sovereignty. To fulfill these objectives, the Spanish Monarchy incorporated geographic knowledge and associated language and practices into its agenda of reform. Ultimately, the piecemeal pursuit of geography during the Caroline period led to inconsistencies in the precision of Spanish cartography that became apparent during the occupation of Spain in 1808 during the Napoleonic Wars (1807–14). Beginning in 1810, Spanish American civic leaders wrestled with the future of the Spanish colonies and soon democratic republics began to replace the former colonial governments. This paper begins to analyze the impact of Spanish geographic products and monuments on the development of republican values in the Ibero-Atlantic world in the period following the dissolution of the Spanish Atlantic Monarchy. Investigating the legacy of these maps, monuments, censuses, and cadastral surveys will illuminate how scientific products produced to advance specific arguments of imperial sovereignty and nationhood are reinterpreted as similar evidence of nationhood by a different body politic.