"Para un mejor servicio al rey y a la república": formas de acceso a la burocracia civil y redes sociales en Valledupar (provincia de Santa Marta), c. 1770-1808

Abstract

This work explores the relation between forms of access to the civil bureaucracy and the social networks that existed between the neighbors of Valledupar (located in a peripheral area of Nueva Granada) at the end of the Old Regime. Through this study, it is intended to call into question a prevailing idea in the historiography about the region: that the implementation of the institutional power of the Spanish monarchy was impossible in the Caribbean region of Nueva Granada. This paper proves that the means the neighbors used to reach civil bureaucracy guaranteed the management of their interests as well as the intervention of the State in the borderline territories. During the realization of this research, the main problem was the absence of libros de cabildo about the city of Valledupar, which was overcame through the search of information in the different documentary collections of the Archivo General de la Nacion, as well as in notarial documentary collections.