Soldados del rey: El ejército borbónico en América en vísperas de la independencia (review)

This work provides examples of significant studies of the Bourbon Army in Latin America, and pays homage to the late Lyle N. McAlister of the University of Florida, whose important book, The “Fuero Militar” in New Spain, 1764–1800 (1957), inspired several studies on civil-military relations in late colonial Latin America. McAlister sought to account for the emergence of a praetorian tradition in Mexico during the nineteenth century and, by implication, elsewhere in Latin America. He was among the first to explore the army’s “colonial heritage,” which emerged as an important topic in modern Latin American history.

Co-editor Allan Kuethe’s three chapters examine the consequences of metropolitan decisions in the Americas. One study, directly related to McAlister’s Fuero Militar, provides a detailed overview of the development of “disciplined militias” in the Americas in the 1760s and 1770s in response to Spain’s poor showing the Seven Years War. Kuethe reaffirms McAlister’s finding that the military reforms of the later eighteenth century had a significant impact of the form, function, and role of the armies in independent Latin American nations. Kuethe’s other two contributions examine the close relationship between the crown’s military expansion and the economic reforms of the same period. He maintains that the military expansion cost Spain dearly and suggests that the scarce resources could have been put to better use on the peninsula and in the colonies. In fact, the Bourbon monetary reforms in America, coupled with greatly increased military expenditures, so weakened the crown that it was unable to respond adequately when Napoleon invaded Spain and initiated the wars of independence in the Americas.

Christon Archer’s two chapters focus on economic, social, and political activities of the Spanish and the revolutionary armies during Mexico’s War for Independence (1810–1821). These contributions fall into what some call the “New Military History,” as they focus on topics other than the battles and heroic acts of the revolutionary leadership. Archer provides considerable detail to well established Mexican historical periodization. For example, historians identify 1815–1816 as a dividing line in the war’s progress. Archer reaffirms this timeline, but adds considerable understanding as to the reasons for its significance. He also emphasizes the regional nature of the independence struggle, the devastating effects of the war on local economies, the difficulties of the royalists to continue the war given their scorched-earth policies (1810–1816), and, perhaps most significantly, the increasing lack of financial resources available to royalists and revolutionaries by 1821.

Co-editor Juan Marchena contributed two articles focusing on the army in Cartagena de Indias. Both represent the two branches of his remarkable publishing record over the past two decades: the use of statistical findings concerning the careers of army officers throughout the Americas, and the utilization of the military in Cartagena de Indias as a representative case with which to illustrate general conclusions. One chapter is an important contribution to the problem of unraveling the financing of the army; it reflects part of an on-going conversation among scholars attempting to understand the chaotic financial structure of the colonial treasury. His second chapter examines an army revolt in Cartagena in 1745, which he maintains was one example of a more widespread phenomenon throughout the empire. He found that even though the officers and men had performed well in repelling the British in 1741, there was no improvement in their pay, living conditions, or social status. Of special concern, which led directly to the revolt in 1745, were the long periods in which the officers and men were not paid. This line of research carries McAlister’s ideas in an important new direction. Could an additional significant legacy of civil-military relations in the colonial period...