Hierarchy, Commerce, and Fraud in Bourbon Spanish America
ISBN: 9780826591975
Platform/Publisher: Project MUSE / Vanderbilt University Press
Digital rights: Users: Unlimited; Printing: Chapters; Download: Chapters
Subjects: Fraud; Corruption; Social classes; Oligarchy;

Using El lazarillo de ciegos caminantes (the "Guide for Blind Rovers" by Alonso Carrio de Lavandera, the best known work of the era) as a jumping off point for a sprawling discussion of 18th-century Spanish America, Ruth Hill argues for a richer, more nuanced understanding of the relationship between Spain and its western colonies. Armed with primary sources including literature, maps, census data, letters, and diaries, Hill reveals a rich world of intrigue and artifice, where identity is surprisingly fluid and always in question. More importantly, Hill crafts a complex argument for reassessing our understanding of race and class distinctions at the time, with enormous implications for how we view conceptions of race and class today.

Ruth Hill is a professor of Spanish and Andrew W. Mellon Chair in the Humanities at Vanderbilt University.

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