Conclusions

Abstract

In this concluding chapter, rather than summarize or reiterate the major arguments of this book—made at length in the Introduction and throughout chapters 1–6—I wish to return to the suggestion made in the opening paragraph. This suggestion is that the fresh research of recent years means that it should henceforth be difficult to discuss the Bourbon period in Spanish-American history, including the celebrated late-Bourbon reform program, without informed reference to the first half-century and more of Bourbon rule. This is not, as was noted in the “Introduction,” because long-standing perceptions of the greater significance of the period from the 1760s onwards are erroneous. Anthony McFarlane has noted recently that the strong tilt apparent in the historiography toward the second half of the century “is not unreasonable,” on a number of substantive grounds, and no number of new monographs or articles is likely to challenge this verdict.¹ What has been unreasonable, however, and has now become frankly unsustainable, is the degree of neglect to which the early period has been subject, along with the radical distinction made between the periods prior to and following the 1760s. On the one hand, this book has sought to demonstrate that more reforms, and of greater substance, were undertaken in colonial affairs by the early Bourbons than has been recognized.