Revolution and Independence: Notes on the Concept and on the Revolutionary Processes in Spanish America

• Autor(a) principal: Gouvêa, Maria de Fátima Silva
• Data de Publicação: 1997
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Estudos Históricos (Rio de Janeiro)
• Texto Completo: https://periodicos.fgv.br/reh/article/view/2056
• topic: América Latina

In the American continent, the use of the term "revolution" in the context of independence movements seems to have been limited to the classical case of the "American Revolution" -- that of the 13 Colonies at the end of the 18th century -- and to the case of Haiti, where the connections between revolution, independence and abolition of slavery added very radical colors to the whole process. In the Spanish-American cases, "revolution" has often been nothing more than a word indicating an absence and leading to a history told in the key of continuity and conservatism. Only recently, under the influence of the studies about the ancien régime and specially about the French Revolution, new trends have been set, favouring a more dynamic history of the collapse of Spanish-American colonial world. This article intends to present a review of the main steps of this reflection and to contribute to spread this new approach to a larger number of movements into the continent.