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Best regards, Andrew Stewart Begin forwarded message: > From: H-Net Staff <revh...@mail.h-net.msu.edu> > Date: October 10, 2018 at 1:17:41 PM EDT > To: h-rev...@lists.h-net.org > Subject: H-Net Review [H-LatAm]: Schaefer on Sabato, 'Republics of the New > World: The Revolutionary Political Experiment in Nineteenth-Century Latin > America' > Reply-To: H-Net Staff <revh...@mail.h-net.msu.edu> > > Hilda Sabato. Republics of the New World: The Revolutionary > Political Experiment in Nineteenth-Century Latin America. Princeton > Princeton University Press, 2018. 240 pp. $29.95 (cloth), ISBN > 978-0-691-16144-0. > > Reviewed by Timo Schaefer (Independent Scholar) > Published on H-LatAm (October, 2018) > Commissioned by Casey M. Lurtz > > The countries of Latin America gained independence--through chance > and narrow opportunism--when a small and privileged social class, > taking advantage of the French occupation of Spain (1808-14), > initiated a military conflict that would result in the end of Spanish > rule on the Latin American continent. It is true that the > independence wars were closely fought and involved significant parts > of the region's popular classes: Mexico's even began as a priest-led > social revolt. But by the time Mexico became independent that revolt > had long been defeated, and the priests hunted down, excommunicated, > and dispatched by firing squad. Across Latin America, it was > American-born elites, the creoles, who controlled the armies that > would ultimately triumph against the metropolis, and who would battle > each other for control of the states that emerged in the wreckage of > empire. For the poor and excluded majorities, independence merely > exchanged one grasping elite with another. > > This story--call it the story of postcolonial failure--is more > familiar than it should be. Once the dominant interpretation of Latin > American history in the nineteenth century, it is worth pausing over > what made the story seem plausible. The independence wars in Latin > America really did begin as reactions to imperial collapse. They > really did erupt in societies that were diverse and hierarchical, and > they ended up creating polities that were prone to fragmentation and > riven by class and racial animosities. Perhaps as important, from a > twentieth-century perspective--and especially a Cold War > perspective--to describe the predatory nature of nineteenth-century > politics in Latin America was to create an origin story. It helped > twentieth-century researchers explain the poverty and authoritarian > rule they were witnessing in their own time. > > It is a story, though, that assumes both a deep continuity and a kind > of cultural impermeability of structure. It assumes that Latin > Americans before the wars of independence possessed a given set of > values, interests, and political assumptions; then experienced > traumatic ruptures, and experimented with unprecedented social > alliances, during more than a decade of bloody warfare; and then > picked up their lives with the old values, interests, and assumptions > all intact. It assumes that creole elites but not native peasants > were drawn to liberal political principles, and that national > projects built on those principles were consequently limited and > brittle. "[Simón] Bolívar and his comrades"--the political and > military leaders of Latin America's independence wars--"had removed > the head of a patrimonial society but they had not created > nations."[1] > > Few specialists now agree with this interpretation, which leans more > heavily than is comfortable on the writings of conservative > politicians--Lucas Alamán, Bolívar himself--from the period it sets > out to explain. And yet the interpretation not merely persists, it > flourishes. "In South America," writes Jürgen Osterhammel in _The > Transformation of the World_, one of the most ambitious and admired > histories of the nineteenth-century world, "the political map changed > little after independence, with its mosaic of weakly articulated > states all more or less in search of nationhood."[2] In _The Birth of > the Modern World_--another global history of the nineteenth > century--C. A. Bayly suggests that after independence, Latin > Americans became attached less to new laws and ideas than to the war > leaders, or caudillos, who had come to the fore during the > independence struggles. Bayly summarizes the early years of Latin > American nationhood by contrasting the new republics' "wordy > constitutions" with the oft-told story of Mexican General Antonio > López de Santa Anna's amputated leg: ceremonially interred when > Santa Anna was president, dug up and destroyed by "an enraged mob" a > few years later. In the new republics, Bayly seems to say, the > fetishized leg of a vainglorious general was more important than so > many constitutions.[3] Even in the field of Latin American studies, > such ideas still enjoy surprising cachet. They appear in > well-regarded studies--Paul Drake's _Between Tyranny and Anarchy: A > History of Democracy in Latin America, 1800-2006 _(2009), for > example, or Miguel Angel Centeno's _Blood and Debt: War and the > Nation-State in Latin America _(2002)--that interpret the nineteenth > century for scholars of politics and society. And they appear in > textbooks--such as John Charles Chasteen's popular _Born in Blood and > Fire: A Concise History of Latin America_ (fourth edition, > 2016)--that introduce Latin American history to undergraduate > students and general readers. > > That the narrative of postcolonial failure should persist is of > course not wholly surprising. It belongs to a familiar group of > stories in which the Global South plays either laggard or victim to > the historical leadership provided by Europe and the United States. > The narrative also has a homegrown, Latin American pedigree that goes > back at least to the end of the nineteenth century, when oligarchic > governments and their supporters found it convenient to belittle the > republican experiments they had recently replaced or abandoned. > Lastly, while central elements of the story of postcolonial failure > have now been refuted, a clear successor narrative has yet to emerge. > In the last quarter century, historians have shown that popular > actors often took part in--and in many cases helped shape--the public > life of Latin America's independent republics; that member of the > creole elite actively sought those actors' support for their policies > and programs; and that the resulting alliances divided Latin American > publics into political blocks that defined themselves by their > relationship to competing ideas and ideologies. These findings are > supported by too much evidence, coming from too many countries and > regions, to be in serious dispute. But what further conclusions to > draw from such findings, or how to arrange them into an analytical > narrative, is not at all clear. > > In anglophone scholarship, an ambitious attempt to forge a new > narrative of nineteenth-century history in Latin America comes from > revisionist studies of popular political culture. A first generation > of such studies, beginning with Florencia Mallon's foundational > _Peasant and Nation: The Making of Postcolonial Mexico and Peru_ > (1995), chronicled the attraction of popular actors--peasants and > workers, men and women, black and indigenous people--to liberal and > anti-colonial ideologies.[4] The larger story was that these actors > flocked to liberal political projects but were ultimately betrayed by > their allies up the social scale, who, out of fear of the political > energies they had unleashed, began assembling the repressive > institutions that would so catch the eye of twentieth-century > historians. But this story, as a second generation of revisionist > studies has now pointed out, made little room for popular actors who > valued colonial institutions--including courts of law and the > Catholic Church--for their protective qualities, and who after > independence involved themselves not in liberal but in conservative > national projects.[5] Mallon also concluded that indigenous villagers > were especially likely to support liberal national projects, while > estate (hacienda) tenants often remained beholden to local authority > figures. Yet other studies have since described staunchly > conservative indigenous people and estate tenants who espoused > radical liberal tenets.[6] Instead of a new narrative of Latin > American history, what has emerged from recent scholarship on popular > political culture has thus been a mosaic of sometimes contradictory > stories rooted in particular local or regional contexts. > > ------ > > Hilda Sabato's _Republics of the New World _is, to my knowledge, the > first book-length attempt to step back and survey the mosaic of > stories the last quarter century of scholarship on nineteenth-century > Latin America has brought to light. That Sabato succeeds superbly, in > an analysis that is both nuanced and captivating, and that gets by > without once mentioning Santa Anna's ridiculous leg, should give us > hope that a new standard of writing and thinking about this period > will finally find a wide audience. Sabato begins her story with what > she describes as the fundamental innovation of Latin American > politics in the nineteenth century: "the revolutionary decision of > adopting popular sovereignty as the founding principle of the polity > and as the only source of legitimate power" (p. 35). Given how little > Latin America has figured in traditional histories of the Age of > Revolutions, it is curious to note that the dominance this doctrine > was to enjoy in the region may almost seem overdetermined. The idea > of popular sovereignty in Latin America found inspiration not only in > the natural-rights theory we associate with the French and > US-American Revolutions but also in Spanish neoscholastic sources > that imagined an "ancient constitution of the Spanish monarchy," > lately under attack from Bourbon absolutism (p. 27), and it was > championed not only by insurgents in the region itself but also by > the liberals who, between 1808 and 1813, tried to rule peninsular > Spain in the name of its captive king while fighting the Napoleonic > occupation. These diverse sources would push Latin America's new > nations to pioneer republican forms of government at a time when > revolution had been defeated, and when monarchs once more ruled > supreme, across continental Europe. > > But the diversity of inspiration for the principle of popular > sovereignty also contained the seeds of conflict. In the Spanish > Empire, government had at least in principle been simple--the > sovereign being one. What it should mean, by contrast, that > sovereignty rested in a multitudinous "people" was never obvious. By > analyzing competing notions of this crucial republican concept, > Sabato is able to reject the narrative of postcolonial failure > without minimizing the centrality of armed struggle to the political > history of nineteenth-century Latin America. She explores three > fields of practice in which popular sovereignty came to be exercised > and contested in postcolonial Latin America: elections, armed > citizenship, and public opinion. None of these fields was precisely > new, but all were transformed by the doctrine of popular sovereignty. > > Elections, which in colonial times had been the prerogative of a > small urban patriciate, associated with the strictly limited sphere > of town politics, after independence became a critical venue for the > exercise of citizenship. By nineteenth-century standards, the > franchise in Latin America was impressively wide: "in most places, > all free, nondependent, adult men were enfranchised. Exclusion was > mainly associated with the lack of autonomy, a condition that was > considered indispensable to ensure the freedom of choice on the part > of the voter" (p. 53). Servants were thus excluded from the vote > together with women and slaves. But male workers, as well as native > and free black people, who would have been kept from the urns by the > property restrictions of European or the racial restrictions of many > US-American elections, were able to cast their votes. > > But did elections actually matter? Sabato dismisses the notion that > most voters participated in elections only at the behest of powerful > patrons. Political clientelism existed--in Latin America no less than > elsewhere--but so did political clubs, election campaigns, and a > partisan press, all working hard to persuade, dazzle, bribe, or > otherwise sway the electorate. As to whether elections could have > been significant in an era of frequent coups and revolts, this is a > question that misunderstands the relationship between bullets and > ballots in postcolonial Latin America. In the nineteenth century, > Sabato argues, elections and revolts were only rarely regarded as > alternative pathways to power. Losers at the urns frequently > challenged electoral outcomes they regarded as fraudulent, by force > of arms if need be. But victory on the battlefield did not by itself > confer legitimacy: it needed to be confirmed by popular vote, so that > successful uprisings were usually followed by new elections. While > elections were not often the final word in politics, they were > regarded by all as the central events in the political cycle. > > A close relationship between formal politics and armed revolt was in > fact crucial to Latin American understandings of republican > citizenship. Most postcolonial Latin American nations divided their > military forces into a professional army and a civic militia, the > latter composed of citizens-in-arms whose patriotic service was meant > to shield the nation from the danger of tyranny. When government fell > in the hands of would-be despots, defending the constitutional order > was considered a civic duty. "You have offered and spontaneously > provided [your help], just like the sons of Athens, Sparta, and Rome > did in past heroic times," a Colombian governor addressed the members > of his provincial militia in 1854. "Let this be your war cry: Long > live the Constitution! Long live the Republic!" (p. 107). The figure > of the citizen-soldier has been attractive to revisionist historians > of nineteenth-century Latin America, and for good reason. In the > civic militias, popular sovereignty found its most unequivocal > expression, as the people became living embodiments of the nation. > > By involving popular actors so directly in the defense of the nation, > however, Latin America's postcolonial republics also fragmented > control over the means of violence. Because professional armies were > less concerned with tyranny than with political unrest, and because > both professional and citizen armed forces were further divided by > region and ideology, civil conflict in nineteenth-century Latin > America became almost inevitable. With this argument, Sabato stands a > key aspect of the narrative of postcolonial failure on its head. > Violence, she suggests, became pervasive in the region as a result > not of a lack but of a surfeit of citizen engagement with new ideas > and political forms. But she also repeats a key dimension of the > traditional narrative: in her account of the civic militias, > extra-legal violence still rules the day. This focus on revolt and > revolution helps her explain the instability of Latin American > politics but makes for an incomplete analysis of armed citizenship. > Left out of it completely is any recognition of the role that many > militias played in local law enforcement, even though Latin Americans > considered this role as no less critical to the preservation of the > republican order than the defense against tyranny. > > Public opinion is the subject of the last of Sabato's thematic > chapters. Formed in the press, on the streets, and in a proliferating > web of voluntary associations, public opinion had a more oblique > relation to popular sovereignty than did elections or armed > citizenship. It was a crucial source of legitimacy for governments > yet also stood apart from the direct exercise of power. This distance > was important to the self-understanding of public intellectuals, who > thought of themselves as embodying a sphere of "reason" and "dialogue > among equals" in contrast to "the corruption of political life" (pp. > 146, 161). In reality things were a bit messier. While some clubs and > associations promoted apolitical identities, many others worked hard > to influence political life. The press was highly politicized and > only partially independent from governments, who exerted control > through restrictive press laws and, even more, through subsidies and > public subscriptions. Popular mobilizations, meanwhile, tended to be > carefully planned partisan affairs, rather than the spontaneous > expressions of popular will participants pretended to be enacting. > > Still, public opinion was at least partially independent from > politics, and Sabato argues that it became more so over time. For > example, as the century progressed, nonpolitical items made up an > increasing proportion of the total content in most newspapers. Such > items could include news stories, "literary pieces..., commercial and > social ads, and caricatures, among others" (p. 154). This growing > autonomy and thematic pluralism probably explains why, of the > institutions covered in this book, the press alone was able to > flourish under the oligarchic regimes that throughout Latin America > succeeded the democratic experiments of the early republican decades. > In the last third of the nineteenth century, neither elections nor > civic militias fared well, as governments either restricted the > franchise or, as in Mexico, cracked down on the kinds of political > rights that made elections meaningful, and either abolished the civic > militias or put them "under the tight control of increasingly > centralized standing armies" (p. 119). As Latin America entered the > twentieth century, the ideal of popular sovereignty was on the wane > even as the press was becoming a diverse and dynamic actor in public > life. > > ------ > > In _Republics of the New World_, Sabato has engaged with--has > summarized, digested, and condensed--an immense new literature on the > political history of postcolonial Latin America. To have harmonized > the findings of these studies, not only with each other but also with > the durable part of previous generations of scholarship, is an > achievement and a service. Specialists will appreciate, and will > surely learn much from, the lengthy, multilingual bibliographies > appended to each of the chapters. Scholars who wish to familiarize > themselves with state-of-the-art historical knowledge on > nineteenth-century Latin America will want to start by reading this > book. Instructors will want to assign it to their students. > > Does the book tell a story that might take the place of the dated > narrative of postcolonial failure? While Sabato is not a heavy-handed > narrator, and is, perhaps, more interested in analysis than > storytelling, readers might detect two major plotlines running > through the book. Both plotlines take as their point of departure the > revolutionary decision to build Latin America's postcolonial > republics on the principle of popular sovereignty. The first story is > one of tension and conflict. Popular sovereignty, Sabato points out, > "was an abstraction that evoked, at the same time, the unitary > character of the principle of sovereignty and the plurality of > individuals voluntarily come together through the pactum societatis" > (p. 177). It generated conflict because it might entail any number of > different institutional arrangements, but also because nobody after > independence had experience with reconciling the principle of > political unity with that of social diversity and ideological > pluralism. > > Through this story of Latin America's nineteenth century runs a > thread of Hegelian tragedy: the century was riven by conflict between > opposing positions, each of which could make equal claims to the > principles of republican justice. This experience, Sabato points out, > was not unique to Latin America. Republican regimes also had trouble > establishing their authority in nineteenth-century Europe, and > political conflict in the United States resulted in a bloodier civil > war than any of the ones fought in Latin America. Collective violence > in this era should thus be understood not as the abnormal condition > of a marginal part of the world but rather as "deeply embedded" > within the modern republican tradition, which Latin America helped > pioneer (p. 189). > > The book's second story is about transformation. This is a story one > might almost call comedic, in that it involves a cast of historical > actors stumbling more or less blindly but, it is implied, with good > intentions through the unintended consequences of their actions. If > this story ultimately lacks the satisfying ending--the resolution of > conflict--we associate with comedy, it still contains elements of > renewal that put it in tension with the first story, which ends in > decline and dissolution. An important part of this story takes place > in the realm of public opinion, which became richer and more diverse > even as elections and civic militias were restricted or abandoned. > But Sabato argues that Latin American republicanism was permanently > transformative not only in the realm of public opinion but also, and > perhaps above all, in the realm of political identity. > > Sabato here takes issue with what she describes as the tendency of > "subaltern history" or "history from below"--works like Mallon's > _Peasant and Nation_--to exaggerate the autonomy of collective > popular actors and to posit an "axiomatic opposition" of those actors > "to the elites or the powerful." She asks, "Why should we presume > that the subaltern ... followed, by definition, their own collective > agenda guided by their struggle against the established order" (p. > 184)? Sabato argues that subaltern history fails to acknowledge the > new attachments popular actors formed as a result of their political > activities: their participation in political clubs, or their > engagement with newspaper stories, or their service in the civic > militias. According to this argument, it is unsurprising that > subaltern historians have not been more successful at associating > particular popular groups--indigenous villagers or estate tenants, > for example--with fixed political or ideological positions, since the > practice of politics complicated whatever identities people may have > derived from their social and cultural backgrounds. The incorporation > of popular actors into new political networks transformed the field > of politics in Latin America and would be a permanent legacy of > nineteenth-century republicanism. > > I already noted that most of the republican practices described by > Sabato began to wane in the 1870s; at the turn of the century, Latin > America was dominated by centralizing oligarchies with strongly > anti-liberal tendencies. Sabato explains this shift by referring to > new attitudes toward the instability that had plagued most Latin > American countries in the half century following independence. "A > rising creed put forward a concept of order that favored stability > and discipline, rather than the active mobilization typical of > elections and revolutions of old" (p. 197). While this is a notably > elegant explanation for a vexed historical puzzle, it is ultimately > too simple to be able to stand on its own. > > A more complete explanation for the rise of the fin-de-siècle > oligarchies would have to explore the history of a dimension of > politics that is strangely absent from _Republics of the New World_: > it would have to explore the political and ideological content of > elections, uprisings, and popular mobilizations. For in this book > about nineteenth-century political conflict, ideologies like > liberalism and conservatism, and issues like taxation, land > privatization, or the relationship between church and state, receive > at best cursory glosses. In a political history of the century of the > abolition of slavery, the abolition of slavery merits barely a > mention. It is a curious omission because these topics were so > closely and obviously involved in the political practices--elections, > armed citizenship, public opinion--that are Sabato's subjects. Can we > really understand why governments turned against the civic militias > without exploring the militias' ideological orientations? Can we > understand public opinion in fin-de-siècle Latin America without > knowing the political content of newspapers that were censored, or of > those that were subsidized by the state? > > In asking these questions, I may of course be wishing for a > completeness that Sabato never intended: a book that fills such a > deeply felt gap cannot meet all expectations. It is to be hoped that > _Republics of the New World _will spark debate and competition, that > it will spur other historians to also try their hands at the task of > panoramic analysis and interpretation. For that endeavor, Sabato's > book now sets a very high standard. > > Notes > > [1]. Lester Langley, _The Americas in the Age of Revolution, > 1750-1850_ (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1996), 251. > > [2]. Jürgen Osterhammel, _The Transformation of the World: A Global > History of the Nineteenth Century_, trans. Patrick Camiller > (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2014), 478. > > [3]. C. A. Bayly, _The Birth of the Modern World 1780-1914: Global > Connections and Comparisons_ (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, > 2004), 147. As best as I can tell, Bayly, a historian of > nineteenth-century India, wrote about Latin America after reading a > single historical survey, Peter Bakewell's _A History of Latin > America_ (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 1997). > > [4]. The literature on popular liberalism and anti-colonialism is > quite large. Studies of note include Peter Guardino, _Peasants, > Politics, and the Formation of Mexico's National State: Guerrero, > 1800-1857_ (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1996); Sarah > Chambers, _From Subjects to Citizens: Honor, Gender, and Politics in > Arequipa, Peru, 1780-1854_ (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State > University Press, 1999); and Marixa Lasso, _Myths of Harmony: Race > and Republicanism during the Age of Revolution, Colombia, 1795-1831_ > (Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2007). > > [5]. Important studies include Cecilia Méndez, _The Plebeian > Republic: The Huanta Rebellion and the Making of the Peruvian State, > 1820-1850_ (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2005); Benjamin Smith, > _The Roots of Conservatism in Mexico: Catholicism, Society, and > Politics in the Mixteca Baja, 1750-1962_ (Albuquerque: University of > New Mexico Press, 2012); and Marcela Echeverri, _Indian and Slave > Royalists in the Age of Revolution: Reform, Revolution, and Royalism > in the Northern Andes, 1780-1825_ (New York: Cambridge University > Press, 2016). > > [6]. On conservative indigenous people, see the books cited in the > previous note. On liberal estate tenants, see John Tutino, "The > Revolution in Mexican Independence: Insurgency and the Renegotiation > of Property, Production, and Patriarchy in the Bajío, 1800-1855," > _Hispanic American Historical Review_ 78, no. 3 (1988), 367-418. For > a study of both, see James Sanders, _Contentious Republicans: Popular > Politics, Race, and Class in Nineteenth-Century Colombia_ (Durham, > NC: Duke University Press, 2004). > > Citation: Timo Schaefer. Review of Sabato, Hilda, _Republics of the > New World: The Revolutionary Political Experiment in > Nineteenth-Century Latin America_. H-LatAm, H-Net Reviews. October, > 2018. > URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=51593 > > This work is licensed under a Creative Commons > Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States > License. > > -- _________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
