The Bourbon monarchs who ascended the Spanish throne in 1700 attempted to reform the colonial system they had inherited, and, in particular, to make administrat

On June 25, 1767, royal officials in all Spanish territories, including the Americas, began the process of expelling the members of the Society of Jesus. At the

Languages do not exist beyond their speakers, but the history of individual languages has often been told as if they had a life of their own, emerging from othe

In the sixteenth century, Franciscan, Dominican, and Augustinian missionaries attempted to evangelize the indigenous peoples of central Mexico. Indigenous peopl

This book covers the evolution of royal policy in Spanish America as eighteenth-century Spain modernized its empire and transformed itself into a power of the f