Abstract
The collapse of the Bourbon State and the onset of colonial rebellion were observed by the Church not simply as secular events but as a conflict of ideologies and a struggle for power which vitally affected its own interests. The long prehistory of Independence, during which colonial economies underwent growth, societies developed identity and Creoles became convinced that they were Americans not Spaniards, was part of the Church’s history. Controlled as it was by the colonial State, the Bourbon Church reacted to the vicissitudes of the State. The clergy too underwent a crisis of authority, they too were divided between peninsulares and Creoles, they too had economic interests to defend. And in the war of ideas the Church saw allegiance to Spain, obedience to monarchy and repudiation of revolution as moral imperatives and their denial as a sin. Yet the Church in America did not speak with a single voice.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
Scarlett O’Phelan Godoy, Rebellions and Revolts in Eighteenth Century Peru and Upper Peru (Cologne, 1985), pp. 144–8;
David Cahill, ‘Curas and Social Conflict in the Doctrinas of Cuzco, 1780–1814’, Journal of Latin American Studies, vol. 16, part 2 (1984), pp. 241–76.
John Leddy Phelan, The People and the King: the Comunero Revolution in Colombia, 1781 (Madison, WI, 1978), pp. 232–3, 237;
Anthony McFarlane, Colombia Before Independence: Economy, Society, and Politics under Bourbon Rule (Cambridge, 1993), pp. 263–4, 275–78.
Paulino Castaneda Delgado, ‘La hierarchie ecclésiastique dans l’Amérique des Lumières’, L’Amérique espagnole à l’époque des Lumières (Paris, 1987), pp. 79–100;
José Bravo Ugarte, Diócesis y obispos de la Iglesia mexicana (1519–1965) (Mexico City, 1965), pp. 70–2;
D.A. Brading, Church and State in Bourbon Mexico: the Diocese of Michoacán 1749–1810 (Cambridge, 1994), pp. 176, 109–111, 204–8.
Manuel Abad y Queipo, ‘Representación sobre la inmunidad personal del clero’, in José Maria Luis Mora, Obras sueltas (Mexico, 1963), pp. 204–12. On clerical numbers and income see William B. Taylor, Magistrates of the Sacred: Priests and Parishioners in Eighteenth-Century Mexico (Stanford, CA, 1996), pp. 78–9, 126–43.
Reinhard Liehr, ‘Endeudamiento estatal y crédita privado: la consolidación de vales reales en Hispanoamérica’, Anuario de Estudios Americanos, vol. 41 (1984), pp. 552–78.
Antonine Tibesar, ‘The Peruvian Church at the Time of Independence in the Light of Vatican II’, The Americas, vol. 26 (April 1970), pp. 349–75.
O. Carlos Stoetzer, The Scholastic Roots of the Spanish American Revolution (New York, 1979), pp. 24–6, 121–3, 195–6, 201–4;
Richard M. Morse, ‘Claims of Political Tradition’, New World Soundings: Culture and Ideology in the Americas (Baltimore, MD, 1989), pp. 95–130.
Rafael Gómez Hoyos, La revolución granadina de 1810: Ideario de una generáción y de una época, 1781–1821, 2 vols (1962), vol. II, p. 30.
Juan Pablo Viscardo, ‘Lettre aux Espagnols Américains’, in Merle E. Simmons, Los escritos de Juan Pablo Viscardo y Guzman, precursor de la independencia hispanoamericana (Caracas, 1983), p. 363.
Morelos, Bando, 17 November 1810, 8 February, 24 November 1811, in Ernesto Lemoine Villacaña, Morelos, su vida revolutionaria a través de sus escritos y de otros testimonios de la época (Mexico, 1965), pp. 162, 184–5, 190.
Fernando Pérez Memen, El episcopado y la independencia de México (1810–1836) (Mexico, 1977), p. 83; Brading, Church and State in Bourbon Mexico, pp. 238–43.
Josep M. Barnadas, ‘La Iglesia ante la emancipación en Bolivia’, Historia General de la Iglesia en América Latina (HGIAL), vol. VIII, Perú, Bolivia y Ecuador (Salamanca, 1987), pp. 185–6, 191; Rubén Vargas Ugarte, El episcopado en los tiempos de la emancipación sudamericana, 3rd edn (Lima, 1962), pp. 293, 303–4. The Creole bishop of Salta, Nicolás Videla del Pino, was also a royalist, as were many of his clergy, seeing the porteños as foreigners as well as rebels.
Quoted by J.M. Vargas, ‘La Iglesia ante la emancipación en Ecuador’, in HGIAL, vol. VIII, p. 200; see also L. López-Ocón, ‘El protagonismo del clero de la insurgencia quitena (1809–1812)’, Revista de Indias, vol. 46 (1986), pp. 107–67.
Quoted by Carlos Felice Cardot, ‘La Iglesia ante la emancipación en Venezuela’, in HGIAL, vol. VII, Colombia y Venezuela (Salamanca, 1981), p. 283.
Pedro de Leturia, Relaciones entre la Santa Sede e Hispanoamérica, 3 vols (Rome, Caracas, 1959–60), vol. III, pp. 179–80.
Quoted in Carlos Maria Bustamante, Cuadro historico de la revolución mexicana, 3 vols (Mexico, 1961), vol. I, p. 331; vol. II, p. 512.
Taylor, Magistrates of the Sacred, pp. 453–5; N.M. Farriss, Crown and Clergy in Colonial Mexico 1759–1821: the Crisis of Ecclesiastical Privilege (London, 1968), pp. 231, 254–65.
Fernán González, ‘La Iglesia ante la emancipación en Colombia’, in HGIAL, vol. VII, Colombia y Venezuela, p. 259. For Buenos Aires see Héctor José Tanzi, ‘El clero patriota y la Revolución de Mayo’, Revista de Indias, vol. 37 (1977), pp. 141–58, and for Peru Pilar Garcia Jordán, ‘Notas sobre la participación del clero en la independencia del Peru. Aportación documental’, BoletÃn Americanista, vol. 24 (1982), pp. 139–48.
Javier Ocampo, Las ideas de un dÃa: El pueblo mexicano ante la consumación de su Independencia (Mexico, 1969), pp. 230–46.
Avelino Ignacio Gómez Ferreyra (ed.), Viajeros pontificios al RÃo de la Plata y Chile (1823–1825): La primera misión pontificia a Hispano-América, relatada por sus protagonistas (Córdoba, Argentina, 1970), pp. 502, 543–4, 573.
Guillermo Gallardo, La polÃtica religiosa de Rivadavia (Buenos Aires, 1962), pp. 67–78, 105–34, 277–80.
Testament of BolÃvar, 10 Dec. 1830, in Simón BolÃvar, Obras completas, 2nd edn, 3 vols (Havana, 1950), vol. III, p. 529.
Buenaventura de Carrocera, Misión de los Capuchinos en Guayana, Academia Nacional de la Historia, 3 vols (Caracas, 1979), vol. III, pp. 13–14, 318–23.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 2001 Institute of Latin American Studies
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Lynch, J. (2001). Revolution as a Sin: the Church and Spanish American Independence. In: Latin America between Colony and Nation. Studies of the Americas. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230511729_6
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230511729_6
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-41856-5
Online ISBN: 978-0-230-51172-9
eBook Packages: Palgrave Political & Intern. Studies CollectionPolitical Science and International Studies (R0)