ABOUT OUR PROJECT
Project Description
SUSPICIO proposes the hypothesis that security had become a key concept of governance in the late Spanish Empire (ca.1766–1820). This phenomenon began in the last quarter of the eighteenth century when Spain sensed the threat of losing its American colonies through external events that questioned the colonial rule – including US independence and the influence of the French revolution. This perception of threat and the Spanish government’s distrust of their own population in America gave rise to extensive security regulations and measures in order to protect the colonial order.
SUSPICIO will study sources of political crime that have, until now, been overlooked. A novel approach to these sources will analyze how the colonial administration identified and judged those individuals who were perceived to be a threat to the order, i.e., those who were categorized as “suspects”. The prerequisite for a rebellious act to have already occurred in order for an individual to become an enemy of the state fell away, superseded by the mere suspicion that a person might – in the future – act against the state.
SUSPICIO will examine the extent to which the creation and persecution of “suspects” polarized the people and thus broadened the basis of insurgency and revolution, so that, rather than preserving the colonial rule, security politics had a debilitating effect. By regarding the ambivalence and counterproductive effects of security politics, the project promises a new interpretation of the dissolution of the Spanish Empire. Its case may serve as an example, even for today, of how supra-national political entities can collapse under the pressure of security concerns, even where these security measures were meant to preserve them.
Objective
The overall aim of SUSPICIO is to determine the impact of security politics on colonial rule in Spanish America between ca. 1766 and 1820. SUSPICIO postulates that the perception of threat and the politics to prevent revolution in Spanish America brought about a fundamental shift in colonial rule – from reactive state intervention in cases of rebellion to preventive security measures. According to the Spanish colonial governmental concept of quietud (quietness), a good government should avoid, as far as possible, situations that could provoke conflict or resistance, and use force to preserve order only in situations of absolute necessity. By no means should the population become alarmed (Foucault 1978–1979; Simon 2005; Casagrande 2015). Accordingly, the role of colonial justice was retroactive. The courts judged acts of resistance and rebellion to safeguard “quietness” in society as well as to administer justice by punishing those who were guilty. The main instrument for avoiding future rebellions was punishment-by-example, and the main instrument of governmental surveillance was the vigilant neighbor, specifically the denunciation of suspects and strangers by local residents. The reason for the epochal change from reactive state to preventive security state was a change in the government’s perception of threat. Until the 1780s, the threat to the colonial order had come from indigenous rebellions or foreign agents. However, in the age of revolutions, the Spanish government became increasingly distrusting of the Creole population, and relocated this threat from outside colonial society to its center. The perception of threat impacted two core elements of colonial rule: surveillance and the judiciary practices. This impact is perceptible in the way the colonial institutions dealt with those individuals who were regarded as a threat to the order. It was no longer a prior act of rebellion that made an individual an enemy of the state and led to punishment, but the suspicion that it was more or less probable that an individual might – in the future – act against the state. Consequently, the colonial government had to consider the problem of how to identify suspects. As its dependence on the population’s voluntary denunciations became problematic, new instruments were needed in order to institutionalize and professionalize population control and make it work more independently of the people’s collaboration.