Colombia's Military and Brazil's Monarchy: Undermining the Republican Foundations of South American Independence

by Thomas Millington

Overview

This important new study relates the origin of the decline of republican politics in South America to the existence of monarchic rule in Brazil. Millington suggests that if the European-oriented monarchy in Brazil had been overthrown at the time of independence—something that the South American republics, led by Colombian power, had within their power to accomplish—the independence movements in Spanish South America would have been able to collaborate with emergent republican forces in Brazil in the construction of a continental, American-style system. By failing to challenge the monarchy in Brazil, the South American republics lost an important opportunity to disavow European-oriented principles of elitism in the New World.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780313298066
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	08/23/1996
Series:	Contributions in Latin American Studies , #7
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 0.62(d)

About the Author

THOMAS MILLINGTON is Professor of Political Science at Hobart and William Smith Colleges in Geneva, New York. He is the author of Latin American Debt Politics after Independence (1992).

Table of Contents

Preface
Monarchic Factors in the South American Independence Movements
Colombian Power and Republican Politics: Sucre and Bolívar
The Status of Relations between the Monarchy and the Republics
A New Factor in the Equation: Sucre's Policy in Upper Peru (Bolivia)
Rise and Fall of the Republican Challenge to the Monarchy
The Monarchy Secure: Dawning of South America's Power Politics

Editorial Reviews

Argues that the development of republican ideas and institutions was hampered by the continuation of the monarchy in Brazil after her independence from Portugal in the 1820s. The monarchy could have been overthrown by Columbia at the time, allowing the republican forces in Brazil to join those in the newly independent Spanish-American countries in creating a continent- wide form of government totally free from European influence. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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