Peripheral Bourbon reformism and local elites. The Instrucción de Regentes and its backgrounds in Chile

Abstract

The bourbon reformism in Colonial Spanish America has been sufficiently studied during the last decades. However, almost all the studies focus on the main political reforms –such as the Intendant System–, as well as in the main political spaces in the colonial world. This work pretends to focus on a less studied reform –the Instrucción de Regentes–, and in a peripheral political space of the Spanish Colonial Empire, trying to demonstrate how the existence of locale interests groups collided with the homogenizing policies from the Crown.