Democrazie razziali? Riforme, guerre e cittadinanza dalla crisi dell'impero alle indipendenze ispano-americane

This article analyzes the transformation of the colonial social and political hierarchies and the shaping of new citizenship rights during the crisis of the Spanish empire and the independence wars. After having examined the late-colonial dynamics of class, caste, corporations and social belonging during the final decades of the Bourbon regime, it explores popular participation in the transformation of political space by paying attention to the specific choices and agendas of people of color within the social and political spheres of the time. The Spanish American case shows that, like other colonial contexts, struggle for political voices, rights and citizenship took place within empires before they became revolutions against them.