Abstract

ALEMANO, María Eugenia. Construction of power and social mobility on a colonial frontier: the case of Diego Trillo. Andes [online]. 2013, vol.24, n.1, pp.00-00. ISSN 1668-8090.

By 1760, the intensification of mercantile circulation, Araucanian migratory flows and Bourbon defensive policies led to the articulation of the southern border of the Empire, linking various colonial and indigenous territories from the Pacific to the Atlantic. In this paper, we intend to demonstrate- over a life story- the opportunities generated in this frontier for the development of power-building and upward mobility strategies. Pursuing this objective, we will analyze economic mechanisms and political practices that allowed the social trajectory of Spanish Diego Trillo, who at the end of 1750s settled in the Buenos Aires rural area. Along his life, Trillo was storekeeper and landowner, achieving a major economic accumulation, and also performed as Sargento Mayor of militia and Alcalde de la Santa Hermandad of various villages. We are particularly interested in identifying the links between his economic accumulation, some forms of representation and identification and the performance of state functions, altogether in a frontier context. We will argue that his social trajectory reflected both individual strategies and changes and continuities in the political, economic and cultural features of the Río de la Plata in the late colonial period.

Keywords : Frontier; Bourbon; Power; Upward Mobility.

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