In the years 1763--83, Bourbon Spain experienced an unprecedented number of important rebellions throughout the American realms of its empire---from New Orleans to modern day Equador, Colombia, Peru and Bolivia. No subsequent rebellion even approached the significance of these movements until the independence era began with the monarchic crisis of 1808. The dissertation examines the paradox of how Spain, a relatively weak, imperial power maintained a colonial rule that would endure for another thirty to forty years in the same period that the stronger powers of Britain and France lost their smaller American empires. The dissertation argues that the Spanish Crown's inner strength drew from two sources. First, the Crown demonstrated flexibility in adapting to a number of different, rebellious situations. Second, the majority of the Crown's subjects supported the Crown as a legitimate source of power and authority both out of conviction and self-interest. The dissertation draws on the correspondence of leading colonial officials, trial records and military service records. Using both discourse theory and statistical analysis, it examines the actions of the Crown and American subjects with regard to the use of the military, the Church, penal justice and royal patronage The dissertation brings a new perspective to two important fields of Latin American historiography---colonial administration and colonial rebellion. By examining the problem of responding to crisis, it provides an alternative to the traditional understanding of Bourbon administration guided by reform policies and political theory to the near exclusion of local, political concerns. To the still growing historiography of colonial rebellion, the dissertation adds a royalist perspective that helps to understand the inner weaknesses and strengths of these movements. Finally, the empire-wide analysis leads to a fuller appreciation both of the consistencies and inconsistencies of Spanish imperial rule and of the similarities and differences of regional, colonial societies
