Adventuring Through Spanish Colonies: Simon Bolivar, Foreign Mercenaries and the Birth of New Nations

by Matthew Brown

Overview

Between 1810 and 1825, 7,000 English, Scottish and Irish mercenaries sailed to Gran Colombia to fight against Spanish colonial rule under the rebel forces of Simón Bolívar. Their motives were mixed. Some travelled for money, others travelled for honour. Adventuring Through Spanish Colonies explores the lives of these men - their encounters with other soldiers, indigenous people, local women and slaves - as recounted in documents that fall outside the usual remit of military, political and economic historians. Matthew Brown considers the social and cultural aspects of the presence of these 'foreigners', and shows how they were an essential part of the revolution which eventually gave South America its freedom. Using archival research from England, Scotland, Ireland, Spain, Ecuador, Venezuela, and Colombia, Adventuring Through Spanish Colonies clearly shows the active role that these mercenaries, informal outriders of the British Empire, played in the creation of Latin America as we know it today.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781846310447
Publisher:	Liverpool University Press
Publication date:	12/15/2006
Series:	Liverpool University Press - Liverpool Latin American Studies Series
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	9.10(w) x 6.10(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Matthew Brown is a Lecturer in Latin American Studies, University of Bristol.

Table of Contents

Figures, Maps and Tables p. viii
Preface p. ix
Abbreviations p. xiii
Introduction p. 1
1. The Context for Adventure p. 13
2 The Terrain of Adventure in Gran Columbia p. 39
3 The Practicalities of Adventure p. 61
4 Negotiating Honour p. 81
5 Nations and Armies p. 110
6 Race, Slavery and Abolitionism p. 133
7 Veteran Soldiers and the State p. 156
8 Settling In p. 173
9 After Adventure p. 202
Conclusion p. 214
Glossary p. 221
Bibliography p. 223
Index p. 259

Editorial Reviews

"This is a very enjoyable book to read, full of surprising and suggestive insights. Perhaps most importantly, it is an interpretation that adds complexity, and nuances, to long-standing historiographical views of British involvement in the Spanish American Wars of "Independence, of early Spanish American concepts of nationhood and ethnicity, and of the impact these adventurers' actions had in the region. ... this is a noteworthy contribution."—Latin American Studies

"Many people have tried to write this book, but Matthew Brown finally has done it properly. It is a work of astonishing ambition and considerable labor and, through his new methodology, the author arrived at some surprising conclusions. Adventuring through Spanish colonies is an ambitious and successful book. In short, this book is a much needed corrective to earlier, more speculative accounts of the British and Irish recruits in Gran Colombia's independence armies."—Irish Migration Studies in Latin America

From the Publisher

"A brilliant piece of scholarship that presents new findings and revised interpretations of one particularly famous episode in Britain's involvement in the independence process. . . . By reconstructing the lives of those who took part in this sad though sometimes glamorous epic, Brown has made a superlaticve contribution  . . . and has demonstrated how informal empire is built by the ordinary men and women who risked their lives in foreign lands."

International History Review - Catherine Davies