Spanish colonial historiography [Ressource électronique] : everyone in their place

This paper examines the factors contributing to the exact place of Spain's imperial experience in the history of European expansion. The author also objects to the manner in which both the origins and the final crisis of the empire have been treated in international debates. In his view, the principal problem continues to be the lack of precision in establishing the exact historical significance of the link between the experience of dominion over Arab and Berber populations in Al-Andalus and the events that took place in the last decade of the 15th century. The conquest and dominion of the Caribbean and the great Mesoamerican and Andean empires must be situated in the sequence of expansion initiated in the 13th century. The central thread that runs throughout the empire's history is the capacity of its administrators to measure, fix and mobilize the necessary quantum of labor at the exact social cost that would permit the continued functioning of the complex relations that composed colonial society.