THE REFORM POSTAL SYSTEMS IN THE PROCESS OF STRUCTURING AND CONSTRUCTION OF IMPERIAL STATES IN THE 18TH CENTURY

THE REFORM POSTAL SYSTEMS IN THE PROCESS OF STRUCTURING AND CONSTRUCTION OF IMPERIAL STATES IN THE 18TH CENTURY

CONCLUSIONS

This research highlights processes in which the power and authority of the Bourbon monarchy were not imposed by force, but through negotiation with the interested parties in different decisional nodes throughout the empire. This is not to argue that the monarchy was weak, but that negotiation was part of normal government practice, including the reform of the postal system.

This paper argue that the postal system played a central role in the configuration of imperial spaces, exercising its own agency. The postal administration was an autonomous agent capable of changing the socio-political and economic face of the empire

Rodrigo de Sousa Coutinho

INTRODUCTION

POSTAL SYSTEM IN THE SPANISH EMPIRE

The historiography is not very numerous and it usually focuses on the study of administrative system and the analysis of the regulations and instructions (Alcázar Molina, Bosé, Garay Unibaso, López Bernal).

Nowadays, there are books about different topics about the circulation of the information in the early modern history (Lamikiz, Brendecke, Sellers-García, Castillo Gómez)

POSTAL SYSTEM IN THE OVERSEAS EMPIRES

The historiography about postal service is not very numerous.

The postal system in the overseas empires has been studied by Steele and Dierks in the British empire, Sobral Neto and Guapindaia in the Portuguese empire and Banks in the French empire.

Communication was a crucial aspect to the functioning of the Spanish empire. The circulation of information was essential in governing the territories and to maintaining social, economic, political and cultural relations in these empires. Furthermore, the systems that circulated information, as in the case of postal system, produced modification in policies, practices and networks. All these aspects were of fundamental relevance in the formation and in the maintenance of European empires.

Thank you very much for your attention

British Library

THE POSTAL REFORM IN THE SPANISH EMPIRE DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

Post Office Act 1711

British Library

BRITISH POSTAL MUSEUM AND ARCHIVE

Benjamin Franklin

BRITISH LIBRARY

1764

1660-1711

1798

British empire

Portuguese empire

Spanish empire

Bourbon Monarchy: their plans the innovation of the mail system that promised to allow the shrinking of the vast Spanish empire by quickening communications and strengthening the bureaucratic chain of command . Nevertheless, these projects encountered obstacles and resistances both in the Iberian Peninsula and in their overseas locations

This shows that, in postal matters at least, there were no differences between the various models of sovereignty, since whether the state was under an absolute monarchy or a parliamentary system, they were pursuing the same goal: a government postal monopoly

Archivo General de Indias

Source: Werner Stangl (ed.), HGIS de las Indias (Proyecto FWF, P 26379-G18, 2015-2019). Www.hgis-indias.net.

Network of rejections and collaborations was generated between the different players in the communications apparatus of the Spanish empire that demonstrates the importance of information and the power it represents in the imperial government

The agents who participated in the transport of the mail.

These agents of change that carried out the postal dynamics. They were also intermediaries between the social and political spaces and the local and imperial ones

Source: Werner Stangl (ed.), HGIS de las Indias (Proyecto FWF, P 26379-G18, 2015-2019). Www.hgis-indias.net.

Rocío Moreno Cabanillas

Universidad de Sevilla

rmcabanillas@us.es