Miguel Eyzaguirre: the networks of a Chilean reformist in the Lima of Viceroy Abascal, 1803-1816

Abstract

This article examines the career of Chilean reformist Miguel Eyzaguirre between 1803 and 1816. Its aim is to analyse three specific phenomena: Eyzaguirre’s economic and political networks, both in Europe and in South America, during the years immediately preceding and following the royal abdications at Bayonne; his role as a political figure, intellectual and lawyer in Lima during the government of Viceroy José Fernando Abascal; and his ideological ties with the Chilean “revolutionaries”. I argue that his work as editor of newspaper articles, as Crime Prosecutor of Lima’s Audiencia and as the leader of the “constitutional” faction based in the Peruvian capital demonstrates his “reformist” rather than “revolutionary” position. This would differentiate him both from the “loyalist” group that supported Abascal’s monopolistic and counterrevolutionary policies, as well as from the Chilean “revolutionaries”, who, unlike Eyzaguirre, broke their ties with the Spanish corporations that ruled the empire on behalf of Ferdinand VII soon after 1810. The article concludes, however, that both “reformists” and “revolutionaries” were —at least until 1815— loyal to the king.