Un espacio para la controversia: La Audiencia de Quito en el siglo XVIII

Abstract

Among the different ways in which the historical study of a region or period can be approached, this article can be inserted in the historiographical current that attempts to detect problems rather than offer general visions. So, instead of describing the territory from economic, political, social or cultural perspectives (already done by several authors), the object of this study is to sketch the outstanding features of the High Court of Quito in order to focus on two aspects, one economic (the so-called economic crisis suffered in thc region from the beginning of the eighteenth century), and the other ideological (the controversy hich arose between Enlightened Americans and Europeans over the, also socalled, decadence to the American continent.