The New Kingdom of Granada

The Making and Unmaking of Spain's Atlantic Empire

Santiago Muñoz-Arbeláez

• Publisher: Duke University Press Books
• Year: 2025
• eBook ISBN:
  9781478060802
• Print ISBN:
  9781478031840
  9781478028611
• Subtopic: Latin American & Caribbean History

The New Kingdom of Granada tells the history of the making and unmaking of empire in the diverse and decentralized Indigenous landscapes of the Northern Andes. Santiago Muñoz-Arbeláez examines the intricate and disputed processes that reshaped the peoples and landscapes of present-day Colombia into a kingdom within the global Spanish monarchy. Drawing on correspondence, visitation reports, judicial records, maps, textiles, and accounting and legal documents created by Europeans and Indigenous peoples, Muñoz-Arbeláez outlines the painstaking century-long effort between 1530 and 1630 to consolidate the kingdom. A diverse group of people that included Indigenous interpreters, scribes, and intellectuals spearheaded these projects, which eventually expanded colonial control outward from its base in the highland Andean plateaus down to the lowland river valleys. Meanwhile, autonomous Indigenous political projects constantly threatened imperial rule, as rebels often encircled the kingdom and seized the corridors that linked it to Spain. By foregrounding the kingdom's difficult establishment and tenuous hold on power, Muñoz-Arbeláez challenges traditional understandings of imperial politics and the myriad ways Indigenous peoples participated in, disputed, and negotiated the establishment of colonial rule.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Contents
• A Note on Terminology
• Introduction. A Kingdom in the Mountains
• Part I. Producing Indios
• Part II. Indigenous Freedom
• Part III. New Imperial Designs
• Epilogue
• Acknowledgments
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index