The Spanish Empire And The Pacific World: Mexican 'Vagrants, Idlers, And Troublemakers' In The Philippines, 1765--1821

This dissertation examines the deportation of Mexican "vagrants" and other convicts to the Philippines between 1765 and 1821 to demonstrate that the Spanish Pacific world, traditionally neglected by the historiography of Latin America, was an important part of the history of the Spanish American colonies. In the context of imperial dynamics where the policies of the metropole were negotiated by colonial and local agendas, this study argues that a project that was originally intended to strengthen the presence of the Spanish Empire in the Pacific evolved into a crusade against delinquency in New Spain that responded to the anxieties of both Mexican elite and popular sectors about moral decline. With evidence from vagrancy trials and the official correspondence among authorities in Mexico, Manila, and Madrid, this dissertation throws light on the limits of Bourbon reformism, popular responses to social control, subaltern agency, and the nature of early modern empires. The fact that Mexicans used levies of vagrants to address internal quarrels by turning in inconvenient family members, friends, and neighbors points to the creation of consensus and a non-violent creation of hegemony. Convict transportation to the Philippines also emphasizes the predicament of the Spanish Empire at the end of the eighteenth century. An Enlightened reform that aspired to make colonies stronger and more productive paradoxically drained New Spain from potential soldiers and interfered with labor practices. Imperial objectives were not achieved because of the physical conditions and low moral quality of relocated Mexicans who ultimately became a factor in the social unrest experienced in the Philippines at the time. This research concludes that the history of Latin America and particularly, the history of the Spanish empire, needs to transcend traditional geographical enclosures and pay attention to transpacific connections that were more evident for their contemporaries than they are for scholars today.;Key Terms: Colonial Mexico, Philippines, Bourbon Reforms, Spanish Empire, Vagrants, Convict Transportation, Pacific, Social History.