Objective/context:

In this article I will examine the concept and the ideal of “experience”, i.e. knowledge acquired from lived situations, and its effects on the functioning of the Spanish Empire during the seventeenth century. The analysis will focus on the experience of Spanish imperial officers -those men who held government offices, such as corregidores or gobernadores- and how they developed empirical knowledge and practices that were decisive for government and the functioning of the monarchy.

Originality:

Officers’ experiences have received very little attention, especially from a political perspective. Moreover, this study emphasizes not only the physical movements of officers throughout the empire, but also the way their knowledge circulated. Furthermore, it highlights the fact that this movement was not unidirectional, nor exclusively from Europe to America. There was broad intraregional movement, as well as from America to Europe.

Methodology:

The article will make a brief analysis of how experience was valued by political treatise writers. Then, it will show how imperial officers gained various forms of experience and focus on tracing the circulation of such experience: i.e. how it was put into practice in other regions of the empire. Finally, from an analysis of the informaciones de méritos y servicios (or “reports on merits and services”, a well-known but understudied document) this paper will take stock of how officers’ experiences were accumulated, codified and disseminated.

Conclusions:

Officers’ experience circulated profusely throughout the empire and helped to build a common knowledge on how to govern the very varied and scattered spaces and subjects of the Spanish king. The study of the practice and transmission of experience shows how the Hispanic Monarchy was structured. Beyond the political and legal institutions, it was the very experience of government (and the circulation of such experience) that interwove the global empire, giving it cohesion and vitality.

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