Abstract

CHERUBINI, MARÍA BELÉN. An Impossible Borderline? Spanish-Portuguese Conflicts in South America and the Expedition to Rio Grande de San Pedro (1773). Front. hist. [online]. 2021, vol.26, n.2, pp.238-262.  Epub July 01, 2021. ISSN 2027-4688.  https://doi.org/10.22380/20274688.1409.

This paper proposes a new contribution to the study of the conflicts on the Spanish-Portuguese border in the region of Rio Grande in the second half of the 18th century. To do this, it analyzes the expedition commanded from Buenos Aires by Juan José de Vértiz in 1773, from a perspective renewed by the incorporation of new sources and recent historiographical advances. This allows to visualize the limits of imperial action in that disputed border area, where it was very difficult to materialize with a dividing line the power and sovereignty claimed by both crowns. It is concluded that the border that the expedition provisionally established was not the result of geography, diplomacy or war, but of the limitations that empires encountered in projecting themselves in areas like that.

Keywords : border; expedition; empires; Rio Grande; Rio de la Plata; Spain; Portugal; Bourbon reforms.

        · abstract in Spanish     · text in Spanish     · Spanish ( pdf )