María, Prudencia and the “Alcaldes”: Feminine limits to certain abuses by the local authority, Santiago, Chile, 1732-1783

Abstract

In Santiago of the Eighteenth Century, the urban and social adjustments emanating from the local authorities were translated into practices and representations, institutional or otherwise, that involved all the inhabitants of the town. The decisive action of some mayors, like the mayors of Water and the mayors of Area, resulted in the accommodation of will and interests, but also in violent physical and subjective feminine confrontations, which have been registered in slander/libel lawsuits brought to the courts of first instance and last instance. The comparative analysis of two detailed cases, with the help of questions and from the perspective of the social sciences, enriches the knowledge of the dynamic daily life in the capital of the kingdom during the last colonial century.