The mark of the military privilege in the South frontier of Córdoba, Gobernación Intendencia del Tucumán by the end of eighteenth century

Abstract

This article studies the mark of one of the fundamental mechanisms deployed by the Borbonic authorities in the region of Gobernación Intendencia de Córdoba del Tucumán with the aim of professionalising and restructuring the militia bodies during the second half of the eighteenth century. Here we construct the historical context during which the Spanish monarchy undertook the process of military and administrative reforms, and analyse the way in which this process was implemented in the American colonies, particularly reaching the present province of Córdoba. Firstly, we argued that within the reformist frame, the military prerogative is a fundamental tool to construct a new official militia condition that differentiates from other bodies of the same type due to the possibility of enjoying special privileges resulting from the authority, a salary, a new social status and of a better position in the stratum order of the old regime derived from corporate privileges. Secondly, we analyse a series of sources linked to the role that the military prerogative played in colonial society as it attracted a series of changes and reforms in the order which had been kept until the beginning of the eighteenth century.