Illustration and social change in hispanic america at the end of the 18th century

Abstract

This article offers a general view of the irruption of the Enlightenment in Spanish America at the end of the eighteenth century, especially in the field of education, and its articulation with some of the social dynamics that arose in the tension between the metropolis and the ultramarine provinces in the last 
colonial period of the Spanish Empire. The objective of this review is to show the political importance of the reflections on education in eighteenth-century America and its relationship with the social context, in order to dispel finalist ideas about the period of Independence. In this sense, it is intended to trace, in
a particular historical period, the relationship between ideas and social processes.