Modernity and baroque society: the revolution of independence in Cordoba del Tucumán and the Monastery of Santa Catalina (1810-1829)

Abstract

Córdoba del Tucumán’s forced support of the revolution started in Buenos Aires in May 1810 involved this inland city in a process that would upset their governmental, social and economic development. Working with documents belonging to the Monastery of Santa Catalina, the Archives of the Province of Córdoba and the National Historical Archives, we analyze the behaviour of the Catalinas nuns toward the new authorities arising from the independence movement. The tortuous history of local political alliances in a city that, despite their apparent compliance with the modernist values of the new State, belonged to the Ancient Regime is exposed through the study of a boisterous lawsuit involving the government of the First Triumvirate in 1812 — in which the nuns were accused of being unpatriotic— and a complaint filed by Benito Lazcano, the Episcopal governor, against Hipólito García Pose, trustee of the monastery, between 1815 and 1820. The monastery of Santa Catalina, particularly linked to groups’ leaders of the local society —in large measure contrary to that change— suffered the consequences of the mutation of the regime. The revolutionary governments, in need of economic resources, pressured the cordovan convent for that cede part of their property and transformed, in turn, the internal regime of the religious community. In this way, far from its former prosperity, the monastery of Santa Catalina experienced a continued decline in their revenue and their capacity to recruitment since 1815. On the other hand, the general impoverishment of the population aggravated the situation of the monastery, which 1829 had come to experience regime change towards the «common life», situation which distinguishes it in the context of other monastic experiences in Latin America.