Translation for and by Spanish Americans

translators’ role during Spanish America’s struggle for independence

Abstract

As is well known, political independence in the Americas was gained through a long, violent process in which colonies broke away from their colonial centers. Different revolutionaries, patriots, and liberators acted within their immediate colonial context; nonetheless, a shared trove of ideas existed in all of the Americas which helped, above all, to justify their actions. These ideas (largely emanating from Europe’s Enlightenment and in the Americas originally practiced in England’s former North American colonies) spread throughout the region, in part, thanks to the efforts of several translators. These were men who traveled to different places for different reasons. In those places they took in the ideas and practices of an emerging democratic republicanism, along with its promises and imperfections. Eager to distribute these concepts and models, they joined in the revolutionary spirit by taking up the pen and translating letters, books, constitutions, etc. Thus, these translators’ played a role
in disseminating ideas as a way to set new cultural and political parameters in their home cultures. This paper seeks to explore the role that translation played collectively during Spanish America’s struggle for independence.