Power, Business and Family in Guatemala at the Beginning of the 19th Century

This text analyzes the conflict that played out in Guatemala City over the governor’s decision to favor his intimates with licenses to trade with neutral countries during the years 1797 and 1799. This crisis is used to reconstruct the networks of two interest groups that struggled for power in the capital. Even though both factions were headed by merchants and their principal objective was profit, their members were situated in the primary institutions of the royal and local governments and they pursued ambitious political projects. This text shows how networks established around a merchant who had received permits to carry out trade with neutral countries were fundamentally structured around family relations in which women built solid connections with men through ties of kinship and ethnicity. These traditional connections were supplemented by modern ties of business, friendship and, especially, the common creed of liberal values. In the case in question, traditional relationships became adverse due to a family conflict, which was taken advantage of by the antagonistic group