La mobilité des magistrats des cours souveraines (audiencias) des Indes sous Charles III (1759-1788), reflet d’une politique réformatrice

This article aims at analyzing the mobility of magistrates named by Charles the Third in the West Indies, from 1759 to 1788. Beyond an historiography which favoured the anti-creole vision, it is about re-imagining the mobility as a real system. Family support, personal merit, cronyism, years of service and respect of norms were as many factors, sometimes contradicting one another, explaining the promotion of a magistrate. The mobility of magistrates was therefore a part of the gift economy. It also depended on the reforming politics of José de Gálvez