La clausura del Mercurio Peruano. Una perspectiva a contracorriente

This articles aims to revise the traditional theory according to which the Mercurio Peruano newspaper was closed down by the Spanish colonial authorities in order to pre-empt the development of nationalist sentiment in Peru. Available primary sources not only reveal multiple inconsistencies in this theory, but clearly prove that the closure of this renowned newspaper could not have been the result of instructions received from metropolitan Spain, given that the authorities in Madrid were informed of its closure once it had already taken place.Este artículo tiene por objetivo revisar la visión tradicional de la clausura del Mercurio Peruano, que se venía atribuyendo a una Administración colonial deseosa de evitar el surgimiento de un protonacionalismo peruano. Contrastando la historiografía existente con las fuentes primarias disponibles, se evidencian las múltiples inconsistencias de dicha visión y se demuestra fehacientemente que el cierre del Mercurio Peruano no pudo ser el resultado de una decisión de las autoridades metropolitanas, que se enteraron de su cierre a posteriori