Gerda Henkel researchers Laura Cucchi and Juan Neves-Sarriegui presented aspects of the ‘Latin America and the Global History of Democracy Project, 1810-1930’ at the XX Conference of the Association of European Historians of Latin America (AHILA) that took place in the Oriental University of Naples between 2 and 6 September 2024.
Laura Cucchi addressed in her paper the role of a few South American émigrés in the 1860s in fostering the circulation of ideas regarding democracy and limited government in the region. She focused on the print shop and newspaper called La República, which had its operations in Buenos Aires and displayed an active role in editing and distributing books and pamphlets throughout the continent. It was founded by the Chilean writer and journalist Manuel Bilbao and by Alejandro Bernheim, a French republican typographer. The editorial table was in the hands of Florentino González, a Colombian jurist and politician who was at the time Chair of Constitutional Law at the University of Buenos Aires. The technical aspects of the newspaper were managed by the Chilean José Félix Aldao, who was running the newspaper’ s workshop and was one of the leaders of the typographers´ union of Buenos Aires. The paper presented their ideas regarding the dimensions of democratic life that could put checks on government.
In turn, Juan Neves-Sarriegui’s paper, ‘Vicente Pazos Kanki: An Aymara in the Age of Atlantic Revolutions’, examined the processes of democratisation in the age of Atlantic revolutions through the study of the life of Vicente Pazos Kanki (1776-1851?), an indigenous author from Upper Perú, in modern Bolivia. Pazos Kanki was a prominent editor of newspapers, and a strong advocate for the freedom of the press, popular sovereignty, and representative government. An early example of an author that used of language of democracy, Pazos Kanki was also interested in political economy and technological improvement. Moving between the Andes and Atlantic ports in Europe and the Americas, Pazos Kanki was a clever commentator on the age of revolutions.
