Insubordinate, fugitives, and informants: deserters of Spanish and Portuguese garrisons in central South America, c. 1750-1800

Abstract

At the edges of the Iberian empires, military correspondence often refers to the desertion of soldiers and officers. The ubiquity of this phenomenon suggests an association with the squalid working conditions that prevailed in fortifications. This article focuses on late eighteenth-century territorial disputes between the Portuguese captaincy of Mato Grosso and the Spanish provinces of Paraguay, Mojos and Chiquitos, where several detachments and fortifications were located. Without disregarding that poor material conditions cause lots of desertions, this article argues that soldiers and officers’ dissatisfaction with the distribution of honors and prizes was also an important dimension of the phenomenon. Fugitives often imagined that their services and efforts had not been properly recognized and thus decided to negotiate their loyalty as vassals of another prince.