Workshop of Revolution

The plebeians of Buenos Aires were crucial to the success of the revolutionary junta of May 1810, widely considered the start of the Argentine war of independence. Workshop of Revolution is a historical account of the economic and political forces that propelled the artisans, free laborers, and slaves of Buenos Aires into the struggle for independence. Drawing on extensive archival research in Argentina and Spain, Lyman L. Johnson portrays the daily lives of Buenos Aires plebeians in unprecedented detail. In so doing, he demonstrates that the world of Spanish colonial plebeians can be recovered in reliable and illuminating ways. Johnson analyzes the demographic and social contexts of plebeian political formation and action, considering race, ethnicity, and urban population growth, as well as the realms of work and leisure. During the two decades prior to 1810, Buenos Aires came to be thoroughly integrated into Atlantic commerce. Increased flows of immigrants from Spain and slaves from Africa and Brazil led to a decline in real wages and the collapse of traditional guilds. Laborers and artisans joined militias that defended the city against British invasions in 1806 and 1807, and they defeated a Spanish loyalist coup attempt in 1809. A gravely weakened Spanish colonial administration and a militarized urban population led inexorably to the events of 1810 and a political transformation of unforeseen scale and consequence.

“Workshop of Revolution is an extremely well-researched, pathbreaking book, which makes new and substantial contributions to Latin American, working-class, and Atlantic history. Presenting an immense wealth of new archival material, Lyman L. Johnson not only respectfully and meticulously re-creates the lives and times of artisans in late-colonial Argentina, but also connects their lives to the wider society, broad imperial issues such as the slave trade, and the revolutionary forces emerging in the Atlantic world.”—Kenneth J. Andrien, author of Andean Worlds: Indigenous History, Culture, and Consciousness under Spanish Rule, 1532–1825, “This important book presents a completely new interpretation of Argentina’s independence era. Lyman L. Johnson uses Buenos Aires artisans as an entryway into the war of independence, depicting both the lower classes of Buenos Aires and the city itself with sensitivity and intelligence. It should be noted that Workshop of Revolution is a fine urban history.”—Charles F. Walker, author of Shaky Colonialism: The 1746 Earthquake-Tsunami in Lima, Peru, and Its Long Aftermath, “[I]n Workshop of Revolution Johnson exhibits a mastery of late-colonial archival sources and the deep, thoughtful analysis of a veteran historian. This important addition to the history of pre-independence Buenos Aires succeeds at expertly situating a traditional microstudy of urban laborers within the larger trends of Atlantic history.... Workshop of Revolution contributes to the history of race and class in colonial Spanish America, persuasively showing how workers were important and complex actors — albeit a class divided on the eve of independence.”, “Workshop of Revolution is an outstanding book. Its solid research, insightful analysis and excellent comparative perspectives make it mandatory reading for anyone interested in topics related to late colonial history, Atlantic history, social and economic history, and early independent Argentine and Latin American history.”, “[A] major contribution by one of the field’s best historians. . . . Highly recommended.”

Lyman L. Johnson is Professor of History at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte. He is a co-author of Colonial Latin America, the editor of Death, Dismemberment, and Memory: Body Politics in Latin America, and a co-editor of Aftershocks: Earthquakes and Popular Politics in Latin America and The Faces of Honor: Sex, Shame, and Violence in Colonial Latin America.