Rare document collection traces the political upheavals that reshaped Spain and Spanish America between the 1760s and 1820s  

By Rebecca O'Malley Gipson 

Tulane University's Doris Z. Stone Latin American Library and Research Center is opening its doors this fall to a new exhibition drawn primarily from its own holdings — rare books, manuscripts, maps, newspapers and early constitutions that trace the political upheavals connecting Spain and Spanish America to the wider Atlantic world. A small number of items from Tulane University Special Collections and the Law Library round out the exhibit, alongside reproductions of paintings held in museums in Bogotá, Buenos Aires, Caracas, London, and Mexico  — a reminder of just how international this story is. 

Spain, Spanish America, and the Atlantic World in an Age of Revolution opens Sept. 24 on the fourth floor of Howard-Tilton Memorial Library and remains on view through May 2027. Open to the Tulane community and the public, the exhibition offers a rare chance to see up close the primary sources that make Tulane's Latin American collections among the strongest in the country, particularly for Mexico, Central America, and northern South America. 

Independence as a long, unfinished argument  

The exhibition’s central claim is a corrective one: Spanish American independence was not a single dramatic event and Spanish America itself was never a monolith. Between the 1760s and the 1820s, different regions moved along different timelines, through different means, and toward different—and sometimes competing—visions of what should come after empire. 

Visitors will see how the crisis began: Napoleon's 1808 invasion of Spain and the forced abdications of King Charles IV and Ferdinand VII threw open a question with no settled answer — in the absence of a legitimate king, where does sovereignty reside? The 1812 Constitution of Cádiz, drafted by representatives from Spain and its colonies explored the answer to this question, while Ferdinand VII's abolition of that constitution just two years later offered another. Rare speeches by Spanish American delegates to the Cortes of Cádiz, alongside the royal decree that repealed the constitution, capture that reversal in real time.  

 “When we think about independence, it’s often compressed into a date, a declaration, or a heroic military victory, when in fact it was a long and uncertain struggle over what would replace colonial rule,” said Hortensia Calvo, the Director, Research Professor, and Librarian for the Doris Z. Stone Latin American Library and Research Center. “Breaking with Spain was only one part of the problem. The much harder question was: What kind of political order would replace it? Once the authority of the Spanish monarchy was gone, where did sovereignty reside, and who had the right to exercise it?” 

Calvo went on to explain, “Latin America is often imagined as a single place with a single history, when in fact it is a vast and extraordinarily diverse region, encompassing many languages, cultures, societies, and historical experiences. Independence was also profoundly local. Even within the same emerging nation, different cities, provinces, and communities experienced the struggle differently and often held competing ideas about what independence should mean.” 

That pattern, democratic experiment, debate, and reversal, repeats across the exhibition, and its central tension, between rule of law and authoritarian rule, was never fully resolved. The exhibition doesn't argue for a single interpretation of that struggle; it simply shows how these themes/issues? are interwoven into the region’s history.  

Among the documents on view: 

• Reproduction of La India de la Libertad (1819), an anonymous oil painting from Bogotá that transforms an older European allegory of the "exotic" New World into a symbol of political sovereignty — positioned in the adjacent lobby as a preview of its central themes
• Confidential instructions from Minister of the Indies José de Gálvez to his nephew Bernardo de Gálvez (1776), alongside  a model of El Cazador, the Spanish silver-carrying brigantine lost in the Gulf of Mexico in 1784 — early evidence of empire, frontier defense, and Atlantic commerce
• Rare gazettes and newspapers Reveal how the ideas of the Enlightenment were received and developed in Spanish America.  This new knowledge entered the public sphere and shaped the political debates that followed.
• Militia and provisions lists signed by Mexican independence leader Miguel Hidalgo, alongside the 1813 declaration of the Congress of Anáhuac and the 1814 Constitution of Apatzingán
• The 1812 Constitución política de la monarquía española — the Constitution of Cádiz — displayed alongside the 1814 royal decree in which Ferdinand VII announced its repeal, a document that still bears the folds, seals, and postal markings of its journey through the empire
• Competing early constitutions from present-day Colombia — Cundinamarca's constitutional monarchy and Cartagena's republican, federalist charter — showing that independence produced no single political model
• Original pamphlets and decrees by Simón Bolívar tracing some of the key events and ideas that shaped his extraordinary trajectory.   These documents are shown alongside five reproductions of portraits that show how this iconic figure has been interpreted through time .
• Central America's 1821 Declaration of Independence and the Gaceta de Guatemala's account of a negotiated, elite-led transition — a markedly different path than the prolonged wars fought elsewhere
• Founding constitutions of the new Latin American republics, described in the exhibition as the "birth certificates of nations," defining citizenship and the boundaries of the new political order. 

A local thread in a larger story 

That larger story has a local angle, too. Spain used New Orleans as a base to supply arms and funding to the rebelling U.S. colonies during the Revolutionary War, and Louisiana's own governor, Bernardo de Gálvez, led campaigns along the Gulf Coast that culminated in the 1781 capture of Pensacola, a major turning point in the U.S. war of independence. Later material in the exhibition shows New Orleans, by then part of the United States, functioning in 1815 as a hub of revolutionary intelligence tied to the independence movements further south. It's a reminder that the city's history is entangled with the same currents the exhibition traces across the wider Atlantic — even if that connection is only one thread among many. 

Plan a visit 

What: Spain, Spanish America, and the Atlantic World in an Age of Revolution 

When: Sept.24, 2026 – May 2027 

Where: Doris Z. Stone Latin American Library and Research Center, 4th Floor, Howard-Tilton Memorial Library (7001 Freret Street, New Orleans 70118) 

Admission: Free and open to all. The gallery is accessible whenever Howard-Tilton Memorial Library is open. Visit Tulane University Libraries for current hours. 

Image caption: Exhibition display for Spain, Spanish America, and the Atlantic World in an Age of Revolution, featuring a large mural of a Spanish American city and historical documents in a glass display case. Mural Image digitally edited by Becky Gipson, 2026, Based on Plaza Mayor de Bogotá, Francisco Castillo, c. 1840, Courtesy of Museo de la Independencia-Casa del Florero, Bogotá, Colombia.