Stephen Webre

Jose de Bustamante and Central American Independence: Colonial Administration in an Age of Imperial Crisis (review)

nance, Poole turns to Spain’s larger empire in the second half of the book. “An Empire Threatened” (Chapter 6) reviews the various internal and external threats and pressures on the Spanish empire, in particular those of the New World, which would be addressed by Ovando as visitador and then president of the Council of the Indies. Ovando’s final but unwanted position as President of the Council of Finance is recounted in “The Road to Bankruptcy,” before Poole ends with an overall assessment of the life of Ovando. As in the first half of the book, Ovando’s actions are placed within clear expositions of the nature of a visita, the structure and functioning of the Council of the Indies, the Council of Finance, and the financial state of the empire.