Abstract

RIVERA MIR, Sebastián Nelson. Chilean Executioners at the End of the Colonial Period: between Change, Custom, and Infamy. hist.crit. [online]. 2008, n.36, pp.124-147. ISSN 0121-1617.

This study focuses on an unknown part of the operation of colonial justice for both the historiography of the law and social history. It starts by questioning the image of the executioner that has persisted over time and analyzing it as a political construction deployed by a specific social group. The article examines the changes to the position of the executioner under the Bourbon reforms at the end of the eighteenth century in what was then the Kingdom of Chile. It also analyzes the material changes that the executioner faced, particularly regarding wages. The goal of the article is to demonstrate that the infamy tied to the post, which emerged from the arguments of colonial authorities and reinforced by nineteenth-century writers and historians, needs to be understood with greater nuance.

Keywords : Executioner; Justice; Chile; Eighteenth century; Punishment.

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