Family, trade and politics: Miguel Riesco y Puente between Chile and Spain in the early 19th century

Abstract

This article examines family and commercial strategies as part of long-range social, economic and political networks through the letters exchanged by Manuel Riesco, the head of a Chilean trading house, and his son Miguel, who sat as substitute representative in the Cortes of Cádiz, during his time in Spain in the early 19^th century. In this context, private trajectories and the experience of the public arena allow us to reassess the process of change that the Hispanic world was undergoing during this period, from a private and family perspective, both in terms of its effects on household internal structure and of its impact on the social projection of its members.