Abstract
The article aims to reflect on how it must understand the process occurred in Latin America following the events of 1808 in the Peninsula, opening one wide field of disputes and political competition for the installation and control of new sovereign governments. Considering that terms as “syncretism”, “aporia”, “ambivalence”, “contradictions” etc. are inappropriate to define it, argues the convenience to not understand the legal and institutional dynamics which were then experienced by a sterile contrast between modernity and tradition. The work argues that the real point was that elites, which radically altered the field of policy from 1808, did not put in discussion the legality but implemented it, then suffering the consequences in their own body.
Keywords:
Latin America; independence; legality; modernity; 19th century