"La mano del plebeyo levantada, es la montaña que se despeña". La conceptualización del pueblo en tiempos de transformación. Chile, 1750-1850

Abstract

Considering the use of analytical tools inspired in conceptual history, this article attempts to reveal semantic continuities and transformations of the concept "people" from the last decades of colonial rule to the protest demonstrations organized by liberals against the conservative regime by mid-nineteenth century. Based on the analysis of the fundamental aspects of contingent political texts, the article shows the double conceptual process that characterized the use of the word "people" by thinkers and public opinion during the one hundred years considered in this study. On one hand the persistence of a menacing notion of dispossessed population under the binomial relationship between charity/police. On the other the elaboration of liberal and enlightened meanings defined under notions of sovereign legitimacy and political regeneration that popular citizens had to represent.