Discursos de poder, identidad y usos de la historia

Abstract

This article aims to reflect on the construction of identities about the conqueror Hernan Cortes in the Late Eighteenth Century. It deals with the different channels which were used to transmit his image and to build the myth of Cortes. This approach allows us to pay attention to the connections and relationships between the individual and the collective scopes. It focuses on how the interests of different historical actors (peninsular Spaniards) were projected on Cortes as a symbol of the modern subject. The political uses of Cortes and his historical uniqueness allow us to establish connections between the national question, colonialism, the production of discourses of power and the transmission of fundamental values of the Western tradition like progress, reason and civilization.