| Summary: | This paper analyzes the changes and continuities of political activity in the State of Querétaroafter the crisis of the Spanish Empire in 1810. It particularly studies the role played by the local elite within the general process of construction of the MexicanState. During the first decades of the 19th century, the Queretan elite endowed its territory with a new political structure within a liberal context. Elections and citizenship were some of the issues concerning this elite composed by landowners, overseers, important merchants, and miners. We approach the political process by studying the political behavior of a number of representative families of the elite, in this case: the López de Ecalas, the Acevedos, the Fernández de Jáureguis, and the Samaniegos. Moreover, this piece of research seeks to establish which degree of cohesion and old colonial privileges of the group were maintained in spite of the new political scene of the 19th century.
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