This book highlights the broad scope and span of resistance as a contentious practice in the early modern Iberian world. In this context, from the late Middle Ages onwards, resistance, rooted in the political and legal language of the ‘old regime’ that provided agents with legitimacy and resources for their actions, occurred mainly within the established jurisdictional system. These resources for litigation and demand made resistance a widespread kind of contesting practice related to wider  protests.

The authors assess the wide array of actions developed by individuals and communities to preserve their rights and identities, demonstrating how the Portuguese and Hispanic polities and their colonial possessions experienced resistance from below over a long period of change that marked the rise of more complex communities and institutional systems. This book offers a comprehensive overview of the variety of forms and expressions of resistance developed in different social, cultural, and territorial contexts, thus shedding additional light on the relationship between order and conflict within early modern European empires.

Chapter 3 is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.

Pablo Sánchez León is a researcher at the CHAM - Centro de Humanidades at Universidad NOVA de Lisboa in Portugal. His research revolves around social conflicts in the Spanish monarchy from the late Middle Ages through the early modern period in comparative perspective.

Benita Herreros Cleret de Langavant is a Professor of Early Modern History at the University of Cantabria in Spain. Her research delves into cross-cultural interactions and Indigenous resistance in the frontiers of the Iberian empires, focusing on northern Paraguay, Mato Grosso, and the Chaco regions.