Abstract
This essay investigates how members of the "popular classes" - peasants, rural wage- workers, indigenous communities, slaves, artisans and urban plebeian - participated in the complex political conjuncture initiated with the monarchical crisis of 1808. Each of these groups has been often studied in separate, according to their specific social or racial belongings. Based on an extensive bibliography, this article intends to trace, altogether the trajectories of the different groups in that same conjuncture, thereby analyzing what did they have in common and delving into the causes of their actions, from the local to most general ones: such as the Imperial crisis and the crucial dilemma caused by the absence of the Spanish king from the throne.
Keywords:
popular participation; Hispanic-American Independence; king; causality