250 Like all revolutionary processes, those that led to Latin American independ- ence were highly volatile and experimental in nature. If the French revolution is noteworthy for having produced several, radically different constitutions in only a few years, no less dramatic were the upheavals that in Latin America accompanied the search for a new consensus regarding what the process of emancipation from colonial domination should lead to. Often accompanied by extreme violence, even open warfare, the formation of the new Latin American states in the early nineteenth century required imagining what form and shape the new entities would take, what their citizen body and territory would be, and what their institutions and laws. 1 The need, often urgency, to transform colonial domains into various independent units often coincided with the desire to end (or at least modernize) the Ancien régime. Yet, the wish to supersede the past did not guarantee rupture. Instead, it initiated a period of questioning more often than answering, of experimenting more often than finding solutions. For many years, analysis of this period was mostly geared toward justify- ing the breakup with Spain and Portugal and the formation of new polities. This political motivation produced standard accounts that sought to demon- strate the pre-existence of communities, mostly identified as “nations,” which naturally and logically fought against the injustices of imperial rule by out- siders. For the independent Latin American states, this way of telling their history supplied both a narrative of origins (that explained how the states came to be) and a confirmation of previously prevailing identities (that vin- dicated their creation). In the last decades, however, most historians have 4 Independence(s): What Is a Revolutionary Law? Tamar Herzog 1 J. Adelman, “Ritos de estado: Violencia y soberanía en Hispanoamérica, 1789–1821,” in M. Irurozqui and M. Galante (eds.), Sangre de ley. Justicia y Violencia en la institucional- ización del estado en América Latina, siglo XIX (Madrid: Polifemo, 2011), 25–63, discusses some of these issues. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009049450.005 Published online by Cambridge University Press