The term ‘frontier’ in the context of the expansion of northern New Spain, 15th–19th centuries. A look from the perspective of conceptual history

Abstract

Conceptual history proposes an analytical model that allows us to approach at each term as a concept that condenses a whole set of meanings and polysemous uses accessible through a historical reconstruction, characterized by the historical treatment of concepts. It
combines language and the extralinguistic level, it means, text and context, the tension
between concept and society, between historical semantics and social history. It is about concepts and their stories.
Following these guidelines, we present a bibliographical and documentary review of the term «border», analyzing the historical journey that has followed from its earliest records to the middle of the nineteenth century. In the context of setting up New Spain this concept arrived with a semantic load associated with campaigns of conquest against Islamic societies, and generally to designate «what is in front». Throughout the New Spanish period was acquiring semantic variants, associated with territorial demarcations reflecting their sense of boundary, and after the configuration of independent Mexico, the concept of
“border” was re-signified towards connotations that refer to coexistence between modern nations.