Nestosanos en Guadalajara. Triunfo y decadencia de un grupo privilegiado, 1780-1836

This article aims to explain how, during the last quarter of the eighteenth century, people native to Lanestosa (Vizcaya) were able to establish an important network of fellow townsfolk in the Novohispanic city of Guadalajara. They became a privileged group, attaining economic and social success, as personified in the figure of Juan Manuel Caballero. The instability caused by the Insurgency undermined their prominent role, leading many to return to Spain to resume their lives. We have drawn on the unpublished correspondence of Francisco de Carranza, a merchant settled in Cadiz, which sheds unprecedented light on aspects of the life of Francisco Martinez Negrete before he became a key figure in the northwest Mexico of the nineteenth century.