ABSTRACT
The eighteenth-century colonization of Sierra Morena has long been considered a utopian project of the Spanish Enlightenment. Shedding long-range light on its inception and its implementation, this chapter frames the colonization within broader historical narratives of conquest and colonization. Faced with European accusations of backwardness, Charles III’s reformers frequently sought to highlight the difference between the civilized space of peninsular Spain and the uncivilized Spanish Empire in the Americas. However, the establishment of Sierra Morena, a colony in the Spanish peninsula, muddled these distinctions. This colonization illustrated how issues of imperial sovereignty affected the territorialization of the Spanish peninsula.
