Cynthia E. Milton is Canada Research Chair in Latin American History at the Université de Montréal. She is coeditor of The Art of Truthtelling about Authoritarian Rule (2005)

Introduction 1

The City of Quito 17

PART THREE 102

Conclusion 238

Appendix 257

The reach and ramifications of this book are broad. It is one of several new works that assess the social impact of the Bourbon reforms, and, by opening the doors to Quito's poor house, it contributes to reinvigorated institutional histories of Latin America... To write a history of poverty in colonial Spanish America is a truly ambitious endeavor. The Many Meanings of Poverty is a valiant attempt at this monumental task, and the only word to describe many of its findings is: rich."—Bianca Premo, Florida International University, Eighteenth-Century Studies



"Cynthia E. Milton's book ... adds an additional layer of explanation to Egas's interpretation of who comprised the 'truly poor.' In a richly detailed and throughly researched scrutiny of the various faces of poverty in late colonial Quito, Milton examines how society drew distinctions between the deserving and not-so-deserving poor."—March Becker, H-Net Reviews



"This makes Quito, I think, the ideal setting for Cynthia Milton's welcome exploration of what poverty meant in late colonial Spanish America The Many Meanings of Poverty is clearly a major contribution to the historiography of colonial Ecuador, which after years of neglect has attracted innovative work in areas such as gender, law, and demography." —The Journal of Latin American Studies