Genealogy of Comisario: Police and Urban Order in Buenos Aires

Abstract

Born in the France of the Ancien Régime, the commissaire de police has a capital importance in the history of modern policing. The European  historians have underlined its ambivalence and complexity: authorities named by the central government, but at the same time supported with local funds, and struggling between the administration of justice and police bureaucracy. This paper analyses how this authority emerged in the Hispanic American world, focusing on the case of the city of Buenos Aires in the long nineteenth century. The comisarios of Buenos Aires have built a strong writing tradition, materialized in the form of police journals and memoirs, which constitutes the main documentary source of this work.