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    CAMBRIDGE LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES

    EDITORS

    DAVID JOSLIN JOHN STREETTIMOTHY KING CLIFFORD T. SMITH

    12

    POLITICS AND TRADE INS O U T H E R N M E X I C O

    17501821

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    THE SERIES1 S I M O N C O L L I E R . Ideas an d Politics of Chilean Independence, 1808-18332 M . p. C O S T E L O E . Church Weal th in Mexico: A Study of the Juzgado deCapellanias in the Archbishopric of M exico y 1800-18563 P E T E R C A L V E R T . T he Mexican Revolution, 1910-1914: The DiplomacyofAn glo -Amer ican Con f lict4 R I C H A R D G R A H A M . Britain and the O n s e t of Modernizat ion in Brazi l ,

    1830-19145 H E R B E R T s. K L E I N . Parties an d Political Chan ge in Bolivia, 1880-19526 L E S L I E B E T H E L L . The abolit ion of the Brazilian slave trade: Britain, Brazil

    and the slave trade que stion7 D A V I D B A R K I N A N D T I M O T H Y K I N G . Rural Economic Development:The River Basin Approach in Mexico8 C E L S O F U R T A D O . Economic Development of Latin America: A Surveyfrom Colonial Times to the Cuban Revolution9 W I L L I A M P A U L M C G R E E V E Y . An E c o n o m i c History of Co lo mb ia , 1845-

    19301 0 D . A. B R A D I N G . Miners an d M erchants inBourbon Mexico, 1763-181011 J A N B A Z A N T . The Alienation of Church Weal th in M exico. Social an dEconom ic Aspect of the Liberal Revolution, 1856-187512 B R I A N H A M N E T T . Politics an d trade in Southern Mexico, 1750-1821

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    POLITICS AND TRADEIN S O U T H E R N M E X IC O

    1750-1821B Y

    BRIAN R. HAMNETTAssistant Professor of H istoryState University of New York at

    Stony Brook

    C A M B R I D G EAT THE UNIV ERSITY PRESS1971

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    CAMBRIDG E UNIV ERSITY PRESSCambridge, New Y ork, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, Sao Paulo, DelhiCambridge University PressThe Edinburgh B uilding, Cambridge CB 2 8RU, UK

    Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New Yorkwww.cambridge.orgInformation on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521078603

    Cambridge University Press 1971This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exceptionand to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,no reproduction of any part may take place without the writtenpermission of Cambridge University Press.

    First published 1971This digitally printed version 2008A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library

    Library of Congress Catalogue Card Number: 70116 839ISB N 978-0-521-07860-3 hardbackISBN 978-0-521-10020-5 paperback

    To my M other and Father

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    C O N T E N T SAcknowledgments page viArchival abbreviations viiWeights, measures, and currency viiiIntroduction i

    1 Oaxaca environment and trade 92 Th e struggle for contro l of trade 243 Th e pro blem of reform, 1768-1786 414 Re form a nd realitythe crisis of the subdelegations in the

    1790s 565 Th e G alvez Plan und er fire, 1786-1804 726 Finance, trade , and the me rchan ts, 1789-1808 957 The political crisis of 1808-1821 1218 Conclusion Oaxaca w ithin the conte xt of M exican politics 148

    Glossary of Personnel 156Appendices: 1. Cochineal registration figures in the city of Oaxaca 169

    2. Ten-year period registration figures, 1758-1826 3 . Oaxacacochineal dye (grana find) exports on the fleets from Veracruz,1760-1772 4. Cochineal trade at Cadiz, February 1783-November 1786 5. Cochineal of Oaxaca within the context ofSpanish American trade in 178 6 to the port of Cadiz 6. Export

    figures at the port of Veracruz, 1796-1821 7. Revenue andExpenditure of the Oaxaca treasury, I7go-i8ig 8. Table toillustrate the relationship between the Oaxaca merchants, and thoseof Mexico City and Veracruz, 1790-1800 p . Personnel involvedin the Oaxaca Consolidation, years 180 6, 180 7, and 1 80810. Sums collected during the Consolidation in Oaxaca11. Debts of the Oaxaca Treasury to the Pious Foundations, 182812. The Obrajes in Oaxaca 13. OaxacaPopulationestimates of the Intendancy and State

    Sources and bibliography 190Maps: 1. The Intendancy of Oaxaca, 1786-1821 2. Valley of 198

    OaxacaIndex 200

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    A C K N O W L E D G M E N T SI should like to express my gratitude to the various persons in Mexico,Spain, Eng land, and the United States, who have contributed in no smallw ay to the realisation of this w ork . D r. Jo hn Street at the Cen tre of LatinAm erican Studies, Camb ridge, kindly un dertook the task of directing theoriginal dissertation which gave rise to the present book. I should also liketo thank Professor David Joslin at Pembroke College, and ProfessorW o o d r o w B o r a h at B erkeley, for their valuable advice and criticism. Iam grateful to the Master and Fellows of Peterhouse for their support ofmy research project, and to the Depar tment of Education and Science inLondon and the Astor Foundation for financial support. I am indebted toDr. John V incent for his sustained encou ragem ent of this work dur ing allits phases. In Spain, the kindness of Seiiorita Rosario Parra, director ofthe Archives of the Indies in Seville, and her staff, greatly aided my workin that magnificent depository. In Mexico, Dr. J. Ignacio Rubio Mane,director of the National Archives, and his staff, received me with graceand courtesy.Stony Brook B. R. H.July ig6g

    V I

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    A RC HIV A L A B B R E V IA T IO N SA C O Archivo de la Catedral de OaxacaA EO Archivo del Estado de OaxacaAG I Arch ivo G eneral de Indias (Seville)A G N Archivo G eneral de la Nacion (Mexico City)A H H Archivo Historico de Hacienda (Mexico City)A H N Archivo Historico Nacional (Madrid)A M O Archivo Mu nicipal de OaxacaB N B iblioteca Nacional (Mexico City)B M B ritish Museum (London)B SM G E B iblioteca de la Sociedad Mexicana de G eografia y Estadistica

    (Mexico City)

    V I I

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    W EIG HTS , MEAS URES, AND C UR R EN C Y1 Cochineal was we ighed before shipment to Spain in cargas of 9 arrohas:

    1 arroba = 25 Spanish pounds = 25 English pounds1 carga = 225 pounds

    2 A zurron was approximately 100 pound s3 Maize, w heat, and beans we re weigh ed as follows:

    4 cuartillos = 1 alm ud = 7*568 litres12 almudes = 1 fanega = 22*704 litres2 fanegas = 1 carga = 181-630 litres4 A vara was the linear measure for textiles:

    1 vara = 0-838 metres = 32-99 inches5 Currency:

    12 granos = 1 real8 reales = 1 peso1 peso = 4 shillings sterling c. 1780

    V l ll

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    INTRODUCTION

    O n to the indigenous civilisations of the Zapotecs and Mixtecs, theCastilian conqu erors grafted the political and religious experience o f Spain.The Aztec outpost of Huaxyacac became the centre of Spanish power andinfluence in the fertile V alley of Oaxaca. Through the course of the latersixteenth and seventeenth centuries, many of the indigenous areas of theprovince of Oaxaca fell under the spiritual control of the DominicanOrder, which, from its B aroque convents and churches, exercised atheocratic authority that virtually excluded the pow er of the C row n. Th eCrown's authority emanated from the capital, the city of Antequera deOaxaca, named after Antequera in Andalusia, which it was supposed toresemble; but in these religious centuries, often the auth ority of the B ishopof Oaxaca evoked a more immediate response in consciences.

    Oaxaca was one of the main centres of Spanish power in the colonialperiod, a power whose bases were fixed more firmly into the centre andsouth of New Spain than in the modern Mexican Republic, which tendsmore strongly to the north and north-centre. The colonial Oaxaca was aregion comparable w ith G uatemala, w ith Q uito , and the highland regionsof Peru, centres where Castilian authority influenced and permeatedalready well-formed indigenous cultures, and where, gradually, not with-out resistance, and often by means of symbols and demonstrations, thereligion brought by the friars exercised a mystical fascination for theformer subjects of the Aztecs, Mayas, or Incas. Within New Spain itself,Oaxaca was one of the great episcopal sees like Puebla, or V alladolid deMichoacan, under the authority of the archiepiscopal see of Mexico.

    Many of the indigenous crafts of the pre-conquest era continued inOaxaca, the cotton-mantle industry of V illa Alta, Teotitlan del Cam ino,and other towns, and the gathering of the cochineal insect to produce theindispensable scarlet dye, for example. After the expansion and declineof the silk industry in Oaxaca in the course of the sixteenth century, thecochineal, cotto n, and c otto n-m antle trades assumed the role of the cen tralactivities of the indigenous population, upon whose labours the Spanishelement depended for their prosperity and political supremacy.Oaxaca, because of these activities, was often considered by the SpanishPeninsular merchants and the Royal administrators there to be next in

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    Politics and trade in Southern Mexicoimportance to the silver-mining regions of Guanajuato and Zacatecas.For, the expor t of the scarlet dye to the European textile industries contri-buted to the lessening of the bullion drain from the Indies, wh ich so m uchplagued and perplexed the Spanish Metropolitan Government. Thecotton of the Pacific coast region, especially around Jamiltepec, suppliedthe cotton textile obrajes (workshops) of both Puebla and Oaxaca, emerg-ing in the course of the eighteenth century.

    Foreign commentators also frequently alluded to the Oaxaca cochinealdye.1 For, prior to the invention of chemical dyes in the middle of thenineteenth century, the chief source of the scarlet dye was Oaxaca, andof the purple and blue dye, the indigo of Guatemala and later Venezuela.These, and to a lesser degree, the dye-woods from Yucatan and CentralAmerica, attracted merchants from Spain, and aroused the competitionof the Dutch, British, and French. These rival merchants would operatethrou gh the Cadiz and Seville trades, throu gh their bases in the Caribbeanislands, or by contraband directly from the shores of the Spanish Indies.In Spain, great merchant houses, such as the Cinco gremios mayores deMadrid and the Casa de Uztariz dealt bo th in the cochineal of Oaxaca andthe indigo of Guatemala in the eighteenth century. Houses with bases inCadiz and Veracruz, the Casas de Cos, Munoz, and Cosio, and a housewith connexions also in London, the House of Gordon, Reid, andMurphy, with Tomas Murphi as its representative in Veracruz, all tradedin dyes and bullion in return for manufactured goods or the primaryproducts of the Peninsula.

    The predominance of such primary products as olive oil and wines inSpain's trade to the Spanish Indies was evidence of her incapacity tobecome the industrial metropolis for her American market. Such anendemic and strategic weakness favoured both foreign manufacturers andi The French botanist, Th ierry de Me nonv ille, described in his Travels to Guaxaca in 1777 howhe succeeded in smuggling examples of the cochineal insects and the cactus on which theythrove out of Oaxaca to the French part of the Caribbean island of Santo Do m ing o, whe rethe French hoped to prod uce the dye for themselves: see M . Nicolas Joseph T hierry de

    Menonvi l le , Travels to Guaxaca , Capital of the Province of the same name, in the Kingdom ofMexico, contained in John Pinkerton, A General Collection of the Best and Most InterestingVoyages and Travels in All Parts of the World (17 vols.; London 1808-14), xiii, 753-876.The A bbe Raynal described the impo rtance of the cochineal dye and Ne w Spain's exp ortof it along with silver to the Philippines for exchange with Chinese silks, in his, Histoirephilosophique et politique des etablissements et du commerce des europeens dans les deux Indes (Paris1820 edition), tom e in, bk . 5, 89; bk. 6, 352-60.The German traveller and scientist, Baron Alexander von Humboldt, wrote of it, afterhis visit to N e w Spain in 1803, in his Essai politique sur le royaume de la Nouvelle Espagne(5 vols.; Paris 1811), 11, 3245 m, 262.

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    Introductiondomestic producers within the Indies itself.1 In New Spain, both theobrajes and the indigenous village textile crafts employed the cochineal ofOaxaca and the indigo of Guatemala for silks, cottons, woollens, andlinens.2 These products were in considerable demand among the mestizoand Indian population of the Viceroyalty, as they were generally of anordinary quality and low price. Th e indigenous produc tion from Oaxaca,in particular the town of Villa Alta, reached markets as far and diverse asMexico City, Puebla, and the silver-mining communities of Taxco,Guanajuato, and Zacatecas.3

    In contrast to the Bajio, the province of Oaxaca was not so muchdom inated b y the C reole landow ners as by the Alcaldes M ayores and theSpanish Peninsular merchants. The former, also chiefly of Peninsularorigin, were notorious for their abuse of the indigenous population andfor their peculation of the Royal revenues. These Alcaldes Mayoresoccupied the function of civil administrators of the towns in the indigenousareas of settlement.4 They resided in the head-towns of the regions, thecabezera, in the local Royal residence, the Casas Reales. Their facultiesincluded the cognizance of civil and criminal jurisdiction in the firstinstance in Indian areas, in contrast to the Alcaldes Ordinarios of theCabildos, who undertook the same function for the areas of Spanish and1 See Ricardo Cappa, s.j., Estudios criticos acerca de la domination espanola en America (Madrid1888-97), vii; Humboldt, Essaipolitique, iv, bk. 5, 284 et seq.; 'Etat des manufactures et ducomm erce de la Nouvelle Espag ne'; Jan B azant, 'Ev olu tion de la industria textil poblana1544-1845', Historia Mexicana, 52 (April-June 1964), 473-516; Joh n L. Phelan, The King-

    do m of Quito in the Seventeenth Century: Bureaucratic Politics in the Spanish Empire (Wiscons in1968), 66-85.2 For the obrajes see M. Carrera Stampa, 'El obraje novohispano', Memorias de la AcademiaMexicana de la Historiat xx (April-June 1961), no. 2, 148-71; ibid. 'Los obrajes de indigenasen el virreinato de la Nueva Espaila*, Vigesimo-septimo Congreso International de American-istas, ii (Actas de la Primera Sesion celebrada en la Ciudad de Me xico en 1939), 555-62.3 Biblioteca de la Sociedad Mexicana de Geografia y Estadistica (BSMGE), Mexico City,MSS Jose Maria Murgu ia y Galardi, Estadistica de l estado de Oaxaca 1826-28 (5 tomescontaining 9 vols.), vol. i, app . to pt. 2, f. 29 v.4 There was little difference between the functions of Alcaldes Mayores and Corregidores.Theoretically, the latter governed a tow n, while the former administered a territorial div i-sion in the countryside, known as a provinciat and later, after the replacement of AlcaldesMayores by Subdelegates under the Royal Ordinance of Intendants of 1786, as a partido.Territories within the jurisdiction of the Audiencias of Quit o, Lima, and Charcas had n oAlcaldes Mayores, only Corregidores. Unlike the case of the Spanish Peninsula, the Correg-idores in the Indies were not required to have qualified at law, but might be laymen, i.e.de capa y espada as opposed to letrados or togados. Jose Maria Zamora y Coronado, Bibliotecade legislation ultramarina en forma de diccionario alfabetico (6 vols .; Madrid 1844-49), i , 180-84;J. Ignacio Rubio Maiie , Introduction al estudio de los virreyes de Nueva Espafia 1536-1746 (4vols.; Mexico 1959-61), i, 77-79; C. H. Haring, The Spanish Empire in America (Oxford1947), 138-42; L. B. Simpson, The Encomienda in New Spain, The Beginnings of SpanishMexico (California 1950), 191, n. 18.

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    Politics and trade in Southern MexicoCreo le residence. Th e Alcaldes Mayores, often military m en, w ere entitledto appoint lieutenants who were expected to be qualified at law (tenientesletrados), in order to advise them on matters of legal procedure. Bothofficials were required to offer the Crown zjianza, an advance guarantee,which would ensure the Crown's receipt of the revenues it had trusted itsadministrators to collect. The presentation ofiadores, who would reim-burse the Crown in the Alcalde Mayor's default, was the condition ofreceipt of office from the Superior Government in Mexico City.*

    In the city of Oaxaca, another local representative o f the Roya l a uthorityresided, the C orregidor.2 As a Royal m agistrate the judicial functions ofthis official involved the exercise of full jurisdiction in the area to whichhe had been assigned. Like the Alcalde Mayor, he enjoyed the right toappo int a lieutenant. The Co rreg idor also acted as president of the C abildoand the Royal representative on that municipal corporation.3 Both theAlcaldes Mayores and the Corregidores were forbidden by the Crown tohold estates or to engage in trade either in person or th roug h agents duringtheir five-year term of office.4 They were not allowed to marry anyresident of the ir area of jurisdic tion while the y still occupied pub lic officeunless they received a special dispensation from the C ro w n. 5 W hil eensuring that the Indian tribute revenue was duly collected, the AlcaldesMayores and Corregidores were especially entrusted with the task ofprotecting the Indians. Both officials were to make regular visits to theIndian town s w ith their rod of justice (vara de justida), in order to hearcomplaints of injustice against local landowners, estate managers, Indiancaciques, or parish priests.61 E. Ruiz Guinazu, La magistratura Indiana (Buenos Aires 1916), 295.2 Carlos E. Castaneda, 'The Corregidor in Spanish Colonial Administration', Hispanic

    American Historical Review [HAHR ], ix (1929), 446 -70 .3 Ibid, and Ruiz Guinazu, Magistratura Indiana, 2 9 2 - 3 0 0 .4 Recopilacion de leyes de los reynos de las Indias (Madrid 1943 edition), bk. 5, title 2: law xxv,'Que los gobernadores no apremien a los indios a que les labren ropa'; law xlvi, 'Que losvirreyes procuren remediar las ganancias ilicitas de los gobernadores'; and law xlvii,'Que la prohibition de tratar, y contratar comprehende a los gobernadores, corregidores,alcaldes mayores, y sus tenientes'.5 Ibid, law xliv, 'Q ue los gobernadores, corregidores, alcaldes mayores, y sus tenientes letradosno puedan casar en sus distritos'; and law xlv, 'Q ue los gobernadores no tengan ministros,ni oficiales naturales de la provincia, ni parientes dentro del quarto grado'. See ArchivoGeneral de Indias [AGI] Mexico 1128, Consultas, decretosy y reales ordenes (1769-1770). On

    31 May 1770, the Crown conceded license to Joseph Rodriguez del Toro, Oidor of theAudiencia of Mexico, to marry his daughter, born in New Spain, to the Corregidor ofOaxaca Pedro de Pineda. The pro hibition, then, was not absolute. It served as a rem inderto the parties concerned to consult the Crown before they acted.6 Recopilacion, bk. 5, title 2, law xv, 'Que los gobernadores y corregidores visiten los terminos,

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    IntroductionWhile the Laws of the Indies assigned certain specific salaries, for ex-ample the sum of 2,500 pesos per year for th e C orreg idor of Mexico City,

    the average salaries for the Alcaldes Mayores and Corregidores in thelocality were too small to cover their administrative expenditure. TheCrown could not afford to pay its extensive bureaucracy. Prior to PhilipII's Real Cedula of 1582, which provided for the payment of salaries fromthe Indian tribute revenues, the Crown had charged them to the accountof the Indian communal funds. The tribute levy, however, was nosolution, owing to the fluctuating and undependable nature of suchrevenues, and the collapse of the indigenous population figure in thecourse of the sixteenth and earlier seventeenth centuries in New Spain.Therefore, the issue of salaries for the representatives of the Roya l au tho rityin the locality and in the Indian towns plagued the Metropolitan andSuperior Governments throughout the colonial period.1This lack of proper salaries forced the Mexican Alcaldes Mayores andthe Peruvian Corregidores to contravene the Laws of the Indies by ind ulg-ing in illicit trading practices so stringently forbidden by the Crown. Inmost cases the goods or cash in which they traded would be suppliedthrough a contract with a private merchant, a member of the mercantile

    corporation, the juridically constituted Consulado of Mex ico. In returnfor agreeing to such a contract, the merchant would offer to cover theadministrator's jianza.2The ingoing administrators were generally small men of low position,or military persons of small fortunes. Newly arrived in the Indies, theyexpected to gain rapid wealth, and return to Spain to live in style. How-ever, since the Crown's exigencies required them to pay their own fareacross the Atlantic, and expected them on arrival to meet the obligations

    of the jianza, they were faced with financial burdens far beyond theirlimited capacity. Their plight was described by Viceroy Amarillas of NewSpain in a letter to the Cr ow n w ritten on 9 April 1759 from M exico City .H e explained that the Alcaldes M ayores sent by the Me tropolitan Go vern -ment would often arrive in Veracruz burdened with family obligationsas well as their du ty to offer the jianza, and to pay the shipping companieswh ich had broug ht th em . Som e of the justices did not even kn ow of they de lo que resultare avisen a las Audiencias'; G. Lohmann Villena, El corregidor de indiosen el Peru bajo los Austrias (Madrid 1957), 4O3~49; Constantino Bayle, El protector de indios(Seville 1945), 125-8 .1 Recopilacion, bk. 5, title 2, law i; Castafieda, 'The Corregidor', 463; Lohmann Villena, Elcorregidor, 428, 431 n. 2 3; Bayle, El protector', 127,143.2 Zamora y Coronado, Biblioteca, III, 244-7; Lo hm ann V illena, El corregidor> 436.

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    Politics and trade in Southern Mexicojianza requirement, and actually expected to take up office immediatelyup on arrival, i

    Similar complaints were expressed by Villarroel, Alcalde Mayor ofTlapa, to the Viceroy on 16 April 1774. As a result of their debts, thejianza, and the 1,000 pesos for the equipment of their offices, the AlcaldesMayores were reduced to begging favours from door to door. In theireveryday administration right down to the very official sealed paper onwhich all business was to be written they had to offer fianzas. Therefore,in order to pay their way , they were constrained to co m m it all manner ofextortions and injustices in the smaller and poo rer provinces. In the richerprovinces they would be obliged to form a contract, generally with aSpanish Peninsular merchant, for the coverage of the jianzas, in return forwhich the Alcaldes Mayores would undertake to manage the fiadorstradin g activities with the Indians. Such an operation, in w hich the A lcaldeMayor issued cash or basic equipment or commodities to the Indians onthe account of the merchant, was known as the repartimiento. This formof trading, always denounced by Crown and clergy (at least at the levelof the episcopacy) and contrary to the Laws, occurred frequently in theprovince of O axaca, because of the dem and for its produ cts. The me rchantwho financed the repartimiento was known as the aviador or habilitador,and the process of outside financing as avio or habilitacion. Ingoing adminis-trators would solicit such avio from the merchants to the sums of, forexample, 15,000-20,000 pesos in silver reales or in commodities for issueto the Indians. In return, the Indians would be required to pay back theirdebt in the finished product of their region, such as cochineal, cotton,cotton mantles, and other ordinary cotton garments for use amongst theindigenous and mestizo population.

    It would not so much be the Alcalde Mayor himself who occupied thecentral role in such trading opera tions but his legal lieuten ant. T his official,instead of being qualified at law as the Laws of the Indies specified, wou ldbe a nominee of the merchant-tfwWor. Villarroel complained that theAlcaldes Mayores were powerless to prevent the abuse of their authorityby such lieutenants in the collection of Indian debts to the repartimiento.In any case the lieutenant usually could not be removed without the priorconsent of the aviador. Moreover, at the end of his term of office, theAlcalde Mayor was expected to divide the profits of his trade among allinterested parties, including both his aviador and the lieutenant.21 Archivo General de la N ati on [A GN ] Correspondencia de los virreyes (serie 1), 1 (Amarillas1755-6), exp . 123, f. 185.2 Biblioteca Nacional [B N] (Mexico) MSS 1378, f. 211, Hipolito R uiz y Villarroel, 'So bre

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    IntroductionOnly the Corregidorcs and Alcaldes Mayores were able to manage the

    repartimiento, because only they w ere en dow ed with full R oyal jurisdiction,which they employed to coerce the Indians to trade in commodities theymight not otherwise be inclined to produce in bulk. The Royal power ofjustice, then, was used to violate the freedom of trading prescribed forthe indigenous com mu nities by the Laws of the Indies. By creating co m -mercial monopolies within the locality, and by expelling any intrudingmerchants, the Alcaldes Mayores sought to keep the local trade confinedto their aviador9s interests.1

    Similar aviador functions were assumed by the Spanish Peninsularmerchants of the Consulado of Lima in the Viceroyalty of Peru. Themerchants undertook to finance both Corregidores in their repartimientosand mine-owners in their operations.2 Like Peru and New Spain, theCaptaincy-General of Guatemala contained large groups of indigenouscommunities living at subsistence level. There, too, the repartimientofunctioned in connexion with the indigo monoculture. The merchant-aviador occupied a central role. For, the indigo planter received the basiccommodities necessary for his subsistence and operations through thecontracts made between the Spanish Peninsular aviador and the localAlcalde M ayor or Co rregido r. In return for such a contract, the m erchan twould pay into the Royal Treasury in Guatemala City the revenues dueto the C ro w n from the adm inistrator's area o f jurisdiction. 3

    The present work traces the struggle of the Spanish Crown and theepiscopal authorities in Oaxaca to secure the observation of the law in thetrade and government of the region. The importance of the products ofOaxaca for both New Spain itself and for the wider world market pro-vided the m ain explanation of the difficulty of achieving such a regulation ,and the main incentive for the ado ption of such a tho rou gh reform as thatadvocated by Visitor-General to New Spain, Jose de Galvez. The interestsof the merchant-tff iadores, in both Mexico City and Oaxaca, and of theAlcaldes Mayores, naturally made them bitter opponents of the admini-strative and commercial reforms enacted by the Spanish Crown between

    el modo de servirse las Alcaldias mayores, y perjuicios que sufren de los oficios de M exico'(1774).1 Recopilacion, bk. 5, title 6, De los indios; Lohmann Villena, El corregidor, 431-5.2 Ibid, and G. Cespedes del Castillo, 'Lima y Buenos Aires. Repercusiones economicasy politicas de la creation del virreina to del Plata ', Anuario de Estudios Americanos, iii(1946), 669-874.3 Robert S. Smith, 'Indigo Production and Trade in Colonial Guatemala', HAHR, xxxix(I959) 181-211; Troy S. Floyd, 'The Guatemalan Merchants, the Government, and the"Provincianos" 1750-1800', HAHR, xli (1961), 90-110.

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    Politics and trade in Southern Mexico1778, when the system o f freer trade with in the empire was first definitivelycodified, and 1795, when two new Consulados were incorporated atVeracruz and Guadalajara. Their opposition meant a political split withinthe ranks of the Spanish Peninsulares within New Spain. This was especi-ally serious because, firstly, the government in Spain during the reign ofCharles IV (178 8-1808) was at its most un pop ular bo th in Spain and theIndies, and, secondly, the split occurred against the backgrou nd of m ou nt -ing Creole demands for self-government.

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    CHAPTER IO A X A C A E N V IR O N M E N T A N D TR AD E

    During the course of the first century after the Conquest, the dye tradeof Oaxaca secured a position in New Spain's export trade second only tothat o f silver. The scarlet cochineal dye , pro du ced almost exclusively by theIndian population, maintained this role until well into the nineteenthcentury, wh en com petition from G uatemala after 1821, and the inven tionof chemical dyes after the 1850s combined with the effects of the wars ofIndependence after 1810 to damage the Oaxaca economy to the degreethat the indigenous dye trade was practically eliminated. 1Prio r to the discovery o f the M exican-Indian cochineal, the chief sourcefor the scarlet dye had been the kermes insect, which had thrived in theMediterranean basin, and had provided the European powers with theirneeds. Th e entrepot had been V enice. How ever, the exploitation of theMexican dye, produced in the early years in Tlaxcala, Huejotzingo, and

    Cholula, as well as Oaxaca, put on the world market a dye with ten ortwelve times the propensities of the kermes. 2 The first shipment of theTlaxcala-Oaxaca dye into Spain occurred in 1526, and by the late 1540scochineal was being sold in qu antity in the m arket of Tlaxcala. In response,the local cabildo (municipal council) sought to encourage plantation ofnopaleras, the cactus groves on w hich the cochineal insect throv e. B y th emiddle of the sixteenth century, Tlaxcala's Indians were reputed to beearning over 100,000 ducados annually from their dye sales.3

    Most European merchants took active interest in the fortunes of thedye trade. The powerful Fugger banking and commercial house main-tained agents in the major ports and capitals, between 1550 and 1600, inorder to report the crucial movements and unfortunate vicissitudes ofSpain's trades in bullion and dyes.* The first cochineal cargoes arrived in1 See Raymond L. Lee, 'Cochineal Production and Trade in New Spain to 1600', TheAmericas, iv (1947-8), 449-73; and, 'American Cochineal in European Commerce, 1526-1625', Journal of Modern History, xxiii (1951), 205-24 .2 Lee, 'American Cochineal', 205-6. For remarks on the sixteenth-century areas of produc-

    tion, see C h ar les Gib son , The Aztecs un der Spanish Rule. A History of the Ind ians of the V alleyof Mexico, 1519-1810 (Stanford 1964), 354.3 Lee, 'Cochineal P rodu ction ', 457; Charles G ibson, Tlaxcala in the Sixteenth century (Y aleU.P. 1952), 149-50.4 V i c t o r v o n Klarvil l (ed.), T h e Fugger New s-Letters, Being a Selection o f un published letters

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    Politics and trade in Southern MexicoAntwerp in 1552 and 1553, and in 1569 records began of the dye's im po rtinto England, where it came to assume considerable importance in theEnglish cloth industry. T he Am sterdam exchange received its first tradingquantities of the dye in 1589.1

    The increasing demand for the product, and the heavy profits receivedfrom it, encouraged extremes of fraud and speculation within New Spainitself. As early as 1548, the Cabildo of Tlaxcala had been appointingIndian officials to supervise the administration of the cochineal trade.2However, anxious to assert for the Crown this supervisory role, ViceroyMartin Enriquez established the office ofjuez de granas (cochineal magist-rate) in the city o f Puebla in 1572. At such a clear emphasis of Ro yal righ t,the Cabildo of Puebla naturally protested, seeing its corporate privilegethreatened. This response, nevertheless, revealed the intensity of privateinterest in the trade. For, the very Alcalde Mayor of Puebla himself hadseverely compromised his position by becoming one of the city's chiefdye m erchants, along w ith the Regidores (city councillors) o f the cabildo.For such reasons, Martin Enriquez justified his actions. Moreover, themerchants of Seville were reporting that the present year's cargoes ofcochineal hadbeen adulterated w ith soil. 3

    In 1575, the Viceroy reported to the Crown that the cochineal tradewas a much greater activity than any other in the Realm. Mestizos andother castes would pass with ease among the Indian towns, despite suchblatant violation of the Laws of the Indies, persuading the inhabitants tocultivate the dye. In the province of Oaxaca, the Dominican Order con-trolled most of the Indian towns, and the Franciscans exercised similarauthority elsewhere. In certain of the Oaxaca towns, cochineal assumedsuch impo rtance that abo ut 7,000 arrobas wou ld be gathered in an averageyear at the rate of 12 reales of silver per pound. In this way, the averageannual value of the trade was reaching 259,000 pesos, a very considerablesum in those early decades.4 Around 1600, the estimated cochineal importinto Spain reached between 10,000 and 12,000 arrobas, valued at 600,000pesos. By the 1620s, then, a substantial trade was developing in Mexicancochineal at the port of Seville.5

    from the Correspondents of the House of Fugger during the years 1568-1605 (2 v o l s . ; L o n d o n1925-6) ii, 231-2; for example, the Fugger agent in Lisbon reported on 19 October 1591that the fleet from New Spain, about seventy ships, carried 14,000 arrobas of cochineal.

    1 Lee, 'American Cochineal', 207,209,210. 2 Gibson, Tlaxcala, 150, n. 84.3 AGI Mexico 19, Correspondencia de los virreyes deNueua Espana (anos 1574-5), r a m o 1, no .

    132: Martin EnriquezCrown, 5 April 1574.4 Ibid. no. 157: MartinEnriquez-Crown, 21 Sept. 1575.5 Lee, 'American Cochineal', 206, 208.

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    Environment and tradeSuch a developm ent was recognised in Philip Ill's Cochineal Ordinanceof 1620, which described the dye as, 'one of the most precious products

    tha t is raised in our Western Indies . . . a merchandise equal in estimationto gold and silver'.1This Ordinance aspired to restrain the still frequent frauds in the tradeby authorising the jueces de gratia to visit the cochineal markets regularly.However , as Viceroy Marques de Guadalcazar reported in 1618, it wasthese very officials who were equally perpetrating such abuses.2For, ow ing to the traditional and frequent p ractice of obstructing Roy alpolicies which conflicted with their economic interests, Crown and

    Viceroy were experiencing great difficulty in persuading the merchantsand administrators involved to conform to the letter and spirit of theLaws of the Indies. Most of the time, the C r o w n was fighting a losingbattle. Consequen tly, the Indian com mu nities concerned , especially in thecochineal and related trades in Oaxaca, did not cease to be subject to abuse.As a result, the Visitor-General of N ew Spain, Bishop Juan de Palafoxy Mendoza of Puebla, in June 1641, denounced the Alcaldes Mayores ofthe Viceroyalty as 'forces of desolation' in the largely Indian, mestizo,mulatto, and negro-populated areas outside thegreat Hispanic cities, suchas M exico an d Pueb la. For, so far from representing the presence of Ro yalJustice in the locality, they were generally members of the Viceroy'sentourage. Even the esteemed Viceroy Marques de Cadereita had filledoffices in that way. Palafox regarded the Alcaldias Mayores as nothingbetter than sources of entertainment for the Conquerors. Moreover, inview of the Alcaldes Mayores' receipt of a pittance of between 300 and500 pesos as their annual salary, it was no surprise that they were obligedto tratar y contratar with the Indians, in gross v iolation of the Laws of the

    Indies, in order to maintain themselves.3 Since, in any case, they werecreatures of the current Viceroy, no redress of grievances was everpossible. Palafox went so far as to claim that all conception of ustice wasrelative to theparticular policies of whichever Viceroy happened to be inoffice. Even theresidencia was useless as a deterrent. For, it would be takenduring the term of office of the administrators' patron, the Viceroy.Moreover, outgoing Alcaldes Mayores would usually leave a donation of1 Barbro Dahlgren de Jordan, Nocheztli, Lagrana cochinilla (Mexico 1963), 9.2 Boletin del Archivo General de la Nation, Mexico, tomo 11, no. 4, primera serie (July-August1931), 493-506.3 Recopilacion de leyes de los reynos de las Indias (Madrid 1943), bk. 5, title 2, law 47, 'Que la

    prohibicion de tratar, y contratar comprehende a los gobernadores, alcaldes mayores, y sustenientes'.

    I I

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    Politics and trade in Southern Mexicoaround 800 pesos to their successors entrusted with taking the residencia.1Responding to the profits from the cochineal trade, these administra-tors ' main concern was to enclose a trade monopoly within their areas ofjurisdiction, to the complete exclusion of other Royal vassals, and incontradiction to the Laws of the Indies.2 This restriction of trade into fewhands contributed to the general impoverishment of the Realm. At thesame time as they violently expelled their trade rivals, the administratorsfailed to pay the Royal sales-tax on their illicit trade. For, since it was theAlcalde Mayor who was both Royal tax-collector and illegal trader, itwas unlikely that he would either incriminate or inconvenience himselfby exacting such a tax upon himself. This disorder and illegality was badenough, but, 'the Alcaldes Mayores do not trade for themselves, but asfactors for those who supply them'. Therefore, recourse was fruitless. Forthe Alcaldes Mayores would be protected by their sponsors, men withfriends in high places in the administration in Mexico City. As a result,Palafox concluded, there was no one to execute the provisions of theReales Cedulas and the Laws of the Indies.3

    Ne ither Palafox's request of September 1642, that criminal proceedingsshould be taken against Alcaldes Mayores who usurped Royal financialrights, nor the C row n's Real Cedula of 12 August 1649, in response to theexcesses repo rted , seem to have had any effect.* For th e subsequent Bisho pof Puebla, on 29 October 1660, denounced the same trade monopolies,the same coercion, and the same exorbitant prices. In the province ofPuebla, for example, the Alcaldes Mayores were issuing subsistenceproducts and livestock from the haciendas to the Indians at exorbitantprices. In Oaxaca, w here they traded in cochineal, tobacco , cotton , co ttonmantles, and various other indigenous textiles, excessive prices were beingoffered in sales to the Indians in order to undervalue the indigenousprod ucts. Th e Bishop explained that, 'to arrange this trade, as soon as theAlcaldes Mayores are nominated, they look for a merchant who canfinance them (aviar)\5

    Since private interests prevented the Crown from implementing itslaws, and curbing the problem of the Alcaldes Mayores' illegal reparti-mientos to the Indians, the lower classes thus adversely affected begansporadically to take matters into their ow n hands in th e spring of 1660. Aseries o f peasant risingsa Ozxaqueno jacqueriebegan on 22 March 16601 A G I Mexico 6 0 0 , Expediente sobre el punto de reforma de los alcaldes mayores e inquietudes en

    Tehuantepec, anos 1642 a 1678 intercalados.2 Ibid. See also Recopilacion, bk . 6, t it le 1, laws 24 an d 3 2.3 A G I Mexico 600. 4 ibid. 5 Ibid.

    1 2

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    Environment and tradein Tehuantepec. There, the Alcalde Mayor, whose repartimientos hadreputedly been valued at over 20,000 pesos de oro, was killed by theIndians, and the Casas Reales burnt down. The movement spread acrossto Nejapa against the Alcalde Mayor's repartimiento for cochineal andcot ton man tles. In Ixtepeji, the A lcalde M ay or was forced to flee as a resultof a rising against his repartimiento for cochineal. Similar risings occurredin Teutila and T eococu ilco, in Villa Alta, and across to H uajuapan. Fromthere they spread to Huamantla, Tlaxcala, Zimapan, Otumba, andTancitaro.1

    Several of the areas in rebellion in Oaxaca, a total of twenty towns,we re pacified b y the personal interve ntion of the Bishop, a Creole, A lonsode Cuevas Davalos, who preferred a lenient course of action with therebels. For they themselves had professed their uninterrupted loyalty toboth the Crown and the Bishop.2

    The investigation of the causes of the rebellion, and the punishmentof the guilty were entrusted to an Oidor of the Audiencia of Mexico,Montemayor de Cuenca, who duly left Mexico City in February 1661.He reported that, in the case of the cotton-mantle producing jurisdictionof Villa Alta, not even the pressure of the Dominicans had been able toremedy the abuses. For, there, the Alcaldes Mayores would secure thecochineal dye from the Indians at the price of 16 reales per pound, whilethey would sell it at 30 and 32 reales. At the same time, they were ableto com mission the Indians to w eave the cotto n mantles, somu ch in demandamong the lower classes of the Realm, through their control of a largepart of the cotton supplies. Th e raw material they w ou ld th en issue in lotsto the Indians. In Yaguila, for example, there would be two repartimientosof cotton per month, in which eight pounds of cotton would be issuedto each family, deducting the cost from the price of each finished cottonmantle of five yards (yaras) in length and one in width. In general, inVilla Alta, one mantle was to be finished in twenty days. This mantle1 Ibid. See also Luis Gonzalez Obregon, 'Las sublevaciones de indios en el siglo XVII: Hi. Lassublevaciones de indios en Tehuantepec, Nejapa, Ixtepeji, y Villa Alta', Annales del MuseoNational (Mexico), segunda epoca, tomo iv, (1907), 145 et seq., and Basilio Rojas, Larebelion de Tehuantepec (Mexico, 1964).2 The Indians of Tehuantepec, who in armed bands had occupied the chief town of thejurisdiction and exhorted the other towns to rise up and kill their opponents, went out to

    meet the Bishop while still under arms. The Bishop rode th rou gh the tow n in full pontificalrobes. In awe , the Indians prostrated themselves on the grou nd, or led the reins of his mu le.Women, previously active in the rebellion, took their mantles from their shoulders, andspread them over the street so that the Bishop's mule could pass over them. This occurredto the accompaniment of trumpets, horns, and chirimfas. See Gonzalez Obregon, 'Lassublevaciones'.

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    Politics and trade in Southern Mexicowould bring a market price of 16 reales. However, the Indian weaverswould receive a price of only 8 reales from the Alcalde Mayor. Besidesthis abuse, the Indian population, which manufactured its own clothing,w ou ld be required to receive imp orted clothing issued in the repartimiento.For such clothing, it was obliged to pay in the products of the region.1In such a way, the activities of the Alcaldes Mayores forced the Indiansto be both producers and consumers of commodities from which thejustices and their financial backers derived a large measure of their wealth.The Metropolitan Government took the lessons of the 1660 risings soseriously that the Council of the Indies, on 29 May 1662, recommendedthe issue of a Real Cedula declaring the confiscation of all goods involvedin the repartimiento, and their reversion to the Crown in forfeit. At thesame time , all debts to the Alcaldes M ayores were to be declared annulled.2The law, if it was ever issued, apparently had no effect. For on 20 April1686, the Bishop of Puebla wrote to the Crown complaining of theperjury of Alcaldes Mayores who violated their oaths of office by tradingwith the Indians. The Bishop, however, saw to the core of the problemwhen he pointed out that if ever the laws against trading and contractingwith the Indians should be enforced, there would not be a single personwilling to assume the office of either Corregidor or Alcalde Mayor. 3 Inresponse to the Bishop of Puebla's remarks, the Crown issued the RoyalDespatches of 1687 for the rigorous punishment of violations of the law.This once more proved to be of no avail, and the whole matter had to berepeatedwith equally strong languagein the Real Cedula of 10February 1716.4The preoccupation in Oaxaca with the cultivation of the nopaleras for theprod uctio n o f the cochineal dye tended to lead to the neglect of maize andother subsistence crops by the Indians. The ingoing Bishop of Oaxacaat the turn of the century, Fray Angel de Maldonado, became especiallyconcerned that such neglect w ou ld give rise to periodic shortages of food-stuffs amongst the indigenous population. He, therefore, recommendedthat, as a deterrent to the further extension of cochineal cultivation, theC row n should allow the Chu rch to exact a tithe on the dye produced bythe Indians.1 AGI Mexico 600. 2 ibid.3 AGI Mexico 634, Expedietttes sobre alcaldias y alcaldes mayores del distrito de aquella Audiencia,anosde 1701 a 1717.4 Ibid. See also R. Konetzke, Coleccion de documentos para la historia de la formation social deHispanoamerica, 1493-1810, vo l. iii, tomo 1 (1691-1799), doc. 91.

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    Environm ent and tradeThe Bishop's report, sent to the Council of the Indies on 26 December1702, opened the whole complicated question of whether the Indian

    producers should pay a tithe, an issue that was not resolved until thebeginning of the nineteenth century. Fray Maldonado, on visitation inVilla Alta, requested that the Indians should pay on both cochineal andcotton. For, in view of the great demand for the dye among the nationsof the world at the present time, the Indians directed their attention to itsproduction, in such a way that over half the agricultural labouring popu-lation of Oaxaca were occupied in its cultivation. In consequence, theIndians had left the greater part of their fields uncultivated for productsof alimentation. The Bishop concluded from this that the Indians shouldbe removed from their status of exemption from tithe payment on thedye, and given a similar status to that of the tithe-paying Spanish pro-ducers.Like all previous commentators on the situation in Oaxaca, the Bishopsingled out for attack the abuses committed by the local Alcaldes Mayores.Like Palafox, Maldonado pointed to the complexity of interests behindthose justices. 'T he Alcaldes Mayores have in M exico City one or anotherminister of the Audiencia at their entire disposition. As a result of such a

    dependence, they have the Royal Audiencia in their defence.'1The Real Acuerdo of Mexico discussed the tithe issue, on 9 April 1703,side-stepping the matter of complicity with the Alcaldes Mayores. TheAcuerdo reported to the Crown that an imposition of the cochineal titheon the Indians would have disastrous consequences. The Laws of theIndies and the Reales Cedulas had exempted Indian cochineal growers,who, in any case, were sufficiently burdened by their payment of tributeto the Crown. The result of any attempt by the clergy to add to that an

    ecclesiastical tithe would only serve to burden the wretched Indians evenmore. From there the matter went before the Fiscal of the Council of theIndies in Madrid, who supported the views of the Audiencia of Mexico,on 14 No vem ber 1703. M oreover, he added that the Bishop had only justarrived in his diocese, and should not have considered introducing suchfar-reaching innovations. The Council of the Indies agreed.2Nevertheless, the matter had to be discussed all over again when, in1715, the Cabildo Eclesidstico (Cathedral chapter) of Oaxaca attempted to

    secure the Crown's approval for the collection of a cochineal tithe tosupplement the ecclesiastical revenues. This time the clergy secured theAudiencia's approval. However, on 9 Jun e 1718, the C ouncil of the Indies1 AGI Mexico 877, Cartas y expedietites del obispo de Oaxaca, 1631-1760, Coun cil of the Indies,

    no. 21,9 April 1703, (no. 4). 2 ibid.15

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    Politics and trade in Southern Mexicorefused to ratify that decision. In conformity with the opinion of theirFiscal, the C ouncil em phasised the principle of non-ex action. Imm ediately,there followed a protest from the Bishop of Oaxaca. The Councilresponded with a further discussion of the issue, in which the Fiscalexplained that the bru nt o f the paym ent o f such a tithe wo uld fall on thoseleast capable of paying, the Indian growers. As a result, the Councilreaffirmed its former decision on 12 June 1719.1

    Table 1. Value of offices of Alcalde Mayor JCorregidor

    Jicayan (Oax.)Villa Alta (Oax.)Salvatierra-CelayaCuernavacaHuejotenangoCuicatlan-Papalotipac (Oax.)Teposcolula (Oax.)Chichicapa (Oax.)Taximaroa-MaravatioCorregimiento of Oaxaca (Oax.)Huajuapan, Tonala, Minas dcSilacayoapan (Oax.)TehuacanTeozacoalco-Teococuilco (Oax.)MichoacanMalinalcoQueretaro (Corrto.)Teutila (Oax.)CordobaZacatlan (Corrto.)IzucarChalcoOld VeracruzGuanajuatoCholulaSan Andres TuxtlaChihuahua

    7 December 171829 June 171820 January 17197 December 171814 February 171923 June 171824 June 171826 June 171821 December 171820 December 171810 December 171820 December 17187 December 171831 January 171931 January 171920 September 17199 February 17199 February 171931 Decem ber 17187 December 17185 January 17199 February 171914 October 171921 March 17199 February 17194 March 1719

    (pesos)7,5007,0005,5005,ooo5,0004,5004,2004,2003,5003,0003,0003,0002,8002,8002,8002,5002,4002,4002,2502,0002,0001,5001,2001,0001,000

    8 0 0

    It was not only the clergy but also private individuals who sought toprofit from a share of the trades of Oaxaca. The importance attached tothe possession of public office in Oaxaca can be seen from the price atwhich they were valued. At the top of a list containing the values of the1 AGI Mexico 2693, Expedientes inventariados (1807), Diferentes Cosecheros de grana de lainte nd enc ia... . Oaxaca, 22 July 1806.

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    Environment and tradeoffices of Alcalde Mayor and Corregidor in New Spain for the years1718 and 1719, came the two Oaxaca jurisdictions of Jicayan and VillaAlta. These areas were extremely remote, even from the city of Oaxaca,but were, nevertheless, valued at the supreme prices of 7,500 and 7,000pesos respectively, m ore , that is, than Cuernavaca, Q uere taro, Valladolidde Michoacan, Guanajuato, Tehuacan, or Cholula.1 Jicayan, on thePacific coast of Oaxaca, produced both the cochineal dye, and cotton,chiefly for employment in the cotton textile obrajes in the province ofPuebla and in the city of Oaxaca. Villa Alta, in the sierra north of theValley of Oaxaca, produced both cochineal, and the cotton mantles sofrequently worn by the mestizo and indigenous elements of New Spain'spopulation. 2

    Table 1 illustrates this scale of values throughout New Spain.As the table indicates, the most highly prized Alcaldias Mayores wereprecisely those situated in the main areas of indigenous p opu lation, nam elyin the provinces of Oaxaca, Puebla, Mexico, and Michoacan. In suchareas, the various forms of the repartimiento would have offered theAlcalde Mayor or Corregidor and his aviador considerable profits.The importance of the economic activities of Oaxaca was also reflectedin the increasing sale price of the lease of the Ro yal sales-tax, the alcabala,in the collection areas of the city of Oaxaca and the Cuatro Villas delMarquesado. This lease, 'en lo antiguo\ had been valued at 3,620 pesosannually. In the year 1680, the price rose to 7,350 pesos, when the leasewas auctioned for nine years to Francisco Matilla, presumably a merchantor chief citizen of Oaxaca, Puebla, or Mexico. Between April 1691 andApril 1700, Ignacio de la Herran Teran secured the lease for 12,000 pesosannually, in years when the Fleets arrived from Spain, and 10,000 pesos,

    when they did not. He ceded his lease to a group of army captains, ofwh om Rodrigo de laChicas and Joseph de Ibaeta w ere citizens of Oaxacacity, in 1693.3Even so, the C rown was especially preoccupied with losses sustainedin the process of auctioning the leases of alcabalas. The Real Ceduia (porla via reservada) of 10 January 1718 ordered, therefore, that all leasessanctioned in New Spain should be placed under the direction of the

    1 AGI Mexico 6 3 5 , Expedien tes sobre alcaldias y alcaldes mayores, etc. 1718-1737, R e l a c i o n delosEmpleos, 17 November, 1719.

    2 Biblioteca de la Sociedad Mexicana de Geografia y Estadistica [BSMGE], MSS Murguia yGalardi, Jose Maria, Estadistica del estado de Oaxaca (5 tomes containing 9 vols.; 1826-8),vol. i, app. to pt. 11, f. 29 v.

    3 AGI Mexico 8 7 1 , Expediente sobre el ramo de alcabalas de aquella ciudad (Antequera de Guajaca),1693-1728.

    1 7

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    Politics and trade in Southern MexicoViceroy. At the same time, the prices of the leases were to be set as highas possible, and there was to be greater security of payment to the Royalofficials concerned. The Crown was anxious to prevent the lessees fromsecuring great profits on their transactions to the detriment of the Royalfinances. Subsequent Reales Cedulas of 2 September 1726 laid down theform of the proceedings.1

    The lease of November 1719 to November 1727 was set at the rate of12,600 pesos, not especially higher than the 1691-1700 period, probablyowing to the slackening of trade during the War of the Spanish Succes-sion. Towards the end of 1727, a citizen of the city of Guatemala, Simonde Larrazabal, requested the lease for nine years of the Oaxaca an d C ua troVillas collection, which he said had traditionally been 'a cargo de losvecinos y mercaderes9. The price he offered for the period November 1728to November 1737 was 14,000 pesos. The Council of the Indies debatedthe matter against the background of its legislation of 1718 and 1726, andconcluded that the lease should be granted, by the Real Decreto of 26January 1728, but at the increased rate of 15,000 pesos.2In conjunction w ith the visitation of the tribunals of ustice in N ew Spainby Visitador Garzaron, the Real Cedula of 13 December 1721 was issued,declaring the a bolition of the illegal contracts be tween the justices andtheir aviadores, and ordering the punishment of the guilty parties. Gar-zaron's visitation showed once more the lack of compliance with theRoyal legislation, and the entire abandon in which lay the Laws of theIndies. Such a situation gravely reflected on the effectiveness of the Royalauth ority in N ew Spain. As a result, the auto of the Audiencia of Mexico,on 22 Dec emb er 1722, banned the repartimiento even throu gh intermediaryparties. Severe punishments were prescribed for non-compliance, for theguilty w ere to be suspended from office and banished from the Rea lm. 3

    Nevertheless, the fulminations of the Royal authorities seem to havehad little effect. For, in Veracruz in June 1728, the ing oing Alcalde M ayorof Tehuantepec, Felipe Cond e y C alvo, wh o had consum ed his patrim onyin the expensive voyage to New Spain, agreed to a contract with anaviador. He was to receive the sum of 2,896 pesos 4 reales from theAlferez (Royal lieutenant) of the city of Veracruz, Joseph Suarez Camafio,for the habilitacion of the Alcaldia Mayor of Tehuantepec, and especiallyfor employment in the cochineal trade. The finished dye was to be sent1 Ibid. 2 ibid.3 Museo Nacional de Antropologia, Mexico City, Microfilm Collection, Series Oaxaca, roll21 , Archivo de ljuzgad o dc Teposcolula, primer instancia, legajo 5,166 9-1881.

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    Environment and tradefrom the Isthmus up to the city of Oaxaca within six months from thedate. Unfortunately, the Alcalde Mayor died that August, but, preoccu-pied with theobligation he had contracted, he had gone so far as to havesuggested in his will that the Crown should appoint his son, a minor, tocontinue his term of office. A lieutenant would have administered thejurisdiction of Tehuantepec in the minor's name, ensuring that the termsof the contract were honoured. This, however, gravely disturbed theAudiencia. For, in January 1731, the Fiscal de lo Civil, opposing theimplication that Royal offices were personal property, declined to putinto effect the late Alcalde M ayo r's suggestion. 1

    The outright disobedience of the law by the Alcaldes Mayores wasdenounced by the Bishop of Oaxaca, Santiago y Calderon, on 26 March1732. The Bishopric, he reported, was reduced to an unhap py state by th eviolence of the justices, w ho had connexions with the principal merchantsand citizens of substance in Oaxaca city. As a result, the Bishop said, hesuffered great calumny against his person. In a further report, pursuingthe same theme, he described how he wrote as if with tears of blood,lamenting the desolation of the province by its exploiters. Moreover, theAlcaldes Mayores involved were engaged in controversy with the localclergy over the legality o f their op erations. At the same time, ma ny clergywere themselves seduced by the profits to be derived from illicit trading.They failed to expound the Christian doctrine, and they neglected theadministration of the sacraments. There were no teachers to impart aknowledge of the Castilian language.2

    The double preoccupation with thestate of the Royal revenues and theabuses suffered by the Indians lay behind the comprehensive legislationof 1751 on the issue of the repartimiento. For, in response to reports fromthe Viceroys of New Spain and Peru on the backward state of the Royalrevenues, and the disorder and violence caused by the illicit trading, theCrown, under the influence of the Marques deEnsenada, issued the RealDecreto of 28 M ay, and the Reales Cedulas of 15 June and 17 July 1751.3

    In essence, the problem was that the Crown could not enforce observ-ance of the law. Added to that was the report from the Viceroys thatseveral of the local justices were leav ing their posts thro ug h lack ofadequate salaries. Others we re illegally sup plemen ting their m eagre w ageby negotiating for contracts to issue repartimientos to the Indians. To theabuses stemming from such trading, theViceroys attributed the decadent

    1 AGIMexico 635.2 AGI Mexico 877, Bishop-Crown, 26 March and 3 November 1732.3 AGI Indiferentc general 1706; AGN Reales cedulas (origs.), 7 1 , exp. 147, ff. 540-3 v.

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    Politics and trade in Southern M exicostate of the Royal income from Indian tributes. They warned that if theabuses were not corrected, the Crown would witness the final ruin of theindigenous population, and the total disintegration of its Americandominions.1

    However, there was a series of further problems, which would havevitiated any attempt at a quick and easy solution to the Indian problem.The Viceroys stated that it was a well-known fact that the Indians werelazy, idle, and degenerate, abhorring all forms of labour. By their naturethey were inclined to drunkenness and vice. If they were not forced tow ork , the fields wo uld be uncultivated, and the mines unexplo ited. If theywere not forced to receive clothing, they would be content to live naked.O u t of such repeated problem s had risen the repartimiento. No one but anAlcalde Mayor was prepared to trade with the Indians, in view of thelong delay and great uncertainty involved in the repayment of loans.2The Viceroys, then, presented the Crown with two contradictorypositions. On the one hand, they denounced the desolation produced bythe repartimiento. On the other hand, they called the Indians idle anddegenerate, fit only for forced labour in fields and mines. What theViceroys wanted was for the Crown to work out a synthesis, which theycould then ap ply. Th e implication of such a policy was the departure fromthe Crown's traditional firm prohibition of the repartimiento, in favour oftacit recognition of its inevitability. Such a policy, should it be adopted,would resolve the moral quandary of Crown and Church since thesixteenth century over the conflict between the force of the Laws of theIndies and Reales Cedulas, on one side, and the economic necessity of thesystem built up around the commercial activities of the Alcaldes Mayores,Corregidores and their financial backers, on the other side.Therefore, for the first time, the Crown acknowledged the practic-ability of the repartimiento, which it had been unable to legislate out ofexistence, but, at the same time, the Crown was determined to impose acode of m orality to regulate the cond uct of the justices. Th e legislationof 1751, therefore, orde red the establishment of Jun tas in each of the thre eViceregal capitals, Santa Fe de Bogota, Lima, and Mexico City. TheViceroys were to act as presidents. The Juntas were to watch over thelevels of prices of commodities issued and collected. On the basis of

    information on the usual rates of such goods, they were to draw up atariff of legal prices, w hic h the justices would then be expec ted to obse rve.The penalty of violation was to be deprivation of office. In this way, the1 Ibid 2 Bid.

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    Environm ent and tradeC row n hoped to regulate the repartimiento, and avoid vexation. M oreover,the tacit consent t o issue it wo ul d relieve the justice s' consciences of thegreat burden of guilt involved in breaking the law. By recognising theprofit incentive derived from the holding of public office, the Crownensured that there would continue to be candidates ready to offer theirservices. Moreo ver, since the justices no longer w ou ld have to hide thefact that they were issuing repartimientos, there would no longer be anyexcuse to hide their non-payment of alcabala on sales invo lved . 1

    In response to this series of Reales Ceduias, the Viceroy of New Spain,Conde de Revillagigedo the Elder, reported on 10 April 1752 that as aresult of the decision of the Mex ico Jun ta, h e was propos ing to co ntact allthe 153 justices of the Realm. Th ey w ou ld be required to send theSuperior Government lists of commodities and prices involved in therepartimiento in their locality.2

    The information began to reach Mexico City after the late spring of1752. It gave a detailed survey of economic conditions in the AlcaldiasM ay ores of O axaca. For exam ple, the Alcaldia M ay or of Ixtepeji su b-sisted from the cochineal trade. The Alcalde Mayor supplied the Indianswith the cash necessary for the conduct of the trade, and they repaid himin the finished dye at the rate of 12 reales per pound. This rate was lowconsidering the market price for cochineal in the city of Oaxaca at 18reales per pound. In past years, about 4,000 pesos had been distributedamong the Indians for the production of the dye. The present justiceexplained that he depended on his own resources for this repartimiento,and had never acquired an outside backer (aviador). He added, however,that he knew of several other Alcaldes Mayores who had, in fact, takenaviadores, w ith w h om they w ou ld divide the profits of their trade. 3

    There were three chief activities in the Alcaldia Mayor of Teutila:cotton cultivation, the weaving of ordinary textiles, and vanilla cultiva-tion. In this wa y, the jurisdiction found itself incorpo rated into the mainspheres of economic life in the Viceroyalty. In their repartimientos, th eAlcaldes Mayores would make prior contracts with aviadores, with whomthey would subsequently share 20 per cent of the profits of their trade.Included in the goods issued to the Indians would be both SpanishPeninsular and Viceregal commodities. Included in the latter were clothsof Queretaro, Cholula, and Texcoco. In exchange for such commodities,1 Ibid. See also G. Lohm ann Villena, El corregidor, 427, n. 15.2 AG N Reales cedillas (origs.), 72, exp . 155, ff. 426 -7.3 A G N Subdelegados 34, Superior gobierno 1752, Informes de curas y alcaldes mayores sobrela permision de repartim iento en los partidos del reyno .

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    Politics and trade in Southern Mexicothe Alcaldes Mayores would take from Teutila its cotton, vanilla, andcotton textiles. About 30,000 to 40,000 arrobas of cotton would becollected annually at the rate of 6 reales per arroba. From the lowlandtown s, like Chinantla and Tuxtepec, the cotton wo uld be taken by river,until it would be collected by the muleteers of Orizaba for eventualtransportation to the obrajes of Puebla and Mexico, where it wouldgenerally sell for 14 reales, and abo ve. 1

    Chinantla and some other towns of Teutila spun cotton, and manu-factured huipiles (a popular sleeveless blouse worn by Indian women),petticoats, and counterpanes. Between 12,000 and 15,000 of the ordinaryquality huipiles w ou ld be taken by the A lcalde M ayo r at the rate of 4 realeseach, and sold elsewhere in the jurisdiction at 6 reales, or in Oaxaca city,Puebla, or Mexico at the current rate of demand.2

    The total capital (avio) required for the various repartimientos of Teutilawould come to between 40,000 and 50,000 pesos annually. The greaterpart of the ingoing products would be Castilian or Viceregal, includingmules. Silver reales would also be issued, generally borrowed fromchantries, pious foundations, or other such religious sources, at the interestrate of 5 per cent per annum. Once initially financed, the area couldmaintain itself, generating sufficient profits for reinvestment, except inyears of scarcity.3Despite the legislation of 1751, and the detailed examination of 1752,Revillagigedo the Elder still felt it necessary to write in his Instructionreservada to his successor, in 1754, that the Indians were an easy prey tothe oppressions of the Alcaldes Mayores, theparish clergy, and the haci-enda owners. Most Alcaldes Mayores were poor, except the few and thefortunate who served in the province ofOaxaca, where the cochineal dye

    was gathered. These usually would not lack an aviador. Wherever ajustice could not supplement his income by trading in repartimientos, he1 Ibid. The cotton would be cropped in April and May, before the rainy season hit the

    pueblos bajos. The proper development of the trade was greatly hindered by the enormousdifficulty of transportation, and the consequent high cost of freight charges. Added to thiswas the fact that the cotton would not be unseeded at the place of production, but at thatof its destination. This naturally kept prices high. As far as its collection by the Orizabamuleteers, the freight charge on 1 carga of cotton would be 2 J reales. From there to MexicoCity, a further 11 pesos per carga would be added. Given the price of 1 carga at 10 J pesos,the total freight and extra costs would have increased this initial price to as much as 22pesos 3 reales. In Mexico City, an alcabala of 8 per cent, a sum of 2 pesos, and an 'encomiendade ventc? of 4 per cent, at 1 peso, would be added, bringing the final price to over 25 pesos,giving very often little or no profit on the trade. 2 Ibid.

    * Ibid. For a discussion on the economic role of Church funds, see Asuncion Lavrin, 'TheRole of the Nunneries in the Economy of New Spain in the Eighteenth Century', HAHR,xlvi, no. 4, (Nov. 1966), 371-94.

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    Environm ent and tradewou ld lay his hands on the Roy al revenues he was entrusted w ith collect-ing, i

    It was becoming obvious that once again the authority of the Crownwas being ignored. At the same time, the Viceroy of Peru was reportingthat the regulations drawn up there were not being observed. As a result,the Crown issued new orders, commanding that the previous ones shouldbe obeyed. O n 18 M arch 1761, the Cr ow n prod uced a regulation forPeru, which it declared applicable to New Spain. On this basis, the Juntain Mexico City, set up in 1751, finally cam e to a decision in 1763, on w ha tshould be done. In the presence of the Viceroy, the Marques de Cruillas,the Jun ta decided tha t the repartimiento should be allowed to continue,under the terms of the 1751 provisions. Ministers of the Su perior Go vern -ment were to begin its regulation by taking secret evidence concerningthe type and quantity of goods issued.21 AGI Mexico 1506, Gobierno del virrey conde de Revillagigedo (1745-56), Mexico, 28 Novem-ber 1754, copy of the elder Revillagigedo's Instruction rescrvada, ff. 7-8.2 AGN Reales cedulas (origs.), 71 , exp. 147, and 72, exp. 155, and A GI Indiferentegeneral 1706.

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    C H A P T E R 2THE S TR UGGLE F OR C ONTR OL OF TR ADESpain faced considerable foreign competition for the Mexican dye. For,Eng land, France, and H olland possessed a greater capacity of con sum ptio n.As a result, the V iceroyalty of N ew Spain, in ma ny respects, was aprod ucer of bullion and prim ary prod ucts for the European countries w itha more advanced industry than Spain. Their power, economic in charac-ter, operated b ehind the shadow of political control exercised by M adrid.In anxious reaction to such a detrime ntal situation, Spanish G overn m entssince the constitution of the Jun ta de Co me rcio in M adrid in 1679 hadbeen preoccupied with the recovery of national control over the Indiestrade. Parallel to this comm ercial policy the Spanish M inisters and writers,especially after the accession of Philip V in 1700, advo cated the adv anc e-ment of Spanish industrial activities, especially textiles. 1

    Until such reforms could be brought to successful fruition, the wealthof the Oaxaca merchants and their seniors in the Consulado of Mexicowas secured principally not so much by trading to the Spanish nationaltextile factories, but to those of Spain's main competitors for the exporttrade to the Indies. Whether through the legitimate trade to Seville orCadiz, or throug h the notorious contraband trade, the merchants of N ewSpain were the recipients of foreign manufactures. The merchants ofSeville and C adiz, for their part, often acted as the inte rm edia ry factors inthe drain of both bullion and dyes through the Spanish Peninsularentrepot to northern Europe. 2 In this way, the economy of New Spainmust have been much more closely related to the trends of the worldeconomy than has previously been supposed.In England, for example, the import of dyestuffs assumed greaterimp ortance in the second half of the seventeenth century. For, m ore clothtended to be dyed at home, rather than in the Dutch dyeing and finishingindustries. A comparative table of values of all types of dyes from the

    1 For the Spanish backg round, see J. Carrera Pujal, Historia de la economia espanola (B arcelona1943-7), vol. iii; Richard Herr, The Eighteenth Century Revolution in Spain (Princeton1 9 5 8 ) ; a n d J . C . L a F o r c e , T he D e ve lop me n t o f the Sp an i sh T e x t il e In du s t r y , 1 7 5 0 - 1 8 0 0(B erkeley 1966).2 See A. Ch ristelow, 'G reat B ritain and the Trades from Cadiz and Lisbon to SpanishAmerica and B razil, 1759-1783', HAHR, xxvii (1947), 2-29.

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    Struggle for controlworld centres of production entering England between 1663 and 1774has been presented in two articles by R. Davis, a version of which isplaced in Table 2.1

    Table 2. Value of import of dyes into England, 1663-17741663-9 1699- 1699- 1722-4 1752-4 1772-41701 1701(London) (England)

    AmericasMediterraneanEast India

    3,00091,00016,000

    71,00090,0008,000

    85,00092,0008,000

    152,000124,0003,000

    ,97,000149,0001,000

    167,000267,0003,000

    N.B. The area covered under 'Americas' includes North, Central, and SouthAmerica, and the West Indies.The Mediterranean comprised Spain, Portugal, and their islands, Italy, and theLevant.East India signified the lands bordering on the Indian and Pacific Oceans.The mid-seventeenth century figures for the import of dyestuffs from

    East India, principally indigo, considerably exceeded those from theAmericas, both indigo and cochineal and the Yucatan and Hondurasdyewoods. However, the most significant figure would be that of theMediterranean region. For, this included the re-export from Seville or,subsequently, Cadiz, of the dyes of the Spanish Indies. This is evident inthe figures for 1699-1701. For, of the -90,000--92,000 worth of dye-stuffs imported into England from that area, the total value of cochinealimports reached ^67,000.2 This re-export from the Andalusian portsrepresented approximately 75 per cent of England's dye import from theMediterranean.A sym ptom of the Spanish Crow n's concern at the activities of foreignpowers in the dye trade was the Real Cedula of 29 August 1751, sent by theMarques de Ensenada to the Viceroy of New Spain, Conde de Revilla-gigedo the Elder. It explained that in the C row n's estimation the cochinealdye was one of the m ost valuable produc ts of the Indies. For, it proceededto factories throughout the world. Indeed, the major part of the cargowhich left the Indies went to foreign ports as its ultimate destination. For

    that reason, the Cr ow n w as anxious to kn ow the total am oun t of cochinealactually cultivated in the Bishopric of Oaxaca, in order that its exports1 R. Davis, 'English Foreign Trade, 1660-1700', Economic History Review, series 11, vol. vii(1954-5), 150-66; and 'English Foreign Trade, 1700-1774', Economic History Review,series 11, vol. xv (1962-3), 285-99 . 2 Davis, 'Trade , 166 0-1700', 166.

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    Politics and trade in Southern Mexicoshould be rechanneled to the Peninsular factories. What there was insurplus could then be re-exported from Spain to the other Europeanmanufacturing countries. Naturally, one of the principal objectives ofsuch a measure would be to ensure the correct observation of Royaltaxation rights over the products of the trade.

    This Cedula continued the Bourbon trend of replacing private orcorporate supervision of the Royal revenues in favour of Royal bureau-cratic appointees. It authorised Royal officials, rather than agents of theConsulado of Cadiz, to supervise the imported cargoes of dyes on arrivalin Spain. The Crown specifically stated that its intention was not toimpose any tax on the lucrative cochineal trade, but to increase its ownrevenues through the better organisation and management of it. In themeantime, the Crown regretted any inconvenience caused to the Cadizmerchants by depriving them of their former practice of inspection. 1

    The reality of the Metropolitan Government's fears was amply attestedby the role of the English merchants behind the scenes in the Oaxacatrade. Illustrating this, the British charge d'affaires in Mexico in 1827,H. G. Ward, referring to the middle of the eighteenth century, wrote,'In the year, 1756, a government registry office was established in Oaxacaas a result of the complaints of some English merchants who hadreceived cargoes of adulterated cochinealin which all cochineal pro-duced in the province was ordered to be examined and registered.'2Such a demand on the part of the English merchants, and its influenceon the administration in O axaca, indicated the importa nce bo th partiesattached to the pure quality of the export dye. The Royal authoritiesduly established the official supervisory agency in the city for the inspec-tion of all dye cargoes entering it, and vested this function in the office of

    Corregidor. The regulations, entitled the 'Ordinance, Method, orRegulation, which are to be observed in order to ensure the closure of thedoor to the perpetration of frauds in the cochineal', was issued in 1756,reissued in 1760, and once m ore in 1773.3 Nevertheless, reports of repeatedadulteration of the dye plagued the Superior Government to the extentthat the set of instructions was reissued finally in 1817, whe n the inspectionprocedure was entrusted to the Intendant of Oaxaca, whose office incor-porated the functions of the former Corregidor.41 A G N Reales cedulas (origs.), 71, exp. 161,ff.578-81.2 H. G. Ward, Mexico in 1827 (2 vols .; London 1828), i, 64.3 Barbro Dahlgren de Jordan, Nocheztli, Lagrana cochinilla (Mexico 1963), photostat repro-duction of the ordinances, following the appendices.4 Archivo del Estado de Oaxaca, uncatalogued and unclassified legajo for 1817. See also

    2 6

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    Struggle for controlDirec t access to t he source of bullion and precious dyes was secured bythe British merchants through Parliament's passage of the Free Port Acts,

    the issue of which coincided with Charles Ill's commercial reforms inSpain and the Indies. The first of the British Free Port Acts, in 1766,opened ce rtain ports in Jamaica and D om inica to foreign ships. Produc tsin competition with those produced in the British West Indies were, ofcourse, specifically excluded from the provisions of the Act, but theimport of indigo from Guatemala, and the cochineal dye from NewSpain, was to be encouraged. For their import through the British WestIndian islands circumvented the delays and costs of the Cadiz monopolytrade system.1 These commodities, together with other dye-stuffs, wool,cotton-wool, skins, and cacao, were in fact especially singled out forimportance in the Second Free Port Act of 1787.2 In that year, ThomasIrving, Inspector-General of the Customs in England, reported to thePrivy Council that goods to a very considerable amount, suited to theSpanish American market, were annually exported from England toJamaica, where they were generally shipped on board small armed vesselsfor transportation to different parts of the Spanish Main. There theywould be sold or exchanged in a clandestine manner for Mexican dollars,cochineal, Guatemalan indigo, and other dye-stuffs, dye-woods, maho-gany, and hides. He estimated the receipts earned by Britain from thistrade w ith the Spanish colonies to be no less than one million dollars. Thissum furnished no t on ly the B ritish islands in the W est Indies and the Britishcolonies on the mainland with a medium of circulation, but also affordeda considerable object of remittance in specie to England, besides thequantity of cocoa, cotton, wool, cochineal, indigo, other dye-stuffs, andhides secured.3

    Christelow explains that one of the problems for European powerssuch as Great Britain was the fact that the Spanish Empire producedcertain raw materials which were of vital importance for their economicactivities. 'Spanish dollars, for exa mple, we re the one key wh ich effectivelyopened the Asiatic market, for when England in the early years of theseventeenth century began to develop her sea trade with India, Americansilver was the one thing which made success a possibility. Spanish-BSMGE, MSS J. M. Murguia y Galardi, Estadistica del estado de Oaxaca (1826-8), Miahuat-lan, f. 28etseq.1 F. Armytage, The Free Port System in the British West Indies. A Study in Com mercial Policy.1766-1822. (London 1953), 41 -2. 2 ibid. 59-60.3 British Museum (BM), Add. MSS 38, 345, ff. 208-13 v. (Liverpool Papers), ThomasIrving to the Right Honourable the Lords of H.M.'s most Honourable Privy Councilfor considering the matters of Trade and Plantations.

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    Politics and trade in Southern MexicoAmerican dyewoods were equally necessary for reducing productioncosts in the expanding English textile trades. . . /i

    Th e balance of the Free Po rt trade generally favoured the British rathe rthan the Spaniards. For the outward cargo from the West Indies toSpanish America was nearly always greater in value than the inward. Theexplanation for this was that the main purpose of the development of theWest Indies' Free Port system by the British Government was thefurthering of the interests of British manufacturers, and , in particular, theexport of British manufactured goods. In consequence, the adversebalance of trade suffered by the Spanish territories concerned had to becovered by the export of bullion. Thomas Irving estimated that in 1792the total value of British manufactured goods exported from the BritishW est Indies in bo th British and foreign ships totalled betw een -400,000and -500,000.2As a result of the commercial penetration of the Spanish Indies by theforeigners, Spain throughout the course of the eighteenth century wasattempting to restrain the flow of bullion out of her empire both bydeveloping the Spanish metropolitan textile industry and by encouragingthe export to Spain of the precious dyes and tropical products of America.The American market became one of the central objectives of the Royalwoollen textile factories established firstly at Guadalajara in 1719, andsubsequently at San Fernando and Brihuega. For, the new factories,financed by the State in an attempt to create industrialisation in Castile,suffered from perennial lack of consumer demand for their products. Forexample, between February 1719 and 1726, the factory produced over160,000 varas of woollens, but sold only 10,000 varas. Moreover, expendi-ture considerably outpaced revenue. In 1735, the Guadalajara factorysuffered a deficit of over 490,000 reales de ve\\6nJ> Nevertheless, it was uponthe success of such a factory that the M inistry in Spain set its hopes for theousting of the English woollen manufacturers and other northernEuropeans from their pred om inan t position in the Spanish Indies' ma rke t.41 A. Christelow, 'Contraband Trade between Jamaica and the Spanish Main, and the FreePo rt Act of 1766', HAHR, xxii (1942), 309-43.2 Armytage, The Free Port System, 70, 72, 73,92.3 La Force, Development of the Spanish Textile Industry, 19-22, 38-44. The factory expanded

    from 51 loom s in 1731, to 142 in 1754, and 670 in 1784. Th e m axim um size of the factorywas attained betwee n 1784 and 1791, wh en by the latter date, the e ntire labou r forceconsisted of 24,000.4 Richard Herr, The Eighteenth Century Revolution in Spain (Princeton 1958), 123, 'thegreatest efforts were devoted to the cloth manufacture at Guadalajara, for it was hopedthat through its success would end the shameful dependence on England for cloths woven2 8

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    Struggle for controlHowever, unable to bear the cost of continual losses, the Crownhanded over the administration of the Guadalajara factory to the Cinco

    gremios mayores de Madrid, in 1757. These five guilds, constituted as a solecommercial unit back in 1686, occupied the chief economic role in Cas-tile, and enjoyed a privileged position at court through their activitiesas a source of credit. The guilds continued to run the factory until 1767.1During the time of their administration, and after, they graduallyestablished a secure trading position within the Indies market. By 1778,the Cinco gremios had three commercial agents in the Mexican merchanttow n of Jalapa, and, und er the Real Orden of 9 Jun e 1784, they set up atrading factory in Mexico City .

    2Intimately connected with the Cinco gremios was the Casa de Uztariz,an eminent joint-sto ck trading c om pan y, described by Arcila Fariasas the strongest tha t existed in Spain, at least as regards Spanish trade to theIndies.3 Along with the Cinco gremios of Madrid, the Casa de Uztariz,at the instance of the Ministry of Finance, formed what amounted to asociety for the expulsion of the foreigner from the trade of the SpanishIndies, and for the dominance there of the products and interests of theSpanish me tropolis.4In March 1762, the Casa de Uztariz took over the management of theRoya l silk textile factory at Talavera. In retu rn for this service, the C ro w nconceded the House the right to despatch three registered ships to theIndies, one to New Spain and one to Peru, and the other to Havana.The objective was, of course, to prevent the serious drain of Mexican andPeruvian bullion across the Pacific to purchase Chinese silk textiles pro-ceeding through Canton on the Manila Galleon. In order to perfect thefinishing processes of the Spanish silk textile, the Crown conceded the

    House, under the Reales Cedulas of 18 April 1765 and 23 December 1766,the right to import into Spain on return voyages from the Indies, cochi-neal to the value of the freight charges, a sum of 108,000 pesos. By 1770,the House had eight ships profitably em ployed in the Indies trade . As oneof the partners, the Conde de Reparaz, Juan Bautista de Uztariz, ex-from Spanish wool'. See also La Force, Development of the Spanish Textile Industry, 43 :'English merchants dominated the Spanish American woollen textile market with theircheaper, lighter, and more colourful product, in contrast to the sombre, heavy, oftendefective Castilian garment.'

    1 J. Carrera Pujal, Historia de la economia espanola (5 vols .; Barcelona, 1943-7), iii, 608.2 AGN General de parte 60 (1778); E. Arcila Farias, El