Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-q99xh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-22T20:37:08.437Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

7 - Aspects of the internal economy of colonial Spanish America: labour; taxation; distribution and exchange

from PART TWO - ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL STRUCTURES: SPANISH AMERICA

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2008

Murdo J. Macleod
Affiliation:
University of Arizona
Get access

Summary

Colonies are structured by those who rule them to benefit the mother country and its ruling classes. To the extent that these rulers are successful in this aim colonies are, in Chaunu's word, extrovert. They are, at least in part, organized economically to send out to others significant portions of their most valuable or profitable raw materials and products. In colonial Spanish America much of the economic history which we know has emerged from studies of Spanish attempts to make the colonies serve metropolitan needs. One result has been an emphasis on the sea link, the carrera de Indias, and the fleet system. We know a fair amount about who went to the Indies and when, and what goods were carried in each direction across the Atlantic, more especially from Spanish America to Spain. Within Spanish America itself economic historians have allowed their interests to be shaped to some extent by what primarily interested the Spanish crown: above all, silver and gold mining and plantation agriculture, the bases of the great export trades, and the supply of labour to the mines and plantations. We know much less about the basic institutions, assumptions, systems and practices of the internal economy of colonial Spanish America. Drawing on the available secondary literature, which concentrates on a limited range of topics and regions, an attempt will be made in this chapter to examine three aspects of the internal economy: labour systems; taxation; and trade within the empire, both local and long-distance.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 1984

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×