Until the first decade of the eighteenth century, the distribution of landed property in León cannot be determined with any degree of precision. For the terms of the original viceregal mercedes for estancias were remarkably vague, so that owners either occupied more territory than had been assigned to them, or alternatively encountered difficulties in enforcing their claims against neighbours already in possession. The title of one large sitio later called Los Sapos described its location as follows: ‘three leagues from the said town (León) once past a wood of mezquites and entering some flat slopes called San Cristóbal, in a gully little more than a league from the river which runs from the meadows of the said town, which is said to be the source of the River Turbio’. Fortunately, for both historian and landowner, in the years 1711–12, a royal judge, juez de composiciones was despatched to León to inspect all titles and to compare them with the area of land actually occupied. From the subsequent settlement – all de facto possession was recognised in return for a small fee – we can establish a relatively accurate survey of land tenure in the district.

The first impression is of a variegated, complex pattern of holdings characterised by extraordinary disparities in dimension. One great latifundium called Gavia and Santa Ana dominated the entire southeastern corner of the district, reaching across the plains into the parish of Silao.

The porteño merchants by occupation, investment patterns and life style were overwhelmingly an urban social group. They engaged in an urban occupation, lived in the very heart of the city, and invested heavily in urban property in the form of homes, shops and buildings. Commerce and investments provided the merchants with capital to undertake a life style commensurate with their local status. All facets of merchant life reflected the comparative sophistication and luxury enjoyed by this group.

Much information on the life of the merchants, information of both a quantitative and qualitative nature, is contained in the pages of the estate papers of deceased merchants. In addition to listings of urban and rural real estate, including descriptions and value, estate papers contained inventories of the personal possessions of the merchants and their wives. Dress, jewelry, silverware, crockery, books, furnishings, luxury goods, and slaves are documented in great detail in these pages. Dowry papers and capitales also contain information of much the same nature, and afford us a rich picture of the general life of the merchant class. Additional information, moreover, in the 1778 census of Buenos Aires is helpful in reconstructing the residential patterns of the merchant group.

The porteño merchants inhabited a city which in modern times would be little more than a rural town. In 1778 the total population of the city of Buenos Aires was 24,363.

Eighteenth-century Spanish America was a society based on notions of caste and the functions of various estates of the realm. Although the social position of the porteño merchants was based primarily on wealth(and secondarily on race) the merchants adhered to a conception of society as hierarchical, composed of different and unequal groups in which they were most definitely among the genie decente.

Privilege played a role in denning the position of the porteño merchants; the merchant group of the Río de la Plata enjoyed special favors as a result of the Crown's new interest in the area. To generate new revenues through an expansion of Platine commerce, Upper Peru and the city of Potosí were included within the parameter of Buenos Aires trade, and special tax exemptions were provided to encourage new trade through Buenos Aires. But these privileges were economic rather than social; unlike the clergy or the military, the merchants were always simply vecinos (ordinary citizens) of Buenos Aires.

In addition to being the beneficiary of favorable trade policies, the merchant group, because it was literate and aware of conditions in other sectors of the Spanish Empire, and at times of the world, was able to lobby effectively before the colonial administration. Along with high administrators, leading churchmen, and professional men, the merchants were among the most cosmopolitan members of the city's society.

The marriage patterns of the merchants are important as they are linked to their patterns of social mobility. In addition, marriage provided the merchants with a means of cementing individuals and families into kinship groups and clans. Therefore the social and geographical background of the women whom the merchants married, as well as the social and legal position of the women themselves, were crucial to the organization and life patterns of the merchant group.

Not surprisingly, women in Spanish colonial society were thought of as inferior beings simply because of their female status; the very condition of being a woman consigned the female to a lesser rank than that of a man. Although she had limited legal rights (such as the right to inherit), no upper or middle class woman could enter a profession, as she was felt to be incapable of any life outside her home. Only three options were open to the women of Buenos Aires: marriage, spinsterhood, or entrance into a cloistered nunnery.

From reports of travelers to Buenos Aires it is apparent that women who chose marriage or spinsterhood were expected to lead a quiet, genteel life centering on home and church. In their homes and at fetes, women were not expected to display any intelligence, but rather to provide the gracious touch to entertaining – providing sweet and lively chatter, performing Spanish and French dances, playing the guitar and singing.

The emergence of a large and powerful merchant group in Buenos Aires was an eighteenth-century phenomenon, a response to world demand for hides and silver, population growth in the area, and the expansion of trade and commerce. Study of the eighteenth-century porteño merchants illustrates many characteristics which can be contrasted to those of other merchants within the Hispanic world. Comparison of the merchants of vice-regal Buenos Aires with those of late eighteenth-century Mexico, and even those of sixteenth-century Lima and sixteenth-century Seville leads to the discerning of some patterns of behavior which were universal for the Hispanic merchant as well as those which were unique to time and place.

The porteño merchants, like other merchant groups, were educated men, knowledgeable in accounting and interest rates, who worked full-time at buying and selling. All merchants traveled to some degree, although merchants tended to become less nomadic in well developed urban centers. Neither the merchant of the sixteenth century nor of the eighteenth century was limited only to wholesale transactions, and all groups engaged in retail sales, moneylending and credit operations, and debt collection. Partnership arrangements remained the same throughout the colonial Hispanic world, but unlike their peers in Lima, the porteño merchants did not engage in currency speculation to any large degree, perhaps because by the eighteenth century the silver peso had become standard throughout the colonies.

The interaction of the merchant group with the Church is especially significant in view of the overriding importance of the Church, and the religious nature of colonial society. This interaction was expressed at several levels: individual support of various churches or religious orders, leadership as directors and organizers of Church finances, and participation in religious associations.

The merchants of Buenos Aires were one of the most devout groups in colonial society. Religious participation provided them with greater social recognition, which benefited the individual, his family and the merchants as a whole. In return the merchants provided economic support for the Church, often financing church construction and expansion. An outstanding example of Church support was that of Juan de Lezica, who as a devotee of the Virgin of Luján, was the main sponsor of a new church in that town. Domingo Basavilbaso served for many years as the majordomo of the Cathedral of Buenos Aires, and in this capacity supervised the rebuilding of the church. His work was continued by his son, Manuel Basavilbaso, and then by Gaspar de Santa Coloma, a member of the Basavilbaso clan. These four men, wealthy and respected merchants, set examples of piety and generosity.

Special devotion to one or more saints was common among the merchants. Eugenio Lerdo de Tejada, for example, was a devotee of San Antonio de Padúa, and requested that he be buried at the foot of the saint's altar.

Earlier chapters have looked at the merchant group of Buenos Aires in an attempt to discern universal patterns of group origin, recruitment, training, marriage, and kinship. This chapter provides a comprehensive view of an individual merchant's life, the life of his family and that of his firm.

Gaspar de Santa Coloma's economic position, commercial career, and trade patterns make him perhaps the very best merchant to study in detail. He was a moderately successful man, an example of the ‘typical’ porteño merchant. He figured neither among the few merchants of fantastic wealth nor among those who failed dismally in commercial life, but rather within the upper-middle group of wholesalers. In addition to his moderate success, Santa Coloma is an excellent candidate for close study as his commercial life spanned the entire vice-regal period. His business records run from 1778 to 1815, the year of his death, and even beyond. We can therefore trace, with some degree of success, the career of one merchant and one mercantile firm throughout the entire vice-regal period. The patterns of Santa Coloma's trade also make him one of the more interesting merchants to study for he was involved in trade with Spain and with several provinces of the interior.

Don Gaspar de Santa Coloma was born on 6 January 1742 in Casería del Campo, Campijo, a small town near Arciniega in the Basque province of Alava.

The merchants of Buenos Aires were a central force in the economy of the city, its surrounding countryside, and the more distant areas of the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata. As traders, moneylenders and investors, the merchants controlled much of the day to day economic life in the colony. In fact, the colonial economy was dominated by commercial capital. The merchants, in their role as local agents of Spanish mercantile policy, sought exports which were in demand in the markets of Cádiz and Madrid. They were also responsible for the movement of goods from one sector of the region to another. The porteño merchants indirectly maintained the entire communication and transportation network of the region.

Several variables determine the status of individual merchants and groups of merchants. The category of trade (i.e., whether it be wholesale or retail) was a major factor in the economic and social status of a merchant. Porteño merchants ranked themselves into three trade categories – wholesalers, retailers, and suppliers of food – based on economic power and social prestige. The wholesalers, the subject of this study, were the most important of the merchant groups, but within this category the scale of trade ranged from large to small. Of a sample group of 90 merchants participating in wholesale trade, 45 were medium-scale merchants, 18 were large-scale merchants, 23 were medium- to large-scale merchants, and only 4 were small-scale importers. Large-scale merchants had invested large sums of money, from 50,000 pesos up, in commerce.

Although merchants were among the major local beneficiaries of the restructured political and economic system of the last decades of the eighteenth century, the merchant group of Buenos Aires was not created by the new Viceroyalty. Buenos Aires, from the seventeenth century, had a relatively clearly defined and important merchant group, active both in the legal trade authorized by the Spanish Crown, and in contraband dealings with the Portuguese, English and French.

As early as 1597, only seventeen years after the re-establishment of the port city, Portuguese merchants began to import shipments of dry goods and slaves into Buenos Aires. By 1615 several important merchants and their families were established in the city. Included in this group heavily involved in contraband, were Diego de Vega and his son-in-law, Juan de Vergara. Throughout the seventeenth century, porteño trade (usually contraband) was dominated by Portuguese merchants, although occasionally a Spaniard rose to prominence among the merchant ranks. Such a case was that of Miguel de Riglos, a native of Navarre, and one of the principal merchants of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, who had begun his commercial life through his auspicious marriage to the widow of a Portuguese merchant.

It is impossible to estimate the number of men involved in commerce during the seventeenth century, for no census with good occupational information exists for this period.