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Commerce and Orthodoxy: A Spanish Response to Portuguese Commerical Penetration in the Viceroyalty of Peru, 1580-1640

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2015

Harry E. Cross
Harry E. Cross*
Affiliation:
Stanford University, Stanford, California
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Extract

They have made themselves masters of commerce. The Merchant's Street is almost theirs; the Merchant's Lane is all theirs, as are most of the retail booths. … As a result, they have gained control of merchandising. … The Spaniard who has not a Portuguese as a business partner has limited chances for success.

This remarkable statement, issued by the Lima Inquisition, suggests the extent to which Portuguese and their descendants had penetrated the Peruvian commercial system during the six-decade union of the Spanish and Portuguese Crowns. Spanish concern over the presence of Portuguese merchants in the viceroyalty extended to the royal bureaucracy and Lima Consulado. For example, one important government functionary writing to the King in 1619 assessed the situation as follows: “These Portuguese … in the Provinces of Peru are many of them rich, powerful, and very intelligent in all aspects of commerce. They maintain communication with many other Portuguese retail and wholesale merchants who reside in the stated realms. …” The Consulado issued numerous complaints against Portuguese merchants and often agitated for their expulsion on the grounds that they increasingly dominated trade to the detriment of Spaniards. By 1639, the majority of Portuguese merchants had been expelled from Lima and from many other parts of the viceroyalty thanks to a rapid and far-reaching expurgation by the Inquisition. Indeed, Spanish merchant monopolists and their government-sanctioned trading association, the Consulado, acted in concert with the Lima Inquisition to harass and eventually to oust their Portuguest competitors. The establishment of Portuguese merchants in Peru and their subsequent purge by the Holy Office comprise a crucial chapter in the business history of imperial Spain.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Americas , Volume 35 , Issue 2 , October 1978 , pp. 151 - 167
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 1978

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References

* For by the seventeenth century, ‘Portuguese’ had become synonymous with Jew, New Christian, and converso in the eyes of most Spaniards.

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2 Manuel de Frias to King, 4 February 1619, Madrid, A.G.I. Charcas, legajo 7.

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10 Real Cédula to Audiencia de Charcas, 20 October 1613, Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional, Lisbon, Pombahna Ms. 249, ff. 11–12.

11 Canabrava, Alice P., O Comércio Portugues no Rio da Praia (1580–1640) (São Paulo, 1944), p. 140;Google Scholar Inquisition of Lima to the General Council of the Inquisition, Madrid, 20 April 1620, Lima, A.G.I., Charcas, legajo 7; Wiznitzer, Arnold, Jews in Colonial Brazil (New York, 1960), p. 41.Google Scholar

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22 Trade figures, García, Juan Agustín, La ciudad indiana (Buenos Aires desde 1600 basta mediados del siglo XVIII (Buenos Aires, 1900), p. 246;Google Scholar for Potosí silver production see quinto tax returns in, Colección de documentos inéditos para la historia de España, V, pp. 173–184.

23 Numbers of slaves, Molina, , Las primeras experiencas, pp. 192–195, 232–233;Google Scholar Slave prices in Peru, Bowser, The African Slave, Appendix B.

24 Lewin, Boleslao, editor, Descripción del Virreinato del Perú cronica inédita de comienzos del siglo XVII (Rosario, Universidad Nacional del Litoral, 1958), p. 75.Google Scholar

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26 Vicente, Rodriguez, El Tribunal del Consulado, pp, 27, 52.Google Scholar See pp. 381–394 for examples of bankruptcies.

27 Vicente, Rodriguez, El Tribunal del Consulado, p. 72.Google Scholar This was just one of many complaints issued by the Lima Consulado during the 1613–1640 period. Similar sentiments prevailed in Seville where, beginning in 1630, the Consulado actively worked to suppress further Portuguese naturalizations, and to exclude all those ‘naturalized to trade’ from American commerce. Needless to say, Portuguese were barred from membership in the Consulados. See, Ortiz, Domínguez, “La concesión de naturalezas,” pp. 230–234.Google Scholar

28 The establishment of the aduana seca in Tucumán did not mean that the flow of goods to Peru was curtailed. At least 53 ships landed in Buenos Aires between 1626 and 1631 indicating no diminution in traffic. Molina, , Las primeras experiencias, pp. 219–222;Google Scholar Rodriguez, Mario, “Colonia do Sacramento: Focus of Spanish American Rivalry in the Plata, 1640–1683,” (Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Berkeley, 1952), p. 49.Google Scholar For King’s defense of Portuguese merchants see, Real Cédula, 28 March 1620, Madrid, in Vicente, Rodriguez, El Tribunal del Consulado, p. 73, note 26;Google Scholar and especially Ortiz, Antonio Domínguez, La close social de los conversos en Castilla en la Edad Moderna (Madrid, 1955),pp. 110–123.Google Scholar In 1624, the King granted another in a series of composiciones whereby foreigners in Peru could legalize their residence by paying a fee, see Haring, , Trade and Navigation, pp. 108–111.Google Scholar

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33 Medina, , Historia del Tribunal, II, pp. 26–31;Google Scholar Lea, , The Inquisition, pp. 419–431;Google Scholar Palma, , Anales de la Inquisición, pp. 1–58.Google Scholar

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36 Medina, , Historia del Tribunal, II, pp. 26–31.Google Scholar

37 Friedlander, Gunter, Los béroes olvidados (Santiago, 1966) p. 57;Google Scholar Lewin, Boleslao, El Santo Oficio en América y el masgrande proceso inquisitorial en el Perú (Buenos Aires, 1950), p. 139.Google Scholar Both authors derived the figures from Medina, Historia del Tribunal, II, chapter 18.

38 Lewin, , El Santo Oficio, pp. 140–141.Google Scholar

39 Compiled from Medina, Historia del Tribunal, II, chapter 18.

40 Palma, , Anales de la Inquisición, p. 13.Google Scholar

41 Medina, , Historia del Tribunal, 2, pp. 54–55;Google Scholar Bowser, , The African Slave, p. 57;Google Scholar For a first hand account of the frequency and intensity of the arrests and confiscations, see, Ugarte, Ruben Vargas, editor, Diario de Lima de Juan AntonioSuardo (1629–1539) (2 volumes; Lima, 1936), volume 2, May and June, 1636, pp. 126–132.Google Scholar

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50 RV = Rodriguez Vicente, El Tribunal del Consulado; M = Medina, Historia del Tribunal, II; ID = de Montesinos, Fernando, Auto de la fe celebrado en Lima alide enero de 1639 (Madrid, 1640),Google Scholar in appendix of Lewin, , El Santo Oficio, pp, 155–189.Google Scholar

51 Lynch, John, Spain Under the Hapsburgs, 1516–1598 (volume 1; Oxford, 1964), pp. 23–25.Google Scholar

52 Lewin, , La Inquisición en Hispanoamérica, pp. 153–154;Google Scholar Medina, , Historia del Tribunal, 2, p. 65.Google Scholar

53 Same as note 50 with, LC: volume: page = Libros de Cabildos de Lima, 1628–1637 (volumes 21, 22, 23; Lima, 1963).

54 For example, two prominent Spanish merchants, Domingo de Olea and Diego de Aguero, members of the Consulado, also belonged to the Inquisition’s select organizational committee for the auto of 1639. See, ID, p. 163; RV, pp. 33, 389.

55 Lea, , The Inquisition, p. 347;Google Scholar Ortiz, Domínguez, Los Judeoconversos, p. 135, note 13.Google Scholar

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58 Use of the Inquisition as a political and economic tool is also found in Brazil and Spain. Wiznitzer, , Jews in Colonial Brazil, pp. 37–38;Google Scholar Elliot, , Imperial Spain, p. 216.Google Scholar Also, Bowser, , The African Slave, pp. 71–72.Google Scholar

59 LC: 23: 522; Medina, , Historia del Tribunal, II, p. 114;Google Scholar Consider also the case of the Gutiérrez Flores family: the father was an Inquisitor of Lima who died in 1631; in the 1630s, his three sons were, respectively, alguacil mayor of the Lima Inquisition, Inquisitor of the Lima Inquisition, and President of the Casa de Contratación in Seville (the parent organization of the Consulados). LC: 22: 398.

60 Ortiz, Domínguez, “La concesión de naturalezas,” pp. 230–234;Google Scholar Garcia, Sampaío, “Contribuicao ao Estudio,” pp. 70–71;Google Scholar Boxer, , Salvador de Sá, p. 35.Google Scholar

61 This interpretation is atvariance with the opinions expressed by Bowser, , The African Slave, p. 57,Google Scholar and Liebman, Seymour, “The Great Conspiracy in Peru,” The Americas, volume 28, no. 2 (1971), pp. 176–190.CrossRefGoogle Scholar These authors suggest that the Inquisition was merely a tool of the Crown; yet Bowser, p. 168, admits that conflicts between royal authorities in Lima and the Inquisition were common.