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Bourbon Reforms in Central America: 1750-1786*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2015

Miles Wortman
Miles Wortman*
Affiliation:
Baruch College (C.U.N.Y.)
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Extract

The Bourbon reforms of the late eighteenth century are important in understanding the fiscal, economic, and political structure both prior to and following the independence of Latin America. Although these measures have been generally analyzed in great detail, the decrees and compliance with them varied from region to region. This becomes quite obvious when one views Central America during the period. Considered a “backwater colony” by contemporary historians, the Reino de Guatemala still was strongly affected by fiscal reforms and subsequent political changes. An inordinately strong merchant class controlled not only commerce, but equally prices, trade regulations, and tax collection. The area was more a fief than a kingdom, with Spanish and Guatemalan merchants ruling over the Central American domain. The new Bourbon measures represented more than an attempt to gather additional fiscal resources, but to actually regain that sovereignty which earlier Spanish monarchs allowed to dwindle.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Americas , Volume 32 , Issue 2 , October 1975 , pp. 222 - 238
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 1975

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Footnotes

*

The author would like to express his appreciation to Herbert S. Klein and Ruggiero Romano for their advice in the preparation of this article.

References

1 Solórzano F., Valentin, Evolución Económica de Guatemala (Guatemala, 1963), 204–205.Google Scholar

2 See, in particular, the works of Floyd, Troy S., “The Guatemalan Merchants, the Government and the Provincianos, 1750–1800” in Hispanic American Historical Review (hereafter cited as HAHR) 41(1965), 90 110CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and “Bourbon Palliatives and the Central American Mining Industry, 1765–1800” in The Americas XCIII (1961), 105–125.

3 Archivo General de Guatemala (hereafter cited as AGG) A3.5 Leg 2407 Exps. 35452 and 35440; Solórzanp, , Evolución Económica, 160.Google Scholar

4 For the first modern study of Central American development in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, see Macleod, Murdo J., Spanish Central America: A Socioeconomic History 1520–1720 (Berkeley, 1975).Google Scholar

5 Breve Muestra de Las Muchas Utilidades, que puede producir… Una Compañía Que se Podrá Establecer (Guatemala, 1741), unpaged.

6 Smith, Robert S., “Origins of the Consulado of Guatemala” in HAHR 26 (1946), 160 Google Scholar; Hamnett, Brian, Politics and Trade in. Southern Mexico 1790–1821 (Cambridge, 1971),174.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

7 See des Bruslons, , Dictionnaire Universel (Paris, 1723), 2, 411 Google Scholar; Cavignac, Jean, Jean Pellet, Commerçant de Gros, 1694–1772 (Paris, 1967)Google Scholar; Alden, Daniel, “The Growth and Decline of Indigo Production in Colonial Brazil: A Comparative Economic History” in The Journal of Economic History 25 (1965), 35–60 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Gray, Lewis Cecil, History of Agriculture in the Southern United States to 1860 (Washington, 1933), 73–74, 81, 83, 290 295, 610–611, 740, 1024.Google Scholar For Central American growth, see: Rubio, Manuel, “El Añil o Xiquilite” in Anales de la Sociedad de Geographía e Historia de Guatemala 26 (1952), 313–349 Google Scholar; Smith, Robert S., “Indigo Production and Trade in Colonial Guatemala” in HAHR 39(1959), 181–211 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Floyd, “The Guatemalan Merchants.”

8 Smith, , “Indigo Production,” 197.Google Scholar

9 For the best description of the power of the Alcaldes Mayores and their relationship with the merchants, see Hamnett, , Politics and Trade m Southern Mexico, 2–7.Google Scholar The institutions were alike in both Southern Mexico and Central America.

10 de Fonseca, Fabian y de Urrutia, Carlos, Historia General de Real Hacienda (Mexico, 1852), 11, 55–58.Google Scholar

11 Pardo, José Joaquín, Efemérides para escribir la historia de la muy noble y muy leal ciudad de Santiago de los Caballeros del Reino de Guatemala (Guatemala, 1944), 209.Google Scholar

12 Ibid., 211–212.

13 AGG A3.5 Leg. 2407 Exps. 35435 & 35440; Solórzano, Evolución Económica, 216–217.

14 The Alcabala was the sales tax charged on “all effects fruits and other goods that are sold or changed between individuals.” The right of entry and leaving (“derechos de entrada y salida”) were also charged on all produce that entered and left the city at a rate of four reales each carga. “Razon de los Ramos particulares que se administran en las Tesorer1as de Real Hacienda del Reino de Guatemala,” AGG A3.1 Leg. 1073 Exps. 19434 and 19435; A3.5 Leg 2407 Exp 34535.

15 AGG A3.5 Leg 2407 Exp. 35435.

16 AGG A3.5 Leg 2407 Exp. 35440, Leg. 2203 Exp. 32863. Most of the legajos are unlabelled but all deal with fiscal reform.

17 Héctor Humberto Samayoa Guevara, La Intendencia en el Reyno de Guatemala (Guatemala, 1969),53–54.

18 Discretion dictates that I supply no source for this contemporary data. I would, however, supply my information to any concerned academician.

19 Pardo, Efemérides, 231; Karnes, Thomas, “The Origins of Costa Rican Federalism” in The Americas 15 (1959), 253.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

20 Pardo, Efemérid, 231; “Razon de los Ramos …” AGG A3.1 Leg 1073 Exp. 19434; A3.13 Leg 1860 Exp 29490; B6.7 Leg 96 Exp 2630.

21 Pardo, Efemérides, 229.

22 Ibid., 231–232; Guevara, Samayoa, La Intendencia, 55.Google Scholar

23 Pardo, Efemérides, 232–234; Guevara, Samayoa, La Intendencia, 55–57.Google Scholar

24 “Estado General Que Manifiesta El Producto de Alcavalas… en Cinco Años Corridos Desde” 1770 hasta … 1774,… AGG A3.5 Leg 1720 Exp 27708, fol. 174–175.

25 AGG A3.5 Leg 71 Exp 1359.

26 “Estado General,” AGG A3.5 Leg 1720 Exp 27708, fol 267, 279, 285.

27 Although the port of Omoa was given to the Administración General, it was stressed that it remained under both the diocese and Intendency of Comayagua. “Real Orden de Febrero, 1787” AGG A3.1 Leg 693 Exp 13002, fol 74-79; “Estado General,” AGG A3.5 Leg 1720 Exp 27708, fol 289–290; “Providencia de 17 de marzo de 1787” A3.5 Leg 2203 Exp 32863; A3.5 Leg 112 Exp 5466.

28 AGG A1.23 Leg 1529 fol 434; A1.2 Leg 1540 fol 163; A3.5 Leg 70 Exp 1339 fol 3; A3.1 Leg 686 Exp 12958 fol 242; “Decreto de 15 de agosto 1779” A3.5 Leg 2203 Exp 32863.

29 AGG A3.5 Leg 73 Exp 1413.

30 AGG A3.1 Leg 1322 Exp 22324, fol 66–73.

31 “Real Cédula de 6 septembre 1786” AGG Al.10 Leg 2275 Exp 16507 fol 7; “Decreto de 5 de julio 1786” A3.5 Leg 2203 Exp 32863; A3.1 Leg 1322 folios 260-298. During the appeals, it was claimed that fraud was constantly practised with notoriety in the Real Aduana in Guatemala. A3.1 Leg 1322 folio 252.

32 “Real Orden de 27 abril 1784” AGG A3.1 Leg 586 Exp. 11676; “Real Orden de 27 de octubre 1784” A3.1 Leg 1322 Exp 22324 fol 157.

33 For a complete analysis of the Intendency reforms, see H.H. Samayoa Guevara, La Intendencia.

34 See Smith, Robert S., “Indigo Production,” 194–195,200 204.Google Scholar

35 For a further analysis of fiscal income from all sources after the Bourbon reforms see Klein, Herbert S., “Structure and Profitability of Royal Finance in the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata in 1790” in HAHR Vol 53 (1973), 40–469.Google Scholar

36 This argument is more fully developed in Wortman, Miles, La Fédération d…Amérique Centrale: 1823–1839 Unpublished thesis (L…Ecole Pratique Des Hautes Etudes, Paris, 1973).Google Scholar