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The Expropriation of Pious and Corporate Properties in Costa Rica, 1805-1860: Patterns in the Consolidation of a National Elite
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 December 2015
Extract
Conflicts between Church and State, and between liberals and conservatives over the role of the Church, were a constant feature of nineteenth-century Mesoamerican history. These struggles eventually stripped the Church of much of its wealth, with a consequent decline in its political influence. However, the timing of this disinvestiture, the composition of liberal and conservative factions, and the role of the Church varied substantially throughout Mexico and Central America.
In Mexico, Guatemala, and El Salvador, the Church survived the turmoil of the Independence period, to continue as a major holder of wealth and an important political actor. Notwithstanding repeated royal attacks upon Church prerogatives, and innumerable forced loans levied by both colonial and national authorities against Church wealth, the decisive confrontation between the Church and the Liberal-dominated State in these nations awaited the second half of the nineteenth century.
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- Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 1983
References
1 Useful sources for the Consolidation and general Church-State relations in late colonial Mexico include: Farriss, N.M., Crown and Clergy in Colonial Mexico, 1759–1821: The Crisis of Ecclesiastical Privilege, (London, University of London Press), 1968 Google Scholar; Costeloe, Michael, Church Wealth in Mexico, 1800–1856: A Study of the “Juzgado de Capellanías” in the Archbishopric of Mexico, (London, Cambridge University Press), 1967 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Brading, David, Miners and Merchants in Bourbon Mexico, 1763–1810, (London, Cambridge University Press), 1971 Google Scholar; Hamnett, Brian, “The Appropriation of Mexican Church Wealth by the Spanish Bourbon Government—the ‘Consolidación de Vales Reales’, 1805–1809”, Journal of Latin American Studies, 1,2, (1969), pp. 85–113 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and, Lavrin, Asunción, “The Execution of the Law of ‘Consolidación’ in New Spain: Economic Aims and Results”, Hispanic American Historical Review, 53, 1, (February 1973), pp. 27–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar For late colonial and early independent Central America see: Cabat, Geoffrey A., “The Consolidation of 1803 in Guatemala,” The Americas, 28, 1 (July 1971), pp. 20–38 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Rodríguez, Mario, The Cádiz Experiment in Central America, 1808 to 1826, (Berkeley, 1978)Google Scholar; Wortman, Miles, “Government Revenue and Economic Trends in Central America, 1787–1819,” Hispanic American Historical Review, 55, 2(May 1975), pp. 251–286 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and his doctoral thesis, “La Fédération d’Amérique Central: 1823–1839” (Diss., L’Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, Paris, 1973); Peláez, Severo Martínez, La patria del criollo: Ensayo de interpretación de la realidad colonial guatemalteca (San José, EDUCA, 4th edition 1976).Google Scholar Standard works on the mid-century Mexican Reform are those of Bazant, Jan, Alienation of Church Wealth in Mexico: Social and Economic Aspects of the Liberal Revolution, 1856–1875, (London, Cambridge University Press, 1971)Google Scholar; and Knowlton, Robert, Church Property and the Mexican Reform, 1856–1910, (Dekalb, Illinois, Northern Illinois University Press, 1976).Google Scholar For the Liberal movements in Guatemala and Salvador see: Burgess, Paul, Justo Rufino Barrios, (San José, EDUCA, 1972)Google Scholar; García Laguardia, Jorge Mario, La reforma liberal en Guatemala: Vida política y orden constitucional, (San José, EDUCA, 1972)Google Scholar; Menjívar, Rafael, Acumulación originaria y desarrollo del capitalismo en El Salvador, (San José, EDUCA, 1980)Google Scholar; Woodward, Ralph Lee Jr., Central America, a Nation Divided, (New York, Oxford University Press, 1976)Google Scholar; Cardoso, Ciro and Pérez, Héctor, Centroamérica y la economía occidental, 1520–1930, (San José, Universidad de Costa Rica, 1977).Google Scholar
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8 A purely descriptive account of the development and expropriation of the cofradía goods in colonial Costa Rica can be found in, Marroto, Alberto Sáenz, Historia agricola de Costa Rica, (San José, 1970), pp. 302–303.Google Scholar
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10 Figures and estimates are based on the following sources: Archivos Nacionales de Costa Rica (hereafter cited as ANCR), Complementario Colonial, No. 6496, (“cuentas de la cofradía de Asunción y Soledad de Barva, 1767–1806”); Sección Cartago, No. 537, (“criadores de ganado en el Valle de Barba, 1759”); Complementario Colonial, No. 422, (“criadores de ganado mayor en Villahermosa o Alajuela, 1778”).
11 Sources for the Guanacaste brotherhoods include the census records: ANCR, Complementario Colonial, No. 3544, (Nicoya, 1785); No. 1390, (“hacendados de ganado mayor en Bagaces, 1800”); and the following inventories: ANCR, Complementario Colonial, No. 497 (“El Viejo, 1783–1800”); No. 499 (“Concepción, 1783–1816”); No. 501 (“Rosario, 1783–1797”); No. 842 (“Santísimo Sacramento, 1788–1827”); No. 1276 (“Nuestro Padre Jesús Nazareno, 1798–1815”).
12 The disastrous impact of the withdrawal of currency from New Spain was pointed out by nearly all contemporary observers. Their judgment is born out by most modern day authors.
13 There is a slight difference of opinion between Hamnett and La win as to the total revenue extracted from New Spain. We are citing the letter's lower estimate.
14 Merchant protests are frequently cited in both the Central American and Mexican literature. Moreover, Farriss shows how large sections of the lower clergy were led toward rebellion by this drastic curtailment in their wealth and income. See, Farriss, , Crown and Clergy…, pp. 243–244.Google Scholar
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17 Cabat, “The Consolidation of 1803 in Guatemala…”. Wortman’s figures for Central American government receipts during the period 1787-1819 may or may not have taken the consolidation extractions into account. In any event, these funds were expressly separated from regular revenues by the officials involved, and surely contributed, here as in Mexico, to the long term decline in revenue which the author documents.
18 Cabat, , “The Consolidation of 1803 in Guatemala…”, p. 28,Google Scholar for distribution of revenue; p. 35, for mechanisms by which the influential postponed payment. The author estimated that only 1/5 of the revenue came from the sale of cofradía properties, the reverse of the situation in Costa Rica.
19 Cofradía goods at auction brought in about 22,000 pesos, with only 5,000 collected from the over 20,000 pesos in outstanding debt in capellanía funds. See, ANCR, Complementario Colonial, No. 3672, (July 16, 1805-June 14, 1809), 78 folios.
20 Auction prices were usually reduced to only two-thirds of appraised value on the strength of the “sole bidder” rational, repeatedly employed one might add. A striking example of this practice of selective collection can be seen in the case of Juan Francisco Bonilla of Cartago, who acquired land and cattle for cash, but was unable to pay more than one-third of his chaplaincy mortgages.
21 ANCR, Complementario Colonial, No. 3840, (October 24, 1808), fol. 39.
22 Ibid, fols. 46f-47v.
23 A long list of both liberal and conservative priests can be cited as major businessmen in early nineteenth century Costa Rica. For a general discussion of priests and their surprising receptiveness to liberalism see, Segura, Ricardo Blanco, Historia eclesiástica de Costa Rica, (San José, 1967), pp. 293–305.Google Scholar
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27 ANCR, Protocolos de Cartago, No. 1120 (December 9,1844), fols. 58f-60f; No. 1125 (January 21-August 12, 1845), fols. 9f-20f, 28f-30f, 74v-75v; No. 1132 (March 19, 1846), fols. 8f-10f.
28 ANCR, Congreso, No. 742 (March 10, 1828), fol. 5v. For an early survey of the ecclesiastical question in newly independent Central America, see Williams, Mary W., “The Ecclesiastical Policy of Francisco Morazán and the Central American Liberals,” Hispanic American Historical Review, 3, 2, (May 1920), pp. 119–143.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
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30 Giralt, the new owner of the El Viejo ranch, actually offered to renounce his claims due to popular opposition (ANCR, Gobernación, No. 24, 852, (November 4, 1846), but his heirs later pressed the issue and eventually received “what was left of the property some twenty years later. See ANCR, Protocolos ‘Lara y Chamorro,’ No. 847, (April 4, 1868), fols. 4f-6v, 1 If.
31 For further detail on late nineteenth and early twentieth century Guanacaste see, Gudmundson, , Hacendados, precaristas y políticos: La ganadería y el latifundismo guanacasteco, 1800–1950 (San José, forthcoming).Google Scholar
32 Braulio Carrillo was virtual dictator from 1838 to 1842, and had been Chief of State since 1835. Paradoxically, he was identified with the anti-Morazán forces internationally. His brother, the priest Nicolás, may have claimed a conservative inspiration, but what was to be conserved locally could only be considered liberal in the Central American context. For a contrary view, one which claims the Carrillo brothers represented antagonistic class interests see, Cerdas, Rodolfo, Formación del Estado en Costa Rica, (San José, Universidad de Costa Rica, 2nd edition, 1978), p. 28.Google Scholar
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