¹ Thus the Steins in their recent The Colonial Heritage of Latin America (New York, 1970), have noted the presence of rich and even influential merchants by the late colonial and early national periods. See especially pp. 175–176. Latin Americans themselves have not always been impressed with the existence of a large, dynamic and politically important commercial class just after independence. Victor Alba recently observed: “In addition to the economic power that possession of the land gave them, the Creoles emerged from the war for independence with political power. The land-holders—swiftly reduced to a few dozen or hundreds of families in each country—felt that they had the right of veto over government decisions. The traditions of government by Creoles was rapidly established, and this in time led to the formation of an oligarchic society in which ownership of land gave the right to hold power.” ( Alba, Victor, The Latin Americans (New York, 1969), p. 105.)Google Scholar And when referring to the 1810 period Claudio Véliz speaks of the “very small merchant community which then existed.” ( Véliz, Claudio (ed.), The Politics of Conformity in Latin America (New York, 1967), p. 9.)Google Scholar Probably the most influential North American supporter of this overwhelming generalization that has little tolerance for the merchants and does so much to obscure our understanding of Latin American social history is Lieuwen, Edwin, Arms And Politics in Latin America (New York, 1960), pp. 25–26.Google Scholar He speaks of the “oligarchic triarchy” and the “tripartite aristocracy.” “And, just as in the colonial period, the upper clergy were also included in the traditional social order; they too connived with the other two components of the oligarchic triarchy, landowners and army officers, to preserve the status quo.” If the merchants in fact were politically powerful by 1810, then can the politics of this important segment of public life be referred to as “conservative”? Given the context of the times this seems a contradiction in terms. So many of the generalizations we have lived with for so long—which are tightly dependent on the most consequential of the generalizations, that of the conservative landed oligarchy—might be upset or altered profoundly if the great fundamental generalization were changed to liberal merchant oligarchy. Not that I recommend this one. But I present this article in the hope that the other one will be deprived of some of its attractiveness.

The reader may be surprised to find that I have used no documents from the municipal archive of Concepción. This is because the bulk of the documents were destroyed in a recent earthquake. The staff of the archive kindly helped me go through the existing documentation in more or less a process of elimination.

² Colección Del Tribunal Del Consulado, hereinafter cited as Consulado, vol. 20, p. 18, in Archivo Nacional De Chile, hereinafter cited as ANC.

³ The avería figures are in Consulado, vol. 20, pp. 20–21, 71–74, 101–104.

⁴ Arana, Diego Barros, Historia General De Chile (2nd. ed., 12 vols.; Santiago, 1930–41), 7, p. 430.Google Scholar

⁵ Encina, Francisco A., Historia De Chile, desde la prehistoria hasta 1891 (20 vols.; Santiago, 1948–55), 5, p. 385.Google Scholar

⁶ Ibid.

⁷ The best study of the Chilean consulado is Reyes, Elsa L. Urbina, “El Tribunal Del Consulado En Chile, 1795–1865” (Memoria De Prueba, unpublished, Santiago, 1959).Google Scholar Professor Urbina kindly loaned me her copy. The study is not clear on this issue.

⁸ Colección Capitanía General, hereinafter cited as CCG, vol. 994, in ANC; and Solar, Domingo Amunátegui, Historia social de Chile (Santiago, 1932), p. 248.Google Scholar

⁹ In addition to manuscript sources information of a genealogical nature can be found in the quite reliable Figueroa, Virgilio, Diccionario histórico y biográfico de Chile (5 vols.; Santiago, 1925–31).Google Scholar

¹⁰ Barros Arana, op. cit., VII, p. 430.

* See Appendix.

¹¹ Barros Arana, op. cit., VI, pp. 319–322.

¹² Colección Jesuitas De Chile, hereinafter cited as Jesuitas, vol. 12, p. 3, in ANC.

¹³ Colección Real Audiencia, hereinafter cited as Audiencia, vol. 408, in ANC.

¹⁴ Jesuitas, vol. 12, p. 3.

¹⁵ Barros Arana, op. cit., VI, p. 321.

¹⁶ Jesuitas, vol. 12, p. 3; Audiencia, vol. 408.

¹⁷ Jesuitas, vol. 12, p. 3.

¹⁸ Ibid.

¹⁹ These figures are taken from the terms of sale and notice of first interest payment. Ibid., vol. 28, pp. 133–134, 135–142.

²⁰ The first payments were recorded in 1784 but might have been for the previous year. In 1790 Manzanos referred to himself in an official document as a “Vecino y del Comercio de la Ciudad de Concepción.” CCG, vol. 994.

²¹ Jesuitas, vol. 80, p. 15.

²² Ibid vol. 12, p. 3.

²³ Ibid.

²⁴ The 1790 bill is in the Museo de Concepción, a most unlikely place, and is unbound and in a collection of random documents.

²⁵ See Romano, Ruggiero, Una economía colonial: Chile en el siglo XVIII (Buenos Aires, 1965), pp. 39–47.Google Scholar

²⁶ Jesuitas, vol. 12, p. 3.

²⁷ Ibid.

²⁸ Ibid.

²⁹ Actually, the south did not become properly famous for the production of wheat until the region below the bishopric of Concepción, that is, the far south, was colonized. In 1712, for instance, Coquimbo exported 24,000 fanegas of wheat, Concepción 48,000 fanegas and Valparaíso 180,000 fanegas ( Sepúlveda, Sergio, El trigo chileno en el mercado mundial (Santiago, 1959), p. 22).Google Scholar Sergio Sepúlveda presents these figures from a French travel account and he takes them to mean wheat exports, the only likely cereal to be exported by the fanega at that time. They do allow us an idea of how much more wheat was produced in the north than in the south.

³⁰ The reader may wonder why I have not mentioned the famous Consolidación as a source of land. Instituted in 1805 (the royal decree was issued the previous year) to raise money for the royal treasury, this was a plan to sell off real estate belonging to the religious charities (obras pías) in favor of the crown. It also provided for the transfer of funds earmarked for religious annuities to the crown. The economy of specie-short Chile was thus threatened. There was immediate opposition and the plan was quickly dropped. See Diego Barros Arana, op. cit., VII, pp. 312–314; and Villalobos, Sergio, Tradición y reforma en 1810 (Santiago, 1961), pp. 97–98.Google Scholar Actually, according to the Libro de acuerdos de la Junta Superior de Consolidación, MS in ANC, the project was not terminated for several years. However, there are very few names mentioned in the Consolidación records and none that would suggest that southern merchants were involved in the purchase of land.

³¹ Colección Notarial De Concepción, hereinafter cited as CNC, vol. 5, f. 3, in ANC.

³² Ibid., f. 20.

³³ Ibid., vol. 7, f. 140; vol. 8, f. 281–286.

³⁴ Ibid., vol. 8, f. 281–286.

³⁵ Ibid., vol. 12, f. 53–55.

³⁶ Ibid.

³⁷ Cf. Moore, J.P., The Cabildo in Peru under the Bourbons (Durham, 1966), p. 74.Google Scholar

³⁸ Actas Del Cabildo De Concepción, hereinafter cited as ACC, vol. 1, f. 35–38, in ANC. The spine of the volume in the ANC says 2, but it is actually volume 1, 1782–1834. Volume 2 covers the years 1825–1834.

³⁹ Ibid.

⁴⁰ Ibid.

⁴¹ Ibid.

⁴² CNC, vol. 6, f. 4–42.

⁴³ Ibid.

⁴⁴ Colección Ministerio Del Interior, hereinafter cited as CMI, vol. 1, f. 21 (42 fs.), in ANC.

⁴⁵ A partially destroyed document seems to say that Juan de Dios Puga Figueroa, of the important landowning Puga family, loaned Bartholome de Alcantara, the owner and builder of the ship San Francisco de Paulo Sexto, about 5,000 pesos for outfitting the ship. Since this Puga was not a merchant, I assume this large quantity of money came from land. CNC, vol. 3, f. 273.

⁴⁶ María Eugenia Horvitz Vásquez, “Ensayo Sobre El Crédito En Chile Colonial” (Memoria De Prueba, unpublished, Santiago, 1966), no pagination. A copy is in the library of the Instituto Pedagógico of the Universidad De Chile.

⁴⁷ Ibid.

⁴⁸ Ibid.

⁴⁹ Moore, op. cit., p. 172. For Argentina see Lynch, John, Spanish Colonial Ad-ministration, 1782–1810 (London, 1958), pp. 201–236.Google Scholar

⁵⁰ ACC, vol. 1.

⁵¹ Solar, Domingo Amunátegui, “El Cabildo De Concepción (1782–1818),” in Anales De La Universidad De Chile, 2^a Serie, Primer Trimestre de 1930, 8, pp. 491–579.Google Scholar

⁵² The cabildo of Santiago had twelve regidores after 1758. See Diego Barros Arana, op. cit., VI, p. 223. W. B. Stevenson remembered incorrectly that the cabildo of Concepción in 1803 had eight regidores. (Stevenson, op. cit., I, p. 84.)

⁵³ An excellent study of the procurador is in Bayle, Constantino S.I., Los cabildos seculares en la Amírica Española (Madrid, 1952), pp. 226–251.Google Scholar

⁵⁴ Grandón, Alejandro Fuenzalida, La Evolución Social de Chile (1541–1810) (Santiago, 1906), p. 339.Google Scholar

⁵⁵ ACC, vol. 1.

⁵⁶ For a study of the alcalde see Bayle, op. cit., pp. 159–174.

⁵⁷ There is no name for 1791. Vicente de Córdoba y Figueroa was elected in 1793 but he had an accident and was replaced by José de Urrutia y Mendiburu. Both are counted. When someone is elected and resigns within a few days he is not counted.

⁵⁸ Nor is Juan José de la Quintana included for 1799 although there is a possibility that he was the alcalde de segundo voto in 1799. He was a merchant and his addition would give the merchants, with Manzanos, 43% of the total. There is a confusion in the records here. The original Actas state that Quintana was the alcalde de segundo voto in 1799 but judging from other evidence I have concluded, as did Domingo Amunátegui Solar, that Quintana did not hold the position that year.

⁵⁹ Figueroa, Pedro Pablo, Diccionario biográfico general de Chile (2nd. ed.; Santiago, 1889), pp. 493–494.Google Scholar

⁶⁰ On the alguacil mayor see Bayle, op. cit., pp. 189–195. My data indicate that in Concepción the alguacil mayor had a vote in the cabildo.

⁶¹ On the alférez real see Bayle, op. cit., pp. 195–205.

⁶² CCG, vol. 994. Juan de Dios refers to Miguel as his brother.

⁶³ On the regidor see Bayle, op. cit., pp. 175–187.

⁶⁴ CCG, vol. 995.

⁶⁵ Donoso, op. cit., p. 125.

⁶⁶ Cf. Moore, op. cit., p .172.

⁶⁷ CCG, vol. 994.

⁶⁸ Varela’s name now appears in the cabildo’s sessions. ACC, vol. 1.

⁶⁹ Originally, cabildos were supposed to meet three days a week. By the end of the colonial period the Concepción cabildo often met only once a year. In 1785 fines had to be established for members who did not attend meetings. See Bayle, op. cit., pp. 419–420.

⁷⁰ Solar, Domingo Amunátegui, El Cabildo De Concepción,” op. cit., pp. 491–579.Google Scholar

⁷¹ Haring, C.H., The Spanish Empire In America (New York, A Harbinger Book, 1963), p. 151.Google Scholar

⁷² Ibid. See also Bayle, op. cit., pp. 207–223.

⁷³ Juan de Dios Puga was depositario general also in 1794. CCG, vol. 994.