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Price Regulation in Hispanic California1
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 December 2015
Extract
In the eighteenth century the Spanish Crown regarded the setting of maximum prices as a legitimate function. Price fixing was intended to guarantee a just price to producers and consumers. Underlying the entire scheme was a desire by the monarchy to insure the adequacy of the fixed incomes of government employees. Hispanic California provides a case study of price fixing. Fixed prices in California were of two varieties. Prices were limited on those goods coming from San Bias with a view to keeping the cost of living within the limits of military salaries in Alta California. In the late 1770’s, mission agriculture began to produce surpluses. For a number of years the only significant outlet for this excess was the military establishment. Because it removed the burden of providing staples from the Naval Department of San Bias, the Crown willingly turned to the missions as a source of supply. The missions gradually assumed the monopoly of provisioning the military, which had belonged to San Bias. In order to ensure that military salaries would suffice to keep body and soul together and to protect them from price gouging the government determined that price regulation was essential.
- Type
- Research Article
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- Copyright
- Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 1977
Footnotes
1
Thanks is due to Father Maynard Geiger of the Santa Barbara Mission Archive who guided my research and provided suggestions.
References
2 San Bias was the base of the naval department and supply service established for California on the western coast of New Spain in 1768. It is located in the modern Mexican state of Nayarit.
3 Neve’s assize for Baja California, Monterey, January 1, 1781, AGN. Californias, Vol. 48.
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7 List of merchandise for California drawn up at Guadalajara, December 15, 1773 and received by Serra at Tepic, January 14, 1774. BNM. Cartas de Junípero Serra. Photograph in SBMA. Also in Tibesar, Antonine O.F.M., Writings of Junípero Serra, 4 vols; Washington, D. C, 1956, Vol. II, 14–17.Google Scholar
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9 Accounts of Mission San Carlos signed by Fray José Mariano de Murguía, Mexico, November 15, 1784. AGN. Photograph in SBMA. Murguía may have been Procurator at the College of San Fernando. He is not to be confused with Fray José Murguía who was a missionary and who died at Mission Santa Clara in 1784.
10 Governor Borica to the Viceroy, Marques de Branciforte, Monterey, August 4, 1798, AGN. Californias, Vol. 48, Part II.
11 Decree of Felipe de Neve, Monterey, January 1, 1781, SBMA. Also in AGN. Californias, Vol. 48, Part II. Also see Mosk, Sanford A., “Price-Fixing in Spanish California,” The California Historical Quarterly, 1938, Vol. XVII. 118–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
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13 The figures were derived from the Decree of Felipe de Neve, Monterey, January 1, 1781. SBMA, and accounts of Mission San Carlos signed by Fray José Mariano de Murguía, Mexico, November 15, 1784, AGN. Photograph in SBMA.
14 This was Lieutenant Jose Francisco Ortega and a man by the name of Gil who was storekeeper at San Diego.
15 José Francisco Ortega to Fray Fermín Francisco de Lasuén, San Diego, February 26, 1780 as quoted in Serra to Neve, Monterey, April 18, 1780, SBMA. Trans, in Tibesar, , Writings of Junipero Serra, Vol. III, 429–439.Google Scholar
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18 lbid.
19 lbid.
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23 Lasuén to Fages, San Carlos, May 12, 1786. Bancroft CC-16. Trans, by Kenneally, The Writings of Lasuén, Vol. 1, 107–109.
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25 Fray Antonio Paterna to Lasuén, May 2, 1786, San Luis Obispo, quoted in Lasuén to Fages, San Carlos, May 12, 1786. Bancroft CC-16. Trans, in Kenneally, , Writings of Lasuén, Vol. I, 107–109.Google Scholar
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29 lbid. The Vice patronage was the control which the Spanish Crown and, by delegation, the secular authority in California exercised over the Catholic Church in its dominions by virute of the Papal Bull “Inter Caetera” called the Bull of Demarcation of May 9, 1493.
30 lbid.
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32 lbid.
33 lbid.
34 lbid.
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36 Fages to Lasuén, Monterey, July 20, 1787, SBMA.
37 Lasuén to Fages, San Carlos, July 23, 1787, SBMA.
38 Price list drawn up by Fages, Monterey, January 2, 1788, SBMA.
39 Fages to Romeu, Monterey, February 26, 1791, AGN. Californias, Vol. 46. Photostat in Coronado Room, University of New Mexico.
40 José Joaquín Arrillaga to the Viceroy, Loreto, March 24, 1802, AGN. Californias, Vol. 48, Part II. Cited in Mosk, “Price-Fixing in Spanish California,” 118–22.
41 Viceroy’s order to Arrillaga, Mexico, March 25, 1803, AGN. Californias, Vol. 48, Part II. Cited in Mosk, “Price-Fixing in Spanish California.”
42 Biographies have been written on Serra and Lasuén, the two great presidents of the California missions. See the monumental work by Geiger, The Life and Times of Junípero Serra, and Guest, Fermín Francisco de Lasuén.
43 Lasuén to Don Diego de Borica, Santa Barbara, August 19, 1797, DHM, ser. 1, Vol. 1, in Kenneally, , Writings of Lasuén, Vol. II, 41–42 Google Scholar. The “Concepción” was one of two ships sent from New Spain in the spring of 1797 to guard the California Coast. It was anchored at Monterey. See Davis, William Heath, Seventy-five Years in California, San Francisco, 1929, 397–408.Google Scholar
44 Engelhardt, Zephyrin, Missions and Missionaries of California, 5 vols; Santa Barbara, Vol. II, 567–568.Google Scholar
45 Miguel Lull to Lasuén, Mexico, February 6, 1800, SBMA.
46 This was logical since Missions Purísima and Santa Barbara were in the district of the Santa Barbara presidio. Cortes and Tapis to Lasuén in hand of Tapis, Santa Barbara, October 30, 1800, SBMA.
47 Lasuén’s Refutation of Charges to Fray Miguel Lull, San Carlos, June 19, 1801, SBMA. Trans, in Kenneally, , The Writings of Lasuén, Vol. II, 194–234.Google Scholar
48 Cortes and Tapis to Lasuén in hand of Tapis, Santa Barbara, October 30, 1800, SBMA. In Neve’s original tariff hides were listed at 2 pesos, 4 reales, but this was reduced to 2 pesos, 2 reales by Fages in 1788.
49 Neither saddles nor sacks appear in Neve’s list. Fages set a price of 12–16 pesos on a saddle and made no mention of sacks. The sacks may very well have been the “botas” in which the missions shipped tallow to Mexico.
50 The bark needed in the tanning process was the bark of the Tambark Oak which was used to produce tannin. See Patricia Bauer, M., “The Beginnings of Tanning in California,” California Historical Quarterly, 1954, Vol. 23.Google Scholar
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52 This was evidently the current price for choice cattle for which no price limit was set and hence it was allowed to vary with conditions. The fixed price for an ordinary cow was 4 pesos.
53 Lasuén’s Refutation of Charges to Fray Miguel Lull, San Carlos, June 19, 1801, SBMA. Trans, in Kenneally, , Writings of Lasuén, Vol. II, 194–Google Scholar
54 lbid.
55 Francisco Palóu to the Viceroy, College of San Fernando, Mexico, March 17, 1786, AGN. Californias, Vol. 12.