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Trade and Navigation in the Seventeenth-Century Viceroyalty of Peru*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2009

L. A. Clayton
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Extract

The movement of many vessels up and down the coasts of the Viceroyalty of Peru in the seventeenth century marked the existence of a lively commercial system within the Spanish Empire. In many respects, this maritime economy evolved quite apart and under different influences from the Atlantic world. The nature and dynamics of this trade and navigation within the viceroyalty's domain in this century are the subject of this brief exploration. The primary goal is to outline the major aspects of trade and navigation and describe some meaningful trends. Secondarily, a consideration of the subject seems to reveal die existence of an economy, lively, robust and expansive diat stands in sharp contrast to die ardiridc, decaying state of Spain's general economy in die seventeentii century.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Latin American Studies , Volume 7 , Issue 1 , May 1975 , pp. 1 - 21
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1975

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References

1 María, Encarnación Rodríguez Vicente, El Tribunal del Consulado de Lima en la primera mitad del siglo XVII (Madrid, 1960), pp. 220–21. This work is solid and indispensable for knowledge of Peruvian merchants and practices in the seventeenth century.Google Scholar

2 Ibid., p. 216. The collection of debts, the registration of silver and the payment of the avería were all aspects of this business. For more information on the merchants and their guild, the Consulado, see Manuel, Moreyra y Paz.Soldán, El Tribunal del Consulado de Lima, sus antecedenres y fundacioón (Lima, 1950),Google Scholar and Robert, Sidney Smith, El Indice del Archis'o del Tribunal del Consulado de Lima (Lima, 1948).Google Scholar

3 It was not uncommon for passengers to debark and some goods to be unloaded at Paita to continue the trip overland to Lima, for the voyage from Paita south was especially tedious.

4 Rodríguez Vicente, Consulado, p. 214; Earl, J. Hamilton, American Treasure and the Price Revolution in Spain, 1501–1650 (Cambridge, Mass.), p. 18;Google ScholarJohn, Lynch, Spain Under the Habsburgs, Spain and America, 1598–1700 (Oxford, 1969), p. 218;Google ScholarMarie, Helmer, ‘Le Callao (1615–1618)’, Jahrbuch für Geschichte von Staat, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft Lateinamerikas, 2 (1965), 145–95.Google Scholar

5 Rodríguez Vicente, Consulado, p. 254.

6 Smith, El Indice del Archivo, p. xii.

7 Rodríguez Vicente, Consulado, p. 224; Manuel, Moreyra y Paz-Soldán, Estudios sobre el tráfico marítimo en la época colonial (Lima, 1944), pp. 67–87;Google ScholarPierre, and Huguette, Chaunu, Seville et l'Atlantique (1504–1650) (8 vols., Paris, 1955–9),Google Scholar Annex Graphique (1960), p. 9.

8 Rodríguez Vicente, Consulado, p. 222. A glut often led to severe financial stresses and bankruptcies. See Pedro, de León Portocarrero, ‘Anonymous Description of Peru (1600–1615)’, in Irving, Leonard (ed.), Colonial Travelers in Latin America (New York, 1972), p. 203.Google Scholar

9 Rodríguez Vicente, Consulado, p. 224.

10 Archivo General de Indias (hereafter cited as AGI), Lima 43.

11 Lynch, Spain, p. 224; Rodríguez Vicente, Consulado, p. 227.

12 Emilio, Romero, Historia económica del Peru (2 vols., Buenos Aires, 1949), I, 248,‘…Google Scholar without doubt the highest authorities to the most humble classes participated in contraband’; ‘Título y Comisión de Maestre de Campo Santiago de Tesillos’, Actas del Cabildo Colonial de Guayaquil (hereafter cited as ACG), Archivo de Ia Biblioteca Municipal, Guayaquil, Book III, pp. 89–91, contains orders from the fiscal (attorney) of Lima concerned with the suppression of contraband and provides indisputable evidence of the widespread practice of this illegal activity. The Actas del Cabildo Colonial de Guayaquil are currently being published by the Archivo Histórico del Guayas. To date (Feb. 1974), vols. I and II (1634–1639 and 1640–1649) have appeared and vols. III and IV will be available before the end of 1974.

13 Woodrow, Borah, Early Colonial Trade and Navigation Between Mexico and Peru (Berkeley, 1954)Google Scholar remains the standard account of this trade; see also William, L. Schurz, The Manila Galleon (New York, 1939) for the trans–Pacific trade.Google Scholar

14 Lynch, Spain, p. 225.

15 Ibid., p. 224; Borah, Early Colonial Trade, pp. 80–95.

16 Lynch, Spain, pp. 225–6; Borah, Early Colonial Trade, pp. 116–24.

17 Lynch, Spain, 225–6; Borah, Early Colonial Trade, pp. 224–7.

18 Lynch, Spain, p. 225: ‘indeed one Mexican activity, silk raising and manufacturing, was a victim of Chinese competition, which, combined with Indian labour shortage and crown policy, helped to ruin the industry’.

19 In 1604 the size of the Manila galleons was reduced to 200 tons each, while all trade between Mexico and Peru was restricted to three ships of 300 tons or less. ‘These might carry products of Mexico and Peru for exchange, but no specie, and they were restricted to the ports of Acapulco and Callao … Further decrees reduced navigation between the viceroyalties to two vessels, then to one vessel, and in 1631 all trade and navigation was ordered to a halt … a prohibition which was renewed in 1634 and endured for the rest of the century and beyond, …’ Lynch, Spain, pp. 225–6; Chaunu, , Seville, 8, 1, 759.Google Scholar

20 ‘…averiguación de los navíos que este presente año an ydo al Reyno de Tierra Firme… y el porte de ellos y los que al presente [July 1, 1589] estan en este puerto [Callao], in Roberto, Levillier (ed.), Gobernantes del Perú, cartas y papeles, siglo XVI (14 vols., Madrid, 1921–1926), XI, 298–302.Google Scholar

21 Letter from Conde de la Monclova to King, 15 Aug. 1695, in Manuel, Moreyra y PazSoldán and Guillermo Céspedes del Castillo, , Virreinato peruano, documentos para su historia, colección de cartas de virrcyes, Conde de la Monclova (3 vols., Lima, 1954–5), II, document 155, pp. 62–72; ‘razón de los navíos fragattas barcos y chinchorros que trafican este mar del sur’, AGI, Lima 89.Google Scholar

22 Los navíos y vageles que se han fabricado desde que el Exmo Señor Conde de la Monclova se presentó en Paita para Virrey destos reinos son los siguientes', AGI, Lima 89.

23 ‘Libro donde se asienta la razón de los navíos y barcos del trato que salen y entran en el puerto del Callao de los demas de las costas del mar del sur, años de 1615 hasta de 1618’, Archivo Nacional del Perú (hereafter cited as AN/P), foja 0037. The above document belonged to the old Archivo de Comercio y Hacienda which was recently incorporated into the AN/P. See also Helmer, ‘Le Callao’, Jahrbuch, 145–95, in which she analyzes the document. The 1660s figure is extracted from ‘libro y razón de los pessos que se cobran… en el Puerto del Callao por los Maestres de las naos y demas bajeles que estan en el, que corre desde quince de Otubre de 1661 hasta 1663’, AN/P, foja 0162.

24 Romero, Historia económica, p. 179. Romero wrote that ‘300,000 fanegas of wheat and corn’ were being harvested annually.

25 Ibid., p. 180. For the later ascendancy of the Chileans in the wheat economy of the colony, especially after the earthquake of 1687, see Demetrio, Ramos, Trigo chileno, navieros del Callao y hacendados limeños (Madrid, 1967)Google Scholar and Sergio, Sepúlveda, El trigo chileno en el mercado mundial (Santiago de Chile, 1959).Google Scholar

26 Ibid., p. 185.

27 Lynch, Spain, p. 125; Borah, Early Colonial Trade, p. 124.

28 Romero, Historia económica, pp. 185–7.

29 Royal Cédula, 21 May. 1685, Colección de Manascritos de la Biblioteca del Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores, Lima (hereafter cited as MRE/L) in ‘Libro de cédulas de Su. Magestad y otras providencias desde el año de 1613 hasta el de 1687’, foja 250. Demetrio, Ramos, Minería y comercio interprovincial en Hispanoamérica, siglos XVI, XVII, y XVIII (Valladolid, 1970), p. 237.Google Scholar Ramos, chapter VI, ‘El comercio interprovincial a lo largo del Pacífico, en la época de los Austrias’, is a particularly good description of trade and commerce in this period. See also Alvaro, Jara, ‘Estructuras de colonización y modalidades en el tráfico Sur HispanoAmericano’, Historia y Cultura, Santiago de Chile (1966), for a short interpretation of commerce in this period, focusing particularly on Chile and utilizing some important statistical evidence heretofore not related in this fashion.Google Scholar

30 Romero, Historia económica, p. 187.

31 Ibid., p. 184.

32 Adam, Szaszdi and Dora, León Borja Szaszdi, ‘El comercio del cacao de Guayaquil’, Revista de Historia de América, números 57–8 (Enero–Diciembre, 1964), 1–50.Google Scholar

33 Luis, Torres de Mendoza et al. , (eds.), Colección t de documentos inéditos relativos al descubrimiento, conquista y organización de las antiguas posesiones españolas de América y Oceanía (hereafter cited as (CDIAO) (42 vols., Madrid, 1864–84), ix, 263.Google Scholar

34 Romero, Historia económica, p. 205.

35 Ibid., p. 278. For more on arts and crafts in colonial Peru see Emilio Harth-terré, Artífices en el virreinato del Perú, historia del arte peruano (Lima, 1945).Google Scholar

36 León, Portocarrero, ‘Anonymous Description’, Leonard, (ed.), Colonial Travelers, p. 103.Google Scholar Lynch, Spain, p. 214; Romero, Historia económica, P. 147.

37 James Lockhart, Spanish Peru, 1532–1560: A Colonial Society (Milwaukee, 1968), pp.114–15. Lockhart estimated the seafaring population in the following proportions: ‘It appears that about a fourth of all sailors were non-Iberians, a third non–Spanish, and half from regions speaking other languages than Spanish’.Google Scholar

38 María Encarnación Rodríguez Vicente, ‘Los extranjeros y el mar en Perú’, Noveno Coloquio Internacional de Historia Marítima, Las Rutas del Atlántico, Anuario de Estudios Amcricanos (1968), XXI.

39 León, Portocarrero, ‘Anonymous Description’, Leonard, (ed.), Colonial Travelers, p. 101.Google Scholar

40 Reeopilación de leycs de los reynos de las Indias (hereafter cited as RECOP) (3 vols., Madrid, 1943 [1681]), Ley XI, Libro IX, tomo XXXXIIII.Google Scholar

41 For example, foreign masters and pilots were forbidden to sail together, those that were certified had to post sufficient bonds to cover their cargoes, etc.

42 Smith, El Indice del Archivo, pp. xxi–xxii.

43 Archivo Histórico del Guayas (hereafter cited as AHG), Guayaquil, Escribanos Públicos/Protocolos (hereafter cited as EP/P), 83–84. Data is circa 1628 and was extracted and transcribed by Juan Freile, the Archivo Histórico's palaeographer.

44 They also were paid well. Manuel Dominguez received 450 pesos in 1630 for serving as pilot on San Juan Bautista on a roundtrip voyage from Guayaquil to Lima, AN/P, leg. 18, Real Tribunal del Consulado.

45 RECOP, Ley XII, Libro IX, tomo XXXXIIII.

46 Lockhart, Spanish Peru, p. 115.

47 Ship registers in the Real Tribunal del Consulado section of the AN/P are replete with such evidence. The crew of Santa Rufina which sailed from Callao to Panama in Dec. 1670 listed, for example, the following officers and crew: Cap. Pedro Hernández, owner and master; Cap. Francisco García Simón, pilot; Joseph Guanaes, alférez; Agustín de la Crez, supercargo; and the seven following sailors: Juan Criollo, negro; Cosme Criollo, negro; Anton Angola, negro; Simon de Sarate, criollo; Santiago de la Cruz, yndio; Agustín de Aller, yndio; Diego Perro, yndio.

48 L. A. Clayton, ‘The Shipwreck of Nuestra Señora del Rosario’, unpublished ms.

49 Fernando, Silva Santisteban, Los obrajes en el virreinato del Perú (Lima, 1944), p. 60; AG1 Contaduría 1705.Google Scholar

50 Romero, Historia econórnica, p. 247.

51 Ibid., p. 148; Smith, El Indice del Archivo, p. xiii.

52 Ibid..

53 Romero, Historia económica, p. 148.

54 Smith, El Indice del Archivo, p. xlii.

55 See legajos 115–30 in the Real Tribunal del Consulado section of AN/P.

56 ACG, 12 May, 1655, Book III, p. 235.

57 AN/P, No. 0610 of the old Archivo de Hacienda y Comercio.

58 Rodriguez, Vicente, Consulado, p. 232; AN/P, Real Tribunal del Consulado, leg. 116.Google Scholar

59 Clayton, ‘The Shipwreck of Nuestra Señora del Rosario’.

60 Rodriguez, Vicente, Consulado, p. 232;Google Scholar statistics from La Marina, 1780–1822 (Lima, n.d.), Colección Documental de la Independencia del Perú, pp. 328–38, appear grimmer: 33 shipwrecks between 1773–1800, a 24-year period. However, most were small vessels, with 17 losing less than 10,000 pesos per wreck and only a few with a high rate of loss, both in life and property.Google Scholar

61 Letter from Viceroy, Melchor de Liñan y Cisneros to King, , 27 08 1678, AGI, Lima 76.Google Scholar

62 ‘Título y Comisión de Maestrc de Campo Santiago de Tesilos’, ACG, III, 89–91.

63 See David, R. Radell and James, P. Parsons, ‘Realejo: A Forgotten Port and Shipbuilding Center in Nicaragua’, Hispanic American Historical Review, 55 (05, 1971), pp. 295–312.Google Scholar

64 Szaszdi, ‘El comercio del cacao’, Revista de Historia, p. 7 ff.

65 Ropes, cloths, from Castiic were prohibited from being imported into Peru from Acapulco, Realejo and Sonsonate, AGI, Lima 76.

66 Título y Comisión …de Tesilos', ACG, III, 89–91.

67 Lynch, Spain, p. 226: Viceroy Monclova to King, 19 Nov. 1704, AGI, Lima 408 in Paz-Soldán, y Céspedes del Castillo (ed.), Virreinato peruano, 2, 295.Google Scholar

68 MRE/L, ‘Libro de cédulas de Su Magestad y otras providencias desde el año de 1664 hasta el de 1737’, foja 117.

69 ‘Título y Comisión …de Tesillos’, ACG, III, 89–91.

70 Ibid., ‘si no hubieron cumplido con su obligación les obligarán y apremiarán a que lo hagan, ya que descargan en los dichos puertos la cargo que llevaran para ellos…’.

71 Monclova to King, 20 Aug. 1704, AGI, Lima 407: Moreyra, y Céspedes del Castillo, Virreinato peruano, 2, 232–3.Google Scholar

72 See Sergio, Villalobos, ‘Contrabando franceés en el Pacífico, 1700–1724’, Revista de Historia de América, (Mexico) num. 52 (1961)Google Scholar and E. W., Dahlgren, Les Relations Commerciales et Maritimes entre la France et les Cótes de L' Océan Pacifique, Commencement du XVIII siecle. Tome I—Le Commerce de la Mer du Sud, Jusqu'à la Paix d'Utrecht (Paris, 1909)Google Scholar cited in Moreyra y Paz-Soldán, El Tribunal del Consulado de Lima, p. xxxvii.

73 Dionisio, de Alsedo y Herrera, Compendio histórico de la provincia, partidos, ciudades, astillieros, ríos, y puerto de Guayaquil, en las costas del mar del sur (Madrid, 1741).Google Scholar Facsimile reproduction by Eliecer, Enríquez, Guayaquil a través de los siglos (Quito, 1946), p. 27.Google Scholar

74 The Amerindian population of the Ecuadorian coast possessed a rich legacy from the sea. Long voyages of trade and perhaps of migration in pre–Columbian times were unparalleled accomplishments of seamanship and navigation. These people certainly added an unexpected dimension to the Spanish shipbuilding community at Guayaquil. See ch. VII of Clayton, L. A., ‘The Shipyards of Guayaquil in the Seventeenth Century: History of a Colonial Industry’ (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Tulane University, 1972).Google Scholar

75 Clayton, ‘The Shipyards’, ch. IV.

76 The freight rates in the early seventeenth century from Guayaquil to Lima or Panama were about six to eight reales per arroba, a light charge considering the amount carried and distance covered, CDIAO, ix, 263–4.

77 ‘Libro de las entradas de todos los navíos que han llegado a este Puerto [Callao] de diferentes … desde 27 de Junio de 1725 hasta fin de Diziembre de 1726’, AN/P, no. 0509; ‘libro de las salidas de los navíos pars diferentes puertos …desde 24 de Julio de 1725, hasta fin Diziembre de 1726’, AN/P, no. 0512.

78 Manuel, Moreyra y Paz Soldán, Estudios sobre el tráfico marltimo en la época colonial (Lima, 1944), p. 7.Google Scholar

79 Ibid., p. 16.

80 ‘Libro y razón de los pesos que se cobran pertenecientes a Su. Mag. procedidos del dos y medio por ciento…1661 ’, AN/P, doc. 0162 of the old Archivo Histórico del Comercio y Hacienda.

81 Moreyra, Estudios sobre el tráfico… p. 14.