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$Unique_ID{how04905}
$Pretitle{}
$Title{World Civilizations: The World Shrinks, 1450-1750
Colonial Economies And Governments}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Stearns, Peter N.;Adas, Michael;Schwartz, Stuart B.}
$Affiliation{}
$Subject{silver
spain
america
spanish
mining
indian
peru
american
century
indies}
$Date{1992}
$Log{}
Title: World Civilizations: The World Shrinks, 1450-1750
Book: Chapter 25: Early Latin America
Author: Stearns, Peter N.;Adas, Michael;Schwartz, Stuart B.
Date: 1992
Colonial Economies And Governments
Spanish America was an agrarian society in which the vast majority of
people, perhaps 80 percent of the population, lived and worked on the land.
Yet in terms of America's importance to Spain, mining was the essential
activity and the basis of Spain's rule in the Indies. Until the 18th century,
the whole Spanish maritime commercial system was essentially organized around
the mining economy and the exchange of America's precious metals for
manufactured goods from Europe. It was this exchange that began to fit Latin
America into the New World economy as a somewhat dependent area producing
unprocessed exports to trade with western Europe.
While the booty of conquest provided some wealth, most of the precious
metal sent across the Atlantic came from the postconquest mining industry.
Gold was found in the Caribbean, Colombia, and Chile, but it was silver far
more than gold that formed the basis of Spain's wealth in America.
The Silver Heart Of Empire
The major silver mining strikes were made in Mexico between 1545 and 1565
and in Peru at roughly the same time. Great silver mining towns developed.
Potosi in Upper Peru (in what is now Bolivia) was the largest mine of all,
producing about 80 percent of all the Peruvian silver. In the early 17th
century over 160,000 people lived and worked in the town and its mine. Peru's
Potosi and Mexico's Zacatecas became wealthy mining centers with opulent
churches and a luxurious way of life for some, but as one viceroy of Peru
commented, it was not silver that was sent to Spain, "but the blood and sweat
of Indians."
Mining labor was provided by a variety of workers. The early use of
Indian slaves and encomienda workers in the 16th century was gradually
replaced by a system of labor drafts. By 1572 the mining mita in Peru was
providing about 13,000 workers a year to Potosi alone. Similar labor
drafts were also used in Mexico, but by the 17th century the mines in both
places also had large numbers of wage workers willing to brave the dangers of
mining in return for the relatively good wages.
Although Indian methods were used at first, most mining techniques were
European in origin. After 1580, silver mining depended on a process of
amalgamation with mercury to extract the silver from the ore-bearing rock. The
discovery of a mountain of mercury at Huancavelica in Peru aided American
silver production. Potosi and Huancavelica became the "great marriage of
Peru" and the basis of silver production in South America.
According to Spanish law, all subsoil rights belonged to the crown, but
the mines and the processing plants were owned by private individuals who were
permitted to extract the silver in return for paying one-fifth of production
to the government, which also profited from its monopoly of the mercury needed
to produce the silver.
Although there is considerable debate about Spanish American mining
output, some points seem clear. Silver production expanded rapidly after 1580
and crested by 1640. In this period, production from Peru outstripped that in
Mexico. Both areas then experienced a steady decline caused by disruption of
the mercury supply and mismanagement, although the crisis seems to have been
more silver failing to reach Spain rather than difficulties in production.
Still, there was decline in silver output until the mid-18th century, when
there was a new mining boom. Mexico's mines emerged as the leader of American
production.
Mining served as a stimulus to many other aspects of the economy, even in
areas far removed from the mines. Workers had to be fed and the mines
supplied. In Mexico, where most of the mines were located beyond the area of
settled preconquest Indian population, large Spanish-style farms developed to
raise cattle, sheep, and wheat. To Peruvian mines high in the Andes from
distant regions ran a steady stream of supplies: mercury, mules, food,
clothing, and even coca leaves, used to deaden hunger and make the work at
high altitudes less painful. From Spain's perspective, mining was the heart of
the colonial economy.
Haciendas And Villages
While mining gave America meaning to Spain's colonial enterprise, Spanish
America remained predominantly an agrarian economy. In highland Peru, Mexico,
Guatemala, and New Granada where large sedentary populations existed, Indian
communal agriculture of traditional crops continued. As populations dwindled,
Spanish ranches and farms began to emerge to feed the populations of the
cities. The colonists, faced with declining Indian populations, also found
landownership more attractive. Rural estates, based on family ownership and
which produced grains, grapes, and livestock, developed throughout the central
areas of Spanish America. Most of their labor force came from Indians who had
left their communities and from people of mixed Indian and European heritage.
These rural estates, or haciendas, producing primarily for consumers in
America, became the basis of wealth and power for the local aristocracy in
many regions. Although some plantation crops, such as sugar and later cacao,
were exported to Europe from Spanish America, they made up only a small
fraction of the value of the exports in comparison to silver. In some regions
where Indian communities continued to hold traditional farming lands, an
endemic competition between haciendas and village communities emerged.
Industry And The Commercial System
Industry was not lacking. Sheep raising in areas, such as Ecuador, New
Spain, and Peru, led to the development of small textile sweatshops, or
obrajes, where common cloth was produced, usually by Indian women workers.
America became self-sufficient for its basic foods and material goods and
looked to Europe only for fine (and costly) luxury items not locally
available.
Still, from Spain's perspective and that of the larger world economy
taking shape in the early modern centuries, the American "kingdoms" had a
silver heart and the whole Spanish commercial system was organized around that
fact. Spain took an exclusivist position, essentially allowing only Spaniards
to trade with America and even then under tight restrictions. All American
trade from Spain after the mid-16th century was funneled through the city of
Seville and, later, the nearby port of Cadiz. The Board of Trade in Seville
registered ships and passengers, kept charts, collected duties, and in general
controlled the Indies trade. It often worked in conjunction with a merchant
guild, or consulado, in Seville that had virtual monopoly rights over goods
shipped to America and handled much of the silver received in return. Linked
to branches in Mexico City and Lima, the consulados kept tight control over
the trade and were able to keep prices high in the colonies. For most of the
17th century, for example, the consulado had such power that most goods moving
from Spain to the Rio de la Plata on the Atlantic coast of South America had
to be shipped to Panama, carried across the isthmus, reshipped to Lima, and
then carried across the Andes, a trip that greatly added to their cost and to
the profits of the merchant guild.
As the trade of the Indies grew and the precious metals flowed to Spain,
other Europeans looked on with envious eyes. To discourage foreign rivals and
pirates, the Spanish eventually worked out a convoy system in which two fleets
sailed annually from Spain, traded their goods for precious metals in Mexico
and Panama, as well as silver from Peru, and then rendezvoused at Havana,
Cuba, before returning to Spain.
The fleet system was well planned and included a number of elements. The
fleets were made possible by the development of the large, heavily armed ships
called galleons that were used to carry the silver belonging to the crown. Two
great galleons a year also sailed from Manila in the Philippines to Mexico
loaded with Chinese silks, porcelain, and lacquer. These goods were then
transshipped on the convoy to Spain along with the American silver. In the
Caribbean, heavily fortified ports, such as Havana and Cartegena (Colombia),
provided shelter for the treasure ships, while coastguard fleets cleared the
waters of potential raiders. Although cumbersome, the convoys (which continued
until the 1730s) were relatively successful. While pirates and Spain's
European enemies sometimes captured individual ships, and although some ships
were lost to storms and other disasters, only one fleet was lost, to the Dutch
in 1627.
In general, the supply of American silver to Spain was continuous and
made the colonies seem worth the effort, but the reality of American treasure
was more complicated. Much of the wealth flowed out of Spain to pay for
Spain's European wars, its long-term debts, and the purchase of manufactured
goods to be sent back to the Indies. Probably less than half of the silver
remained in Spain itself. The arrival of American treasure also contributed to
a sharp rise in prices and a general inflation, first in Spain and then
throughout western Europe during the 16th century. At no time did the American
treasure make up more than one-fourth of Spain's state revenues, which is to
say that the wealth of Spain depended more on the taxes levied on its own
population than it did on the exploitation of its Indian subjects. The
seemingly endless supply of silver did, however, stimulate bankers to continue
to loan money to Spain, because the prospect of the great silver fleet was
always enough to offset the falling credit of the Spanish rulers and of the
sometimes bankrupt government. As early as 1619, Sancho de Moncada wrote that
"the poverty of Spain resulted from the discovery of the Indies," but there
were few who could see the long-term costs of empire.
Ruling An Empire
Spain controlled its American empire through a carefully regulated
administrative and bureaucratic system. Sovereignty rested with the crown,
based not on the right of conquest, but on a papal grant that awarded the
Indies to Castile in return for its services in bringing those lands and
peoples into the Christian community. Some Indians found this curious and
could not understand how the pope could assign to Castile what was not his in
the first place. Some European theologians agreed, but Spain was careful to
bolster its rule in other ways. The Treaty of Tordesillas (1494) between
Castile and Portugal clarified the spheres of influence and right of
possession of the two kingdoms by drawing a hypothetical north-south line
around the globe and reserving to Portugal newly discovered lands (and their
route to India) to the east of the line and to Castile all lands to the west.
Thus, Brazil fell within the Portuguese sphere. France, England, and other
European nations would later raise their own objections to the Spanish and
Portuguese claims.
The Spanish Empire became a great bureaucratic system built on a
juridical core and staffed to a large extent by letrados, or
university-trained lawyers from Spain. The modern division of powers was not
clearly defined in the Spanish system, so that judicial officers also
exercised legislative and administrative authority. Spanish society was highly
legalistic and the formulation of law was a major attribute of authority. The
body of laws for the Indies was so large and varied that it took almost a
century to complete a great law code, the Recopilacion (1681), which despite
its defects and inconsistencies became the basis of law in the Indies.
The State And The Church
The king ruled through the Council of the Indies in Spain that issued the
laws and advised him on all matters dealing with the colonies. Within the
Indies, Spain created two viceroyalties in the 16th century, one based on
Mexico City and the other on Lima. Viceroys, high-ranking nobles who were
direct representatives of the king, wielded broad military, legislative, and,
when they had legal training, judicial powers. The viceroyalties of New Spain
and Peru were then subdivided into ten judicial divisions controlled by
superior courts, or audiencias, staffed by professional royal magistrates who
helped to make law as well as apply it. At the local level, royally appointed
magistrates in the towns and villages were the direct representatives of the
state, applying the laws, collecting taxes, and assigning the work
requirements on Indian communities. It is little wonder that they often were
highly criticized for bending the law and taking advantage of the Indians
under their control. Below them was a myriad of minor officials, customs and
tax collectors, municipal officers, and inspectors who made bureaucracy both a
living and a way of life.
To some extent the clergy formed another branch of the state apparatus,
although, of course, it had other functions and goals as well. The conquest of
America had been a remarkable missionary as well as military effort. Catholic
religious orders such as the Franciscans, Dominicans, and Jesuits carried out
the widespread conversion of the Indians, establishing churches in the towns
and villages of sedentary Indians and setting up missions in frontier areas.
Taking seriously the pope's admonition to Christianize the peoples of the
new lands as the primary justification for Spain's rule, some of the early
missionaries became ardent defenders of Indian rights and even admirers of
aspects of Indian culture. For example, the Franciscan priest Fray Bernardino
de Sahagun (1499-1590) became an expert in the Nahuatl language and composed a
bilingual encyclopedia of Aztec culture, which was based on methods very
similar to those used by modern anthropologists. Other clerics wrote
histories, grammars, and studies of Indian language and culture. Some were
like Diego de Landa, Bishop of Yucatan (1547), who admired much about the
culture of the Maya but who so detested their religion and feared its survival
that he burned all their ancient books and tortured many Maya suspected of
backsliding from Christianity. The recording and analysis of Indian cultures
were designed primarily to provide tools for conversion.
In the core areas of Peru and New Spain, the missionary church was
eventually replaced by an institutional structure of parishes and bishoprics.
Archbishops sat in the major capitals, and a complicated church hierarchy
developed, which reflected the demographic and economic realities of each
area. Since the holders of all ecclesiastical positions were nominated by the
Spanish crown, the clergy tended to be a major support of state policy as well
as a primary influence on it. It was no accident that in the Recopilacion, the
great law code of the Indies, the first section dealt with "the Holy Catholic
Faith."
The Catholic church profoundly influenced the cultural and intellectual
life of the colonies in many ways. The construction of churches, especially
the great baroque cathedrals of the capitals, stimulated the work of
architects and artists, usually reflective of European models but sometimes
taking up local themes and subjects. The printing presses, introduced to
America in the early 16th century, always published a high percentage of
religious books, as well as works of history, poetry, philosophy, law, and
language. Much intellectual life was organized around religion. Schools - such
as those of Mexico City and Lima, founded in the 1550s - were run by the
clergy and universities and were created to provide training primarily in law
and theology, the foundations of state and society. Eventually, over 70
universities flourished in Spanish America. A stunning example of colonial
intellectual life was the nun, Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz (1651-1695), author,
poet, musician, and social thinker, who was welcomed at the court of the
viceroy in Mexico City where her beauty and intelligence were celebrated. She
eventually gave up secular concerns and her library, at the urging of her
superiors, to concentrate on purely spiritual matters. Even secular authors
were heavily influenced by baroque Catholicism. To control the morality and
orthodoxy of the population, the tribunal of the Inquisition set up offices in
the major capitals, although Indians were usually exempt from its
jurisdiction. Overall, church and state combined to create an ideological and
political framework for the society and economy of Spanish America.