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The Institutional Framework of Colonial Spanish AmericaAuthor(s): John Lynch
Source: Journal of Latin American Studies, Vol. 24, Quincentenary Supplement: The Colonial andPost Colonial Experience. Five Centuries of Spanish and Portuguese America (1992), pp. 69-81Published by: Cambridge University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/156946Accessed: 15-05-2015 17:14 UTC
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The Institutional Framework of
Colonial
Spanish
America
JOHN
LYNCH
The colonial state
Spain
asserted its
presence
in America
through
an
array
of
institutions.
Traditional
historiography
studied these in
detail,
describing
colonial
policy
and American
responses
in
terms
of
officials, tribunals,
and laws.
The
agencies
of
empire
were
tangible
achievements and
evidence of the
high
quality
of
Spanish
administration.
They
were
even
impressive
numerically.
Between crown
and
subject
there
were
some
twenty major
institutions,
while
colonial
officials were
numbered
in
their
thousands.
The
Recopilacidn
de
leyes
de
los
reynos
de
las
Indias
(I68 )
was
compiled
from
400,000
royal
cedulas,
which
it
managed
to
reduce to a
mere
6,400
laws.1
Thus the institutions were
described,
classified,
and
interpreted
from
evidence
which
lay
in
profusion
in
law
codes,
chronicles,
and
archives.
Perhaps there was a tendency to confuse law with reality, but the standard
of
research was
high
and derecho
ndiano,
as
it
was
sometimes
called,
was the
discipline
which first
established
the
professional study
of
Latin American
history.
This
stage
of research was
brought
to an
end
by
new
interests and
changing
fashions
in
history,
and
by
a
growing
concentration on
social
and economic
aspects
of
colonial
Spanish
America.
Institutional
history
lost
prestige,
as
historians
turned
to the
study
of
Indians,
rural
societies,
regional
markets,
and
various
aspects
of
colonial
production
and
exchange, forgetting perhaps that the creation of institutions was an
integral part
of social
activity
and their
presence
or
absence
a
measure
of
political
and economic
priorities.
More
recently,
institutional
history
has
returned
to
favour,
though
it
is
now
presented
as a
study
of
the colonial
state. It
may
be that the term
'colonial
state' sounds
more
impressive
than
'colonial
institutions',
and we are
simply studying
the same
thing
under
a
different
name. There
are,
however,
a
number of
significant changes.
Historians
have
become
more
interested
in
the
concept
and nature of
power,
its
reflection of interest
groups,
its
application
to
social
sectors. So
1
C.
H.
Haring,
The
Spanish
Empire
n America
New
York,
I963),
p.
Io5.
J.
Lat. Amer.
Stud.
Suppl.69-81
Printed n
GreatBritain
69
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70
John Lynch
institutional
history
is
placed
in a
wider context and
historians now
study
the informal
mechanisms
of
imperial
control as well as the
formal
agencies
of
government.
In
the
second
place,
we have learnt
more
clearly
that
institutions did not function
automatically
by
dictating
laws and
receiving
obedience. The normal instinct of the
crown's American
subjects
was not
to
obey
laws,
but to evade or
modify
them
and,
from time
to
time,
to
resist
them.
Response
to the colonial
state has become a
favoured field of
research,
and rebellion
takes
precedence
over reform.
Moreover,
it
is
recognised
that the
colonial state
operated
at
various levels. The
source of
power
lay
at a
great
distance
from
America,
and local
officials were far
removed from their
sovereign,
surrounded
by
a
world of
competing
interests and a society from which they themselves could not remain
detached. Between
Madrid and Potosi
laws
passed
through
a whole
series
of filters.
Finally,
the
chronology
of
institutional
change
has
become more
precise
and more
significant,
and
points
the
way
more
firmly
from
the
first
to the
second
age
of colonial
experience.
The
politics
of
control
Administrative
history
used
to
be devoid of
political
content. Now
we see
that the colonial
state
proceeded essentially by
politics,
that
officials had
to negotiate compliance, that Americans were masters of the political deal.
Negotiation
was not alien to the
bureaucracy. Viceroys
and
corregidores,
who had
usually
negotiated
their own
appointments,
functioned with
some
degree
of
independence
and did not
necessarily
agree
with
every
law
they
had to
apply.
The administration
possessed
institutional,
though
little
military,
power
and derived its
authority
from
the historic
legitimacy
of
the
crown and its own
bureaucratic
function,
one of the
principal
duties
of
which was to collect and remit
revenue. The
bureaucracy
was
a
mixed
system,
only partly
professionalised.
Some officials
saw
their
office as a
service to the
public
for which
they
charged
fees;
others
derived their
income from
entrepreneurial
activities;
others from
salaries.
Whether
this
was feudal or
capitalist
is not
important;
the fact
is
that all
officials more
or
less
participated
in
the
economy
and
expected
to
make a
profit
from
their office. The crown
on the other hand wanted
its servants
to
remain
aloof from
colonial
society,
immune from local
pressures;
yet
in all
cases
-
viceroy,
audiencia,
corregidor
-
this
ideal was undermined. So too was
its
desire
for a
united
bureaucracy,
one which
presented
a
solid front to
the colonial
world. This
was
a
vain
hope,
for
the
bureaucracy
was divided
by
ideas and
interests,
and the
power
of the crown
reached
its
American
subjects
in a
fragmented
form.
At the centre of
discussion
of
colonial
institutions
are the local
elites,
yet
these
are
also a research bottleneck.
Who
were
they?
How did their
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Spanish
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71
minds work?
Are we to treat them
as
economic
interest
groups,
or should
we
emphasise
their American
identity?
The colonial
elites,
an essential
part
of
any
interpretation
of
the
colonial
state,
have
rarely
been studied in
themselves,
and it is
only
in recent
years
and for certain
parts
of
Spanish
America that
their
composition
and
thinking
have been
identified.2 Yet
it
was their
economic
power
that
politicised
relations
between the
bureaucracy
and
the
public,
and forced officials to
bargain
and
compromise.
Local
elites were born
in
the
conquest
itself,
a
private
enterprise,
which earned for its
participants
credits
which
they
could
subsequently
cash
into
grants
of
labour and resources. Since
then vested
interests
in
land,
mining,
and
commerce
had
consolidated
local
elites,
who
increasingly
used their
power
to
influence
and
manipulate
the
bureaucracy,
or
alternatively
used
patriarchal, kinship,
and
political leverage
to
compensate
for
economic
failure
and
to
overcome
the
resistance of
subordinate
social
groups.3
Economic
interests tended to fuse
the various
elite
components
into
a
single
sector,
and
Spanish
officials
had to
coopt,
or
confront,
peninsulares
as
well as creoles.
Thus
gradually
the
bureaucracy
itself
became
part
of
a network of
interests
linking
officials,
peninsulares,
and creoles.
The colonial
state,
therefore,
reflected not
only
the
sovereignty
of
the
crown but also the power of the elites. In Upper Peru officials in the
seventeenth
century
acquiesced
in the
system
whereby
the mita
was
delivered
to
mine
owners
not as
Indian
conscripts
but
in
silver,
which
could be used to
employ
substitutes
from
the free labour
market,
or
simply
as
an
alternative income
to
mining.
Thus
the Potosi mita
was
transformed into a tax for the
benefit not of the
crown but of the mine
owners.
While
the colonial
state
theoretically
had the
power
to
abolish
the
mita,
it
was reluctant
to
exercise it out
of
fear
that
the
mining economy
might collapse
and that reform
might provoke
resistance and
rebellion.4
In
emergencies
of this kind the crown found from
experience
that it could
not
rely
on
regular
officials but
had to
appoint
special
commissioners with
extraordinary
powers.
When
in
I659-60
Fray
Francisco
de
la
Cruz,
provincial
of the
Dominicans
in
Peru and
bishop
elect
of
Santa
Marta,
was
2
Jose
F. de
la
Pefia,
Oligarquiay
propiedad
en
Nueva
Espana
ll0o-I624
(Mexico,
I983),
studies
an
early
oligarchy
in
Mexico;
Robert
J. Ferry,
The Colonial Elite
of
Early
Caracas: Formation and Crisis
Iz67-I767
(Berkeley,
Cal.,
I991),
a later one
in
Caracas.
D.
A.
Brading,
The First
America.
The
Spanish
Monarchy,
Creole
Patriots,
and the Liberal
State 1492-1867 (Cambridge,
I991)
identifies, among other things, the origins and
growth
of
creole
identity.
3
Susan
E.
Ramirez,
Provincial
Patriarchs: Land Tenureand
the
Economics
of
Power n Colonial
Peru
(Albuquerque,
NM,
i986).
4
Jeffrey
A.
Cole,
The Potosi Mita
zW73-z700.
Compulsory
Indian Labor in the
Andes
(Stanford,
Cal.,
I985),
pp.
44,
123-30.
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72
John
Lynch
appointed 'superintendent
of
the mita' and
charged
with
investigating
abuses,
he took a
strong
stand
in
favour of the
Indians and
against
mine
owners,
tried
to
impose
controls on
the mita
system,
and ordered
a
stop
to all mita deliveries in silver. The chronicler Arzans recorded that 'the
rich
azogueros
assembled
and
agreed
that it was not
advisable to discredit
the
mita';
one
night
Cruz
was
murdered
in
his
bed,
the victim of
poison
in his
hot chocolate.5 It did not
pay
to alienate
the
local
oligarchy
or
to
disturb
the colonial
consensus;
institutions
had to
yield
to interests.
Although
the abolition
of the
mita
was
mooted
from time to
time,
the
most that was
accomplished (i692-7)
was a
reform of conditions
and a
prohibition
of deliveries
in
silver.
The
distortion
of the mita
in
favour
of
mine owners was
accompanied
by
other manifestations
of
regional compromise
and
by
further
'Americanisation'
of
colonial
institutions.
A
second
example
revealed
by
recent research was
the
persistence
of
fraud
in the Potosi mint. The cost
of
extracting
and
refining
silver
was
met
by
a
simple
device,
the
adulteration
of the silver used
to make
coins
by
the addition
of
excessive
amounts
of
copper.
This was noticed
as
early
as
I633
-
it was difficult
to
overlook
a
25
per
cent reduction
in silver
-
and official
warnings
were
given
by
the crown
to
the
assayers
at
Potosi.
The reaction
of the
viceroy,
the marquis of Mancera, was typical of a consensus official: he preferred
not
to
press
local interests
too hard. He advised
that
to
provoke
trouble
in Potosi
might
scare off
those who sold
adulterated
silver
to the
mint,
often
the same
people
who advanced
credit
to the
mines;
this
would
bring
operations
to a halt and cause
riots
in
the
streets.
But the Council
of the
Indies,
faced with
a
rejection
of Potosi
coins
in
Spain
and
by Spain's
creditors
in
Europe,
insisted
on
pursuing
the
perpetrators.
A new
president
of
the audiencia
of La
Plata,
Francisco
de Nestares
Marin,
priest
and former
inquisitor
in
Spain,
took measures
to restore
the value
of
Potosi coinage and imposed punitive fines on three guilty silver merchants.
In
I650
he had the
leading
coinage
criminal,
Francisco Gomez
de la
Rocha,
author of
the
pesos
rochunos,
xecuted
by garrotting.
The
Spanish
crown
could
not
afford
to
jeopardise
its
financial
credibility
in
Europe,
but
in
Upper
Peru
many
local interests
were alienated
by
this unusual
rejection
of
consensus.6 President Nestares
Marin
died
the
same
night
as Francisco
de
la
Cruz,
in
equally
suspicious
circumstances.
5
Bartolome
Arzans de
Orsua
y
Vela,
Historia
de
la
Villa
Imperial
de
Potosi,
(eds.)
Lewis
Hanke and Gunnar
Mendoza (3 vols., Providence, RI, I965), I, pp. I88-90; Cole,
The
Potosi
Mita,
pp.
92-3, 126-30.
6
Arzans,
Historia de la Villa
Imperialde
Potosi,
II,
pp.
190-1;
Guillermo Lohmann
Villena,
'La
memorable crisis monetaria de mediados
del
siglo
XVII
y
sus
repercusiones
en el
virreinato del
Perut',
Anuario de Estudios
Americanos,
vol.
33
(1976),
pp.
579-639;
Peter
Bakewell,
Silver
and
Entrepreneurship
n
Seventeenth-Century
otosi
The
Life
and
Times
of
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Spanish
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73
The
colonial state was
not
as
strong
as it
appeared;
it
could
not
always
protect
its own
officials. The
Spanish
crown and the Council
of
the Indies
were on
the
other side
of
the
Atlantic;
officials
had to live in
the societies
they
administered;
the
government
needed revenue.
To
reveal
a
need was
to
expose
a
weakness
and to
give
local
groups
the
leverage
they
wanted
to make deals
with bureaucrats instead
of
merely obeying
them. The
colonial state
remained
intact,
but
only
by
diluting
one of the essential
qualities
of
a
state,
the
power
to
exact obedience.
In the
process
colonial
bureaucracies
lowered their
expectations,
identified with local
interests,
and
recognised
the existence of
regional
identities.
Colonialconsensus
As
government
descended
into
politics
and local elites
penetrated
government,
so
Spanish
America came to
be administered
by
a
system
of
bureaucratic
compromise.
The
process
has been described as
an informal
understanding
between
the crown
and
its
American
subjects:
'The
unwritten constitution
provided
that basic decisions were
reached
by
informal consultation between the
royal
bureaucracy
and the
king's
colonial
subjects. Usually
there
emerged
a
workable
compromise
between
what
the central
authorities
ideally
wanted and what local
conditions and
pressures
would
realistically
tolerate. ' These have become
key
concepts
in
the
reinterpretation
of
colonial
government,
though
it
may
be that the
arguments
need finer
tuning,
especially
the
suggestion
that there was a
pact
between
king
and
subjects,
and that the
procedure
was one of
'bureaucratic decentralisation'. In
the
first
place
the colonial
compromise
was
not a transfer of
power
from
metropolis
to
colony,
from the
Council
of
the
Indies
to the
overseas
bureaucracy.
The colonial
state consisted
of
king
and council in
Spain
and
viceroys,
audiencias,
and
regional
officials
in
America;
we are
speaking
of a
dilution,
not a
devolution
of
power.
The
government
in
Spain
was
party
to the
compromise,
both
in
institutional
and
in
economic
policy:
it was the
crown which
sold colonial
offices
in
Madrid and
America,
and it
was
royal
officials
in
Seville who
colluded
with merchants in
breaking
the
laws of
trade. The true
contrast was not
between
centralism
and
devolution,
but between the
degrees
of
power
the
colonial state
was
prepared
to
exercise at
any
given
time.
Historians of
course are now
familiar with the
concept
of
Habsburg
decentralisation in
Antonio
Lopez
de
Quiroga
(Albuquerque,
NM,
1988),
pp.
36-42;
Luis
Miguel
Glave,
Trajinantes.
Caminos
indzgenas
n la
sociedad olonial.
Siglos XVI/XVII
(Lima,
1989),
pp.
182-9
1.
7
John
Leddy
Phelan,
The
People
and the
King.
The Comunero
Revolution n
Colombia,
I78i
(Madison,
Wisc.,
1978),
pp.
xviii,
7,
30,
82-4.
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74
John
Lvynch
the
peninsula
itself,
as the state
sought
to
share
the
growing
costs and
duties
of
government
and
war
by
delegating
them to
its wealthier
subjects,
and
even
allowed the administration of
justice
to
pass
into
the
hands
of
local elites.8 There
is, moreover,
a sense in which colonial
government
is
always
to some extent
decentralised
by
factors
of
distance and
communications.
But the
argument
concerns
political
power
rather than
administrative devolution.
The
colonial state embraced both the
metropolitan government
and the administration
in the
colonies,
but,
until
about
1750,
it
was
a consensus
state,
not an
absolutist state.
In
the
second
place,
for all the
linkage
between
colonial officials and
local
interests,
the two were
never
totally
merged:
the
thousands
of
complaints
and
appeals
to
the
Council
of
the Indies
against
colonial
officials
are evidence
enough
that
there
was
always
a distinction
between
state
and
subject.
Yet if some
of the
concepts
of
'bureaucratic
decentralisation' need
qualification,
the situation
it describes
was real
enough:
the
colonial
bureaucracy
came to
adopt
a
mediating
role between
crown and colonist
in a
process
which
may
be
called a colonial consensus.
The consensus could
be
seen
in
patronage
as well as
in
policy,
above
all
in the
growing
participation
of
creoles in
the
colonial
bureaucracy.
Americans
wanted
office
for a number
of
reasons,
as
a
career,
an
investment for the family, an opportunity to acquire capital, and a means
of
influencing policy
in
their
own
regions
and to their own
advantage.
They
wanted not
only
as
many
appointments
as
peninsulares,
or
a
majority
of
appointments;
they
wanted
them
above
all
in their
own
districts,
regarding
creoles
from another
region
as
outsiders,
hardly
more
welcome
than
peninsulares.
The demand of Americans
for
a
presence
in
the
administration,
together
with
government
desire
for
revenue,
found
a solution
in the sale
of office.
From
the
I63os
Americans
had the
opportunity
to
obtain
offices,
if not
by
right
then
by
purchase:
the
crown
began
to sell
treasury
offices in
I633,
corregimientos n
1678,
and
judgeships
in
the audiencias
in
i687.9
Creoles
crowded
into these
openings
and
institutions bent
to their
pressure.
Purchase
of
office
gave
the
incumbent
a
piece
of
property
and with
it a measure
of
independence
inside
the
administration;
it
also
eroded
that isolation
from local
society
which the
crown
sought
for its colonial
bureaucracy.
But
while the
Americanisation
of
the
bureaucracy
may
have
been
a
victory
for the
creole
elites,
it
was
a
further
setback for the
ethnic
communities
and those
who
had to
supply
8
Richard L. Kagan, Lawsuits andLitigants in Castile i7oo-r7oo (Chapel Hill, NC, 198 ),
pp.
210-II;
I.
A.
A.
Thompson,
'The
Rule of
Law
in
Early
Modern
Castile',
European
History
Quarterly,
vol.
14
(1984),
pp.
221-34.
9
Alfredo Moreno
Cebrian,
'Venta
y
beneficios
de
los
corregimientos peruanos',
Revista
de
Indias,
vol.
36,
nos.
143-4
(1976), pp.
2
3-46;
Fernando
Muro,
'El
beneficio
de
oficios
publicos
en
Indias',
Anuario de
Estudios
Americanos,
vol.
35
(1978),
pp.
I-67.
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75
tribute,
taxes,
and
labour,
groups
who found themselves
without
allies
under
the new
alignment.
The
sale
of fiscal office from
I633
weakened
royal
authority
where
it
most counted. In Peru
treasury
officials came to act not as executives of
the
imperial government
but
as mediators
between
the financial
demands
of the crown and
the resistance of
colonial
taxpayers.
An
informal
alliance
of
regional
officials and local
interests
-
merchants,
mine
owners,
and
other
entrepreneurs
-
came
to
dominate the
treasury,
with the
result that
imperial
control
relaxed,
opportunities
for fraud
and
corruption
increased,
and remissions of
revenue to
Spain
diminished.
1
In its
search for
revenue
devices
acceptable
to local
property
owners
the colonial
government
had
recourse
to
borrowing,
cutback on
funds
normally
sent to
Spain,
sale of
juros,
land
titles
and
public
offices,
while the
clergy,
landowners,
merchants,
and
other
privileged
members of
society
largely
escaped
new
taxes. These
desperate
measures were not
necessarily
signs
of economic
depression.
The
aZogueros
till took
their slice from
the mita
payment
in
money,
the
corregidores
from
defrauding
the tribute
revenue;
and
encomenderos
urned
themselves
into
hacendados,
consolidating
and
rationalising
their estates
into commercial
enterprises.
Falling prices
were
a
sign
not
of
stagnation
but
of
strong agricultural
production
fuelled
by
market demand.'l As for merchants, Lima was still a centre of overseas
trade,
a
place
where
profits
could be made and
investments decided.
In
short,
local
elites,
long
capable
of
accumulating
capital,
were
now
concerned to
protect
it,
especially
from the
tax
collector;
and
they
were
more
interested in
government
consumption
and
public
spending
within
Peru
than in
payments
to
Spain.
Institutions
mirrored these
priorities.
Peru's
seventeenth-century
crisis,
therefore,
derived not from
economic
depression
or
market
collapse
but
from
fiscal failure
and a
flawed
administration.12
The
colonial
state
sabotaged
its own
financial bu-
reaucracy when, in
i633,
under pressure from Philip IV and Olivares for
quick money,
it
approved
the
systematic
sale
of
all
high-ranking
treasury
appointments,
thus
permitting
corrupt,
inexperienced
officials with
strong
local
connections to
dominate the
treasury.13
This
was
the
reason
why
the
colonial state
faltered
in
Peru,
as
creoles
bought
treasury
offices,
10
Kenneth
J.
Andrien,
'The
Sale
of
Fiscal Offices and the
Decline of
Royal
Authority
in
the
Viceroyalty
of
Peru,
I633-1700',
Hispanic
American
Historical
Review,
vol.
6z,
no.
i
(1982),
pp.
49-71,
and
the same
author's
Crisis and
Decline: the
/iceroyalty
of
Peru
in the
Seventeenth
Century(Albuquerque, NM, 1985), p. 34, are the works which have most
advanced this
subject.
1
Luis
Miguel
Glave and Maria
Isabel
Remy,
Estructura
agrariay
vida
rural
en
una
region
andina:
Ollantaytambo
entre los
siglos
X[/I
y
XIX
(Cuzco,
I983),
pp.
I40-6o; Glave,
I7rajinantes,pp.
193-4.
12
Andrien,
Crisis
and
Decline,
pp.
74-5.
13
Ibid.,
pp.
103-4,
115--6;
Glave,
Trajinantes,pp. 193-4.
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John
Lynch
established
family
and
political
networks,
and
became
part
of
local
interest
groups.
The
process
also
had
implications
for Indian
society,
now
confronted
by
an alliance of
bureaucrats,
corregidores,
and
mining
and
landed interests. While viceroys were
caught
between concern for revenue
and fear of
rebellion,
local officials
were left to maintain a
consensus,
placate
those
wanting
labour and
surpluses, ignore
the
pressure
on Indian
resources,
and line their
own
pockets.
They
avoided confrontation and
conflict,
but at the cost of
imperial
control;
and
by
resorting
to sales of
land,juros,
and
offices
they
kept
some revenue
flowing
but at the cost of
solvency
and
good government.
The second
agent
of
compromise,
the
corregidor,
is well known to
historians,
who have followed
his career from
unpaid
official to local
entrepreneur
in some
detail,
and
traced
the
dead
hand of colonial
monopoly
from the centre of
empire
to
the
remotest Indian
community.14
At the
heart
of the
system
were the merchant
speculators
in the
colonies,
who
guaranteed
a
salary
and
expenses
to
ingoing corregidores;
these,
with
the connivance of
caciques,
then
used
their
political
jurisdiction
to
force
the Indians
to
accept
advances
of
cash and
equipment
in
order to
produce
an
export
crop
or
simply
to consume
surplus
commodities
from
monopoly
merchants. This
was
the
notorious
repartimiento
de
comercio,
a
device which
linked various interest groups in a classic pattern of consensus. The
Indians were
forced into
producing
and
consuming;
officials who had
already
bought
their
offices received an
income;
merchants
gained
an
export
crop
and
captive
consumers;
and
the
crown saved
money
on
salaries.
Yet all this was
theoretically
illegal
and involved
the colonial
authorities at
every
level
in
a
process
of
lawbreaking,
a 'mal
necesario',
as one
viceroy
described
it,
justified
by
the need
to
give
the Indians
an
economic incentive. And
official connivance reached
the
point
of
attempting
to
regulate
the
system,
or at least
to
control
the
quota
and the
prices of the reparto, 'in order above all to bring relief to the Indians and
to
give
the
corregidores
a
moderate
income'.l
The interest
of
historians
in
this
process
has
focused
mainly
on
its
meaning
for Indian
society
and
its role
in
Indian
rebellion. But it
has
a further
significance
as
a crucial
detail
in
the transformation
of
imperial
authority
and the
growth
of
colonial consensus.
A
corregidor
whose
quasi-independence
had to be
recognised
by
a
viceroy
was
not
a
prime
instrument of
imperial
control.
The
highest
agency
of
bureaucratic
compromise
was
the
audiencia,
the
ultimate
goal
of
creole
ambition and
the
only
institution
in
the
colony
14
Alfredo Moreno
Cebrian,
El
corregidor
e indios
la
economza
eruana
en
el
siglo
XVIII
(Madrid,
1977),
pp.
I08--0.
15
Jose
A. Manso de
Velasco,
Relacion
y
documentos e
gobierno
del
virrey
del
Peri,
Jose
A.
Manso de
f
elasco,
condede
Superunda
I74/-z76z),
(ed.)
Alfredo
Moreno
Cebrian
(Madrid,
1983),
pp. 285-6.
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77
whose
peculiar
union
of
legal,
political,
and
administrative
functions
qualified
it to
speak
for
king,
colonists,
and Indians
alike. Modern
investigation
of the colonial
audiencia
has
proved
to
be
a
turning point
in
our understanding of American institutions, the key to unlock many
problems
of colonial
government.
When,
in
1687,
the crown
began
to sell
appointments
of oidores
Americans seized the
opportunity.
They began
to
regard
their own
audiencia districts
as
patrias
and
to
claim
that
in
addition
to
their
intellectual,
academic,
and economic
qualifications
they
had
a
legal
right
to hold
all
offices
within their
boundaries.
By
175o
Peruvians
dominated
their home
audiencia of
Lima,
a
development paralleled
in the
audiencias
of
Chile,
Charcas,
and
Quito.
In this
way
money payments
and
local
influence came to
prevail
over
tribunals
and their
independence.
The
relevant statistics can be briefly summarised. In the period 1678-1750, out
of a total
of
3
I
audiencia
appointees
in
America,
I
38,
or
44
per
cent,
were
creoles,
compared
to 1
57
peninsulares.
Of
the
I
38
creoles, 44
were natives
of the districts
in
which
they
were
appointed,
and
57
were from
other
parts
of the
Americas;
almost
three-quarters
of the
American
appointees
bought
their offices.16
By
the
i76os
the
majority
of
judges
in the
audiencias
of
Lima,
Santiago,
and Mexico were
creoles.
This
was
a
major
shift
of
power
within the colonial state
and
radically
affected its
character.
The dilution
of
royal
authority,
the
absence
of
quality
control,
the
complacency
in
face
of
creole
wealth
and local
influence,
went
beyond
consensus
government
and
tipped
the
balance
against
the crown. Most
of
the creole oidoreswere linked
by
kinship
or
interests to the economic
elite;
the audiencia became
a
preserve
of rich and
powerful regional
families,
and the
sale of office came to form
a
kind of
American
representation
in
government.
The
absolutist state
From about 1750 the imperial government abandoned consensus and
began
to
reassert
its
authority,
anxious above all
to
recover its control of
American
resources,
and
to
defend them
against
foreign
rivals. Reform
depended upon
the
impetus given
by
the
king,
the
ideas and
initiatives
of
ministers,
and the finances to
implement
policies. Rarely
were
these three
preconditions
present simultaneously.
In
the
years
from
I750,
however,
they
came
together
and
converged
on
Spanish
America.l7
The
subsequent
programme
of
reorganisation
embraced the
whole
range
of
economic,
political,
and
military
relations
between
Spain
and
America.
From
1776,
when Jose de Galvez became minister of the Indies, policy quickened in
16
Mark A.
Burkholder and D.
S.
Chandler,
From
Impotence
o
Authority.
The
Spanish
Crown nd
the
AmericanAudiencias
Columbia,
Mo.,
1977),
p.
145.
17
For
fuller
treatment
of the
Bourbon
programme
see
John
Lynch,
Bourbon
Spain
I7oo0-8o0
Oxford,
1989),
pp.
329-74.
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John
Lynch
pace
and was
driven
by
a determination
to
reduce
the creole
presence
in
colonial administration.
The
programme
has
long
been
described
as
one
of 'Bourbon
reform'. The advance
of the
Bourbon
state,
the
end
of
compromise government and creole participation, these were regarded by
the
Spanish
authorities as
necessary
steps
towards
control,
revival,
and
monopoly.
But to the
creoles
it
meant
that
in
place
of
traditional
bargaining
by
viceroys
who
were
prepared
to mediate between
king
and
people,
the
new
bureaucracy
issued
non-negotiable
demands
from an
imperial
state,
and to
creoles this was
not
reform.
The
participation
of Americans
in
colonial
government
was now
reduced,
as the
Spanish government
from
I750
began
to
curtail sale of
office,
to
reduce creole
appointments
in
Church and
state,
and to break
the
links between bureaucrats and local families. At a time when the creole
population
was
growing
and the number
of
creole
graduates
increasing,
and when the
bureaucracy
itself was
expanding,
in
short when
creole
pressure
for
jobs
was at its
height,
the
colonial
state was restored
to
the
hands of
peninsulares.
From
1764
new
officials,
the
intendants,
began
to
replace
corregidores;
it became
virtually
impossible
for
a creole to receive
a
permanent appointment
as intendant. At the same time a
growing
number of
senior
financial officials
were
appointed
from
the
peninsula.
Creole
military
officers
were
replaced by Spaniards
on retirement. The
object
of the new
policy
was
to
de-Americanise
the
government
of
America,
and
in
this it was successful.
Again,
audiencia research enables
us to measure
the
scale of
change.
In the
period
175
i-i808,
of the 266
appointments
in
American audiencias
only
62
(23
per
cent)
went to
creoles;
and
in
i808
of the
99
officials
in
the colonial tribunals
only
6
creoles
had
appointments
in their
own
districts,
9
outside
their
districts.18
Regional
research
points
in
the
same
direction. The
bureaucracy
of
Buenos Aires was
dominated
by
peninsulares:
in the
period
1776-I8I0
they held 64 per cent of appointments,
portenos
29 per cent, and other
Americans
7
per
cent.19
Bourbon
policy
in
its
reformist
phase
has
been
widely
and
closely
researched in recent
decades,
and there
are
results
for
all
interests and
for
various
interpretations.
Historians interested
in
local
elites will
note the
shift
in relations between the
major
power groups.
The transition
from
permissive
to absolutist
government,
from
consensus
to
imperial
control,
enlarged
the
function of the
colonial
state at the
expense
of the
private
sector and
ultimately
alienated
the local
oligarchy.
The Bourbon
overhaul
of imperial government can be seen as centralising the mechanism of
control
and
modernising
the
bureaucracy.
The creation
of
new
18
Burkholder and
Chandler,
From
Impotence
o
Authority,
pp.
I
5-35.
19
Susan
Migden
Socolow,
The
Bureaucrats
of
Buenos
Aires,
I769-1800:
Amor al
Real Servicio
(Durham,
NC,
1987),
p.
132.
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Colonial Institutions
79
viceroyalties
and
other units of
government applied
central
planning
to
a
conglomeration
of
administrative, social,
and
geographical
units,
and
culminated
in
the
appointment
of
intendants,
the
prime agents
of
absolutism. The implications of the intendant system can now be better
appreciated
than
they
were
when
modern research
first studied the
institution.
The
reform can
be seen
as more than an
administrative and
fiscal
device;
it
also
implied
closer
supervision
of
American societies
and
resources.
This
was
understood
at
the
time.
What
the
metropolis thought
was
rational
development,
the American elites
interpreted
as an attack on
local interests.
For
the intendants
replaced
those
corregidores
(and
in
Mexico alcaldes
mayores)
whom we have seen as
experts
at
reconciling
different interests.
They
were also
supposed
to terminate
the
repartos,
and
to
guarantee
the Indians the
right
to trade and work as
they
wished. But
traditional
ways
died hard. Colonial
interests,
peninsular
and
creole
alike,
found the new
policy inhibiting,
and
they
resented the
unwonted
intervention
of the
metropolis.
The
abolition
of
repartos
threatened not
only
merchants and landowners but also the
Indians
themselves,
unaccustomed
to
using money
in
a free market and
dependent
on
credit
for livestock
and
merchandise. Local
interests
took the
law
into
their own
hands.
In
Mexico and Peru the
repartosreappeared,
as
landowners
sought
to retain their
grip
on
labour and the
merchants
to restore
old consumer
markets.
Thus Bourbon
policy
was
sabotaged
within
the
colonies
themselves;
the old
consensus between
government
and
governed
no
longer prevailed.
The new absolutism also had a
military
dimension,
though
here the
results
were
ambiguous,
and
modern
research
has
not
entirely
resolved
the
problems
of
interpretation.
The
prejudice
against
creoles,
and in
particular
the fear that
arming
creoles
might
compromise
royal
political
control,
seem to have
been overcome
by
pressing
defence needs at a
time
when Spaniards were reluctant to serve in America. So the colonial
militias were
reorganised
and
expanded,
and even the officer
corps
of
the
regular
army
underwent
increasing
Americanisation.
By
I779
creoles
achieved
a
majority
of
one in
the Fixed
Infantry
Regiment
of
Havana,
though
Spaniards
still
dominated the
higher
offices;
by
1788 5I
of
87
officers were
creoles.20
Although
Galvez
frequently
discriminated
against
creoles
to
strengthen royal
authority,
especially
in
New
Granada and
Peru,
he was unable to
reverse the
Americanisation of
the colonial
regular army,
with
the
exception perhaps
of
its
most
senior ranks.21 The
process
was
hastened by the
shortage
of
peninsular
reinforcements, and
by
sales of
20
Allan
J.
Kuethe,
Cuba,
i173-si8.
Crown,
Military,
and
Society
(Knoxville, 1986),
pp.
126-7.
21
Allan
J.
Kuethe,
Military
Reform
and
Society
in New
Granada,
I773-Io80 (Gainesville,
Florida,
1978),
pp.
170-1,
I8o-i.
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80
John
Lynch
military
offices,
which
were
systematically expanded
from
1780
to raise
revenue,
another
exception
to Bourbon
reformism.22 Americanisation
was
not
considered
to
be
too
great
a risk
to
imperial
control,
and the new
imperialism
was based not on massive militarisation but on the traditional
sanctions
of
legitimacy
and
bureaucracy.
Contrasts
in
government
The movement
towards Bourbon
absolutism and closer
control
of
colonial
resources is
now an established theme
of
historiography.
The
normal
assumption
is
that this was
a transition from
inertia
to
decision,
from
neglect
to
reform,
from
loss to
profit.
These
judgements
are
perhaps
open to revision. It may be that Habsburg colonial government responded
realistically
to
economic
and social
conditions
in
America.
It is true
that
negotiation
and
compromise
had
their
disadvantages
and
failed
to
provide
quality
control
over colonial
government;
but
they
were
methods born
of
experience
and achieved
a
balance
between
the demands
of the crown
and
the claims of the
colonists,
between
imperial
authority
and
American
interests.
These methods
of
government
kept
the
peace
and did not
provoke
the creoles into extreme
positions;
indeed
they
favoured
a kind
of American
participation
in
administration
in
the
period
650o-175o.
At
the same time they did not deprive Spain of the profits of empire; modern
research
shows
that the
age
of
depression
was
in fact
an
age
of
abundance,
and that treasure
receipts
had
never
been
greater
than
they
were in the
second
half of
the
seventeenth
century.23
No doubt these
had
to be
shared
with
foreigners,
but
that too
was
part
of
the
compromise
and
responded
to the
Spanish
economic
system
of the time.
Bourbon
government,
without
changing
conditions,
changed
the
character
of the colonial state
and the exercise
of
power.
Charles
III
and
his
ministers knew
less
of
Spanish
America
than
do
modern
historians.
The records
lay
around them - from
viceregal
capitals,
seats of
audiencias,
remote
corregimientos
and indeed
were
being
newly organised.
But
they
seem
not to have read
them,
or
if
they
read
them,
not
to
have
understood
their
meaning.
The
past
was
ignored,
indeed
repudiated.
The
growth
of
local
elites,
the
strength
of
group
interests,
the sense of
American
identity,
and the
attachment of
regional
patrias,
all the features
of state and
society
acknowledged
by
consensus
government
were
ignored
by
the
new
absolutism.
The
Bourbons
proceeded
as
though
history
could be
stopped,
the development
of a
community reversed,
mature
peoples
reduced
to
22
Juan
Marchena
Fernandez,
Oficialesy
soldados
n el
ejercito
de Ame'rica
(Seville, i983),
pp.
95-120.
23
Michel
Morineau,
Incroyables
azettes
etfabuleux
metaux.
Les
retoursdes
tresors
americaines
d'apres
les
gazettes
hollandaises
XVI-XVIIP
siecles)
(Cambridge,
i985),
pp.
250,
262z.
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Spanish
Colonial Institutions
81
dependants.
The
logical
outcome of the
Habsburg
model of
colonial
government
was
more
consensus,
greater compromise,
better
oppor-
tunities
for
Americans,
the
possibility
of
political development.
Far
from
conceding
this,
the Bourbons
sought
to return
Americans to
a
primitive
dependence
which had
been dead
for
more than a
century.
Yet
it
was
impossible
to restore the
pre-consensus empire
intact. The
intervening
period
of
compromise government
and local
participation
had
left a
historical
deposit
which could not be
effaced.
Consensus,
or
the
memory
of
it,
was
now
part
of
the
political
structure of
Spanish
America.
Events
had
moved on
since
the
conquest;
local
oligarchies
no
longer
functioned
in the same
way
as their
ancestors;
colonial
society
was now locked into
the royal administration. In the process interest groups had become more
exploitative
and saw themselves as
part
of
the
imperial
elite
with
a
right
to share
in
the
gains
of
empire.
Their own
demands
on
Indian labour and
resources were
not
compatible
with the Indian
policy
of
the
Bourbons
in
the
decades
after
1750,
a
policy
which
sought
to free
the
Indians from
private
exploitation
in
order
to
monopolise
them as
subjects
and
taxpayers
of
the state. There was now
competition
between
exploiters.
The difference between
the
old
empire
and
the
new
was not a
simple
difference
between concord
and conflict. Even
after
the
civil
wars of the
sixteenth century and the victory of the colonial state, the Spanish
bureaucracy
had to
live
with
opposition,
violence,
and
assassination. But
large-scale
rebellions were
characteristic
of
the second
empire,
not
the
first,
and
they
were
a
response
to
absolutism
by
those who
had
known
consensus.
Spanish
America
in
the
late
eighteenth
century
was
the
scene
of
irreconcilables. On
the
American
side
entrenched
interests and
expectations
of
office;
on
the
Spanish
greater
demands
and
fewer
concessions.
A
clash
appeared
to
be
inevitable.
Manuel
Godoy,
not
normally
known
for his
political judgement,
was shrewd
enough
to detect
the flaw in the
policy
of Charles III and
Galvez,
and to
appreciate
that
their
basic mistake
lay
in
trying
to
put
the clock
back and
to
deprive
Americans of
gains already
made:
'It
was not
feasible to turn
back,
even
though
it
might
have
been convenient to
do so.
People
endure with
patience
the lack of
benefits
they
have not
yet
enjoyed;
but
granted
that
they
have
acquired
them
as
of
right
and
enjoyed
the
taste,
they
are
not
going
to
agree
to have
them
taken
away.'24
Bourbon
institutions
carried
a new
political message
to
Spanish
Americans
and
closed the
door to
further
compromise.
24
Principe
de la
Paz,
iMemorias
BAE,
88-9,
2
vols.,
Madrid,
1956),
vol.
I,
p.
416.
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