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he new Bourbon kings did not split the Viceroyalty of New Spain into smaller administrative units as they did with the Viceroyalty of Peru. The first innovation, in 1776, was by José de Gálvez, the new Minister of the Indies (1775–1787), establishing the Commandancy General of the Provincias Internas known as the Provincias Internas (Commandancy General of the Internal Provinces of the North, (Spanish: Comandancia y Capitanía General de las Provincias Internas). He appointed Teodoro de Croix (nephew of the former viceroy) as the first Commander General of the Provinicas Internas, independent of the Viceroy of New Spain, to provide more autonomy for the frontier provinces. They included Nueva Vizcaya, Nuevo Santander, Sonora y Sinaloa, Las Californias, Coahuila y Tejas (Coahuila and Texas), and Nuevo México. The prime innovation introduction of intendancies, an institution borrowed from France. They were first introduced on a large scale in New Spain, by the Minister of the Indies José de Gálvez, in the 1770s, who originally envisioned that they would replace the viceregal system (viceroyalty) altogether. With broad powers over tax collection and the public treasury and with a mandate to help foster economic growth over their districts, intendants encroached on the traditional powers of viceroys, governors and local officials, such as the corregidores, which were phased out as intendancies were established. The Crown saw the intendants as a check on these other officers. Over time accommodations were made. For example, after a period of experimentation in which an independent intendant was assigned to Mexico City, the office was thereafter given to the same person who simultaneously held the post of viceroy. Nevertheless, the creation of scores of autonomous intendancies throughout the Viceroyalty, created a great deal of decentralization, and in the Captaincy General of Guatemala, in particular, the intendancy laid the groundwork for the future independent nations of the 19th century. In 1780, Minister of the Indies José de Gálvez sent a royal dispatch to Teodoro de Croix, Commandant General of the Internal Provinces of New Spain (Provincias Internas), asking all subjects to donate money to help the American Revolution. Millions of pesos were given. The focus on the economy (and the revenues it provided to the royal coffers) was also extended to society at large. Economic associations were promoted, such as the Economic Society of Friends of the Country Governor-General José Basco y Vargas established in the Philippines in 1781. Similar "Friends of the Country" economic societies were established throughout the Spanish world, including Cuba and Guatemala.[25] A secondary feature of the Bourbon Reforms was that it was an attempt to end the significant amount of local control that had crept into the bureaucracy under the Habsburgs, especially through the sale of offices. The Bourbons sought a return to the monarchical ideal of having outsiders, who in theory should be disinterested, staff the higher echelons of regional government. In practice this meant that there was a concerted effort to appoint mostly peninsulares, usually military men with long records of service (as opposed to the Habsburg preference for prelates), who were willing to move around the global empire. The intendancies were one new office that could be staffed with peninsulares, but throughout the 18th century significant gains were made in the numbers of governors-captain generals, audiencia judges and bishops, in addition to other posts, who were Spanish-born. 18th century military conflicts See also: Louisiana (New Spain) 18th-century lancer in colonial Mexico The first century that saw the Bourbons on the Spanish throne coincided with series of global conflicts that pitted primarily France against Great Britain. Spain as an ally of Bourbon France was drawn into these conflicts. In fact part of the motivation for the Bourbon Reforms was the perceived need to prepare the empire administratively, economically and militarily for what was the next expected war. The Seven Years' War proved to be catalyst for most of the reforms in the overseas possessions, just like the War of the Spanish Succession had been for the reforms on the Peninsula. In 1720, the Villasur expedition from Santa Fe met and attempted to parley with French- allied Pawnee in what is now Nebraska. Negotiations were unsuccessful, and a battle ensued; the Spanish were badly defeated, with only thirteen managing to return to New Mexico. Although this was a small engagement, it is significant in that it was the deepest penetration of the Spanish into the Great Plains, establishing the limit to Spanish expansion and influence there. The War of Jenkins' Ear broke out in 1739 between the Spanish and British and was confined to the Caribbean and Georgia. The major action in the War of Jenkins' Ear was a major amphibious attack launched by the British under Admiral Edward Vernon in March, 1741 against Cartagena de Indias, one of Spain's major gold-trading ports in the Caribbean (today Colombia). Although this episode is largely forgotten, it ended in a decisive victory for Spain, who managed to prolong its control of the Caribbean and indeed secure the Spanish Main until the 19th century. Following the French and Indian War/Seven Years' War, the British troops invaded and captured the Spanish cities of Havana in Cuba and Manila in the Philippines in 1762. The Treaty of Paris (1763) gave Spain control over the Louisiana part of New France including New Orleans, creating a Spanish empire that stretched from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean; but Spain also ceded Florida to Great Britain to regain Cuba, which the British occupied during the war. Louisiana settlers, hoping to restore the territory to France, in the bloodless Rebellion of 1768 forced the Louisiana Governor Antonio de Ulloa to flee to Spain. The rebellion was crushed in 1769 by the next governor Alejandro O'Reilly who executed five of the conspirators. The Louisiana territory was to be administered by superiors in Cuba with a governor onsite in New Orleans. The 21 northern missions in present-day California (U.S.) were established along California's El Camino Real from 1769. In an effort to exclude Britain and Russia from the eastern Pacific, King Charles III of Spain sent forth from Mexico a number of expeditions to the Pacific Northwest between 1774 and 1793. Spain's long-held claims and navigation rights were strengthened and a settlement and fort were built in Nootka Sound, Alaska. A Spanish army defeats British soldiers in the Battle of Pensacola in 1781. In 1783 the Treaty of Paris returns all of Florida to Spain for the return of the Bahamas. Spain entered the American Revolutionary War as an ally of France in June 1779, a renewal of the Bourbon Family Compact. In 1781, a Spanish expedition during the American Revolutionary War left St. Louis, Missouri (then under Spanish control) and reached as far as Fort St. Joseph at Niles, Michigan where they captured the fort while the British were away. On 8 May 1782, Count Bernardo de Gálvez, the Spanish governor of Louisiana, captured the British naval base at New Providence in the Bahamas. On the Gulf Coast, the actions of Gálvez led to Spain acquiring East and West Florida in the peace settlement, as well as controlling the mouth of the Mississippi River after the war—which would prove to be a major source of tension between Spain and the United States in the years to come. From Frank Bond, "Louisiana" and the Louisiana Purchase. Government Printing Office, 1912 Map No. 4. In the second Treaty of Paris (1783), which ended the American Revolution, Britain ceded West Florida back to Spain to regain The Bahamas, which Spain had occupied during the war. Spain then had control over the river south of 32°30' north latitude, and, in what is known as the Spanish Conspiracy, hoped to gain greater control of Louisiana and all of the west. These hopes ended when Spain was pressured into signing Pinckney's Treaty in 1795. France reacquired 'Louisiana' from Spain in the secret Treaty of San Ildefonso in 1800. The United States bought the territory from France in the Louisiana Purchase of 1803. New Spain claimed the entire west coast of North America and therefore considered the Russian fur trading activity in Alaska, which began in the middle to late 18th century, an encroachment and threat. Likewise, the exploration of the northwest coast by James Cook of the British Navy and the subsequent fur trading activities by British ships was considered an invasion of Spanish territory. To protect and strengthen its claim, New Spain sent a number of expeditions to the Pacific Northwest between 1774 and 1793. In 1789 a naval outpost called Santa Cruz de Nuca (or just Nuca) was established at Friendly Cove in Nootka Sound (now Yuquot), Vancouver Island. It was protected by an artillery land battery called Fort San Miguel. Santa Cruz de Nuca was the northernmost establishment of New Spain. It was the first colony in British Columbia and the only Spanish settlement in what is now Canada. Santa Cruz de Nuca remained under the control of New Spain until 1795, when it was abandoned under the terms of the third Nootka Convention. Another outpost, intended to replace Santa Cruz de Nuca, was partially built at Neah Bay on the southern side of the Strait of Juan de Fuca in what is now the U.S. state of Washington. Neah Bay was known as Bahía de Núñez Gaona in New Spain, and the outpost there was referred to as "Fuca". It was abandoned, partially finished, in 1792. Its personnel, livestock, cannons, and ammunition were transferred to Nuca.[26] In 1789, at Santa Cruz de Nuca, a conflict occurred between the Spanish naval officer Esteban José Martínez and the British merchant James Colnett, triggering the Nootka Crisis, which grew into an international incident and the threat of war between Britain and Spain. The first Nootka Convention averted the war but left many specific issues unresolved. Both sides sought to define a northern boundary for New Spain. At Nootka Sound, the diplomatic representative of New Spain, Juan Francisco de la Bodega y Quadra, proposed a boundary at the Strait of Juan de Fuca, but the British representative, George Vancouver refused to accept any boundary north of San Francisco. No agreement could be reached and the northern boundary of New Spain remained unspecified until the Adams–Onís Treaty with the United States (1819). That treaty also ceded Spanish Florida to the United States. End of the Viceroyalty (1806–1821) The Third Treaty of San Ildefonso ceded to France the vast territory that Napoleon then sold to the United States, known as the Louisiana Purchase (1803). Spanish Florida followed in 1819. In the 1821 Declaration of Independence of the Mexican Empire, both Mexico and Central America declared their independence after three centuries of Spanish rule and formed the First Mexican Empire, although Central America quickly rejected the union. After priest Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla's 1810 Grito de Dolores (call for independence), the insurgent army began an eleven-year war. At first, the Criollo class fought against the rebels. But in 1820, coinciding with the approval of the Spanish Constitution, which took privileges away from the Criollos, they switched sides. This led to Mexican triumph in 1821. The new Mexican Empire offered the crown to Ferdinand VII or to a member of the Spanish royal family that he would designate. After the refusal of the Spanish monarchy to recognize the independence of Mexico, the ejército Trigarante (Army of the Three Guarantees), led by Agustin de Iturbide and Vincente Guerrero, cut all political and economic ties with Spain and crowned Agustin I as emperor of Mexico. Central America was originally planned to be part of the Mexican Empire, but seceded peacefully in 1823, forming the United Provinces of Central America. This left only Cuba, the Spanish East Indies (including the Philippines and Guam), and Puerto Rico in the Spanish empire until their loss to the United States in the Spanish–American War (1898). Political Organization Part of a series on the History of Mexico Coat of arms of Mexico.svg Pre-Columbian Spanish rule[hide] Conquest Colonial period War of Independence First Empire First Republic[show] Second Federal Republic[show] 1864–1928[show] Modern[show] Timeline Portal icon Mexico portal v t e Part of a series on the History of the Philippines Philippine History Collage.jpg Prehistory (pre-900) Callao and Tabon Men Arrival of the Negritos Austronesian expansion Angono Petroglyphs Society of the Igorot Classical Period (900–1521) State of Ma-i Tondo Dynasty Confederation of Madja-as Kingdom of Maynila Kingdom of Namayan Rajahnate of Butuan Rajahnate of Cebu Sultanate of Maguindanao Sultanate of Sulu Sultanate of Lanao Spanish Period (1521–1898) Viceroyalty of New Spain Spanish East Indies Christianization Dutch Invasions British Invasion Revolts and uprisings Katipunan Philippine Revolution American Period (1898–1946) First Republic Philippine–American War Tagalog Republic Negros Republic Zamboanga Republic Insular Government Commonwealth Japanese Occupation Second Republic Post-Colonial (1946–present) Third Republic Marcos era Fourth Republic Fifth Republic By topic Demographic Military Political Communications Transportation Timeline Portal icon Philippines portal v t e The Viceroyalty of New Spain united many regions and provinces of the Spanish Empire throughout half a world. These included on the North American mainland, central Mexico, Nueva Extremadura, Nueva Galicia, the Californias, Nueva Vizcaya, Nuevo Reyno de León, Texas and Nuevo Santander, as well as the Captaincy General of Guatemala. In the Caribbean it included Cuba, Santo Domingo, most of the Venezuelan mainland and the other islands in the Caribbean controlled by the Spanish. In Asia, the Viceroyalty ruled the Captaincy General of the Philippines, which covered all of the Spanish territories in the Asia-Pacific region. The outpost at Nootka Sound, on Vancouver Island, was considered part of the province of California. Therefore, the Viceroyalty's former territories included what is now the present day countries of Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Belize, Costa Rica; the United States regions of California, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Puerto Rico, Guam, Mariana Islands, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, Florida; a portion of the Canadian province of British Columbia; the Caribbean nations of Cuba, the Dominican Republic, the island of Hispaniola, Jamaica, Antigua and Barbuda; the Asia-Pacific nations of the Philippine Islands, Palau and Caroline Islands. The Viceroyalty was administered by a viceroy residing in Mexico City and appointed by the Spanish monarch, who had administrative oversight of all of these regions, although most matters were handled by the local governmental bodies, which ruled the various regions of the viceroyalty. First among these were the audiencias, which were primarily superior tribunals, but which also had administrative and legislative functions. Each of these was responsible to the Viceroy of New Spain in administrative matters (though not in judicial ones), but they also answered directly to the Council of the Indies. Audiencia districts further incorporated the older, smaller divisions known as governorates (gobernaciones, roughly equivalent to provinces), which had been originally established by conquistador-governors known as adelantados. Provinces, which were under military threat, were grouped into captaincies general, such as the Captaincies General of the Philippines (established 1574) and Guatemala (established in 1609) mentioned above, which were joint military and political commands with a certain level of autonomy. (The viceroy was captain-general of those provinces that remained directly under his command). At the local level there were over two hundred districts, in both Indian and Spanish areas, which were headed by either a corregidor (also known as an alcalde mayor) or a cabildo (town council), both of which had judicial and administrative powers. In the late 18th century the Bourbon dynasty began phasing out the corregidores and introduced intendants, whose broad fiscal powers cut into the authority of the viceroys, governors and cabildos. Despite their late creation, these intendancies had such an impact in the formation of regional identity that they became the basis for the nations of Central America and the first Mexican states after independence. Audiencias See also: Royal Audiencia of Mexico The high courts or audiencias were established in major areas of Spanish settlement. In New Spain the high court was established in 1527, prior to the establishment of the viceroyalty. The First Audiencia was headed by Hernán Cortés's rival Nuño de Guzmán, who used the court to deprive Cortés of power and property. The First Audiencia was dissolved and the Second Audiencia established.[27] Audiencias with dates of creation: 1. Santo Domingo (1511, effective 1526, predated the Viceroyalty) 2. Mexico (1527, predated the Viceroyalty) 3. Panama (1st one, 1538–1543) 4. Guatemala (1543) 5. Guadalajara (1548) 6. Manila (1583) Autonomous Captaincies General With dates of creation: 1. Santo Domingo (1535) 2. Philippines (1574) 3. Puerto Rico (1580) 4. Cuba (1607) 5. Guatemala (1609) 6. Yucatán (1617) 7. Commandancy General of the Provincias Internas (1776) (Analogous to a dependent captaincy general.) Intendancies As part of the sweeping eighteenth-century administrative and economic changes known as the Bourbon Reforms, the Spanish crown created new administrative units called intendancies. In New Spain, these units generally corresponded to the regions or provinces that had developed earlier in the Center, South, and North. In turn, many of the intendancy boundaries became Mexican state boundaries after independence. Year of Creation[28][29] Intendancy 1764 Havana 1766 New Orleans 1784 Puerto Rico 1786 Mexico Chiapas Guatemala San Salvador Comayagua Léon Puerto Príncipe (separated from the Intendancy of Havana) Santiago de Cuba (separated from the Intendency of Havana) 1787 Guanajuato Valladolid Guadalajara Zacatecas San Luis Potosí Veracruz Puebla Oaxaca Durango Sonora 1789 Mérida Economy In the era of the conquest, order to pay off the debts incurred by the conquistadors and their companies, the new Spanish governors awarded their men grants of native tribute and labor, known as encomiendas. In New Spain these grants were modeled after the tribute and corvee labor that the Mexica rulers had demanded from native communities. This system came to signify the oppression and exploitation of natives, although its originators may not have set out with such intent. In short order the upper echelons of patrons and priests in the society lived off the work of the lower classes. Due to some horrifying instances of abuse against the indigenous peoples, Bishop Bartolomé de las Casas suggested bringing black slaves to replace them. Fray Bartolomé later repented when he saw the even worse treatment given to the black slaves. In Peru, the other discovery that perpetuated this system of forced labor was the enormously rich single silver mine discovered at Potosí. But in New Spain, with the exception of silver mines worked in the Aztec period at Taxco, southwest of Tenochtitlan, the colonial mining region was outside the area of dense indigenous settlement. Labor for the mines in the north of Mexico were worked by black slave labor and indigenous wage labor, not draft labor.[30] Indigenous who were drawn to the mining areas were from different regions of the center of Mexico, with a few from the north itself. With such diversity they did not have a common ethnic identity or language and rapidly assimilated to Hispanic culture. Although mining was difficult and dangerous, the wages were good, which is what drew the indigenous labor.[31] The Viceroyalty of New Spain was the principal source of income for Spain among the Spanish colonies, with important mining centers like Zacatecas, Guanajuato, San Luis Potosí and Hidalgo. Cacao and indigo were also important exports for the New Spain, but was used through rather the vice royalties rather than contact with European countries due to piracy, and smuggling.[32] The indigo industry in particular also helped to temporarily unite communities throughout the Kingdom of Guatemala due to the smuggling.[33] There were two major ports in New Spain, Veracruz the viceroyalty's principal port on the Atlantic, and Acapulco on the Pacific, terminus of the Manila Galleon. In the Philippines Manila near the South China Sea was the main port. The ports were fundamental for overseas trade, stretching a trade route from Asia, through the Manila Galleon to the Spanish mainland. These were ships that made voyages from the Philippines to Mexico, whose goods were then transported overland from Acapulco to Veracruz and later reshipped from Veracruz to Cádiz in Spain. So then, the ships that set sail from Veracruz were generally loaded with merchandise from the East Indies originating from the commercial centers of the Philippines, plus the precious metals and natural resources of Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean. During the 16th century, Spain held the equivalent of US$1.5 trillion (1990 terms) in gold and silver received from New Spain. However, these resources did not translate into development for the Metropolis (mother country) due to Spanish Roman Catholic Monarchy's frequent preoccupation with European wars (enormous amounts of this wealth were spent hiring mercenaries to fight the Protestant Reformation), as well as the incessant decrease in overseas transportation caused by assaults from companies of British buccaneers, Dutch corsairs and pirates of various origin. These companies were initially financed by, at first, by the Amsterdam stock market, the first in history and whose origin is owed precisely to the need for funds to finance pirate expeditions, as later by the London market. The above is what some authors call the "historical process of the transfer of wealth from the south to the north." Regions of colonial Mexico, centers and peripheries In the colonial period, basic patterns of regional development emerged and strengthened [34] European settlement and institutional life was built on the Mesoamerican heartland of the Aztec Empire in Central Mexico. The South (Oaxaca, Michoacan, Yucatán, and Central America) was also in the region of dense indigenous settlement of Mesoamerica, but in the absence of exploitable resources of interest to Europeans, the South attracted few Europeans, while the indigenous presence remained strong. The North was outside region of complex indigenous populations, but with the discovery of silver in the region of nomadic and hostile northern indigenous groups, the Spanish sought to conquer or pacify those peoples in order to exploit the mines and develop enterprises to supply them. Since much of northern New Spain attracted few Europeans and had a sparse indigenous population, the Spanish crown and later the Republic of Mexico did not effectively exert sovereignty of the region, leaving it vulnerable to the expansionism of the United States in the nineteenth century. Regional characteristics of colonial Mexico have been the focus of considerable scholarship within the vast scholarship on centers and peripheries.[35][36] For those based in vice-regal capital of Mexico City itself, anywhere else was the “provinces”. Even in modern era, “Mexico” for many refers solely to Mexico City this pejorative view of anywhere but the capital is a hopeless backwater.[37] “Fuera de México, todo es Cuauhtitlán,” [“outside of Mexico City, it’s all Podunk.”][38][39] that is, poor, marginal, and backward, in short, the periphery. The picture is far more complex, however, so that while the capital is clearly important as the center of power of various kinds (institutional, economic, social), the provinces played a significant role in colonial Mexico. Regions (provinces) developed and thrived to the extent that they were sites of economic production and tied into networks of trade. “Spanish society in the Indies was import-export oriented at the very base and in every aspect,” and the development of many regional economies was usually centered on support of that export sector.[40] The North Since portions of northern New Spain became part of the United States southwest, there has been considerable scholarship on the Spanish borderlands in the north. The motor of the Spanish colonial economy was the extraction of silver. In Peru it was from the single rich mountain of Potosí, but in New Spain, there were two major mining sites, one in Zacatecas, the other in Guanajuato. The region further north of the main mining zones attracted few Spanish settlers and where there were settled indigenous populations, such as in New Mexico and coastal regions of Baja and Alta California, indigenous culture retained considerable integrity. The Bajío, Mexico’s Breadbasket The Bajío, a rich, fertile lowland just north of central Mexico, was nonetheless a frontier region between the densely populated plateaus and valleys of Mexico’s center and south and the harsh northern desert controlled by nomadic Chichimeca. Devoid of settled indigenous populations in the early sixteenth century, the Bajío did not initially attract Spaniards, who were much more interested in exploiting labor and collecting tribute whenever possible. The region did not have indigenous populations that practiced subsistence agriculture. The Bajío developed in the colonial period as a region of commercial agriculture. The discovery of mining deposits in Zacatecas and Guanajuato in the mid-sixteenth century and later in San Luis Potosí stimulated the Bajío’s development to supply the mines with food and livestock. A network of Spanish towns was established in this region of commercial agriculture, with Querétaro also becoming a center of textile production. Although there were no dense indigenous populations or network of settlements, Indians migrated to the Bajío to work as resident employees on the region’s haciendas and ranchos or rented land (terrasguerros). From diverse cultural backgrounds and with no sustaining indigenous communities, these indios were quickly hispanized, but largely remained at the bottom of the economic hierarchy.[41] Although Indians migrated willingly to the region, they did so in such small numbers that labor shortages prompted Spanish hacendados to provide incentives to attract workers, especially in the initial boom period of the early seventeenth century. Land owners lent workers money, which could be seen as a perpetual indebtedness, but it can be seen not as coercing Indians to stay but a way estate owners sweetened their terms of employment, beyond their basic wage labor.[42][43] For example, in 1775 the Spanish administrator of a San Luis Potosí estate “had to scour both Mexico City and the northern towns to find enough blue French linen to satisfy the resident employees.”[44] Other types of goods they received on credit were textiles, hats, shoes, candles, meat, beans, and a guaranteed ration of maize. However, where labor was more abundant or market conditions depressed, estate owners paid lower wages. The more sparsely populated northern Bajío tended to pay higher wages than the southern Bajío, which was increasingly integrated in the economy of central Mexico.[45] The credit-based employment system often privileged those holding higher ranked positions on the estate (supervisors, craftsmen, other specialists) who were mostly white, and the estates did not demand repayment.[46] In the late colonial period, renting complemented estate employment for many non-Indians in more central areas of the Bajío with access to markets. As with hacendados, renters produced for the commercial market. While these Bajío renters could prosper in good times and achieved a level of independence, drought and other disasters made their choice more risky than beneficial.[47] Many renters retained ties to the estates, diversifying their household’s sources of income and level of economic security. In San Luis Potosí, rentals were fewer and estate employment the norm. After a number of years of drought and bad harvests in the first decade of the nineteenth century Hidalgo’s 1810 grito appealed more in the Bajío than in San Luis Potosí. In the Bajío estate owners were evicting tenants in favor of renters better able to pay more for land, there was a disruption of previous patterns of mutual benefit between estate owners and renters.[48] Central Region The center of the Central region is Mexico City, so the history of Mexico City itself is extremely important to the development of New Spain as a whole. But the areas from the capital east to the port of Veracruz saw significant regional development along this main transportation route. Alexander von Humboldt called this area “Mesa de Anahuac” which can be defined as the adjacent valleys of Puebla, Mexico, and Toluca, enclosed by high mountains, along with their connections to the ports of Gulf Coast port of Veracruz and the Pacific port of Acapulco, where over half the population of New Spain lived.[49] These valleys were linked trunk lines, that is main routes, facilitating the movement of vital goods and people to get to key areas.[50] But the difficulty of transit of people and goods, even in this relatively richly endowed region of Mexico in the absence of rivers and level terrain should not be discounted as a major challenge to the economy of New Spain. This challenge of transit persisted during the post-independence years until the late nineteenth-century construction of railroads. In the colonial era and up until railroads were built in key areas, mule trains were the main mode of transporting goods. Mules were used since unpaved roads and mountainous terrain could not generally accommodate carts. In the late eighteenth century the crown devoted some resources to the study and remedy the problem of poor roads. The Camino Real (royal road) between the port of Veracruz and the capital had some short sections paved and bridges constructed. The construction was done despite protests from some Indian villages when the infrastructure improvements, which sometimes included rerouting the road through communal lands. The Spanish crown finally decided that road improvement was in the interests of the state for military purposes, as well as for fomenting commerce, agriculture, and industry, but the lack of state involvement in the development of physical infrastructure was to have lasting effects constraining development until the late nineteenth century.[51][52] Despite some improvements, the roads still made transit difficult, particularly for heavy military equipment. Although the crown’s plans for both the Toluca and Veracruz portions of the king’s highway were ambitious, the actual results saw improvements only for a localized network.[53] Even where infrastructure was improved, transit on the Veracruz-Puebla main road had other obstacles, with wolves attacking mule trains, killing animals, and rendering some sacks of foodstuffs unsellable because they were smeared with blood.[54] The north-south Acapulco route remained a mule track through mountainous terrain. Veracruz, Port City and Province Veracruz was the first Spanish settlement founded in what became New Spain, but it endured as the only viable Gulf Coast port, the enduring gateway for Spain to New Spain. But the difficult topography around the port itself affected not only local development, but also had an impact on New Spain as a whole. Going from the port to the central plateau entailed a daunting 2000 meter climb from the narrow tropical coastal plain in over just a hundred kilometers. The narrow, slippery road in the mountain mists was treacherous for mule trains, and in some cases mules were hoisted by ropes. Many tumbled with their cargo to their deaths.[55] Given these transport constraints, only high value low bulk goods continued to be shipped in the transatlantic trade. It stimulated local production of foodstuffs, rough textiles, and other products for a mass market. Although New Spain produced considerable sugar and wheat, these were consumed exclusively in the colony even though there was demand elsewhere. Philadelphia not New Spain supplied Cuba with wheat.[56] The Caribbean port of Veracruz was small, with its hot, pestilential climate not a draw for permanent settlers. Its population never topped 10,000.[57] Many Spanish merchants much preferred living in the pleasant highland town of Jalapa (1,500 m). For a brief period (1722–76) the town of Jalapa became even more important than Veracruz when it was granted the right to hold the royal trade fair for New Spain, serving as the entrepot for goods from Asia via Manila Galleon through the port of Acapulco and European goods via the flota (convoy) from the Spanish port of Cádiz.[58] Spaniards also settled in the temperate area of Orizaba, east of the Citlaltepetl volcano. Orizaba varied considerably in elevation 800m-5700m (the latter the summit of the Citlaltepetl volcano), but “most of the inhabited part is temperate.” [59] Some Spaniards lived in semitropical Córdoba, which was founded as a villa in 1618, to serve as a Spanish base against runaway slave (cimarrón) predations on mule trains traveling the route from the port to the capital. Some cimarron settlements sought autonomy, such as one led by Yanga, with whom the crown concluded a treaty leading to the recognition of a largely black town, San Lorenzo de los Negros de Cerralvo, now called the municipality of Yanga.[60] European diseases immediately affected the multiethnic Indian populations in the Veracruz area and for that reason Spaniards imported black slaves as either an alternative to indigenous labor or its complete replacement in the event of a repetition of the Caribbean die-off. A few Spaniards acquired prime agricultural lands left vacant by the indigenous demographic disaster. Portions of the province could support sugar cultivation and as early as the 1530s sugar production was underway. New Spain’s first viceroy, Don Antonio de Mendoza established an hacienda on lands taken from Orizaba.[61] Indians resisted cultivating sugarcane themselves, preferring to tend their subsistence crops. As in the Caribbean, black slave labor became crucial to the development of sugar estates. During the period 1580-1640 when Spain and Portugal were ruled by the same monarch and Portuguese slave traders had access to Spanish markets, African slaves were imported in large numbers to New Spain and many of them remained in the region of Veracruz. But even when that connection was broken and prices rose, black slaves remained an important component of Córdoba’s labor sector even after 1700. Rural estates in Córdoba depended on African slave labor, who were 20% of the population there, a far greater proportion than any other area of New Spain, and greater than even nearby Jalapa.[62] In 1765 the crown created a monopoly on tobacco, which had a direct impact on agriculture and manufacturing the Veracruz region. Tobacco was a valuable, high demand product. Men, women, and even children smoked, something commented on by foreign travelers and depicted in eighteenth-century casta paintings.[63] The crown calculated that tobacco could produce a steady stream of tax revenues by supplying the huge Mexican demand, so the crown limited zones of tobacco cultivation. It also established a small number of manufactories of finished products, and licensed distribution outlets (estanquillos).[64] The crown also set up warehouses to store up to a year’s worth of supplies, including paper for cigarettes, for the manufactories.[65] With the establishment of the monopoly, crown revenues increased and there is evidence that despite high prices and expanding rates of poverty, tobacco consumption rose while at the same time general consumption fell.[66] In 1787 during the Bourbon Reforms Veracruz became an intendancy a new administrative unit. Valley of Puebla Founded in 1531 as a Spanish settlement, Puebla de los Angeles quickly rose to the status of Mexico’s second-most important city. Its location on the main route between the viceregal capital and the port of Veracruz, in a fertile basin with a dense indigenous population, largely not held in encomienda, made Puebla a destination for many later arriving Spaniards. If there had been significant mineral wealth in Puebla, it could have been even more prominent a center for New Spain, but its first century established its importance. In 1786 it became the capital of an intendancy of the same name.[67] It became the seat of the richest diocese in New Spain in its first century, with the seat of the first diocese, formerly in Tlaxcala, moved there in 1543.[68] Bishop Juan de Palafox asserted the income from the diocese of Puebla as being twice that of the archbishopic of Mexico, due to the tithe income derived from agriculture.[69] In its first hundred years, Puebla was prosperous from wheat farming and other agriculture, as the ample tithe income indicates, plus manufacturing woolen cloth for the domestic market. Merchants, manufacturers, and artisans were important to the city’s economic fortunes, but its early prosperity was followed by stagnation and decline in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.[70] The foundation of the town of Puebla was a pragmatic social experiment to settle Spanish immigrants without encomiendas to pursue farming and industry.[71] Puebla was privileged in a number of ways, starting with its status as a Spanish settlement not founded on existing indigenous city-state, but with a significant indigenous population. It was located in a fertile basin on a temperate plateau in the nexus of the key trade triangle of Veracruz - Mexico City – Antequera (Oaxaca). Although there were no encomiendas in Puebla itself, encomenderos with nearby labor grants settled in Puebla. And despite its foundation as a Spanish city, sixteenth-century Puebla had Indians resident in the central core.[72] Administratively Puebla was far enough away from Mexico City (approximately 100 miles) so as not to be under its direct influence. Puebla’s Spanish town council (cabildo) had considerable autonomy and was not dominated by encomenderos. The administrative structure of Puebla “may be seen as a subtle expression of royal absolutism, the granting of extensive privileges to a town of commoners, amounting almost to republican self government, in order to curtail the potential authority of encomenderos and the religious orders, as well as to counterbalance the power of the viceregal capital.”[73] The “golden century” from its founding in 1531 until the early 1600s saw Puebla’s agricultural sector flourish, with small-scale Spanish farmers plowing the land for the first time, planting wheat and vaulting Puebla to importance as New Spain’s breadbasket, a role assumed by the Bajío (including Querétaro) in the seventeenth century, and Guadalajara in the eighteenth.[74] Puebla’s wheat production was the initial element of its prosperity, but it emerged as a manufacturing and commercial center, “serving as the inland port of Mexico’s Atlantic trade.”[75] Economically, the city received exemptions from the alcabala (sales tax) and almojarifazgo (import/export duties) for its first century (1531-1630), which helped promote commerce. Puebla built a significant manufacturing sector, mainly in textile production in workshops (obrajes), supplying New Spain and markets as far away as Guatemala and Peru. Transatlantic ties between a particular Spanish town, Brihuega, and Puebla demonstrate the close connection between the two settlements. The take-off for Puebla’s manufacturing sector did not simply coincide with immigration from Brihuega, but was crucial to “shaping and driving Puebla’s economic development, especially in the manufacturing sector.”[76] Brihuega immigrants not only came to Mexico with expertise in textile production, but the transplanted briocenses provided capital to create large-scale obrajes. Although obrajes in Brihuega were small-scale enterprises, quite a number of them in Puebla employed up to 100 workers. Supplies of wool, water for fulling mills, and labor (free indigenous, incarcerated Indians, black slaves) were available. Although much of Puebla’s textile output was rough cloth, it also produced higher quality dyed cloth with cochineal from Oaxaca and indigo from Guatemala.[77] But by the eighteenth century, Querétaro had displaced Puebla as the mainstay of woolen textile production.[78] In 1787, Puebla became an intendancy as part of the new administrative structuring of the Bourbon Reforms. Valley of Mexico Mexico City dominated the Valley of Mexico, but the valley continued to have dense indigenous populations challenged by growing, increasingly dense Spanish settlement. The Valley of Mexico had many former Indian city-states that became Indian towns in the colonial era. These towns continued to be ruled by indigenous elites under the Spanish crown, with an indigenous governor and a town councils.[79][80] These Indian towns close to the capital were the most desirable ones for encomenderos to hold and for the friars to evangelize. The capital was provisioned by the indigenous towns and its labor was available for enterprises that ultimately created a colonial economy. The gradual drying up of the central lake system created more dry land for farming, but the sixteenth-century population declines allowed Spaniards to expand their acquisition of land. One region that retained strong Indian land holding was the southern fresh water area, which important suppliers of fresh produce to the capital. The area was characterized by intensely cultivated chinampas, man-made extensions of cultivable land into the lake system. These chinampa towns retained a strong indigenous character and Indians continued to hold the majority of that land, despite its closeness to the Spanish capital. A key example is Xochimilco.[81][82][83] Texcoco in the pre-conquest period had been one of the three members of the Aztec Triple Alliance and the cultural center of the empire fell on hard times in the colonial period as an economic backwater. Spaniards with any ambition or connections would be lured by the closeness of Mexico City, so that the Spanish presence was minimal and marginal.[84] Tlaxcala, the major ally of the Spanish against the Aztecs of Tenochtitlan, also became something of a backwater, but like Puebla it did not come under the control of Spanish encomenderos. No elite Spaniards settled there, but like many other Indian towns in the Valley of Mexico, it had an assortment of small-scale merchants, artisans, farmers and ranchers, and textile workshops (obrajes).[85] The South Yucatan The Yucatan peninsula can be seen as a cul-de-sac, [86] and it does indeed have unique features, but it also has strong similarities to other areas in the South. The Yucatan peninsula extends into the Gulf of Mexico and was connected to Caribbean trade routes and Mexico City, far more than some other southern regions, such as Oaxaca.[87] There was three main Spanish settlements, the inland city (‘’ciudad’’) of Mérida, where Spanish civil and religious officials had their headquarters and where the many Spaniards in the province lived. The ‘’villa’’ of Campeche was the peninsula’s port, the key gateway for the whole region. A merchant group developed and expanded dramatically as trade flourished during the seventeenth century.[88] Although that period was once characterized as New Spain’s “century of depression”, for Yucatan this was certainly not the case, with sustained growth from the early seventeenth century to the end of the colonial period.[89] With dense indigenous Maya populations, Yucatan’s encomienda system was established early and persisted far longer than in central Mexico, since fewer Spaniards migrated to the region than in the center.[90] Although Yucatan was a more peripheral area to the colony, since it lacked rich mining areas and no agricultural or other export product, it did have complex of Spanish settlement, with a whole range of social types in the main settlements of Mérida and the villas of Campeche and Valladolid.[91] There was an important sector of mixed-race castas, some of whom were fully at home in both the indigenous and Hispanic worlds. Blacks were an important component of Yucatecan society.[92] The largest population in the province was indigenous Maya, who lived in their communities, but which were in contact with the Hispanic sphere via labor demands and commerce.[93] In Yucatan Spanish rule was largely indirect, allowing these communities considerable political and cultural autonomy. The Maya community, the ‘’cah’’, was the means by which indigenous cultural integrity was maintained. In the economic sphere, unlike many other regions and ethnic groups in Mesoamerica, the Yucatec Maya did not have a pre-conquest network of regular markets to exchange different types of food and craft goods. Perhaps because the peninsula was uniform in its ecosystem local niche production did not develop.[94] Production of cotton textiles, largely by Maya women, helped pay households’ tribute obligations, but basic crops were the basis of the economy. The cah retained considerable land under the control of religious brotherhoods or confraternities (‘’cofradías’’), the device by which Maya communities avoided colonial officials, the clergy, or even indigenous rulers (‘’gobernadores’’) from diverting of community revenues in their ‘’cajas de comunidad’’ (literally community-owned chests that had locks and keys). Cofradías were traditionally lay pious organizations and burial societies, but in Yucatan they became significant holders of land, a source of revenue for pious purposes kept under cah control. “[I]n Yucatan the cofradía in its modified form was the community.”[95] Local Spanish clergy had no reason to object to the arrangement since much of the revenue went for payment for masses or other spiritual matters controlled by the priest. A limiting factor in Yucatan’s economy was the poorness of the limestone soil, which could only support crops for two to three years with land cleared through slash and burn (swidden) agriculture. Access to water was a limiting factor on agriculture, with the limestone escarpment giving way in water filled sinkholes (‘’cenotes’’), but rivers and streams were generally absent on the peninsula. Individuals had rights to land so long as they cleared and tilled them and when the soil was exhausted, they repeated the process. In general Indians lived in a dispersed pattern, which Spanish ‘’congregación’’ or forced resettlement attempted to alter. Collective labor cultivated the confraternities’ lands, which included raising the traditional maize, beans, and cotton. But confraternities also later pursued cattle ranching, as well as mule and horse breeding, depending on the local situation. There is evidence that cofradías in southern Campeche were involved in interregional trade in cacao as well as cattle ranching.[96] Although generally the revenues from crops and animals were devoted to expenses in the spiritual sphere, cofradías’ cattle were used for direct aid to community members during droughts, stabilizing the community’s food supply.[97] In the seventeenth century, patterns shifted in Yucatan and Tabasco, as the English took territory the Spanish claimed but did not control, especially what became British Honduras (now Belize), where they cut dyewood and in Laguna de Términos (Isla del Carmen) where they cut logwood. In 1716-17 viceroy of New Spain organized a sufficient ships to expel the foreigners, where the crown subsequently built a fortress at Isla del Carmen. [98] But the British held onto their territory in the eastern portion of the peninsula into the twentieth century. In the nineteenth century, the enclave supplied guns to the rebellious Maya in the Caste War of Yucatan.[99] |
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