Bourbon Reforms

Philip V inherited a Spanish civil service enfeebled by predecessors who used payments from sales of positions to finance their wars. The men he chose as viceroys in Mexico City were men he’d learned to trust during the War of Spanish Succession. Baltasar de Zúñiga y Guzman had been viceroy of Sardinia between 1704 and 1707, Juan de Acuña had been governor of Messina in Sicily between 1701 and 1713.

Since the rein of Philip II, the monarchy had looked for ways to share benefits that accrued to men in its service. Notaries were the first group required to pay for the privilege of charging set fees for filing government paperwork. When few were willing to bid, Philip made them permanent positions that could be resold in 1581, so long as the crown received a third of the value and the buyers were competent. Santa Cruz friars didn’t maintain their own notaries, but used public ones for diligencias matrimoniales.

In 1606, Philip III expanded the right of resale to members of cabildos with no competency requirement. As many have observed, accurate paperwork was important to the Hapsburgs, but they didn’t want local governments to be have independent powers.

Judicial offices were not sellable, until Charles II began using a subterfuge in the 1670s. John Parry said, there’s no record of governorship sales for Nuevo México before the Revolt. Philip ended the practice in 1713. José Chacón was the last governor appointed under the old system.

While Philip tried to reform his administration, he couldn’t solve the underlying problem that plagued it. There wasn’t enough money to pay adequate salaries. Men at every level were forced to augment their income.

Nuevo México was too poor for simple embezzlement by its governors in these years. Juan Ignacio Flores Mogollón was found guilt of malfeasance. Félix Martínez de Torrelaguna sold Ute slaves, but was removed over irregularities in presidio accounts. Antonio Valverde y Cosío established large land holdings near El Paso del Norte that he worked with Apache slaves captured during his military campaigns. His nephew and son-in-law, Juan Domingo de Bustamante, was found guilty of illegal trade.

The men appointed as governors were sometimes men who had spent years in the colonial bureaucracy. Flores had come from Seville. His previous assignment was the governorship of Nuevo León y Coahuila. Gervasio Cruzat y Góngora, the man who replaced Bustamante, was the grandson of a Philippine governor. He began his career working for the bishop de Durango.

Philip didn’t attempt to reorganize the Spanish military until 1717. Then he limited his changes to Havana. Presidio soldiers were still paid as they had been when enlisted men were expected to support themselves from spoils of war. Valverde had to issue orders in 1718 prohibiting soldiers from selling horses from the royal herd.

He was a Cantabrian businessman who migrated to oversee his interests. De Vargas recruited him and Martínez in Zacatecas. The latter was from Valencia.

Notes: Sales of lesser offices continued until 1812. Governorships were occasionally sold later to support war efforts, according to Eissa-Barroso, but the practice was rare and short-lived each time.

Chartrand, Rene. The Spanish Army in North America 1700-1793, 2011.

Chávez, Angélico. New Mexico Roots, Ltd, 1982.

Eissa-Barroso, Francisco A. "‘Having Served in the Troops’: The Appointment of Military Officers as Provincial Governors in Early Eighteenth-Century Spanish America, 1700-1746," Colonial Latin American Historical Review 1:329-359:2013.

Parry, J. H. The Sale of Public Office in the Spanish Indies under the Hapsburgs, 1953.

Valverde y Cosío, Antonio. Order, 17 July 1718, described in Frederic J. Athearn, A Forgotten Kingdom, 1978.