Communications

México’s economic role as supplier of European currency waned when silver production declined under Charles II. At same time, the English in the Caribbean began growing sugar cane.

The calculus of shipping, trade and wealth was altered. During the boom, Spain had sent one fleet a year to México to pick up silver and leave provisions. By the end of the 1600s, departures were less predictable because there was no profit in an empty return load.

Meantime, Dutch ships were servicing the sugar colonies. When the number of export trips increased, so did the number of goods imported into the islands. The English responded by passing laws to monopolize shipping to its colonies. French colonies planted sugar cane. Carolina traders turned southeastern Native Americans into a Caribbean labor resource. Madrid worried about its king’s likely successor.

When communication with México slowed, so did the ability of Madrid to manage its Empire. In 1718, the new Spanish king, Philip V, tried to remedy the problem by ordering mail ships leave for the Indies four times a year. Men with the mail contract resisted, because they still saw no profits.

Communication within the kingdom of New Spain improved some. There were more mining towns along the camino real so the distance to the interior through hostile territory was shorter. El Paso del Norte had become a mission. Natives in its immediate area were less likely to attack.

Conditions still weren’t ideal. Nothing had changed the currents and winds that took two to three months to move sailing ships across the Atlantic. Even so, in 1724, the governor of Nuevo México was notified about the king’s January abdication before 23 September. If the news left with the late March aviso, and took three months to cross, it reached Veracruz in late June. Three months from there to Santa Fé, eight months total.

Of course, by the time the governor issued his proclamation, the new king was dead from smallpox. It took longer for the news of Philip’s reascension to reach the colony: ten months.

Inland communication within Native American groups was quicker, but often second hand. Every band knew white men were trading guns for slaves, but few were sure of differences between the French and English.

Information sent by bands to the governor had to be treated with the same caution as news that arrived in Mexico City from English or French ships in the Caribbean. Both may have been more timely, but motives needed to be evaluated. Plains bands gave the French false information to prevent them from meeting with their enemies. Jicarilla may have exaggerated threats to get protection from the Spanish. Valverde exaggerated the French threat to get more help from Mexico City.

Notes: For more on development of sugarcane, see the posts under Barbados at right.

Kuethe, Allan J. and Kenneth J. Andrien. The Spanish Atlantic World in the Eighteenth Century, 2014.

Lamikiz, Xabier. Trade and Trust in the Eighteenth-Century Atlantic World, 2013.

Marx, Robert F. Shipwrecks in the Americas, 1987.

Pearce, Adrian J. The Origins of Bourbon Reform in Spanish South America, 1700-1763, 2014.