Nuevo México had a three tiered economy. At the top were merchants who imported finished goods from El Paso and Chihuahua. Below them were pueblo trade fairs that brought in food, raw materials and captives from the plains that were accepted in payment by merchants. Beneath both was the barter for goods and services that sustained life when officially sanctioned outlets failed.
The governor sought to control the first two, but the last usually was invisible. In 1752, San Juan complained that José Antonio Naranjo was living on its land. After he vacated, Naranjo sued the man who sold him the land. In the ensuing legal proceedings, Diego de Torres revealed the price of ten to twelve pesos was paid with five or six goats.
The number and kinds of manufactured products available in Santa Fé was controlled by the Casa de Contratación that worked through the merchants’ guild in Seville. Under the Hapsburgs, everything was transported by ships owned by another guild. Smuggling was defined as any trade not authorized by the Casa.
In 1717, Giulio Alberoni sought to increase trade to the Indies by moving the Casa from Seville to Cádiz. He also began chartering merchant companies. They weren’t as independent as the joint-stock companies responsible for the first successful Atlantic seaboard colonies, those financed by the Massachusetts Bay Company and the Virginia Company. However, they were more open than the royal grants given by Charles II to reward supporters like William Penn or the Hudson’s Bay Company. One, the Royal Guipúzcoan Company, gave Basques a monopoly on trade with Caracas in 1728.
British naval attacks during the War of Austrian Succession revealed weaknesses in Spain’s shipping monopoly. In 1740 the new viceroy, Pedro de Castro, had arrived on a Dutch merchant ship to evade the British. The next viceroy, Pedro Cebrián, resorted to a French ship in 1742. After the war’s end, Zenón de Somodevilla abolished the fleets, and relied on registered vessels, much like the French had been doing since 1716 in the slave trade.
During the War of Polish Succession, Philip V had expanded trade between Manila and Acapulco in 1734. Limits on ship capacity and cargo value had been evaded since they first were instituted, so increasing them probably had little effect. More important, his cédula rescinded one from 1718 that had banned the import of silken and other manufactured goods.
Frederic Athearn has examined commercial papers in the Juárez archives that indicated El Paso had become an entrepôt for both Nuevo México and Tejas. Among the goods listed there in 1749 were quality cloth, which must have come from Manilla, and china, which either came from the Orient or was produced in Puebla. The metal goods would have come from Spain. Ready made clothing probably came from sources in Nueva España.
The primary concern for merchants taking the risks of bringing merchandise north for El Paso was how they would be reimbursed. That same year, 1749, Juan José Aramburu was trying to collect unpaid debts in Santa Fé. Ralph Twitchell noted, that during the legal proceedings, he "gives prices of merchandise and demonstrates the scarcity of money at the time."
It’s not known if local merchants were yet using debt as a way of entrapping their customers. For that to be lucrative, people either needed to own things of value or there had to be no pool of cheap, servile labor. Captives were too easily available to make the latter a motive.
Where we do know debt was used to coerce cooperation was from one of the governors, Francisco Marín. He had borrowed 22,000 pesos de oro from a Mexico City merchant at 5% annual interest in March of 1754. After Marín married Jacinto Martínez y Aguirre’s daughter in April, the governor agreed his father-in-law could "collect whatever is provided for the presidios in New Mexico."
Martínez was born Imirizaldu in Navarre. In 1752 he was granted the concession to collect taxes on all pulque brought into Mexico City. He later became alcalde ordinario of the city. Juan Pedro Viqueira noted, it was only after the Crown eliminated tax farmers in 1760 and began collecting taxes directly that the Treasury saw much revenue from the sale of the fermented maguey nectar.
In January of 1755, the soldiers in the Santa Fé presidio had signed powers of attorney to the Marín, who then forwarded them to Martínez. Juan Sanz claimed in 1760, "The soldiers are paid every year to the value of one hundred and fifty pesos with clothing of the poorest quality, and the remainder is paid in supplies; whether they want them or not, they must take them." It was the merchandise that Martínez was providing.
Sanz also complained about the use of two currencies, the one merchants used to buy goods, and the one they used to sell. "Corn is sold at a regular price which does not rise or fall; it is four pesos of this country, equivalent to two pesos in silver. A fanega of wheat is worth the same; sheep, ewes, and goats, bring two pesos of the country; beans bring eight pesos of the country, and so on for other things. The solider is furnished with corn at three pesos and a half in silver, wheat at four pesos, beans at eight in silver; yearling calves are worth five pesos of the country, but the soldier pays eight in silver. A string of chile and onions costs one peso of this country, but the soldier pays one peso and four reales in silver."
In contrast to the soldiers, Santiago de Roybal said his pay as a secular clergyman was "paid in silver or in money I can amass." However, most of his cash reserves, 4,000 piastres, were held in Chihuahua. His brother-in-law, José de Reaño de Tagle, also had 5,000 pesos in silver and 6 reales in gold with José Gómez de Barreda in Chihuahua.
Retrieving money from Chihuahua wasn’t easy. After Reaño died, his widow sent her son-in-law, Juan Gabaldón, down to "sell and settle accounts of which was valued at 909 pesos, 7 reales in goods, animals and slaves. Then he purchased goods in the name of María Roybal cloth, household items, soaps, silver items, value of 40,158 pesos." One suspects he also was given at an unfavorable exchange rate. After all, Barreda had moved from Spain to San Felipe in modern Chihuahua in 1736. By the 1740s, he was often the alcalde.
Notes: Naranjo was the grandson of José López Naranjo through his son José Antonio Naranjo and Juana Márquez de Ayala. Neither gave the actual amount, Naranjo gave a high number, Torres a lower one. They left it to the judge to decide damages in the range they specified.
Post for 2 September 2015 discussed changes in French slave trade. The one for 28 June 2015 described Pedro Rivera’s attempt to overcharging soldiers with fixed prices. Charles Cutter’s comments on two currencies appeared in the post for 6 January 2016. Juan Manuel Gabaldón married the daughter of María de Roybal and Miguel de Archibeque.
Athearn, Frederic J. A Forgotten Kingdom, 1978.
Bancroft, Hubert Howe. History of Mexico, Volume III, 1600-1803, 1883.
Christmas, Henrietta Martinez. 1598 New Mexico, blog.
Codallos y Rabal, Joachin. Estate proceedings, José Reaño, 17 April 1744, Santa Fé; translated by Christmas, entry for 23 April 2014; spelling standardized.
Hendricks, Rick. "Francisco Antonio Marín del Valle," New Mexico History website.
Martin, Cheryl English. Governance and Society in Colonial Mexico, 2000; on Barreda.
Munárriz Urtasun, Eufrasio de. "El Cambio de Apellidos en la Vieja Navarra," Revista Internacional de los Estudios Vascos 14:401-403:1923; on Jacinto Martínez y Aguirre.
Reaño de Tagle, José de. Will and inventory, 1743; published by Christmas, entry for 21 April 2014.
Roybal, Santiago de. Letter to Nicholas Ignatius de Beaubois, 1740, translation in Donald J. Blakeslee, Along Ancient Trails, 1995.
Sanz de Lezaún, Juan. An account of lamentable happenings in New Mexico and of losses experienced daily in affairs spiritual and temporal, 4 November1760; translation in Adolph F. A. Bandelier and Fanny R. Bandelier, Historical Documents Relating to New Mexico, Nueva Vizcaya, and Approaches Thereto, to 1773, volume 3, 1937, translated and edited by Charles Wilson Hackett.
Twitchell, Ralph Emerson. Spanish Archives of New Mexico, two volumes, 1914; Naranjo in volume 1, Aramburu in volume 2.
Viqueira Albán, Juan Pedro. ¿Relajados o Reprimidos? 1987; translated by Sonya Lipsett-Rivera and Sergio Rivera-Ayala as Propriety and Permissiveness in Bourbon Mexico, 1999; on Jacinto Martínez y Aguirre.
Sunday, February 28, 2016
Wednesday, February 24, 2016
Drought
Great Britain’s wars with France and Spain altered the frontiers of Nueva España. During the War of Spanish Succession, the French were exploring the Mississippi river. But, by 1726 when Pedro de Rivera visited Nuevo México, they no longer were seen as a threat coming from the plains, but as one infiltrating the gulf coast. Franciscans were sent into Tejas.
México had always provoked defensive reactions from natives when new areas for mining introduced haciendas and estancias. The Santa Eulalia range near modern day Ciudad de Chihuahua was opened in 1707. Within weeks there were 15 mines. Okayh Jones estimated the population in 1725 was 2,500. Less than 20 years later, in 1742, nearly 18,000 lived there.
Expansion of the Spanish population into the north provoked new hostilities. Rivera was trying to find resources to establish a garrison where the Conchas emptied into the Río Grande from the south, when he eliminated presidio positions in Santa Fé. When Benito Crespo suggested consolidating missions in Nuevo México in 1730, it was because "for five years the fix or six missions of the north at the Junta de los Ríos, also belonging to this Custody, have been without ministers."
The needs to simultaneously defend the silver areas from hostile bands, deflect French ambitions, and protect the coast from Great Britain coincided with years of intermittent drought that began in 1735 and continued until 1744. The next three years saw more precipitation, with an El Niño in 1747. After that, wet years alternated with very dry ones in the 1750s.
Edward Cook and others at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory have tried to reconstruct the western climate by analyzing tree ring records from a number of sites. They classified them by their relative wetness or dryness on a scale of 0 to 3. I’ve summarized their data in the table below to show how many sites were arid in any given year.
The greater the number of sites, given as a percentage in the right most column, the more likely it was any particular area might have been dry. I highlighted those years when 60% or more tree ring locations were arid.
In 1736, a matlazáhuatl epidemic broke out near Mexico City, where it eventually killed a third of the population, mostly natives. The outbreak, which many think was a form of typus, spread to Zacatecas the next year with travelers and migrants. It arrived during a grain shortage, which exacerbated its effects.
The infection moved north to the Pima who lived in the Santa Cruz valley between Nogales and the Gila river. Again it was taken by visitors, but this time spread for reasons specific to the efforts of Jesuits to move groups into missions.
It may or may not have reached this far north. Death usually occurred within seven days, less time than the time it took to travel from Chihuahua to Albuquerque. However, Angélico Chávez found evidence in the Santa Cruz burial records than "many children died" in October of 1737 with "no cause given." In November of that year, 38 died in Santa Fé. Another 67 were buried the following October and November.
Slave raiders in the most affected parts of México went north to replenish the labor supply destroyed by disease, arousing more hostilities in the buffer area between settlement and the southern pueblo frontier.
Apache bands, which had been pushed south earlier, coalesced into new groups that crossed the Río Grande. The Mescalero harassed the new routes east to Tejas, the Chiricahua raided in the west. The Comanche east of the Sangre de Cristo moved farther south, raiding as they went. Their hostility forced the Lipan south toward the Tejas missions. By 1747, the Utes were aggressive west of the Jémez.
Within the kingdom, the effects of adverse conditions weren’t directly recorded in documents that survived, but were reflected in requests for land grants. In 1736, five men asked the alcalde mayor of Albuquerque to permit their return to grazing lands near Isleta pueblo. They said they had left the area when the governor ordered them to, "but when they did, they found a shortage of grass."
More specific comments were made by Vicente de Armijo in 1743. He wanted to leave Santa Fé for lands near Nambé because, after several arid years,
"Having experienced innumerable sufferings and hunger and nakedness and other misfortunes in this poor kingdom on account of having lost our personal labor in our corn and wheat fields, with which we were to meet our obligations, owing to the scarcity of water in the river running through the city, which arises from the absence of rain for some time back, and our personal labor upon our grain crops being useless as they have all failed."
Rivers became unpredictable, flooding even in dry years when the surface was too parched to absorb what rain or snow did fall. In 1739, the Río Grande carved a new course around Angostura where the Santa Ana and San Felipe live today. Farther south, Francisco Silva and others petitioned for land at Tomé because they didn’t have enough land to raise crops "on account of a scarcity of water." Juan González Bas, the local alcalde, added the area was "very damp and in danger of being inundated again."
A decade later, across the river at Isleta, Carlos Delgado noted the friars were "exposed to great danger and peril at all times, having to cross rivers in canoes and often at night, and at time when their waters are in flood and very rapid."
The drought was so severe in 1752, the Río Grande was dry for its entire run though the kingdom. Then it flooded "almost every year from 1753 to 1760."
When the bishop of Durango was making his visit in 1660, the river was too high to cross at Santa Cruz in mid-June. A few weeks later, it took Pedro Tamarón’s entourage half an hour to cross the widened Río Grande from Isleta to Tomé.
The dry spell between 1755 and 1758 was accompanied by warmer temperatures. Then, winters must have become colder. In 1760, Manuel Rojo said the river froze as far south as Albuquerque. "When the ice thundered, he thought he was on the way to the bottom, because when one crosses it, it creaks as if it were about to break."
Notes: The five men near Isleta were probably Pedro Barela, José Sanches, Antonio Lucero, Juan García, and Jacinto Barela. On 30 January 1736 they were "asking permission to remain with their herds." The progenitors of Juan González Bas lived in La Cañada before the Revolt. He was discussed in the post for 19 March and 7 April 2014. Twitchell identified him as Juan Griego Bas. Crespo’s suggested reforms were described in the post for 28 June 2015.
Adams, Eleanor B. Bishop Tamarón’s Visitation of New Mexico, 1760, 1954.
Armijo, Vicente de. Petition, 1739; translation in Twitchell, volume 1.
Baxter, John O. Las Carneradas, 1987; on petition for grant near Isleta.
Chávez, Angélico. Archives of the Archdiocese of Santa Fe, 1678-1900, 1957.
Cook, E. R., D. M. Meko, and C. W. Stockton. "U.S. Drought Area Index Reconstruction," 1998, from the International Tree-Ring Data Bank, Boulder, Colorado.
Crespo y Monroy, Benito. Letter to the viceroy, Juan Vásquez de Acuña, 8 September 1730; translation in Adams; recommended consolidating missions.
Delgado, Carlos. Report to our Reverend Father Ximeno concerning the abominable hostilities and tyrannies of the governors and alcaldes mayores toward the Indians, to the consternation of the custodia, 1750; in Adolph F. A. Bandelier and Fanny R. Bandelier, Historical Documents Relating to New Mexico, Nueva Vizcaya, and Approaches Thereto, to 1773, volume 3, 1937, translated and edited by Charles Wilson Hackett.
Dobyns, Henry F. Tubac through the Centuries, 15 March 1959.
Ellis, Florence Hawley "Tomé and Father J. B. R.," New Mexico Historical Review 30:89-114:1955; quotation by González Bas cited by Scurlock.
Jones, Okayh L. Junior. Nueva Vizcaya, 1988. The population in Saint Eulalia in 1725 was 214 vecinos; 292 vecinos were in San Felipe, now Ciudad de Chihuahua. He multiplied their totals by 5 to estimate the population.
Raigoza Quiñónez, José Luis. "Factores de Influencia para la Transmisión y Difusión del Matlazáhuatl en Zacatecas 1737-38," Scripta Nova, August 2006.
Rivera, Pedro de. Report to the Oidor de Guerra, 1726, in José Antonio Pichardo manuscript, 1808-1812, translated and annotated by Charles Wilson Hackett in Pichardo’s Treatise of the Limits of Louisiana and Texas, volume 1, 1931.
Scurlock, Dan. From the Rio to the Sierra: An Environmental History of the Middle Rio Grande Basin, 1998; on floods in 1750s.
Tamarón y Romeral, Pedro. The Kingdom of New Mexico, 1760, translation in Adams. He began his stay at Albuquerque on May 20, at Santa Cruz on June 14, and at Isleta on July 3.
Twitchell, Ralph Emerson. Spanish Archives of New Mexico, two volumes, 1914; quotations about Varela petition and Tomé in volume 1.
Table: Precipitation data for western United States from Cook. Each site was rated on a scale of 0 to 3. Dry, Wet and Total columns are the total number of points with negative (dry) or positive (wet) readings. Years with at least 60% of their areas dry are in boldface.
México had always provoked defensive reactions from natives when new areas for mining introduced haciendas and estancias. The Santa Eulalia range near modern day Ciudad de Chihuahua was opened in 1707. Within weeks there were 15 mines. Okayh Jones estimated the population in 1725 was 2,500. Less than 20 years later, in 1742, nearly 18,000 lived there.
Expansion of the Spanish population into the north provoked new hostilities. Rivera was trying to find resources to establish a garrison where the Conchas emptied into the Río Grande from the south, when he eliminated presidio positions in Santa Fé. When Benito Crespo suggested consolidating missions in Nuevo México in 1730, it was because "for five years the fix or six missions of the north at the Junta de los Ríos, also belonging to this Custody, have been without ministers."
The needs to simultaneously defend the silver areas from hostile bands, deflect French ambitions, and protect the coast from Great Britain coincided with years of intermittent drought that began in 1735 and continued until 1744. The next three years saw more precipitation, with an El Niño in 1747. After that, wet years alternated with very dry ones in the 1750s.
Edward Cook and others at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory have tried to reconstruct the western climate by analyzing tree ring records from a number of sites. They classified them by their relative wetness or dryness on a scale of 0 to 3. I’ve summarized their data in the table below to show how many sites were arid in any given year.
| Year | Dry | Wet | Total | % Dry | Wars | |
| 1733 | 128 | 133 | 261 | 0.49 | War of Polish Succession | |
| 1734 | 109 | 103 | 212 | 0.51 | ||
| 1735 | 275 | 46 | 321 | 0.86 | ||
| 1736 | 279 | 46 | 325 | 0.86 | ||
| 1737 | 167 | 111 | 278 | 0.60 | ||
| 1738 | 104 | 139 | 243 | 0.43 | Peace Treaty | |
| 1739 | 169 | 83 | 252 | 0.67 | Spain Default | |
| 1740 | 112 | 131 | 243 | 0.46 | War of Austrian Succession | |
| 1741 | 192 | 58 | 250 | 0.77 | ||
| 1742 | 197 | 52 | 249 | 0.79 | ||
| 1743 | 148 | 92 | 240 | 0.62 | ||
| 1744 | 169 | 71 | 240 | 0.70 | ||
| 1745 | 45 | 221 | 266 | 0.17 | ||
| 1746 | 80 | 277 | 357 | 0.22 | ||
| 1747 | 39 | 197 | 236 | 0.17 | ||
| 1748 | 241 | 48 | 289 | 0.83 | Peace Treaty | |
| 1749 | 101 | 142 | 243 | 0.42 | ||
| 1750 | 75 | 176 | 251 | 0.30 | ||
| 1751 | 84 | 113 | 197 | 0.43 | ||
| 1752 | 230 | 53 | 283 | 0.81 | ||
| 1753 | 164 | 70 | 234 | 0.70 | ||
| 1754 | 98 | 122 | 220 | 0.45 | Seven Year's War | |
| 1755 | 148 | 74 | 222 | 0.67 | ||
| 1756 | 273 | 55 | 328 | 0.83 | ||
| 1757 | 286 | 22 | 308 | 0.93 | ||
| 1758 | 117 | 134 | 251 | 0.47 | ||
| 1759 | 135 | 103 | 238 | 0.57 | ||
| 1760 | 121 | 119 | 240 | 0.50 |
The greater the number of sites, given as a percentage in the right most column, the more likely it was any particular area might have been dry. I highlighted those years when 60% or more tree ring locations were arid.
In 1736, a matlazáhuatl epidemic broke out near Mexico City, where it eventually killed a third of the population, mostly natives. The outbreak, which many think was a form of typus, spread to Zacatecas the next year with travelers and migrants. It arrived during a grain shortage, which exacerbated its effects.
The infection moved north to the Pima who lived in the Santa Cruz valley between Nogales and the Gila river. Again it was taken by visitors, but this time spread for reasons specific to the efforts of Jesuits to move groups into missions.
It may or may not have reached this far north. Death usually occurred within seven days, less time than the time it took to travel from Chihuahua to Albuquerque. However, Angélico Chávez found evidence in the Santa Cruz burial records than "many children died" in October of 1737 with "no cause given." In November of that year, 38 died in Santa Fé. Another 67 were buried the following October and November.
Slave raiders in the most affected parts of México went north to replenish the labor supply destroyed by disease, arousing more hostilities in the buffer area between settlement and the southern pueblo frontier.
Apache bands, which had been pushed south earlier, coalesced into new groups that crossed the Río Grande. The Mescalero harassed the new routes east to Tejas, the Chiricahua raided in the west. The Comanche east of the Sangre de Cristo moved farther south, raiding as they went. Their hostility forced the Lipan south toward the Tejas missions. By 1747, the Utes were aggressive west of the Jémez.
Within the kingdom, the effects of adverse conditions weren’t directly recorded in documents that survived, but were reflected in requests for land grants. In 1736, five men asked the alcalde mayor of Albuquerque to permit their return to grazing lands near Isleta pueblo. They said they had left the area when the governor ordered them to, "but when they did, they found a shortage of grass."
More specific comments were made by Vicente de Armijo in 1743. He wanted to leave Santa Fé for lands near Nambé because, after several arid years,
"Having experienced innumerable sufferings and hunger and nakedness and other misfortunes in this poor kingdom on account of having lost our personal labor in our corn and wheat fields, with which we were to meet our obligations, owing to the scarcity of water in the river running through the city, which arises from the absence of rain for some time back, and our personal labor upon our grain crops being useless as they have all failed."
Rivers became unpredictable, flooding even in dry years when the surface was too parched to absorb what rain or snow did fall. In 1739, the Río Grande carved a new course around Angostura where the Santa Ana and San Felipe live today. Farther south, Francisco Silva and others petitioned for land at Tomé because they didn’t have enough land to raise crops "on account of a scarcity of water." Juan González Bas, the local alcalde, added the area was "very damp and in danger of being inundated again."
A decade later, across the river at Isleta, Carlos Delgado noted the friars were "exposed to great danger and peril at all times, having to cross rivers in canoes and often at night, and at time when their waters are in flood and very rapid."
The drought was so severe in 1752, the Río Grande was dry for its entire run though the kingdom. Then it flooded "almost every year from 1753 to 1760."
When the bishop of Durango was making his visit in 1660, the river was too high to cross at Santa Cruz in mid-June. A few weeks later, it took Pedro Tamarón’s entourage half an hour to cross the widened Río Grande from Isleta to Tomé.
The dry spell between 1755 and 1758 was accompanied by warmer temperatures. Then, winters must have become colder. In 1760, Manuel Rojo said the river froze as far south as Albuquerque. "When the ice thundered, he thought he was on the way to the bottom, because when one crosses it, it creaks as if it were about to break."
Notes: The five men near Isleta were probably Pedro Barela, José Sanches, Antonio Lucero, Juan García, and Jacinto Barela. On 30 January 1736 they were "asking permission to remain with their herds." The progenitors of Juan González Bas lived in La Cañada before the Revolt. He was discussed in the post for 19 March and 7 April 2014. Twitchell identified him as Juan Griego Bas. Crespo’s suggested reforms were described in the post for 28 June 2015.
Adams, Eleanor B. Bishop Tamarón’s Visitation of New Mexico, 1760, 1954.
Armijo, Vicente de. Petition, 1739; translation in Twitchell, volume 1.
Baxter, John O. Las Carneradas, 1987; on petition for grant near Isleta.
Chávez, Angélico. Archives of the Archdiocese of Santa Fe, 1678-1900, 1957.
Cook, E. R., D. M. Meko, and C. W. Stockton. "U.S. Drought Area Index Reconstruction," 1998, from the International Tree-Ring Data Bank, Boulder, Colorado.
Crespo y Monroy, Benito. Letter to the viceroy, Juan Vásquez de Acuña, 8 September 1730; translation in Adams; recommended consolidating missions.
Delgado, Carlos. Report to our Reverend Father Ximeno concerning the abominable hostilities and tyrannies of the governors and alcaldes mayores toward the Indians, to the consternation of the custodia, 1750; in Adolph F. A. Bandelier and Fanny R. Bandelier, Historical Documents Relating to New Mexico, Nueva Vizcaya, and Approaches Thereto, to 1773, volume 3, 1937, translated and edited by Charles Wilson Hackett.
Dobyns, Henry F. Tubac through the Centuries, 15 March 1959.
Ellis, Florence Hawley "Tomé and Father J. B. R.," New Mexico Historical Review 30:89-114:1955; quotation by González Bas cited by Scurlock.
Jones, Okayh L. Junior. Nueva Vizcaya, 1988. The population in Saint Eulalia in 1725 was 214 vecinos; 292 vecinos were in San Felipe, now Ciudad de Chihuahua. He multiplied their totals by 5 to estimate the population.
Raigoza Quiñónez, José Luis. "Factores de Influencia para la Transmisión y Difusión del Matlazáhuatl en Zacatecas 1737-38," Scripta Nova, August 2006.
Rivera, Pedro de. Report to the Oidor de Guerra, 1726, in José Antonio Pichardo manuscript, 1808-1812, translated and annotated by Charles Wilson Hackett in Pichardo’s Treatise of the Limits of Louisiana and Texas, volume 1, 1931.
Scurlock, Dan. From the Rio to the Sierra: An Environmental History of the Middle Rio Grande Basin, 1998; on floods in 1750s.
Tamarón y Romeral, Pedro. The Kingdom of New Mexico, 1760, translation in Adams. He began his stay at Albuquerque on May 20, at Santa Cruz on June 14, and at Isleta on July 3.
Twitchell, Ralph Emerson. Spanish Archives of New Mexico, two volumes, 1914; quotations about Varela petition and Tomé in volume 1.
Table: Precipitation data for western United States from Cook. Each site was rated on a scale of 0 to 3. Dry, Wet and Total columns are the total number of points with negative (dry) or positive (wet) readings. Years with at least 60% of their areas dry are in boldface.
Sunday, February 21, 2016
Financing Spain’s Debt
Philip V’s wars not only sapped Spain’s treasury, but created a large cadre of military officers who needed to be kept loyal between conflicts. After the War of Spanish Succession, he had stopped selling strategic commands in the Indies, and given the positions to seasoned men.
All five of his appointed viceroys and five of the governors who served Nueva México between 1733 and 1760 had military backgrounds. One man who served as an interim head of Nueva España was the archbishop; the other two came from the audiencia. The one civilian governor, Francisco Marín, had been involved with mining in Potosí and was a merchant in México.
The promotion of military officers not only provided an avenue for upward mobility for men from the minor nobility, but it also removed the ambitious from the neighborhood of the court. Francisco Eissa-Barroso found Philip only reverted to auctioning governorships a few times to finance his Italian campaigns: twice in 1728, once in 1731, three times in 1733-3. With the War of Austrian Succession, he sold one incumbency in 1739 and four in 1741. None were in Nuevo México.
Unfortunately, Philip’s deployment of talented soldiers meant lost revenues. Men serving defense functions were exempt from many taxes and fees. Before his death in July of 1746, he issued three decrees regarding the collection of media anata. This fee dated back to Philip II. When facing bankruptcy, the Hapsburg ruler had demanded each person appointed to office remit half his first year’s salary. Military men later were exempted.
The then governor, Joaquín Codallos, responded he hadn’t paid because he had a military appointment. Authorities in Mexico City agreed, but asked for more detail on the functions his predecessors had performed. His witnesses all testified no governor ever paid the media anata and "the poverty of the province was such that none of the inhabitants paid any fees or tribute." Lest any one of them be found liable, they added "the seven alcaldes mayores received no pay and very little fees."
Philip turned his economic problems over to Zenón de Somodevilla y Bengoechea in 1743. His minister for the treasury, defense and the Indies had begun as a navy clerk in 1720, then been promoted on merit to supervise a naval arsenal in 1731. For services rendered, Philip’s son Charles made him Marqués de la Ensenada in Naples in 1736.
Many of his suggestions for reform were opposed by the Spanish nobility. He found more cooperation from the viceroy in Nueva España. Pedro Cebrián tried to improve the collection of existing taxes, tithes, and fees. He established government monopolies, including one on salt, and banned cards and dice.
The local governor, Enrique de Olavide, dutifully issued a bando "ordering the imprisonment of citizens and soldiers found gambling with dice" in 1737, and repeated it the following year. However, salt remained an expense, not a monopoly. He provided military escorts for the trips to the salt lakes in 1738. His successor, Gaspar de Mendoza, did the same in 1739, 1740, and 1742.
In 1744, Somodevilla asked Cebrián for statistics on the viceroyalty. He, in turn, commissioned José Antonio Villaseñor to conduct the first formal census. The counts were made with taxation in mind. He listed numbers of families, not individuals. It’s not clear if he included the 80 families associated with the presidio, since they may have been exempt from taxes.
Households would be a better term, since it did not, according to Frederic Athearn, include servants or Indians living outside the pueblos. If one assumed families averaged two children and two servants, then the total population would have been about 5,500. If one assumed pueblo families also averaged two children, then their population would have been 3,680. If one assumed families were larger, then the total population number would be increased, but not the number of the enumerated.
The distribution of Spanish families was uneven. The presence of ranchos in the counts for some pueblos indicated settlers had claimed land. They may have inflated some pueblo populations, and more important, understated the tax base. Cebrián’s successor tried to rectify this in 1748. Francisco de Güemes ordered governors to count the Spaniards when they visited the pueblos.
If one adjusts for the ranchos, there may have been a thousand taxable men in the kingdom, with most in Santa Cruz, followed closely by Santa Fé. Albuquerque probably had half their numbers.
Notes: Little is known about Marín, so everyone repeats the phrase "worked in the mines." That didn’t mean he did the physical extraction; that was skilled labor done by natives. In Nueva España at the time, the term miner usually referred to prospectors or to men who financed the development and operation of mines.
Athearn, Frederic J. A Forgotten Kingdom, 1978.
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.
Codallos y Rabal, Joaquín. Letter to Juez del Real Derecho regarding media anata, 2 August 1747; summarized by Twitchell.
Felipe V. Royal decree regarding media anata, 31 July 1746; summarized by Twitchell.
Güemes y Horcasitas, Francisco de. Dispatch from the supreme government regarding Spaniards in pueblos, 31 July 1748; summarized by Twitchell.
Mendoza, Gaspar Domingo de. Bandos regarding departure date for escorts to salt lakes, June 1739, July 1740, 25 May 1742; summarized by Twitchell.
Olavide y Micheleña, Enrique de. Bandos regarding gambling with dice, 21 January 1737; gambling, 24 March 1738; departure date for escort to salt lakes, 12 July 1738; by Twitchell.
Ortuño, Manuel. "Cebrián and Agustín Pedro (1687-1752)," Enciclopedia Universal Micronet website.
Twitchell, Ralph Emerson. Spanish Archives of New Mexico, volume 2, 1914.
Villaseñor, José Antonio. Census; summarized by Hubert Howe Bancroft, History of Arizona and New Mexico, 1530-1888, 1889.
Nueva España Viceroys with Military Backgrounds
Juan de Acuña - captain - infantry, Perú
Pedro de Castro y Figueroa - captain general - armies
Pedro Cebrián y Agustín - army
Francisco de Guemes y Horcasitas - captain general - Cuba
Agustin Ahumada y Villalon - lieutenant colonel - royal guards, Italy
Interim Viceroys
Juan Antonio Vizarrón y Eguiarreta - archbishop
Pedro Malo de Villavicencio - audiencia, lawyer
Francisco Antonio de Echávarri - audiencia, inspector of mines
Nuevo México Governors with Military Backgrounds
Gervasio Cruzat y Góngora - colonel - army
Enrique de Olivade y Micheleña - lieutenant - navy
Gaspar Domingo de Mendoza - lieutenant colonel - infantry
Joaquín Codallos y Rabal - major - army
Tomás Vélez Cachupín - cadet - Havana
Governors with Civilian Backgrounds
Francisco Antonio Marín del Valle - mines, merchant
Note: sources often convert Spanish terms into American, so titles and branches only suggest experiences.
All five of his appointed viceroys and five of the governors who served Nueva México between 1733 and 1760 had military backgrounds. One man who served as an interim head of Nueva España was the archbishop; the other two came from the audiencia. The one civilian governor, Francisco Marín, had been involved with mining in Potosí and was a merchant in México.
The promotion of military officers not only provided an avenue for upward mobility for men from the minor nobility, but it also removed the ambitious from the neighborhood of the court. Francisco Eissa-Barroso found Philip only reverted to auctioning governorships a few times to finance his Italian campaigns: twice in 1728, once in 1731, three times in 1733-3. With the War of Austrian Succession, he sold one incumbency in 1739 and four in 1741. None were in Nuevo México.
Unfortunately, Philip’s deployment of talented soldiers meant lost revenues. Men serving defense functions were exempt from many taxes and fees. Before his death in July of 1746, he issued three decrees regarding the collection of media anata. This fee dated back to Philip II. When facing bankruptcy, the Hapsburg ruler had demanded each person appointed to office remit half his first year’s salary. Military men later were exempted.
The then governor, Joaquín Codallos, responded he hadn’t paid because he had a military appointment. Authorities in Mexico City agreed, but asked for more detail on the functions his predecessors had performed. His witnesses all testified no governor ever paid the media anata and "the poverty of the province was such that none of the inhabitants paid any fees or tribute." Lest any one of them be found liable, they added "the seven alcaldes mayores received no pay and very little fees."
Philip turned his economic problems over to Zenón de Somodevilla y Bengoechea in 1743. His minister for the treasury, defense and the Indies had begun as a navy clerk in 1720, then been promoted on merit to supervise a naval arsenal in 1731. For services rendered, Philip’s son Charles made him Marqués de la Ensenada in Naples in 1736.
Many of his suggestions for reform were opposed by the Spanish nobility. He found more cooperation from the viceroy in Nueva España. Pedro Cebrián tried to improve the collection of existing taxes, tithes, and fees. He established government monopolies, including one on salt, and banned cards and dice.
The local governor, Enrique de Olavide, dutifully issued a bando "ordering the imprisonment of citizens and soldiers found gambling with dice" in 1737, and repeated it the following year. However, salt remained an expense, not a monopoly. He provided military escorts for the trips to the salt lakes in 1738. His successor, Gaspar de Mendoza, did the same in 1739, 1740, and 1742.
In 1744, Somodevilla asked Cebrián for statistics on the viceroyalty. He, in turn, commissioned José Antonio Villaseñor to conduct the first formal census. The counts were made with taxation in mind. He listed numbers of families, not individuals. It’s not clear if he included the 80 families associated with the presidio, since they may have been exempt from taxes.
Households would be a better term, since it did not, according to Frederic Athearn, include servants or Indians living outside the pueblos. If one assumed families averaged two children and two servants, then the total population would have been about 5,500. If one assumed pueblo families also averaged two children, then their population would have been 3,680. If one assumed families were larger, then the total population number would be increased, but not the number of the enumerated.
The distribution of Spanish families was uneven. The presence of ranchos in the counts for some pueblos indicated settlers had claimed land. They may have inflated some pueblo populations, and more important, understated the tax base. Cebrián’s successor tried to rectify this in 1748. Francisco de Güemes ordered governors to count the Spaniards when they visited the pueblos.
If one adjusts for the ranchos, there may have been a thousand taxable men in the kingdom, with most in Santa Cruz, followed closely by Santa Fé. Albuquerque probably had half their numbers.
| Count | Spaniard | Pueblo | Total | % Spaniard | Notes | |
| Central | ||||||
| Cochití | 85 | Includes ranchos | ||||
| Galisteo | 50 | Includes ranchos | ||||
| Nambé | 50 | |||||
| Pecos | 125 | |||||
| Pojoaque | 18 | |||||
| Santa Fé | 300 | |||||
| Santo Dominngo | 50 | |||||
| Tesuque | 50 | |||||
| 350 | 378 | 728 | 0.48 | |||
| South | ||||||
| Alameda | 8 | |||||
| Albuquerque | 100 | Includes Atrisco | ||||
| Bocas | 10 | |||||
| Cia | 50 | Includes 2 ranchos | ||||
| Fuenclara | 50 | |||||
| Isleta | 80 | |||||
| Jémez | 100 | |||||
| San Felipe | 60 | Includes ranchos | ||||
| Santa Ana | 50 | |||||
| 168 | 340 | 508 | 0.33 | |||
| North | ||||||
| Chama | 17 | |||||
| La Soledad | 40 | |||||
| Ojo Caliente | 56 | Includes 4 ranchos | ||||
| San Ildefonso | 100 | Includes Santa Clara | ||||
| San Juan | 60 | |||||
| Santa Cruz de la Cañada | 260 | Includes ranchos | ||||
| Santa Rosa de Abiquiú | 20 | |||||
| 393 | 160 | 553 | 0.71 | |||
| Far West | ||||||
| Ácoma | 110 | |||||
| Laguna | 60 | Includes 3 ranchos | ||||
| Zuñi | 150 | |||||
| Far North | ||||||
| Embudo | 8 | |||||
| Picurís | 80 | |||||
| Taos | 80 | Includes some ranchos | ||||
| 8 | 160 | 168 | 0.05 | |||
| Total | 2,277 | 919 | 1,038 | 1,957 | 0.47 |
Notes: Little is known about Marín, so everyone repeats the phrase "worked in the mines." That didn’t mean he did the physical extraction; that was skilled labor done by natives. In Nueva España at the time, the term miner usually referred to prospectors or to men who financed the development and operation of mines.
Athearn, Frederic J. A Forgotten Kingdom, 1978.
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.
Codallos y Rabal, Joaquín. Letter to Juez del Real Derecho regarding media anata, 2 August 1747; summarized by Twitchell.
Felipe V. Royal decree regarding media anata, 31 July 1746; summarized by Twitchell.
Güemes y Horcasitas, Francisco de. Dispatch from the supreme government regarding Spaniards in pueblos, 31 July 1748; summarized by Twitchell.
Mendoza, Gaspar Domingo de. Bandos regarding departure date for escorts to salt lakes, June 1739, July 1740, 25 May 1742; summarized by Twitchell.
Olavide y Micheleña, Enrique de. Bandos regarding gambling with dice, 21 January 1737; gambling, 24 March 1738; departure date for escort to salt lakes, 12 July 1738; by Twitchell.
Ortuño, Manuel. "Cebrián and Agustín Pedro (1687-1752)," Enciclopedia Universal Micronet website.
Twitchell, Ralph Emerson. Spanish Archives of New Mexico, volume 2, 1914.
Villaseñor, José Antonio. Census; summarized by Hubert Howe Bancroft, History of Arizona and New Mexico, 1530-1888, 1889.
Nueva España Viceroys with Military Backgrounds
Juan de Acuña - captain - infantry, Perú
Pedro de Castro y Figueroa - captain general - armies
Pedro Cebrián y Agustín - army
Francisco de Guemes y Horcasitas - captain general - Cuba
Agustin Ahumada y Villalon - lieutenant colonel - royal guards, Italy
Interim Viceroys
Juan Antonio Vizarrón y Eguiarreta - archbishop
Pedro Malo de Villavicencio - audiencia, lawyer
Francisco Antonio de Echávarri - audiencia, inspector of mines
Nuevo México Governors with Military Backgrounds
Gervasio Cruzat y Góngora - colonel - army
Enrique de Olivade y Micheleña - lieutenant - navy
Gaspar Domingo de Mendoza - lieutenant colonel - infantry
Joaquín Codallos y Rabal - major - army
Tomás Vélez Cachupín - cadet - Havana
Governors with Civilian Backgrounds
Francisco Antonio Marín del Valle - mines, merchant
Note: sources often convert Spanish terms into American, so titles and branches only suggest experiences.
Wednesday, February 17, 2016
Spain’s Economic Problems
Philip V’s claim to the Spanish crown was confirmed by the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713. In return, the Bourbons ceded Sicily and parts of Milan to Savoy. Austria received the rest of Milan, Naples and Sardinia. George Louis, elector of Hanover, gained recognition for his uncle’s annexation of Saxe-Lauenberg, better known as Lower Saxony.
Philip’s wife, Maria Luisa of Savoy, died in 1714. She left two sons, Louis and Ferdinand. Soon after he married Elisabeth Farnese, daughter of the prince of Parma. She saw Spain as the treasury to finance the acquisition of fiefdoms for her children.
Spain joined with France and Prussia in the War of Polish Succession in1733. Their opponents included Upper Saxony, simply called Saxony, and Austria. By then, the earlier ruler of Lower Saxony had died as George I of Great Britain, and his son, George Augustus, was the British monarch.
Spain retook Naples and Sicily. Elisabeth’s oldest son, Charles, was made ruler of the two by the Treaty of Vienna that ended the war in 1738. The next year, Philip suspended payment of his debts, and George II declared war.
His navy attacked Spanish possessions and took Florida. Their battles extended into the War of Austrian Succession, concluded by the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748. Spain regained Florida in exchange for meeting demands it pay its debts to Great Britain. Louis XV and George II renewed their battle for supremacy with the Seven Year’s War in 1754.
One cause of the 1739 bankruptcy was the decline of silver production in New Spain. Mines required mercury, which was shipped from Almadén. Great Britain’s fleet and its pirates harried supply ships. When the amount of available silver declined, Spain had less money for war.
Silver Shipments from Nueva España by Decade
Nuevo México wasn’t directly threatened by the British, but it suffered the consequences of irrelevancy.
Even before Elisabeth’s wars, Nueva España hadn’t been able to meet the costs of defending its mines and frontiers from increasingly hostile Natives. When Santa Fé asked for a presidio near the Jicarilla Apache to protect itself and northern México against the Comanche, Pedro de Rivera had suggested manning it with men taken from other presidios. He finally decided the Comanche were less a threat to the viceroyalty than the French encroaching along the Gulf of Mexico. He cut presidio forces by 20%.
Silver had been discovered in the region south of modern Arizona in 1736. Eleven years later, in 1747, the viceroy demanded the New Mexico governor send troops for his campaign against the Apache along the Gila river. Joaquín Codallos couldn’t. He had reports the Utes were attacking the Navajo, who were under protection. He had to fight the Comanche and Utes north of Abiquiú to protect settlers who were threatening to abandon the area.
The restraints of the Spanish treasury, which lead first to conserving then to diverting military sources to war threats on the coast, ultimately made it impossible for Nuevo México to send aid to protect silver which might alleviate the stress.
Notes: More on proposed Jicarilla presidio in posts for 11 October 2015.
Bakewell, P. J. Silver Mining and Society in Colonial Mexico, Zacatecas 1546-1700, 1971.
Scurlock, Dan. From the Rio to the Sierra: An Environmental History of the Middle Rio Grande Basin, 1998; summarizes and quotes other studies.
Wikipedia. Details and dates of wars.
Table: Data from Hubert Howe Bancroft, History of Mexico, Volume III, 1600-1803, 1883.
Philip’s wife, Maria Luisa of Savoy, died in 1714. She left two sons, Louis and Ferdinand. Soon after he married Elisabeth Farnese, daughter of the prince of Parma. She saw Spain as the treasury to finance the acquisition of fiefdoms for her children.
Spain joined with France and Prussia in the War of Polish Succession in1733. Their opponents included Upper Saxony, simply called Saxony, and Austria. By then, the earlier ruler of Lower Saxony had died as George I of Great Britain, and his son, George Augustus, was the British monarch.
Spain retook Naples and Sicily. Elisabeth’s oldest son, Charles, was made ruler of the two by the Treaty of Vienna that ended the war in 1738. The next year, Philip suspended payment of his debts, and George II declared war.
His navy attacked Spanish possessions and took Florida. Their battles extended into the War of Austrian Succession, concluded by the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748. Spain regained Florida in exchange for meeting demands it pay its debts to Great Britain. Louis XV and George II renewed their battle for supremacy with the Seven Year’s War in 1754.
One cause of the 1739 bankruptcy was the decline of silver production in New Spain. Mines required mercury, which was shipped from Almadén. Great Britain’s fleet and its pirates harried supply ships. When the amount of available silver declined, Spain had less money for war.
| Decade | Total Peso Value | Increase | % Increase |
| 1710-19 | 65,828,482 | ||
| 1720-29 | 84,151,727 | 18,323,245 | 0.28 |
| 1730-39 | 93,677,484 | 9,525,757 | 0.11 |
| 1740-49 | 108,124,854 | 14,447,370 | 0.15 |
| 1750-59 | 130,219,836 | 22,094,982 | 0.20 |
| 1760-69 | 199,556,109 | 69,336,273 | 0.53 |
Silver Shipments from Nueva España by Decade
Nuevo México wasn’t directly threatened by the British, but it suffered the consequences of irrelevancy.
Even before Elisabeth’s wars, Nueva España hadn’t been able to meet the costs of defending its mines and frontiers from increasingly hostile Natives. When Santa Fé asked for a presidio near the Jicarilla Apache to protect itself and northern México against the Comanche, Pedro de Rivera had suggested manning it with men taken from other presidios. He finally decided the Comanche were less a threat to the viceroyalty than the French encroaching along the Gulf of Mexico. He cut presidio forces by 20%.
Silver had been discovered in the region south of modern Arizona in 1736. Eleven years later, in 1747, the viceroy demanded the New Mexico governor send troops for his campaign against the Apache along the Gila river. Joaquín Codallos couldn’t. He had reports the Utes were attacking the Navajo, who were under protection. He had to fight the Comanche and Utes north of Abiquiú to protect settlers who were threatening to abandon the area.
The restraints of the Spanish treasury, which lead first to conserving then to diverting military sources to war threats on the coast, ultimately made it impossible for Nuevo México to send aid to protect silver which might alleviate the stress.
Notes: More on proposed Jicarilla presidio in posts for 11 October 2015.
Bakewell, P. J. Silver Mining and Society in Colonial Mexico, Zacatecas 1546-1700, 1971.
Scurlock, Dan. From the Rio to the Sierra: An Environmental History of the Middle Rio Grande Basin, 1998; summarizes and quotes other studies.
Wikipedia. Details and dates of wars.
Table: Data from Hubert Howe Bancroft, History of Mexico, Volume III, 1600-1803, 1883.
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