Nuevo México Economy

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 More important, his cédula rescinded one from 1718 that had banned the import of silken and other manufactured goods.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.