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.

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.