Black Tribute in the Spanish Americas

From the late 16th to the early 19th centuries, free individuals, families, and corporate groups whose reputations or self-descriptions defined them as Black in the Spanish Americas were subject to a specific tax. The royal tribute tax established the relationship between loyal vassals and a responsive Crown. Under Habsburg rule, tribute circumscribed the freedom of Black subjects but offered a path to privileges for those who provided services to the Crown. Attempts to levy the tax in the 16th and 17th centuries were wide-ranging but yielded comparatively small amounts of revenue. Tribute, nevertheless, affected many regions of the Spanish Americas, either by its collection or via the strategies Black people took to avoid it or contest its imposition. The responses of Black people and local officials to the tax determined how regularly it was enforced and how much revenue it would generate. Even where it failed, debates over tribute and attempts to collect it can reveal what it meant to be Black for colonial officials and ordinary people. Bourbon reforms led to an increasing emphasis on the fiscal potential of Black tribute, much of which became concentrated in the heart of New Spain. Hundreds of thousands of people not only paid tribute but were registered using new methods. The information produced within the tribute regime approximated the density, distribution, and interconnectedness of Black and Indian populations. In addition to the revenue and data its collection yielded, the imposition of Black tribute remains fundamental to understanding the colonial status, sense of identity, and experiences of Black people in the Spanish Empire.

Central America under Spanish Colonial Rule

The Central American isthmus was under Spanish colonial rule for approximately three centuries (ca. 1502–1821). Known interchangeably as the kingdom, audiencia, or captaincy-general of Guatemala, the region occupied territory that would later become the republics of Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica, plus the state of Chiapas, Mexico. Unlike New Spain and Peru, Central America did not possess great mineral wealth, but its location between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans made it an important strategic asset. As did other parts of Spain’s overseas empire, Central America presented challenges of governance and defense. During the Habsburg era (to 1700), the colonial state took shape organically, drawing upon existing peninsular models within a framework of collaboration between the monarchy and local allies, including colonial and indigenous elites and the Roman Catholic Church. This system was not elegant, but it worked as long as authorities in Spain were willing to accept a degree of corruption and inefficiency in public administration. Under the Bourbons (1700–1821), Spain’s new rulers undertook an ambitious program of reforms meant to correct the weaknesses of the old system, while promoting economic growth, strengthening defenses, and enhancing revenues. Judged by their own standards, the Bourbon Reforms registered some successes, but they also bred disaffection. The eventual cost became apparent when the traditional allegiances forged in the Habsburg era dissolved under the pressure of constant warfare, and especially the 1808 Napoleonic invasion of Spain, which precipitated the empire-wide independence crisis.

Regional timber supply for shipbuilding and maintenance of war fleets in Cadiz: methods, agents and phases (1717-1736)

In the period of 1717-1736, the southern peninsular forests became a new resource frontier at the service of the Spanish Navy, in the context of the Bourbon Reforms. The timber supply for shipbuilding and maintenance of war fleets in Cádiz was made through four methods: direct administration by commissioned services; purchase from regional middlemen merchants; articulation between contractors and direct administration; articulation with the Royal Exchequer. The rhythm of supply was the reflex of different needs and constraints in three phases: maintenance of fleets during the period of consolidation of Cádiz as a naval and commercial center (1717-1727); the first shipbuilding series (1728-1731); the impact of the 30’s Mediterranean campaigns and the shipbuilding production of Ciprian Autran (1731-1736).

South American Missions

While it is certainly true that more academic studies have focused on the North American missions, in terms of their historical impact South American missions were just as important to the frontiers of Spain and Portugal’s American empires. The massive size alone of the frontier region, stretching from the upper reaches of the Amazon basin to the headwaters of the Paraná as well as stretching across the lower Southern Cone, meant numerous missionary enterprises emerged in an attempt to evangelize the peoples who inhabited these regions. While small handfuls of Dominicans, Mercedarians, and Augustinians would engage in such efforts, most missions were established by the Jesuits or Franciscans. Certainly, for the Jesuits, or the Society of Jesus as they are properly known, American missions represented an extension of the Counter-Reformation for which they were created. Starting in the mid-16th century, this relatively new organization, founded in 1534, began in earnest to “reduce” the Indigenous peoples into their missions. These activities, however, abruptly ended when the Jesuits were expelled from both the Portuguese and Spanish empires in 1759 and 1767 respectfully. The much older Franciscan order had extensive experience in popular missions in Europe and was one of the first orders of regular clergy in the Americas. Franciscans, like the Jesuits, engaged in evangelizing activities throughout both North and South America from the colonial period to the present. The expulsion of the Jesuits, however, pushed them further to the forefront of missionizing efforts in the late colonial period. This acceleration of Franciscan missionary activity was aided by the establishment of the Apostolic Institute in 1682. The Institute created a pipeline of missionaries from Spain to come directly to frontier areas with funding from the crown. While this aided missionary efforts throughout South America, particularly in areas abandoned by the Jesuits, it embroiled the missionaries in the politics of the Bourbon reforms and their obsession with limited clerical power. Ultimately, while missionizing efforts continued into the Republican period, their association with the Spanish and Portuguese crowns led to widespread suppression and secularization following independence. The historiographical divide in the field tends to lie between usually older, Eurocentric histories by scholar-clerics which focus on the missionaries themselves, and newer studies carried out by more secular professional historians that examine how Indigenous populations were affected by the inherent imperialism of the missions, though exceptions abound.

From Seroras to Sacristans

This chapter discusses the fundamental transformation of the role of the seroras in the eighteenth century. Whereas the seroras survived Tridentine reform relatively unscathed, they were not so fortunate under the later Bourbon reforms. Fiscally pragmatic rather than directly confessional, the Bourbon reforms led to a drastic reorganization of local religious life. Some initiatives championed under the Bourbon reforms were well underway through regional reorganization and local initiative well before they were issued by official proclamation. In these cases, the Bourbon reforms merely expedited the inevitable. Aimed to achieve essential cost-saving measures across the empire, the Bourbon reforms as they played out through the Consejo de Castilla consolidated church lands, redrafted parish benefice plans, and decreased numbers of lower-order clergy and church functionaries. All these measures affected the seroras, and although localities and Basque church officials jointly championed their seroras, the Bourbon reforms ultimately signaled an end to the vocation. Eventually, the seroras were replaced by sacristans.

UN ESCENARIO PARA DOS ACTORES: COMERCIO FORMAL E INFORMAL, LA DOBLE ARTICULACIÓN DE LA JUSTICIA (SANTIAGO DE CHILE, 1796-1797)

El estudio de un pleito judicial entre mercaderes formales y comerciantes informales ocurrido a fines de la Colonia en la Plaza Mayor de Santiago, es una excusa para adentrarse en temáticas históricas como el enfrentamiento de clases sociales, sus códigos de conducta, y los divergentes conceptos de justicia sobre los que sustentaban su derecho a la actividad que ejercían en el principal espacio público de la capital del Reino de Chile. El caso presentado se enmarca en el contexto histórico de las consecuencias que para la elite criolla significaron las Reformas Borbónicas, dejando en evidencia no solo el inconcluso proyecto de disciplinamiento social llevado adelante por los funcionarios de la casa gobernante, sino también la creciente pérdida de confianza en la eficiencia del aparato monárquico. ABSTRACT The study of a lawsuit that involved formal merchants and informal traders at the late Colony times in the Plaza Mayor of Santiago, is an excuse to delve into historical topics such as the clash of classes, their codes of conduct, and the divergent concepts of justice on which supported their right to exercising such activity in the main public space of the Kingdom of Chile. The case presented here is framed in the historical context of the consequences that meant for Creole elite the Bourbon Reforms, giving account not only of the unfinished project of social regulation carried out by officials of the ruling House, but also of the growing loss of confidence in the efficiency of Monarchy.