Antecedentes

C

nomic power that triggered what came to be called the Bourbon Reforms. The main purpose of these reforms was to regain economic and political control over the colonies. The reforms began in Spain with the advent of the Bourbons to power, and they reached the colonies piecemeal over a long period.

The Bourbons intended to invigorate the Spanish economy and to promote colonization projects and Spanish immigration to the colonies.

The enlightened state, thus, was to become the instrument of reform, working through bureaucrats who would be loyal to their source of power. The policy worked in Spain, according to David Brading, who maintains that the Spanish monarchy moved ahead of contemporary practice in France (where the selling of the office of tax farmer contin-ued until the French Revolution) by relying on a salaried bureaucracy.

As a result, public revenues rose from 5 million pesos in 1700 to about 18 million in 1750. By the last decades of the 18th century, Spanish rev-enues reached an average of 36 million pesos. These figures help explain Spain’s revival (1988, 118).

The Bourbon reforms also changed the political life in the colonies and were one of the triggering elements leading to the wars of indepen-dence in the early 19th century. In the wake of the Bourbon Reforms, especially under Charles III (1759–88), there were many fiscal and administrative changes, but economic reforms were much less success-ful, particularly the ones pertaining to international trade. The Bourbons were never able to curtail British contraband simply because Spanish goods were expensive and in short supply, whereas British manufactured goods had become much cheaper as a result of a burgeoning industrial revolution. By 1759 British contraband was valued at approximately 6 million pesos a year. A new war against Britain in 1761 brought more disaster for Spain and expanded Great Britain’s commercial privileges further, gradually leading to the recognition of what was already tacitly in place: free trade. By 1778 free trade was extended to other European nations. New Spain (Mexico) and Venezuela remained the only strong-holds of Spanish trade monopoly, at least until 1789. Shortly afterward the Spanish Crown lowered import taxes and in general tried to suppress everything that made Spanish products more expensive in order to achieve a higher level of competitiveness.

The opening of markets and the resulting competition actually stimulated Spanish trade exchange with the colonies. Between 1778 and 1788 Spain’s commerce with the colonies increased by 700 per-cent. At the end of the 17th century, only 15 percent of the goods sent to the colonies were Spanish; by 1798 this percentage had grown to

COLONIAL INSTITUTIONS AND THE BOURBON REFORMS

50 percent, an increase that reflected an important growth of Spanish industry, especially industry based on cotton and iron.

In the colonies free trade had dramatic effects: Merchants could no longer create artificial scarcity to increase prices. Prices dropped, earnings from merchant activities decreased, and consumers had access to a greater variety of products when they needed them (instead of waiting for the uncertain arrival of the fleet from Seville). New merchants, including Indian curacas, who were well informed about local conditions, emerged on the scene as new social and economic actors. Indians were no longer subject to sales imposed by corregidores and other merchants.

The overall result was a dramatic change in how commerce and investments were organized and in the locations of the main trading centers. After 1778 exports from the colonies saw unprecedented heights, especially on the Atlantic side. Until then, for example, Buenos Aires exported 150,000 hides annually; by 1783 the count of hides was up to 1.4 million. In contrast to such success, the textile industry and its large obrajes stopped production when faced with much cheaper British manufactures. Increased commercial agriculture for the world market led to a new regional specialization on an international scale and, at the end, to a new and enduring division of labor: cocoa in Caracas; sugar in Cuba and Brazil; coffee in Colombia; rice, cotton, and sugar in Peru. It was during this period that Latin America, in general, based economic growth on the export of raw materials, a situation that lasted well into the 20th century.

An interesting outcome of the decaying fleet system was that in spite of the large amounts of money the Spanish Crown spent on warfare, more money produced in the colonies actually remained in the colonies, providing necessary cash to a traditionally cash-poor econ-omy. More circulating money also meant more market and investment opportunities. Lima’s treasury expenses demonstrated these changes.

Around 1600, half of Lima’s treasury budget went to Spain. Toward the mid-18th century the Crown still obtained about 20 percent of rev-enues (corresponding to the quinto real), but the remaining 80 percent was used to defend the viceroyalty and its various dependencies and to pay for administrative expenses (employee salaries and pensions and the purchase of mercury) (Fisher 1977, 28–33). Although some of this money was later remitted in the form of private money to Spain, colo-nials—because of the absence of produce coming from Spain—increas-ingly invested in colonial enterprises and engaged in trade ventures. As a consequence the number of haciendas and (for a few years) obrajes increased, as did the number of Peruvian merchants, the so-called

A BRIEF HISTORY OF PERU

peruleros, Creoles who independent of their Spanish counterparts engaged in purchasing goods in Spain and other European countries to sell in the colonies, including the Philippines. Some historians read these indicators as a reversal of colonial dependency: Spain was becom-ing increasbecom-ingly dependent on its colonies.

Administrative changes—especially important for Lima—involved the creation of the new Viceroyalty of Río de La Plata in 1776, confirm-ing the growconfirm-ing importance of Buenos Aires in the previous century, and the establishment in 1782 of intendencias (intendancies) in replacement of the corregimientos. Both measures were implemented under the strict surveillance of visitadores from Spain. The intendencias were larger juris-dictions than the corregimientos ever had been. Intendentes, the appointed heads of the intendencias, also had more power than a co-rregidor, and they had direct access to Spanish high authorities, aside from military, financial, economic, and judicial jurisdictions.

Antonio de Areche, the minister who had already introduced and implemented the intendant system in New Spain, was appointed to carry out the reforms in the Peruvian viceroyalty. He arrived in Lima in 1777 as the visitador general of Peru, Chile, and Río de la Plata. With him came a new viceroy, Manuel de Guirior, marqués de Guirior. Until the end of his mandate in 1780, Guirior was in constant conflict over hierarchy and jurisdiction with visitadores, in large measure because the administrative jurisdictions between the viceroy and the intendentes and visitadores were not clearly demarcated. When the conflicts reached a peak, Areche man-aged to have the viceroy removed and replaced by another, Agustín de Jáuregui y Aldecoa, who in turn ousted Areche, replacing him with Jorge de Escobedo, an oidor from the Audiencia of Charcas.

Amid bureaucratic squabbles and in spite of them, the visitadores implemented many of the planned reforms. The internal customs tax (alcabala) was increased in 1772 from 2 to 4 percent, and again in 1776 from 4 to 6 percent. A product traditionally exempted from the alca-bala, coca, was included in the list of products subject to customs taxes, as was aguardiente, a native sugarcane brandy, with a 12.5 percent tax.

Customhouses were established throughout the region in Cochabamba (1774), La Paz (1776), Buenos Aires (1778), and Arequipa (1780).

Artisans and peasants who had been exempt from tribute or taxes, such as those without land were now included in the list of tributaries.

Artisans had to pay 4 percent on their transactions, whereas landless Indian peasants had to pay half the tribute of peasants with land.

These measures encountered resistance from many social groups in the form of judicial protests and proceedings, pasquines (mostly handwritten

COLONIAL INSTITUTIONS AND THE BOURBON REFORMS

letters or poems that appeared overnight on doors and in public places), and even open revolt (in La Paz and Arequipa). Smaller merchants from mixed racial backgrounds saw their businesses suffer, especially those that had catered to the needs of those at the silver mines. With the creation of the Viceroyalty of Río de la Plata, Potosí became part of the new viceroy-alty and many of the former muleteer routes leading to Potosí from the Peruvian side were no longer active.

The Spanish Crown knew the reforms would be met with resistance.

Even before visitador general Areche arrived in Lima, Manuel de Amat, viceroy from 1761 to 1776, had established armed forces totaling more than 96,000 men, including infantry, cavalry, and dragoons. However, most of these were militias—that is, improvised groups called upon when needed, and not a standing, well-trained army. Mostly they were ill equipped and ill trained. During the 16th and 17th centuries militias had been recruited predominantly among Europeans; in the 18th cen-tury, more Creoles, blacks, and mixed-race descendants of blacks par-ticipated. These militias were deemed less trustworthy because of their racial composition; nevertheless, the viceroy’s efforts in organizing mil-itary forces (a total of approximately 35,000 men) signaled his expec-tation of unrest.

In the higher colonial administration, many Creoles were replaced by peninsular-born Spaniards. The resentment of Creoles against Spain consequently grew because of their exclusion from political office.

Spaniards were labeled in denigrating terms, such as chapetones or gachupines (similar to “carpetbaggers”). The Spanish, in turn, consid-ered the American-born whites inferior due to poor upbringing, poor education, and—as was then argued—the deleterious effects of the cli-mate of Peru on the native born. Creoles responded with a heightened

“Creole nationalism” by which Lima, and even Potosí, became exam-ples of glory and beauty (Millones 1995, 204). Lima was compared to Seville and also became, in poems and newspaper articles, the New Jerusalem. These debates involved the white population, not Indians or blacks. Nevertheless, they created—albeit for different reasons—a sense of a common cause.

Although the establishment of the intendant system was a first step to diminishing the role and the power of the corregidores, the collection of tributes still gave corregidores the power to extort Indians and to cheat the Crown. The power of corregidores resided in the control of Indian labor, and with this tool in hand they could impose many other demands. One of the most profitable of these endeavors was the forced sale of merchandise (the repartos). By this system the corregidores forced

A BRIEF HISTORY OF PERU

Indians to buy merchandise from them, often items, such as pink silk stockings, for which Indians had no need and usually at exorbitant over-market prices.

The new intendant system barely addressed such long-standing mis-use of power. The corruption in the system, in tandem with the imple-mentation of the Bourbon reforms, laid the ground for Indian rebellion, especially the Tupac Amaru II uprising. This coincidence in time and place made the leader of the biggest colonial Indian rebellion firmly believe that by acting as a leader against corregidores, he was merely car-rying out what the king had decided. Soon, however, he would come to be painfully aware of how far removed he was from royal intentions.

COLONIAL INSTITUTIONS AND THE BOURBON REFORMS

6

Revolts and the Wars