Spanish and Portuguese South America during the Colonial Period; Vol. 2 of 2

by Robert Grant Watson

Don Francisco de Toledo came out to Peru as Viceroy in the year 1568. He was a man well advanced in life and of much experience, but of a political morality which is not to be defended according to our ethics; although it might claim numerous precedents in Roman history. With the sole object of increasing public security, and without the least pretence of any crime on the part of the illustrious victim save that of being a living political danger, he put to death the last of the Incas, the young Tupac Amaru.

This Viceroy, however, was most conscientious in his desire for the well-being of the people committed to his charge. He was indefatigable as well as prudent in legislating; and he devoted five years to making a journey throughout every district of his Viceroyalty, with such success that the Peruvians admitted that their country had not been so well administered since the time of the good Tupac Yupanqui. It is to this governor that the University of St. Mark at Lima mainly owes its existence; and he had the advanced judgment to perceive that the two main sources of Peruvian wealth were corn and wool, rather than silver and gold. It was to the fact that Don Francisco de Toledo, who remained in Peru till 1579, was accompanied in his journeys by the Jesuit D’Acosta that we owe the valuable natural history of Peru, composed by that writer, the results of fifteen years of literary labour.

1611.

The commercial policy of Spain in forbidding all trade between her colonies and other nations had, in the course of time, a singularly retributive effect upon herself. Owing to various causes, amongst which was the expulsion by Philip III. of the Moors, her industrial population became so reduced that that country was at once obliged to contract her operations of war and of peace. From want of men her fleets were ruined, and from the same cause her manufactures had sunk into decay; even her agriculture was insufficient for the national consumption. The law respecting colonial trade was still enforced, and the mineral wealth of the Andes still flowed into Spain; but the necessities of demand and supply were above law, and her merchants had to look to other countries for the supplies which were to be sent to America in return, and thus the gold and silver merely passed through Spain on its way to England or to Holland, to France and Italy. In the name of Spanish firms those of the above nations sent their goods to America, and at length it was computed that, of the European goods supplied to the Spanish American provinces, not more than a twentieth part were of Spanish growth or fabric. The climax of this state of things was arrived at when the lord of the mines of Potosí was constrained to issue an edict raising copper money to a value in currency nearly equal to that of silver.

The fleets, which supplied the transatlantic colonies, were distinguished by the name of Galleons and Flotas, respectively, and were equipped annually, taking their departure from Seville and latterly from Cadiz. The galleons touched first at Carthagena and then at Porto-Bello. To the former port resorted the merchants of Santa Martha, Caraccas, New Granada, and other provinces; the latter port was the emporium which supplied Peru and Chili. At the right season of the year the product of these countries was transported by sea to Panamá; whence, as soon as the appearance of the fleet was announced, it was conveyed across the isthmus, on mules, and down the river Chagre to Porto-Bello, the noxious climate of which village gave it the unenviable distinction of being the most unhealthy spot in the world. For the greater part of the year it was the residence of negroes and mulattoes, but during the six weeks of the fair it was a Nigni-Novgorod, in which was transacted the richest traffic of two hemispheres. The Flota proceeded to Vera-Cruz, for the supply of Mexico.

The restrictive regulation of Spain, by which her enormous colonial trade was confined to a single port, had, of course, the effect of throwing the commerce into the hands of a few houses, who could regulate their own prices, with the result of checking enterprise and diminishing production. The object of the monopolists was, not to supply the colonies with as much goods as the latter could consume and could afford to purchase at prices remunerative both to producers and to merchants; but to throw upon the markets such a moderate amount of goods as might secure exorbitant prices. There were not wanting Spanish statesmen and political-economists who could discern the ruinous effects of such a state of things; and the most extravagant measures were suggested with a view to check them. It required, however, the convulsion produced by civil war, and the contact into which Spain was thus thrown with foreign nations, to rouse her into vigorous action.

The monarchs of the Bourbon line took measures to suppress a state of things which had overturned the system of Spanish trade with America. The trade with Peru was now thrown open to the French, whose King granted the privilege to the merchants of St. Malo, who, unlike their grasping competitors of Cadiz, furnished the Pacific Viceroyalty with European goods in liberal quantity and at a moderate price. The result was that the trade of Spain with her own chief colony was on the point of being extinguished. Peremptory instructions had accordingly once more to be issued, forbidding the admission of foreign vessels into any port of Chili or Peru.

But on her escape from this danger Spain found that she had incurred another. The treaty of Utrecht conveyed to Great Britain the Asiento for supplying Spanish colonies with negroes, and further granted to that country the privilege of sending annually to the Fair of Porto-Bello a vessel of five hundred tons with European commodities. British factories soon arose at Carthagena and Panamá; and the agents had ample means of becoming acquainted with the condition of the American provinces, with the result that contraband trade greatly flourished. Thus, by the aid of a system of wholesale bribery of the revenue officers, nearly the entire commerce of Spanish America fell into the hands of foreigners. The squadron of galleons was reduced from fifteen thousand to two thousand tons.

1739.

It was not to be expected that Spain should tamely submit to such a state of things. Her first measure, undertaken with the view of improving matters, was to establish along her colonial coasts a system of guardships, with the object of preventing smuggling. The British colonial commerce, with the Spanish settlements, was, however, so firmly established that it would not be put down; and the Spanish coasts were so extensive that no system of guardships could exercise a sufficiently vigilant watch. The consequence was, in the first place, complaints, and then, acts of violence; which brought on another war between Great Britain and Spain, the consequence being that the latter country was released from the terms of the Asiento granted by the treaty of Utrecht.