Independence in Spanish America

Civil Wars, Revolutions, and Underdevelopment. Revised edition.

Jay Kinsbruner

• Publisher: UNM Press
• Year: 2000
• Print ISBN: 9780826321770
• eBook ISBN: 9780826325594
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Latin American & Caribbean History
• Index: History

In overturning Spain's control of the Americas, such great military leaders as Simón Bolívar and José de San Martín unleashed both civil wars and revolutions between 1810 and 1824. Sixteen nations emerged from these violent and cataclysmic wars. The liberators set themselves up to govern the new states they created but quickly failed as rulers. They succumbed, in part, to changes resulting from independence itself-a new political order.

Military campaigns directed against Spain split the colonists into royalists and patriots, resulting in a decade of civil wars. The newly formed nations simultaneously embraced capitalism and liberalism, but divisions persisted over the purpose of government and the organization of the economy and society.

Clearly laid out in this book is an insightful interpretation of a pivotal era in world history. This new edition, revised and enlarged to take account of recently published studies as well as a rethinking of certain prevailing views, is a compelling reinterpretation of the independence era. The turbulent history of the independence movements is set forth with attention to key figures and their ideologies, regional differences, and the legacy of underdevelopment left by the wars of independence.

"A superior work of synthesis. . . . Kinsbruner writes in a style which engages the attention of the reader, and scholars as well as students will profit from his book."--John Lynch, Professor Emeritus, University of London

"Kinsbruner provides us with a much needed clear, concise interpretation."-- Richard W. Slatta, North Carolina State University

1

By Way of Introduction

During the late eighteenth century the Atlantic world was convulsed by change. First the French lost much of their empire in America, then the British lost thirteen of their North American colonies. Saint-Domingue would soon suffer a cataclysmic revolution on its way to becoming independent Haiti. As the Enlightenment reached its zenith, the French Revolution shook Europe at its very foundations, producing remarkable intellectual and constitutional change, and great destruction. Over approximately two decades, the spinning jenny, the frame, the mule, and a steam engine capable of powering other machines were invented. These initiated the industrial revolution and changed the nature of economies and humankind. Shortly the cotton gin was invented, and it too changed both economies and humankind.

It was in this era of ferment, in this swirl of ideas and events, that Spain’s empire in America would soon cleave, leaving only Cuba and Puerto Rico loyal to the crown. Where four viceroyalties had stood under the command of the king, there would be 16 independent nations, responsible for the well-being of perhaps 16 million people.

While this book focuses on the great turmoil of the independence movement, it is also largely about the active citizenry who brought about the transition from colony to nation, and it is about the problems that followed that transition. To understand the character of this active citizenry, considered in the broadest possible sense to include even those who were just working their way into its ranks, to appreciate their values and thoughts, and ultimately the nations they defined, it is necessary to know something about the late colonial economy.

The generation that waged the struggle for independence came of age in an economy that was fundamentally preindustrial commercial capitalism. Spanish American economic life in the late colonial and early national periods was based upon a market economy that functioned, to varying degrees of maturity, by means of money, credit, bills of exchange, private property, and the profit motive.¹

Nonetheless, it was a capitalism that suffered from many contradictions. The empire’s economic rationale was mercantilism, which by definition was statism. The state, Spain, intervened and interfered in many areas of the colonial economy, but not always in ways that were beneficent. The most flagrant flaw was the limited direction and support for improving infrastructure. Spanish America’s topography was, and is, difficult to traverse, and transportation costs greatly added to the region’s economic burden, increasing the costs of both primary products and consumer commodities.² Spanish America lacked a system of inland waterways comparable to that of England or the United States, and in most places canals could not have been constructed. Transportation generally meant overland roads, but the crown did not support road construction or maintenance effectively.

What follows are three representative examples of transportation problems, drawn from an interminable list. Toward the end of the eighteenth century, the Mining Deputation of the important regional city of Guanajuato, Mexico, estimated that the city was supplied by producers of corn (maize) from a distance no farther than 10 leagues (approximately 26 miles). Corn produced at the far end of the supply zone was burdened by transportation costs amounting to 40 percent of its sale price. The Deputation noted that an improved road system, to say nothing about even cheaper water transportation, would have added greatly to “the development of markets and the growth of productivity.”³ Even water transportation, normally less burdensome than overland transportation, could be costly. The small river boats that transported goods from Asunción, Paraguay, downriver to Buenos Aires took two months and added as much as 25 percent to the cost of their cargoes. The return trip upriver took much longer and added to greater retail costs.⁴ This is one of the fundamental reasons why the European countries enjoyed a trading advantage with Spanish America. In the 1830s it cost 13 times as much to move a ton of goods from Salta, Argentina, to the port of Buenos Aires as it did to ship a ton from Buenos Aires to Liverpool, England!⁵

The development of Spanish American capitalism was also seriously hindered by costly administrative burdens. Added to the excessive cost of transportation and communication were sales taxes and regional customs tariffs, both of which further diminished the possibility of extended markets, regional specialization (the division of labor), and increased productivity.

Another more subtle flaw was Spain’s immature system of public finance, which raised money for its military and bureaucratic expenses by autocratic methods of confiscation, forced loans, and donations.⁶ This system contrasted sharply with the more mature capitalism of northern Europe, especially Holland and England, where governments were able to raise funds routinely through issuing interest-bearing financial instruments that paid their benefits systematically and promptly. Not until nearly the end of the eighteenth century did Spain attempt to develop a modern system of public finance. Spain’s irregular and punitive methods of public finance slowed the growth of national capital markets capable of underwriting development at a reasonable cost, thus placing the future nations of Spanish America at a serious disadvantage when they entered the world capitalist marketplace under their own guidance.

At the pinnacle of the colonial economy were the import-export merchants. They were often peninsulars (born in Spain), but by the last decades of the colonial period many wealthy merchants were creoles (born in America). Spain’s economic system was governed by the Casa de Contratación, which enforced and often created the very detailed and encompassing regulations that served the mercantilist rationale. In the colonies the Casa was aided by the merchant tribunals, the consulados. From the early eighteenth century, trade between Spain and the colonies was conducted under tight supervision and to the unquestionable advantage of the merchants in Cádiz, Spain. They and the merchants of the colonial consulados enjoyed clear benefits from the restricted trading system. Many merchants became inordinately affluent and invested in mines, landed estates, and even retail stores.

Nearly as affluent as the import-export merchants were the owners of the large landed estates, and sometimes these agrarians were also merchants or were related to them. Titled aristocrats in Mexico City owned landed estates in different ecological zones of Mexico, where crops or animals could be raised according to varying market demands. Some of the wealthiest members of the agricultural elite owned pulque-producing estates near Mexico City. (Pulque is an alcoholic drink fermented from the maguey plant.) They also owned pulquerías, or taverns, in the capital, leasing them out with the understanding that the pulque served would come from their estates. Some aristocrats grew wheat and ground it in flour mills they owned; some raised sheep and even owned textile mills to process the wool.⁷

Although late colonial Spanish America was overwhelmingly rural and agricultural, and the value of agricultural production was greater than that of any other sector of the economy including mining, many people still lived in towns or cities. For instance, in the important agricultural region of Guanajuato, northwest of Mexico City, toward the end of the colonial period approximately half the population resided in towns of at least 5,000 inhabitants.⁸ At the same time, there were 6 cities of more than 10,000 inhabitants within a radius of 300 kilometers of Mexico City.⁹ The daily needs of those living in towns or cities were met by many wholesale and retail merchants. In the larger cities hundreds of merchant shops lined streets, some even able to specialize due to the size of the immediate market.

A central characteristic of the Spanish American economy was entrepreneurialism. That is, people participated in the market economy by investing capital at risk. The degree of risk varied, as did the degree of business skill and acumen required for success. But in the broadest and most realistic sense, they were entrepreneurs.

This entrepreneurialism was widespread. Even many artisans were entrepreneurs. Some master craftsmen branched out into other areas of the economy. In 1789, for instance, Don José Ancelmo Garcia, a master dyer of Mexico City, owned simultaneously a dye shop, a silk shop, and a retail grocery store.¹⁰ Many master craftsmen not only did “bespoken” work, they purchased finished items from other artisans to sell in their own shops or in distant markets.

Entrepreneurialism clearly existed even at the level of small storekeeping. Grocery stores were normally capitalized at anywhere from a few hundred to several thousand pesos, and since most, if not all, of the inventory was acquired through credit, many men and women of modest means were able to become storekeepers. Some small stores were administered by clerks, some of whom worked their way into partnerships. Many grocery stores were administered by partners who for a share of the profits put into the arrangement their skill and labor. Frequently, widows inherited a store from their deceased husbands, and sometimes they expanded the store. Many grocers did not last very long in this precarious business; some endured only a few months or a year or two, but others lasted 10 or 20 years. While there were many bankruptcies, some grocers thrived, even opening more than one store. In the great commercial center of Mexico City in 1781, for instance, seven people each owned two grocery stores; two owned three stores; and one owned four of them. In Buenos Aires in 1825, twenty grocers each owned at least two grocery stores. The brothers Don Tomás and Don Nicolás Giraldes each owned five grocery stores in that important port city.

This entrepreneurialism functioned throughout the Spanish American economy in a marketplace circumscribed by the state. At the end of the eighteenth century, when Spain liberalized trade within the empire (to be discussed in Chapter 2), it also established new monopolies. Town councils traditionally granted monopolies for the supply of fresh meat; they controlled the price of bread, and often other foods. Town councils established public markets that directly competed with the small retail grocery stores. Generally the grocers were prohibited from entering the public markets to purchase items for resale in their stores until the general public had reasonable opportunity to make such purchases themselves. However, much the same may be said about contemporary Britain and the United States, where monopolies and market restrictions were common as well as traditional. Town councils in colonial North America, for example, routinely granted monopolies to millers, granted loans and subsidies, controlled wages, established the maximum price of bread, prohibited retail grocers from entering the competing public markets until the general public had time to make its purchases, and prohibited grocers from selling certain items. In both the United States and Spanish America the marketplace was restricted, yet people participated in it, succeeding or failing according to their talents, resources, and sometimes not a little luck. This was, in short, commercial capitalism.¹¹

Spanish American society was divided by statute and custom into racial castes, the famous sistema de castas, which comprised, broadly speaking, whites, free people of color (free people of African descent), Indian and white mixtures (mestizos), Indians, and black slaves. The castes were subject to differing rights and responsibilities. For instance, free people of color were not permitted to become physicians, lawyers, or notaries, or to enter the various civil, Church, or military bureaucracies. When the colonial militia was created, free people of color were permitted to serve, but only in segregated units. By the last decades of the colonial period the term casta was a pejorative reference to those of mixed blood. Yet where the economy grew expansive and miscegenation became widespread, as in Mexico City, Guadalajara, and Oaxaca economic performance rather than race tended to determine one’s place in society.

If Spanish American society was no longer essentially a caste system, was it a society of classes? To Karl Marx, there were many classes and fractions of classes. Thus, among the elite the interests of agrarian exporters of grain may be fundamentally different from those of manufacturers, or different from various branches of each. One of the classes or fractions becomes dominant (what social scientists often call hegemonic), asserting broader class leadership. For Marx, those whose “mode of life” results in shared circumstances still require hostility toward and competition with other classes in order for a class of their own to develop. Yet even when that occurs, there must be a “community,” a “national bond,” and a “political organization among them,” for a class to evolve.¹² Here, E. J. Hobsbawm’s comment on “class” is instructive: “Class in the full sense only comes into existence at the historical moment when classes begin to acquire consciousness of themselves as such.”¹³ By this logic there were undoubtedly politically conscious classes or class fractions in Spanish America by the end of the colonial period. That is, many people with mutual economic interests joined together to pursue political advantage. Sometimes rich merchants entered into such an alliance, as did agrarians, small retail grocers, all types of artisans, and even cartmen. Thanks to Spanish America’s corporatist nature, many of these “classes” even had political organizations. The many Spanish Americans who belonged to a corporate body, such as a guild, a lay sodality, or an Indian community with its own town council, automatically possessed the potential for political organization.

Since we rarely speak in terms of an infinite number of classes, it is worth considering whether there had evolved by the end of the eighteenth century two or three great classes. The answer is no. Society was comprised of many socioeconomic gradations (a term Marx used), what some would call strata (a term he also used).¹⁴ Socioeconomic gradations sometimes coalesced temporarily to form politically conscious classes during the final decades of the colonial period, but mainly these were, at best, only potential or incipient classes. Furthermore, for many, society was still ascriptive (one in which a child’s place in society was determined by that of the father). For instance, the child of an artisan probably would become an artisan, although in a city he or she might enter a different and more prestigious craft. The child of a small farmer probably would become a small farmer, unless he or she migrated to a city, which often happened. The child of an Indian peasant would almost certainly become an Indian peasant. But with commercial capitalism and the spread of urbanism more and greater opportunity arose, and with opportunity came increased socioeconomic movement.

It was this society, structured as a caste system but evolving toward socioeconomic classes, that the active citizenry would guide to independence. By the end of the eighteenth century it was a society that was deeply troubled in many respects and in need of reform. What it got was a series of bloody and destructive civil wars, but also revolutionary beginnings and promise.

2

The Causes of Independence

The Spanish American independence movements were by-products of the Napoleonic se...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Illustrations
• Preface to the Second Diálogos Edition
• Preface to the First Diálogos Edition
• Acknowledgments
• Chronology
• Life Span of Some Leaders of Independence
• 1. By Way of Introduction
• 2. The Causes of Independence
• 3. The Late Colonial Revolts and Protests
• 4. The First Phase of the Independence Movements
• 5. The Second Phase of the Independence Movements
• 6. The Independence Leaders as Liberals
• 7. The Problems of Independence
• 8. Conclusion
• Notes
• Selected Bibliography
• Index