Spanish West Indies
Contents
Research questions
- Population size of towns and cities in 1650?
- Position of towns and cities in administrative structures?
Administration of the Americas
The Americas were incorporated into the Crown of Castile, with two key viceroyalties governing the most populous and wealthy regions. The Viceroyalty of Peru was governed from Lima and governed over Peru and South America. The Viceroyalty of New Spain was governed from Mexico Coty and governed over Mexico and the Philippines. In addition the viceroyalty of New Spain supervised other North American, Central American, Caribbean and East Indian areas, and the viceroyalty of Peru supervised other South American teritories. The exception was much of modern Venezuela, which was supervised by the high court or Audiencia of Santa Domingo on the island of Hispaniola.[1]
Places named in depositions
Gilbralt[?er]
Thomas Juan stated by Anthonio De La Rosa to have bought tobacco at "the ffayre att Gibralter in the West India" from several men and "brought it afterwards to Marachio distant about five and twenty leagues from the same port".[2]
Havana
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Hispaniola
Limma [alt. Lima]
Lima was the governing city of the Viceroyalty of Peru.
Two viceroys governed during the period concerning the three Silver Ships. Pedro de Toledo, 1st Marquis of Mancera (1639-1648)[3] and García Sarmiento de Sotomayor, 2nd Count of Salvatierra (1648-1655)[4] García Sarmiento de Sotomayor was viceroy of New Spain (1642-1648), prior to assuming the Viceroyship of Peru in 1648.
The viceroyalty of New Spain was governed from Mexico City.
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Marachio
Tobacco laded on board the Nostra Seigniora del Rosario for her master Antonio de la Rosa by twenty-five year old Cadiz merchant Guillermo Crombeen[5]
Panama
Panama City was founded in 1519 by the Spamish conquistador Pedro Arias Dávila. "It was a stopover point on one of the most important trade routes in the history of the American continent, leading to the fairs of Nombre de Dios and Portobelo, through which passed most of the gold and silver that Spain took from the Americas."[6]
"Nombre de Dios is the oldest continuously inhabited European settlement in the continental Americas. Originally a major port of call for the Spanish treasure fleet, Nombre de Dios was the most significant port for shipping in the Americas between 1540 and 1580. After the opening of Potosí in 1546, silver was shipped north to Panama City and carried by mule train across the isthmus to Nombre de Dios for shipment to Havana and Spain."[7]
Peru
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?Varinas
Tobacco bought at ?Varinas in the West Indies for John Baptista Sabino by Manuel Correa and brought first to Marachaio in the West Indies, and from thence in the Nostra Seigniora del Rosario to Cadiz, where it was laden on board the ships the Sampson and Salvador[8]
Mexican silver mining
- Spanish viceregal state did not participate directly in silver mining[9]
- deep shaft silver mining was introduced into colonial Mexico in the C16th, and by the 1570s was "a dynamic, technologically complex, capital-intensive enterprize owned by a fairly smalll number of creoles or Spaniards, and it continued to be so". Silver mines were located in northern and central New Spain. Northern mines include San Luis Potosí, Zacatecas, Sombrerete, Cuencamé, Topia and Parral. Central mines include Pachuca, Taxco, Sultepec, and Cuautla. Exhaustion of high-quality surface deposits led to deep shaft mining of lower-grade silver oil by 1570s, using mercury to amalgamate with the ore.[10]
- The C17th saw the capital requirements of silver mining increasing as silver yield from amalgamated ore dropped and miners had to purchase more mercury per unit of silver produced[11]
Potential sources
Pierre Chaunu, Séville et l'Atlantique
- collection of statistics on owners, masters, kinds, cargoes, tonnage and routes to and from the Indies 1504-1650
- synthesised in Pierre Chaunu, Conquête et exploitation des nouveaux mondes
Louisa Schell Hoberman, Mexico's Merchant Elite, 1590-1660: Silver, State, and Society (Durham & London, 1991)
- includes discussion of mining and operation of the mint
- ↑ Wikipedia entry: Viceroy: 1. Spanish Empire 1.2 In the Americas
- ↑ HCA 13/67 f.? IMG_117_07_1487
- ↑ Wikipedia entry: Pedro de Toledo, 1st Marquis of Mancera
- ↑ Wikipedia entry: García Sarmiento de Sotomayor, 2nd Count of Salvatierra
- ↑ HCA 13/67 f.? IMG_117_07_1466
- ↑ Wikipedia entry: Panama City
- ↑ Wikipedia entry: Nombre de Dios, Colón
- ↑ HCA 13/67 f.? IMG_117_07_1468
- ↑ Louisa Schell Hoberman, Mexico's Merchant Elite, 1590-1660: Silver, State, and Society (Durham & London, 1991), p.73)
- ↑ Louisa Schell Hoberman, Mexico's Merchant Elite, 1590-1660: Silver, State, and Society (Durham & London, 1991), p.73)
- ↑ Louisa Schell Hoberman, Mexico's Merchant Elite, 1590-1660: Silver, State, and Society (Durham & London, 1991), p.74)
