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
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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.
Wikipedia provides a useful overview of the history of Lima, including the colonial period.[5] The Wikipedia entry for the colonial priod describes the city as a key commercial hub: "Lima flourished during the 17th century as the center of an extensive trade network which integrated the Viceroyalty of Peru with the Americas, Europe and the Far East."[6] "Its merchants channeled Peruvian silver through the nearby port of Callao and exchanged it for imported goods at the trade fair of Portobelo in modern day Panama."[7] "This practice was sanctioned by law as all trade from the Viceroyalty was required to go through Callao on its way to and from overseas markets. The resulting economic prosperity of the city was reflected in its rapid growth, population expanded from about 25,000 in 1619 to an estimated 80,000 in 1687."[8]
[INSERT MAP OF COLONIAL PERU]
Callao
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[9]
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."[10]
"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."[11]
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[12]
Mexican silver mining
- Spanish viceregal state did not participate directly in silver mining[13]
- 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.[14]
- 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[15]
Potential sources
Kenneth Andrien, Crisis and decline: the Viceroyalty of Peru in the seventeenth century (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1985)
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
- discussion of role of merchant producers and financiers (p.72)
Heidi V. Scott, Mapping Peru in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (Notre Dame, 2009)
- ↑ 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
- ↑ Wikipedia entry: History of Lima
- ↑ Kenneth Andrien, Crisis and decline: the Viceroyalty of Peru in the seventeenth century (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1985), pp. 11–13
- ↑ Kenneth Andrien, Crisis and decline: the Viceroyalty of Peru in the seventeenth century (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1985), p.16
- ↑ Kenneth Andrien, Crisis and decline: the Viceroyalty of Peru in the seventeenth century (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1985), p.30
- ↑ 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)
