Brading Goverment and Elite Mexico

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Government and Elite in Late Colonial MexicoAuthor(s): D. A. BradingSource: The Hispanic American Historical Review, Vol. 53, No. 3 (Aug., 1973), pp. 389-414Published by: Duke University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2512971

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Governmenrtand Elite in LateColonial Mexico

D. A. BRADING

OLONIAL MEXICO WAS A SOCIETY of Orders or Estates.According to Roland Mousnier, stratification and statusin such a society are determined by the privileges,functions and comparative esteem of the various estates rather than

by the hierarchy of economic class or relation to the marketplace.1New Spain presents a complicated variant of this type of society inthat the functional distinctions of Europe were replaced by an ethnicstratification based upon the five Estates of Spaniards, mestizos, mulat-toes, Indians and blacks. These categories indicated only the approxi-mate genetic character of an individual and are best regarded asdefinitions of civic and fiscal status.2 As descendants of the conqueringnation, Spaniards constituted the noble estate within this colonialscale, exercising a virtual monopoly of all appointments in Churchand State. By the close of the eighteenth century, however, throughnatural increase, intermarriage and the silent intrusion of mestizos andmulattoes, this stratum had come to comprise about i8 percent ofthe Mexican population.3 Defined by occupation, at least three-quarters

* The author is Associate Professor of History at Yale Ulniversity.Editor's note: This essay is a revised version of a paper presented by ProfessorBrading at the December 1972 meetings of the American Historical Association.Some of the themes which it explores are already familiar to readersof his Minersand Merchants in Bourbon Mexico, 1763-1810. The editors are pleased to publishthe present essay as, like the companion piece by John N. Kennedy, it adds newmaterial to and representsa further step towarda new synthesis of the recent workof variousscholarson late colonial elites.1. See Roland Mousnier, Les hierarchies sociales de 1450 a nos jours (Paris,1969). Sections of his discussionare reproducedin Mousnier,Peasant UprisingsinSeventeenth Century France, Russia and China (New York, 1970), pp. 3-31, 153-178, 233-272.2. See also Lyle N. McAlister, "Social Structure and Social Change in NewSpain," HAHR, 53:3 (August 1963), 349-370; Woodrow Borah, "Race and Classin Mexico," The Pacific Historical Review, 22 (1954), 331-342; Richard M. Morse,"The Heritage of Latin America," n Louis Hartz, The Founding of New Societies(New York, 1964), pp. 135-146.3. D. A. Brading,Miners and Merchantsin Bour-bonMexico, 1763-810o (Cam-bridge, Eng., 1971), pp. 14, 19-24.


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390 HAHR I AUGUST I D.A. BRADINGof all American-born Spaniards belonged to the upper ranks of thepopulace rather than to any elite. One consequence of the expansion,not to say dilution of the Spanish group, was that only the peninsulares,immigrants from the metropolis, and a reduced number of Creolefamilies possessed the quintessential nobility of their estate.

At the forefront of the Spanish estate stood the gente decente, therespectable, the quality. No single criterion such as ownership of landor common legal privilege governed entrance into this heterogeneouscolonial elite, which numbered less than 5 percent of the Mexicanpopulation. Instead, it comprised most European Spaniards, all clergy-men, qualified doctors, lawyers and notaries, the royal bureaucracy,merchants, hacendados and successful silver miners. As such, its mem-bership derived from the operation of the three distinct principles ofethnic nobility, legal privilege and wealth. The metropolitan origin ofthe peninsulares, be they officials or merchants, conferred an assuredelite status which led them to dismiss any creole claims to superiority.Then again, the clergy, by reason of the fuero which exempted themfrom all civil jurisdiction, and their education, possessed a socialposition second to none. Similarly the merchants, organized into aguild with its court and fuero, enjoyed an acceptance more reminiscentof Boston than of Madrid. By contrast, the place of the landownerswithin the elite was ambiguous and difficult to define. Ownership ofa great estate brought more prestige than legal status. In general, theMexican hacendado lacked the privileges, the fscal exemptions andthe command of political office that was associated with gentry statusin Europe. There was no fuero, no specific quality or title of nobilitythat went with ownership of an hacienda. In effect, New Spain wasdominated by the network of towns rather than by an aristocracy ofthe countryside, and town councils, the chief institution of local society,were rarely headed by landowners. As far as can be ascertained,hacendados consorted on relatively equal terms with the local clergy,royal officials and prosperous merchants.4 All such calculations ofrank, however, are in part vitiated by the absence in New Spain ofthat elaborate round of public functions, balls, receptions and huntswhich in Europe at this period constituted Society and which servedas an open forum wherein individual and family status could beappraised and compared.5

4. For a vigorous statement of this position, see Frank Safford, "Social Aspectsof Politics in Nineteenth-Century Spanish America: New Granada, 1825-1850,"Journalof Social History, 5:3 (Spring, 1972), 344-370.5. H. G. Ward, Mexico in 1827 (2 vols., London, 1828), II, 715. "I have saidnothingabout the organizationof society in Mexico,because, in fact, there is none."


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GOVERNMENT AND ELITE IN LATE COLONIAL MEXICO 391In this essay, I propose (1) to analyze the composition of the

Mexican elite during the eighteenth century and to trace the differentpatterns of social mobility exhibited by its creole and peninsular mem-bers; (2) to examine creole participation in the bureaucracy; (3) todiscuss the allocation of political benefits to the different sections ofthe Mexican elite; and (4) to scan the changes wrought by the attain-ment of independence. A major theme throughout is the economicand political debility of the Mexican hacendado. To illumine thedrift of the argument, I find it instructive to begin with an Englishcomparison.

IISome years ago Lawrence Stone presented a brilliant visual image

of Tudor England.6 He compared English society of the 1540S tothe United Nations Building at New York. The overwhelming majorityof the population-up to 95 percent-inhabited the podium. Its greatlateral extension, with many corridors and several floors, offered aconsiderable range of horizontal movement, between both districtsand occupations, and included a limited chance of upward socialascent. Towering above the masses were several status groups whichoccupied the skyscraper, defined for the most part by the amountof land they owned. Inside the tower an infrequent elevator con-nected the levels, carrying, however, more passengers on the down-ward journey than in the reverse direction. Outside the skyscraper,exposed to the winds, ran four ramps, labelled Law, Office, Church,and Commerce, up which individuals climbed to the height permittedby their talents and fortune, wlhereupon they entered the skyscraperthrough the purchase of land. Professor Stone concluded with a con-trast to the England of 1700, wllich he claimed could be best illus-trated by San Gimignano, a town standing on a hill with a series ofvertical towers rising above tlle cluster of houses beneath. By then,each economic and status group had its own elevator and hierarchy,running independently of tlhe central tower of landownership.

Bourbon Mexico more closely resembled Tudor than HanoverianEngland. At least 95 percent of its population lived at the base ofthe social scale, denied much opportunity of upward social mobilitybeyond the prescribed limits open to la plebe. Within this range, how-ever, there existed distinct economic strata. A silver miner earning350 pesos a year or a ranchero with land and livestock worth 5oo pesos

6. Lawrence Stone, "Social Mobility in England, 1500-1700: Conference Paper,"Past and Present, 33 (1966), 16-50.


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392 HAHR I AUGUST I D.A. BRADINGdiffered markedly from an hacienda peon paid a maize ration and anannual wage of 48 pesos, and still more from a vagrant hired handgaining 2 reales a day where and when employment could be found.These variations at times bisected the hierarchy of ethnic estates; butthey form a subject in themselves and here is not the occasion toexplore them.7

Lifting our view to the inhabitants of the social skyscraper, wefind that in Mexico as in Tudor England fortunes created in commerce,mining and public office were generally invested in the purchase oflanded estates. Unfortunately as yet we lack an adequate character-ization of the Mexican hacendado of the eighteenth century. By 181o,with 4,945 listed haciendas and estancias, there were probably littlemore than 4,000 families who belonged to the landlord class. Withinthis limited number we must distinguish a mere hacendado, holding asingle estate worth about 20-50,000 pesos, from a great magnate,owner of a chain of haciendas collectively valued at anywhere between300,000 and a million pesos. At both levels this class experiencedfinancial difficulties of such proportions as to constitute a downwardlymobile sector in society. The Marquises of San Miguel de Aguayo,with entails covering half of Coahuila, barely supported their inheriteddebts of nearly half a million pesos. Smaller fry were soon sold up.In his study of the Valley of Oaxaca, William Taylor has found thatthose haciendas for which he possessed complete records, on averagechanged hands five times during the eighteenth century. In Le6n myown research yields a somewhat lower value; there, a sample of 25haciendas averagedfour sales over the period 1700-1860. The causesof this turnover in ownership, precipitous by European standards, haveyet to be fully defined; tentatively, we may advance three factors:(1) The testamentary system. Entails were uncommon and primo-geniture forbidden by law. Since the physical partition of haciendaswas normally impractical or forbidden by mortgage contracts, theequal division of a fortLne among all heirs frequently required thesale of an estate. (2) Ecclesiastical mortgages and annuities. Over theyears many haciendas had been so burdened that all their income wentfor the payment of interest. In a sample of 27 haciendas, Taylor cal-culated the sum of clerical charges at 67 percent of their total capitalvalue.8 (3) The relatively low and uncertain rate of agricultural profit.

7. Manuel Abad y Queipo, "Escritos,"Jose Maria Luis Mora, Obras sueltas(Mexico, 1963), pp. 208-209.8. For list of haciendas see Fernando Navarro y Noriega, Memoria sobre lapoblacion del reino de Ntueva Espania (Mixico, 1943), foldpaper. For the Mar-quisate of San Miguel, Vito Alessio Robles, Coahuila y Texas en la epoca colonial(Mixico, 1938), pp. 503-508. For Oaxaca, William B. Taylor, Landlord andPeasant in Colonial Oaxaca (Stanford, 1972), pp. 141-142, 251.


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GOVERNMENT AND ELITE IN LATE COLONIAL MEXICO 393With exports denied by reason of transport costs, the great estatesderived their income from sales to the fairly limited urban markets.Enrique Florescano has argued that competition from small producers-rancheros and Indian villages-forced the haciendas to rely for profitupon the intermittent years of scarce harvests when they could releasetheir stored grain at high prices.9 Whatever the cause, and no doubteach region followed a different pattern, the colonial hacienda did notconstitute a firm foundation for the establishment of a stable Americannobility or gentry.The chief vehicles of upward economic mobility were commerceand mining. Apart from the windfall of marriage to an heiress, thecommonest way of making a fortune was to open a shop. Reliablefigures as to the number of merchants, as distinct from mere dealers,cannot be readily obtained. In 1791 the census listed 1,384 comerciantesin Mexico City, a term which probably included the cajeros or appren-tices; only 85 men, however, chose to vote in the Consulado electionsof 1787. In much the same year, Guanajuato, the leading silver-miningtown, housed no more than 162 merchants and 149 cajeros, wvhiletheentire intendancy supported about a thousand persons described ascomerciantes.10 In all, I should be surprised if over lo,ooo merchantsand cajeros were to be found in New Spain at this time. Needless tosay, great differences existed in the scale of enterprise. Many tradersfinished an arduous life worth only a few hundred pesos; the mostsuccessful usually built upon family relations and business connectionswhich provided early access to credit and capital. With few excep-tions, once accumulated, mercantile capital was invested in the pur-chase of landed estates.One remarkable feature of colonial commerce requires emphasis.All available evidence suggests that the wealthiest merchants in boththe capital and the chief provincial towns were immigrants from thePeninsula. An inspection of the 1791-92 census shows that in the Bajioabout half of all comerciantes and cajeros were European Spaniards.In all, the immigrant community of these years, excluding membersof the religious orders, did not number more than 9,250 persons, ofwhom a mere 400 were women. About a quarter of this number (andover half the females) resided in Mexico City. The remainder clusteredin the major urban centers-314 persons in Guanajuato, 249 in Oaxaca,Lgo in Queretaro, 113 in Orizaba, 93 in Jalapa, 51 in Toluca, 40 in

9. Enrique Florescano, Estructuras y problemas agrarios de Mexico ( 500-1821 ( Mexico, 1971 ), PP. 125-128.lo. For Mexico City, see Alexander von Humboldt, Ensayo politico sobre elreino de la Nueva Espaiia (Mexico, 1966), PP. 579. For Consuladoelections andGuanajuato, see Brading, Miners and Merchants, pp. 117, 254. Also, ArchivoGeneral de la Nacion (hereafter cited as AGN), Historia 523, ff. 76, go.


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394 HAHR I AUGUST I D.A. BRADINGSan Miguel el Grande, and 19 in San Juan del Rio. A scattered sampleof jurisdictions, mainly located in the Bajio but including Toluca, Ori-zaba and Jalapa, reveals that under a fifth of these men lived in thecountryside. At least 55 percent of all immigrants and probably more,entered trade." (See Table I). European settlement in New Spainthus could be graphically represented as a network of urban knotsconnected by the fine lines of commercial credit and family relation.In the last resort, it was probably more in his person than by reason ofhis occupation that the gachupin merchant enjoyed social acceptance.

Silver-mining can be compared to a primitive open hoist movingat dizzying speed, onto which men jumped at their peril. Most novicescrashed to their ruin; the few survivors, however, often rose to thehighest levels of colonial society. The extreme volatility of this pro-fession prevents any easy calculation of number, all the more sincethe 1792-93 census does not distinguish between the great mine-ownersand mere technicians or prospectors. Wages at all levels were high,with skilled pick and blast men forming a labor aristocracy. In all, Idoubt whether the industry, in both its refining and mining sectors,employed more than a thousand persons with the pretension or pos-sibility of elite status.

Viewed as an economic system our model offers few surprises. Thesignificance of the export sector lay in its profitability, rather than inthe total value of its product. Only through mining and the inmporta-tion of luxury goods (all European cloth can be reckoned a luxury)could great fortunes be readily assembled.'2 But mining was apeculiarly speculative business and trade a decidedly tedious one,and in each occupation success depended upon personal flair noteasily transmitted to children who were educated to consider them-selves gentlemen. In the absence of banks, joint stock companies andnational debt bonds, the only sure investments were in land, urbanproperty and the Church. In general, therefore, a continuous processwas in motion whereby surplus capital accumulated in the exportsector was sunk in the purchase of landed estates, there to be slowlydissipated through conspicuous consumption, testamentary partition,clerical bequests and seasonal losses.

Regarded as a social system, the model contains some unusualfeatures. In Western Europe also wealthy urban merchants, them-ii. These are my calculations based upon an examinationof AGN, Padrones,vols. 5, 19-24, 26, 30-31, 34-37, 39, 41-42; see also Navarroy Noriega, Memoria,p. 64-65.12. See Jonathan V. Levin, The Export Economies (Cambridge, Mass., 1960),

pp. 7-12.


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396 HAHR AUGUST I D.A. BRADINGselves often the sons of impecunious gentry or prosperous peasants,frequently bought the estates of impoverished noblemen. The rise andfall of such families was a commonplace in the literature of thisperiod.13 In New Spain, however, this circular movement, so often ajourmey spread over three generations from the countryside to thetown and back again, was interrupted. The peninsular immigrantswho dominated commerce ascended the social scale, the creole land-owners descended it. Silver mining attracted both groups and injecteda feverish quality into the scene, with a few miners, creoles amongthem, becoming millionaires and the majority ending their days with-out reward. Needless to say, the downward progress of the creoleupper class often stretched across more than the proverbial threegenerations, and no doubt in some cases skilful management avertedtotal ruin. The general trend, however, remains unmistakable.Equally startling to a European observer is the rapidity with whichfamilies moved up and down the social scale. To take the aristocracyas a yardstick, we find that of the 49 new titles of nobility granted inMexico over the years 1700-181o no less than 26 went to miners andmerchants and 21 to immigrants, excluding officials from the latter cal-culation. Yet despite initial fortunes often worth over half a millionpesos, several newly ennobled families did not weather the passage oftime. In 1775 an official inquiry into the tax debts of the aristocracyfound that some titles had been renounced because the current descen-dants were poverty-stricken.14The Marquis of San Clemente, a lead-ing miner of Guanajuato, died virtually bankrupt, and his grandson,who wished to marry a maid-servant, relinquished all claim to thetitle. It is significant that when the Counts of Perez G'alvez and CasaRul, two Malaguenio immigrants enriched by marriages to miningheiresses, sought to create landed patrimonies, they bought entirechains of haciendas from the descendants of the Marquis of Altamiraand from the second Count of Regla, titles respectively conferred in1704 and 1768.15The downward social mobility of so many elite families obviouslyexacerbated the tension which characterized the relations of thepeninsulares and the creoles. By the close of the seventeenth century

13. See PierreGoubert,Beauvais et le Beauvaisis de z6oo a 1730 (2 vols., Paris,1960), I, 206-222, 334-348. A concise contemporary analysis was made by JohnMillar, The Origin of the Distinctions of Ranks (Edinburgh, 1779), reprinted inWilliam C. Lehmann,John Millar of Glasgow, 1735-18o0 (Cambridge,Eng., 1960),pp. 290-291. See also Brading, Miners anidMerchants, pp. 208-214.

14. "La nobleza colonial en la segunda parte del siglo XVIII," in ArchivoGeneral de la Nacion, Boletzn, 13 (1942), 541-590.15. Brading, Miners and Merchants, pp. 105, 120, 208, 264-265, 297-298.


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GOVERNMENT AND ELITE IN LATE COLONIAL MEXICO 397both travellers and viceroys commented upon their mutual antipathy.16Apparently the two branches of the Spanish nation resident in Mexicohad developed distinct social identities. The stereotypes of their respec-tive characters bear a remarkable similarity to the social psychologyof colonial Europeans defined by 0. Mannoni in his classic study oftwentieth-century Madagascar.17The European Spaniard had to provehis elite status by achievement; his arrogance sprang from the con-viction of his superiority to the colored masses about him, an attitudewhich was confirmed by his command of the chief avenues leadingto financial success. By contrast, the upper-class American Spaniardwas born a gentleman and demonstrated his superior status by con-spicuous consumption. The peculiar bitterness of the situation camefrom the creole knowing that he was trapped on a downwardly movingeconomic escalator, his descendants doomed to lose their rank insociety.An acute sense of displacement, or best to say, disinheritance, laydeep within the Mexican mind, with its collective roots reaching backto the late sixteenth century when encomendero families found theirsocial position challenged and in many cases overshadowed by newwaves of immigrants enriched through mining, trade or public office.As early as 1599, Gonzalo G6mez de Cervantes exclaimed: "those whobut yesterday served in shops, taverns and other low jobs now todaypossess the best and most honorable positions in the country, whereasgentlemen and descendants of the men who conquered and settledit are poor, humiliated, disfavored and cast down."18The most poign-ant of these laments came from Baltasar Dorantes de Carranza:"Oh Indias! Madre de extran-os, abrigo de forajidos y delincuentes,patria comuin a los innaturales, dulce beso a los recien venidos . . .Madrasta de vuestros hijos y destierro de vuestros naturales, azote delos propios . . ."19A generation later, the Peruvian chronicler, Antoniode la Calancha, expressed the same sentiment in an equally untrans-latable formula: "los nacidos en ella (Peru) son peregrinos en su

36. G. F. Gemelli Carreri,Viaje a la Nueva Espaiia (2 vols., Mexico, 1955),I, 45; Instrucciones que los virreyes de Nueva Espaiia dejaron a sus sucesores(2 vols., Mexico, 1873), I, 101-103.17. 0. Mannoni, Prosperoand Caliban. The Psychology of Colonization (2ndedition, New York, 1964), pp. 97-109, 125-28.i8. Gonzalo Gomez de Cervantes,La vida econo'micay social de Nueva Espainaal finalizar el siglo XVI (Mexico, 1944), p. 94.L9.Baltasar Dorantes de Carranza,Sumariarelacion de la cosas de la NuevaEspaiia (Mexico, 1902), pp. 113-114; see also Jorge Alberto Manrique, "La epocacritica de la Nueva Espana a traves de sus historiadores,"in Investigacionescontemporacneasobre historia de Mexico (Mexico and Austin, Texas, 1971), pp.101-124.


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398 HAHM AUJGUST I D.A. BRADINGpatria; los advenedizos son los herederos de sus honras."20How often,even until the Revolution of our century, was the Mexican intellectualto echo these declarations! Over the years the initial hostility towardsnewcomers was to deepen into set patterns of prejudice invoked evenby the children of later settlers against all immigrants to New Spain.It is noticeable that the chief exponents of creole patriotism-Calancha,Eguiara y Eguren, Clavijero and Bustamante-were all sons ofpeninsulares.If creole resentment rarely exploded into overt political action, itwas presumably because in each generation the most gifted Mexicansof the upper classes entered the priesthood, and there, in the multiplefunctions of the ministry, in preaching, lecturing and writing, in theadministration of the sacraments and the direction of conscience, andin the management of the financial resources of the Church, found anample field for the exercise of their talents. In effect, the Americanclergy acted as the moral and intellectual leaders of colonial society.The gachupin merchant, disdainful of creole business ability, acceptedtheir spiritual guidance with the greatest complacency and encouragedhis children to enter the Church. By 181o the clergy comprised 4,229secular priests and 3,112 friars. Actual parish benefices numbered 1,073besides another 107 cathedral prebendaries.21 Viewed as a source ofemployment, the Church overshadowed all other professions. In 1804the Audiencia counted a mere 386 registered lawyers in Mexico, ofwhom only 210 were in practice. Similarly notaries and qualified physi-cians (as distinct from escribientes and cirujanos) each numberedabout 150 persons for the entire country.22

Judged in secular light as a career or livelihood, the Church servedas a haven for the impecunious creole without the financial means tosupport his social pretensions; and for the most talented it offered apath of promotion. Income derived from the ecclesiastical tithe, fromparish fees and from the five percent interest paid on the multitude ofcapellantas and other endowments charged on haciendas and urban

20. Antonio de la Calancha, Co6onicamoralizada del orden de San Augustinen el Peru'(Barcelona, 1639), p. 72.21. Fernando Navarro y Noriega, Memoria sobre la poblacio'n,foldpaper; seealso his Catalogo de los curatos y misiones de la Nueva Espaiia (Mexico, 1943),pp. 44, 50; MarianoTorrente, Historia de la revolucion hispano-americana 3 vols.,Madrid, 1829), I, 46-48.22. For number of lawyers see Archivo General de Indias (hereafter cited asAGI), Mexico i8ii, Audiencia to Council of Indies, October 21, 18o6. The in-tendency of Guanajuato, with about a tenth of the Mexican population, had 9physicians and iL notaries; in addition there were 51 doctors and 63 notaries inMexico City. See Humboldt, Ensayo politico, p. 579, and AGN, Historia, v. 523,ff. 76, go.


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GOVERNMENT AND ELITE IN LATE COLONIAL MEXICO 399property. A considerable part of Church capital came from landownersand merchants who established capellanias as perpetual annuities forthose of their descendants who entered the priesthood.23 In this fashion,many an hacienda yielded an income to families who years before hadrelinquished formal ownership of the estate. At one level a major causeof the economic debility of the landowvningclass, at another level theChurch employed much of its income to support the children of thesame class who chose to become priests or nuns. Full comprehensionof this intimate symbiosis, as much as the effect of clerical celibacyupon the composition of the colonial elite, awaits ftirther research. Aninstructive exercise would be to calculate how much accumulated capi-tal went into the construction of the churches, convents and altars whichare still the architectural glory of Mexico.

IIIAs yet our description lacks a political dimension. What were therelations of the royal bureaucracy and the colonial elite? First let usclarify our terms. S. N. Eisenstadt has defined the polity of the SpanishEmpire as a historical bureaucracy, a system of government associatedin continental Europe with dynastic absolutism and which succeededthe patrimonial and feudal regimes of the Middle Ages. In his studyof the Audiencia of Quito, John L. Phelan has demonstrated theutility of this Weberian category.24 No longer mere household ser-

vants of the Crown, the bureaucracy acted as a semi-autonomous bodyjealous of its professional prerogatives, and as such can be viewed asan interest group comparable to t-he territorial aristocracy, the Churchor the urban elites. Within most polities of this type Crown officialshad the tendency to assimilate to the condition of the aristocracy.Here we must guard against the habit of applying grand abstrac-tions to small groups of people. Until the Bourbon reforms of the lateeighteenth century the Spanish Crown depended upon a mere handfulof officials to govern its American empire. In New Spain the entire ju-dicial bureaucracy, i.e., the salaried members of the audiencias ofMexico and Guadalajara, numbered about 20 persons. The fiscal bu-

reaucracy was equally exiguous. The court of audit and the treasuries23. Frangois Chevalier, La formacio'n de los grandes latifundios en Mexico

(Mexico, 1956), pp. 204-208.24. I here follow John Leddy Phelan, The Kingdomof Quito in the SeventeenthCentury (Madison, 1967), pp. 320-327. See S. N. Eisenstadt, The Political Systemsof Empires (New York, 1963). For a brilliant analysis of dynastic absolutism seeHans Rosenberg,Bureaucracy,Aristocracyand Autocracy.The PrussianExperience166o-1815 (2nd edition, Boston, 1966).


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400 HAHR I AUGUST I D.A. BRADINGdid not employ more that 6o men above the level of mere clerks.25Save for the frontierpatrolsand the port guards,there were no armedforcesworthyof mention.The districtmagistrates,he alcaldesmayoresand corregidores,did not fulfill any known criterion of bureaucracy.With the accessionof the Bourbondynastyall pretenseat payingwhatwas already deemed a derisorysalary was abandoned,so that thesemagistrates,150 in number,had to subsist upon the meager fruits ofjustice or else engage in illegal trade.26Appointedfor periodsof threeto five years,without professionalqualificationor tradition,these offi-cials viewed their positions as mere prebends,as an opportunityforpersonalenrichment.Interest in colonial governmenthas largely centered about thequestionof creole exclusionfrom public office.The traditionalnotion,still enshrinedin most textbooks,stemmed fiom the debates at theCortes of Cadiz in i8ii when the Americandeputies compiled liststo demonstrate he derisorynumberof native-bornviceroysand arch-bishops. Althougheven then their evidence was challenged by JuanLopez de Cancelada, their contentions were eagerly embraced bypropagandists or independence.Later publicationof colonial docu-ments confirmed he currentorthodoxy.27As early as 1604 a Mexicanviceroy commented:"It is commonopinionthat of necessity only de-scendants of the Conquerors should serve as corregidores. ."28 Atthe start of the eighteenth century, Dr. Juan Antonio de Ahumadaaddressed an outspoken memorial to Philip V, demanding that allCrown appointments n Americashould be reselved for the nativesof that hemisphere,to the heirs, so he argued, of the men who hadconquered t. Withoutthe hope of public office,young creoles lackedincentive to study and sank back into idleness and vice, becomingmere "pilgrims n their homeland."29n 1771 the ayuntamientoofMexico City reiterated his argumentswith equal vehemence. Theyfrankly dismissedEuropean Spaniardsas foreignersin Mexico, andhence soughta creolemonopoly n the royalbureaucracy.30

25. The court of audit then employed 14 permanentaccountantsand a varyingnumber of supernumeraries.There were still only 3o treasuries. Brading, Minersand Merchants, p. 55; Joaquin Maniau Torquemada, Compendio de la historiade la real hacienda de Nueva Espania(Mexico, 1914), pp. 6-8.26. Brading,Minersand Merchants,p. 48.27. JuanL6pez de Cancelada,El Tel4grafoAmericano (Cadiz, 1812), pp. 333-

142; Jos' Miguel Guridi Alcocer, El Censor Extraordinario Cadiz, 1812), pp. 1-26.28. Instrucciones que los virreyes de Nueva Espaniadejaron a sus sucesores,(M6exico,1867), pp. 249, 255.29.Juan Antonio Ahumada, Representaci6npol'tica-legal a la Magestad delSr. D. Felipe V en favor de los espaiioles americanos . . . (Madrid, 1725).30. The 1771 memorial is printed in Juan E. Hemrndez y Davalos, Coleccionde documentospara la historiade la guerra de independenciade Me'xicode 18o8a 1821 (6 vols., Mexico, 1877-82), I, 427-455.


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GOVERNMENT AND ELITE IN LATE COLONIAL MEXICO 401Recently, however, the traditional view has been challenged and

in part refuted. In a series of four articles, all published in 1972, LeonCampbell, Mark Burkholder, Jacques Barbier, and D. S. Chandlerdemonstrated that during the eighteenth century, creole membershipin the American audiencias was common and at times predominant.My own inspection of the Mexican court pointed in the same direc-tion.3' It has been conclusively proved that during the 176os the major-ity of oidores in the audiencias of Lima, Santiago de Chile and Mexicowere creoles. This preponderance was of relatively recent origin. Itderived from the extraordinary decision of the first Bourbons to sellaudiencia judgeships to qualified bidders. Between 1701-50 a quarterof all new appointments were sold, with a heavy concentration ofsuch transactions occurring in the 1740s. During this period Americansreceived two-fifths of all places, the majority-less than two-thirds-obtaining their office through purchase. In Lima and Santiago de Chile,most creole oidores were intimately linked by descent, marriage orfinancial interest to the landowning elite of these capitals. Here, aswith cabildo membership, sale of office ironically opened the way to aform of representative government. By 1770 most American audienciasrepresented the rich and powerful families of their respective provinces.

The Audiencia of Mexico displayed the same characteristics as itscounterparts in Lima and Chile. In 1767, of the eleven men with ascer-tained backgrounds (there were twelve places) eight were creoles andthree peninsulares, although at least three of these creoles had Euro-pean fathers, with the parent of another coming from the CanaryIslands. Although only half of the American oidores were born in theprovinces subject to the Mexican court, another two came from Jalisco,and a third, a native of Guatemala, was educated in Mexico City. Noless than five oidores, including two peninsulares, were directly con-nected through marriage or by descent to the titled nobility. Equallyimportant, at least five judges were the children of government officials,two being the sons of oidores. Evidence as to their individual wealthis not available; education and talent, however, constituted an im-portant role in their advancement. At least four were educated at thefamous Jesuit College of San Ildefonso in Mexico City.32Two creoles,

31. Leon G. Campbell, "A Colonial Establishment: Creole Domination of theAudiencia of Lima during the Late Eighteenth Century,"HAHR, 52:1 (February1972), 1-25; Mark A. Burkholder, "From Creole to Peninsular: The Transforma-tion of the Audiencia of Lima," and Jacques A. Barbier, "Elites and Cadres inBourbon Chile," both in HAHR, 52:3 (August 1972), 395-415, 416-435; M. A.Burkholderand D. S. Chandler,"CreoleAppointmentsand the Sale of AudienciaPositions in the Spanish Empire under the Early Bourbons 1701-1750," Journal ofLatin American Studies, 4 ( 1972), 187-206.

32. Brading, Miners and Merchants, pp. 40-44.


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402 HAHR I AUGUST I D.A. BRADINGFrancisco Javier de Gamboa and Joaquln de Rivadeneyra had spentconsiderable time in Spain, where both made their reputation upon thepublication of substantial books. The Mexican oidores thus formed atightly knit elite group, with similar social backgrounds and educa-tion; one or two were distantly related by marriage.

With the paucity of prosopographical studies, it is still premature togeneralize from the one instance of the audiencias. The success ofAmerican Spaniards in buying their way onto the bench implies alack of competition from wealthy lawyers in Madrid. By contrast, thehigh profits expected from the alcaldias mayores, in particular thosewhich produced cochineal, probably awakened peninsular avarice.In this case, sale of office may well have worked against creole partici-pation. In point of fact, we know remarkably little about the socialbackground of these magistrates. Similarly, the sources of recruitmentinto the fiscal bureaucracy are equally obscure. Only future researchwill settle such questions.No discussion of colonial government can afford to ignore the roleof the Church. Dependent upon the Crown for beneficed appoint-ment and promotion, the clergy formed a parallel administrative bu-reaucracy which, judged as a system of social control, operated farmore effectively than the secular magistracy. The Church dominatedthe intellectual and spiritual life of the country and in addition pro-vided that range of welfare services-schools, colleges, hospitals, asy-lums and orphanages-which is now supported by the State. It col-lected its own tax-the tithe-and ran its own courts. Ecclesiasticaljudges did not confine their attention to cases of clerical discipline orspiritual transgression; in instances of default in payment of eithertithes or interest upon Church mortgages they could also order the em-bargo and auction of private property.33More generally, it was to the1,073 parish priests rather than to the 150 alcaldes nayores that thepopulace looked for guidance and leadership. In the same fashion, itwas to the clergy that both Crown and the upper classes appealedwhen the masses went out on riot.34 The mission role of the Jesuitsand Franciscans in frontier pacification requires no comment. Despitetheir importance, we know virtually nothing about the social composi-tion of the Mexican clergy save that at some ill-defined moment in theseventeenth century secular benefices below the rank of bishop becamea creole monopoly. For what it is worth, we may note that during the

33. N. M. Farriss,Crown and Clergy in Colonial Mexico 1759-1821 (London,1968), pp. 94-96, 152-154, 165-168.34. In Tehuantepec the mere appearanceof the Bishop of Oaxaca in episcopalattire apparently quieted an Indian rebellion. See Brian R. Hamnett, Politics andTrade in Southern Mexico 1750-1821 (Cambridge, Eng., 1971), p. 13.


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GOVERNMENT AND ELITE IN LATE COLONIAL MEXICO 4031790S at least four sons of audiencia judges were members of thecathedral chapter of Mexico.35To convert the American Empire into a more profitable possession,Charles III and his ministers relied upon the classic instruments ofabsolutist monarchy: the soldier and the tax collector. A small regulararmy of about lo,ooo men was organized for permanent duty in NewSpain, the rank and file mainly recruited from the districts in whichthey were stationed. The fiscal bureaucracy experienced an unprece-dented expansion with the augmentation of old institutions such asthe treasuries and the court of audit, and the creation of new depart-ments such as the tobacco monopoly, the excise service and the inten-dancies. The 1791-92 census listed 311 persons in Mexico City as em-pleados de real hacienda and another 105 in the Guanajuato inten-dancy, figures superior to the combined total of lawyers, physiciansand notaries in each district.36 I estimate that as a consequence of theBourbon reforms the number of well-paid permanent places in thecolonial bureaucracy quadrupled. The emphasis remained upon reve-nue collection. Apart from the installation of 12 intendants as provin-cial govemors, local government was neglected, being farmed out tosubdelegates, the new version of the alcaldes mayores,who were ex-pected to subsist upon a five percent commission of tribute collectedfrom their Indian and mulatto subjects.

The recent research mentioned above has confirmed that CharlesIII and Jose de Galvez as Minister of the Indies actively sought to re-duce creole participation in both Church and State. High officials inthe tobacco monopoly and the excise service were brought directlyfrom the Peninsula. Through a variety of devices the creole share ofaudiencia places was cut to about a third or quarter of the total mem-bership. Similarly, about a third of the prebendaries of the archiepisco-pal chapter were eventually occupied by Europeans.37 Once again,caution is advisable when interpreting incomplete evidence. The in-crease in government activity undoubtedly gave employment to manycreoles who at an earlier period would have petitioned in vain for somekind of office. Then again, creole exclusion mainly operated at thehighest level. Nearly all the parochial clergy continued to be locally

35. These were AndresLuis Ferna6ndez e Madrid, Juan Jose Gamboay Urrutia,Ciro Ponciano Villaurrutia,and Joaquin Jose Ladron de Guevara; in additionJose Cayetano Foncerradawas brotherto an oidor appointed a little later. Titulosde Indias. Catalogo XX del Archivo General de Simancas (Valladolid, 1954),pp. 168-176.36. Humboldt, Ensayo politico, p. 579; AGN, Historia 523, iff.76, go.37. See note 31; also Juan Lopez de Cancelada, El Tele'gafo Americano,pp.139-141.


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404 HAR I AUGUST I D.A. BRADINGrecruited. A case in point was the colonial armiy.An inspection of theofficer record sheets for 1798-1800 reveals that tlhe six regiments andone battalion of the central force (we exclude from our calculationsthe scattered companies of the north) were led by 268 officers withranks of ensign to captain. Of tlhese men 112 were peninsulares, 28Americans from other colonies, and the remaining 128 natives ofMexico. As might be expected, however, all save one of the colonelswere Europeans.38 (See Table II.) It was against this discriminationthat the Mexico City Ayuntamiento complained in 1771, and againin 1776. In effect, when the American deputies at the Cortes of Cadizprotested against creole exclusion from public office, they denouncedthe policy of the past generation rather than the practice of the entirecolonial period.TABLE II. Creole and Peninsular Officers in New Spain's Army1798-1800.

Regular Regiments Militia RegimentsCreolesfromMexican Other MexicanRank Peninsular Creole Colonies Totals Peninsular Creole Totals

Colonel 4 - 4 6 9 15Lt. Colonel 8 1 - 9 13 5 38Captain 40 31 3 74 76 78 154Lieutenant 28 55 4 87 76 go 366Sub-Lieut.&Ensigni 44 42 21 107 57 119 176Cadet 9 39 29 77 6 36 22Reg. Adjutant 1 2 - 3 26 7 33Reg. Lieut. - 27 13 40Totals 134 170 57 361 287 338 624

The regular force comprises: four infantry regiments, Corona, Nueva Espafia,Mexico and Puebla; the infantrybattalion of Veracruz;and two dragoon regimentsof Puebla and Mexico. The militia force comprises: seven infantry regiments ofMexico, Puebla, Tlaxcala, Tres Villas (Co6rdoba,Orizaba and Jalapa), Toluca,Valladolid,and Celaya;three infantrybattalions of Oaxaca, Guanajuatoand Guada-lajara; eight dragoon regiments of Queretaro, Principe, PaTtzcuaro,uebla, NuevaGalicia, Reina, San Carlos and San Luis; and the lancer squadrons of Veracruz.For rank and file enlistment see Humboldt, Ensayo politico, pp. 554-57.Source: Hojas de servicio in ArclhivoGeneral de Simancas, Guerramoderma,legajos 7274-77.In the case of the upper bureaucracy, tantalizing hints of a moresubtle kind of change can be found. Many of the chief ministers of38. My own calculationsbased on the hojasde servicio found in ArchivoGeneralde Simancas, Guerra moderna, legajos 7274-77.


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GOVERNMENT AND ELITE IN LATE COLONIAL MEXICO 405Charles III-Campomanes, Floridablanca, Roda and Galvez-weremanteistas; that is to say, at university by reason of their inferior socialrank thiey were denied entrance into the prestigious colegios mayoresadministered by the Jesuits, wvhose pupils traditionally secured thelion's share of government appointments.39 Now for seventeenth-cen-tury Spain, Richard Kagan has demonstrated the existence of a letradonobility, a hereditary bureaucratic elite, recruited from families ofnoble status, which despite possession of landed entails, drew theirchief sustenance, generation by generation, from their virtual mo-nopoly of high public office.40 Were the senior officials in New Spainrecruited from a colonial extension of this noblesse de robe? Here itis relevant to recall that no less than five of the Mexican oidores in 1767were sons of royal officials. The current dean of the audiencia, Do-mingo, Valcarcel, a peninsular who served in New Spain from 1721until his death in 1783, clearly sprang from this class. His brother,his father and both his grandfathers were members of the Councilof Castile.41 Then again, the fact that most colonial judges and leadingchurchmen had been trained by the Jesuits no doubt increased theirdislike of the new regime. These class antagonisms and family connec-tions often stretched across the Atlantic into the ministries at Madridand bisected the usual distinctions of creole and peninsular.Equally important, Charles III and his ministers relied upon a dif-ferent kind of trained intelligence to administer the projected expan-sion in government activity. The Hapsburgs had recruited the bureau-cracy from the law faculties of the leading universities. In importantmatters of state they took counsel with theologians and used the argu-ments of scholastic philosophers. In the first decades of the eighteenthcentury the Mexican audiencia still formed the only pool of reliablepublic servants available to administer the complex operations of themint and the mercury monopoly. But after the Galvez visitation, anew breed of official appeared on the scene, by origin army officersand accountants, men without a university or legal education, yetwith a formation and discipline more than adequate for the efficientconduct of state business.42 The key institution here is presumablythe army and the training received by its officers. The military back-ground of the last viceroys and most intendants demonstrates the sig-

39. Richard Herr, The Eighteenth Century Revolution in Spain (Princeton,1958), pp. 25-26; Jean Sarrailh, La Espania ilustrada (Mexico, 1957), pp. 209-211.40. Richard L. Kagan, "Universities in Castile 1500-1700," Past and Present,

49 (1970), 44-71.41. For Valc'arcel, see AGI, Mexico 1371, Bucareli to Arriaga, November 26,1773.42. BradinLg,Minersand Merchants,p. 44


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niticance of Utls transition. iNeedliess to say, since 3alvez cloubtectcreole capacity as much as he suspected their loyalty, he recruited themajority of this new type of bureaucrat, especially the revenue offi-cials, from the Peninsula.

IVIn addition to decisions about the occupancy of public office, apolitical system also deals with the allocation of scarce economic re-

sources. The historical bureaucratic polities all had to come to termswith the powerful vested interests of the traditional elite groups. InEastern Europe, for example, the absolute monarchies of this periodbased their new-found authority upon a close alliance with the terri-torial aristocracy and gentry. Landowners enrolled in the army andthe civil service and in many instances acted as provincial governors.In exchange for their support, the monarchy confirmed and extendedtheir feudal jurisdiction over the peasantry.43 So too, Lawrence Stonehas emphasized how many noble families in England owed their risein fortune to attendance at the Tudor and Stuart court which servedas a veritable fount of favor, privilege and office.44 Given the lavishexpenditure expected frolm- he aristocracy, it can be argued that inpre-modern economies the maintenance of great landed fortunes re-quired the exercise of political power or material assistance from theState.In sixteenth-century Mexico the Spanish grandees who becameviceroys maintained an open court and acted as the leaders of en-comendero society. Within their hand lay the reversion of vacantencomiendas, the right to grant title for vast tracts of land, and theduty of appointing most alcaldes nmayores. It is noticeable that at thistime many royal officials became wealthy men. In the last resort, how-ever, the viceregal court was but a pale simulacrum of its Madrid origi-nal. Once the period of initial settlement was past, it no longer actedas a dynamic center of autonomous political action. Save at its periph-ery the empire faced remarkably few external or internal challenges;piracy never threatened mainland possession. In consequence theCrown relied upon the audiencias and the Church to maintain law andorder; there was no attempt to mobilize the landowning class for mili-tary or administrative service; the function of the colonies within the

43. Rosenberg, Bureaucracy, Aristocracy and Autocracy, pp. 29-45. HenryKamnen,The Iron Centutry. Social Change in Europe 1550-1660 (London, 1971),pp. 178-i8o, 214-228, 430-433.44. Lawrence Stone, The Crisis of the Aristocracy, 1558-1641 (Oxford, 1965),pp. 398-445.


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GOVERNMENT AND ELITE IN LATE COLONIAL MEXICO 407imperial system was to provide revenue and to serve as a market forSpanish goods.The predicament of the creole elite now becomes apparent. Thepersistent clamor for public office-expressed with an emotional inten-sity quite at variance wvithhe limited range of places available-sprangnot so much from a craving for bureaucratic employment as from a de-sire for political power and its perquisites. The creole sense of grievancestemmed from the historic failure of the first conquerors and encomen-deros to establish a seigneurial society in New Spain. The SpanishCrown's refusal to grant perpetual encomiendas and its insistenceupon cash remuneration for repartimiento workers denied the Mexicanlandowner a supply of free or even cheap labor. The precipitous fallin silver production in the years after 1630, when coupled with thelong demographic decline of the central region, produced a widespreadeconomic crisis, which far from creating a feudal society simply bank-rupted many landowners, forcing them either to abandon or to selltheir estates.45 The comparison with Russia is instructive. There toothe nobility and gentry faced financial ruin at the beginning of theseventeenth century. But the Tsars intervened to rescue them by re-ducing the peasantry to the condition of serfs with the obligation towork for their masters without recompense. In later years it establisheda state bank to grant loans to the nobility at low rates of interest.46For similar assistance the creole landowner pined in vain.But what of debt peonage, that much advertised Mexican equiva-lent of serfdom? For the hacendado in need of cheap labor it was aremarkably poor substitute. More of an inducement than a bond, itrequired the outlay of a considerable sum in cash or in goods to agroup of laborers who might well abscond without repayment of theloan. In any case, these peons still had to be fed a weekly maize rationand to be paid a monthly wage at the going rate.47It was for this rea-son that many landlords preferred to rent much of their land and tohire workers at harvest time upon a daily basis. Apart from the frontierexigencies of the far north, Mexican landowners rarely exercised po-litical or judicial authority over their workers. Most Indians, for ex-ample, continued to reside in villages governed by their own elected

45. For a possibly contraryview, see Frangois Chevalier, La formacion de losgrandes latifundios en Me'xico,pp. 226-233; but see also P. J. Bakewell, SilverMiningand Society in ColonialMexico i: Zacatecas, 1546-1700 (Cambridge, Eng.,1971), pp. 115-121.46. JeromeBlum, Lord and Peasantin Russiafrom the Ninth to the NineteenthCentury (Princeton, 1961), pp. 259-276, 376-385.

47. CharlesGibson, The Aztecs under Spanish Rule (Stanford, 1964), pp. 233-236, 249-256.


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408 HA I AUGUST I D.A. BRADINGleaders and magistrates. In consequence, unlike the feudal manor orthe serf-estate of Easternl Europe, the Mexican hacienda had to sur-vive upon its economic merits as a unit of production, unassisted eitherby seigneurial rights or the free labor of resident serfs. By 1700 it wasnot uncommon to find landlords in debt to their workers.48 Small won-der that the turnover in owvnershipwas so rapid; it was the price paidfor political impotence.

The class which benefited most from the policies of the Spanishmonarchy was the colonial merchants. Already by the 1670s their ad-vance in social prestige was the subject of viceregal comment. The en-suing century (until 1778) formed their heyday. The consulado, themerchant guild, now farmed the collection of the alcabalas for a con-tracted sum. At much the same time the great silver merchants tookover the management of the mint, and from this vantage point domi-nated the credit structure of the silver-mining industry.49 Then again,in 1678, the power to appoint alcaldes mayores was taken from theviceroy so that these offices could be auctioned to the highest bidderin Madrid. As late as 1754 the Cadiz firm of Pardo and Freire boughtthe rights to no less than three magistracies: Queretaro, Guanajuatoand Tehuacan.50 With the Bourbon refusal to pay salaries to alcaldesmayores, these officials were driven to become traders, issuing goodsand cash on credit to their unfortunate subjects, who stood menacedwith imprisonment and flogging for any failure to meet their obliga-tions. To finance these repartimientos de comercio, most magistratesrelied upon merchant backers, resident in Mexico or t-he provincialtowns. It was in this enforced distribution of merchandise rather thanin debt peonage that the political authority of the Crown was mostobviously utilized, not to say prostituted, for the financial profit of aparticular economic class. It was precisely the same practice whichmost provoked popular unrest, leading in some cases to open rebel-lion.51 Thus the immigrant almaceneros, the very embodiment of com-mercial capitalism, emerged as the dominant figures within the colonial

48. D. A. Brading, "The Structureof Agricultural Production in the MexicanBajio during the Eighteenth Century," paper presented at the International Con-gress of Americanists (Rome, 1972).49. Robert Smith, "Sales Taxes in New Spain, 1575-1770," HAHR, 28:1 (Feb-ruary 1948), 2-37; Brading, Miners and Merchants, pp. 170-172; P. J. Bakewell,Zacatecas, pp. 212-215.50. Handbook of Middle American Indians. Volume 12, Guide to Ethno-historical Sources: Part One, ed. by Howard Cline (Austin, 1972), p. 78; Gui-llermo Lohmann Villena, El corregidor de indios en el Peru bajo los Austrias(Madrid, 1957), pp. 126-131; AGI, Mexico, 689, March 30, 1754.51. Hamnett, Politics and Trade in Southern Mexico, 1750-1821, pp. 11-23.


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GOVERNMENT AND ELITE IN LATE COLONIAL MEXICO 409economy, enjoying a social status equal to that of tlhe upper bureau-cracy and the territorial magnates.

An essential part of the Bourbon revolution in government launchedunder Charles III was the destruction of the commercial monopoly ex-ercised by great import houses of the capital. The promulgation ofcomercio libre in 1778 opened the way for a free flow of trade betweenthe chief ports of the Peninsula and tlhe American possessions. InMexico new comsulados were set up in Guadalajara and Veracruz. Atthe same time the regime attempted to free the productive sectors fromthe former reliance upon merchant credit. Repartimientos de comerciowere prohibited and a finance bank was established to aid the miningindustry. In all tihis, there was little to assist the landowning class. In-stead, t-hefavored child of the government was the silver miner, whoseendeavors were now encouraged by a positive battery of inducements,both financial and institutional. A private jurisdiction, a central court,a technical college, a new code of law, numerous individual tax rebates,titles of nobility-all this fell into the lap of the fortunate miner. Bycontrast, apart from the removal of a few export duties, nothing wasdirectly undertaken to assist agriculture or the landowning class. In-deed the inflexible enforcement of ecclesiastical amortization after1804 led to the embargo and auction of many haciendas. The laterBourbons strove to release the productive capacity of the colony fromtlhe restrictions imposed during the Hapsburg era. But it was still theexport sector, silver mining and not agricultuLre,which benefited themost from the new order.One great exception can be advanced to this proposition. Throughthe recruitment of militia forces the Crown sought to mobilize thepolitical loyalty of the wealthy classes. A commission in the militiaconferred an extensive fuero; it brought both social distinction andsome quasi-political influence. A full colonelcy-which could be pur-chased for about 40,000 pesos together with an unspecified gratuity forthe Viceroy-carried the address of vuestra sefiorta, the same as thatenjoyed by an oidor.52In retum, some great landowners, especially inthe North, obtained command and military jurisdiction over a forceoften in part recruited from their own estates. Here as elsewhere saleof office opened the door to extensive creole promotion. The sixteenregiments and three battalions of the militia were led by 496 officers

52. For the colonial army see Mariadel CarmenVelazquez, El estado de guerraen Nueva Espania, 1760-1800 (Mexico, 1958); Lyle N. McAlister, The "FueroMIlitar" n New Spain, 1764-1800 (Gainesville, Fla., 1957); Brading, Miners andMerchants, pp. 324-327.


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410 HAHR AUGUST I D.A. BRADINGTABLE III. Colonels and Lieutenant-Colonels in New Spain's Militia1798-1800.

Regiments Colonels Lieutenalnt-ColonelsCavalryQueretaro Pedro Ruiz Davalos - -(Brigadier ,aPrincipe Count of Perez Galvez Franiciscode Septie'ny ArcePuebla Marquisof Moncada Ignacio ManeiroaReina Narciso de la Canal Juan de LanzagortaPTatzcuaro Francisco Menocal Jose Bernardo FoncerradaSan Luis Count of Peiiasco Angel Prieto de la MazaSan Carlos Manuel Rincon Gallardo Francisco Miguel de AguirreNueva Galicia Ignacio Obregon Juan Francisco CaleraInfantryMexico Joaqui,nBenito de Medina Miguel de OteroPuebla JoaquinGutierrezde los Rios (?) MarianoDiez de BonillaValladolid Diego Rul JuanJose Martlnezde LejarzaTres Villas Jose Manuel de Zeballos Marcos GonzailezJoaquin de Castillo yBustamanteTlaxcala Lorenzo Angulo GuardaminoToluca Marquis of Rivascacho Manuel Garcia AlonsoCelaya Juan Fern'andezMunilla Manuel Fernandez SolanoBattalionsGuanajuato - Manuel Garcia de QuintanaOaxaca Juan Francisco EcharriGuadalajara - Francisco de Escobedo y DeviaVeracruz Manuel Rengel

a Names in italicsare creoles, the remainderarepeninsulares.The Marquisof Moncada was a Sicilian;Francisco Menocala native of Havana;Diego Rul and Manuel Rincon Gallardo later became the Count of Casa Rul andthe Marquisof Guadalupe. Joaquin Gutierrez de los Rios is described as a nativeof Cordoba; probablyhe came from the Spanish city ratherthan from the Mexicantown of that name, as the surname "Gutierrezde los Rios" had been associatedwith SpanishCordobafor centuries.Source: Hojas de servicio in Archivo General de Simancas, Guerra moderna,legajos 7274-76.of the ranks ensign to captain, of whom 209 were peninsulares and 287creoles, a ratio of about forty to sixty. (See Table II.) More important,no less than 13 creoles (compared to 20 peninsulares) held the rank ofcolonel or lieutenant colonel.53 (See Table III.) As yet we lack materialfor any analysis of the social background of these officers. Among the15 full colonels were four noblemen and another two who later re-ceived titles. Two men had made their fortunes in trade, and anotherthree were mining millionaires. Both colonels of the San Luis Potosi

53. My own calculationsbased upon the record sheets for 1798-1800 found inArchivoGeneralde Simancas,Guerramoderma,eg. 7274-77.


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412 HAHR I AUGUST I D.A. BRADINGtuLreswhich frequently absorbed up to four-fifths of the national bud-get, the Mexican army constituted a virtually autonomous power struc-ture, unrepresentative of any one economic class, which not merelyparalleled but in many instances dominated the civil authority of thestate.Military predominance only partially accounts for the evidentdebility of the political system. As much as Argentina, Mexico ex-perienced the struggle between the towns and the wilderness soeloquently described by Sarmiento. Old insurgents like Juan Alvarez inGuerrero still haunted the back-country and the mountainous periph-ery. At the same time, however, the network of provincial capitalshoused ambitious politicians, backed by considerable state revenueand urban militia, anxious to preserve their local autonomy. Neithergroup of leaders possessed the resources or power to break the hege-mony of the regular army. Then again, the Church, with prestigeundermined by its activity during the civil wTars,asserted its indepen-dence from the State despite the constitutional endorsement of Catholi-cism as the established religion. In effect, the Bourbon Republic orRegency, as some choose to name this period, lacked that intangiblebut quite necessary quality of legitimacy.56 The old habits of civilobedience and social deference had been lost; new bonds of loyaltyand interest were slow to emerge. The result was bitter stasis, a politi-cal system of institutionalized disorder with an empty throne at itscenter. The monarchy had been destroyed but the republic had yet tofind its soul, or best to say, its constitutive principle.

With political malaise went chronic economic depression and socialdissolution. The old stratification according to ethnic Estates wasslowly transformed into a hierarchy of economic class. At the level ofthe elite, however, Mexico remained a society of Orders. The clergyand the army preserved their fueros, their exemption from the commonjurisdiction of the Republic. When Dr. Mora interpreted the course ofpolitics as a conflict of the Church and army against the States, hewished to emphasize the persistence of the ancien regime.57 At thesame time, the influence of the productive classes, of landowners,miners, merchants and industrialists, was counterbalanced by the riseof lawyers and intellectuals, scions of the professional class, vho soughtpolitical office both to advance their principles and to assure them-

56. The best political analysis of this period is still Francisco Bulnes, Juarez ylas revoluciones de Ayutla y de Reforma (2nd edition, Mexico, 1967). The termBourbon Republic I take from John Womack, "Mexican Political Historiography1959-1969" in Investigaciones contemporaneassobre historia de Mexico, pp. 484-485.57. JoseMaria Luis Mora, Obras sueltas, pp. 55-82.


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GOVERNMENT AND ELITE IN LATE COLONIAL MIEXICO 413selves a livelihood, if not a fortune. Save perhaps during the lastdecades of the Porfiriato, Mexico Nwas ever to be governed by the sim-ple alliance of the economic classes. Upon the urban intellectual pro-letariat-to use a favorite term of Francisco Bulnes-fell the mantleof the historical bureaucracy; whether they ever cared to convert itinto a cover for what Max Weber called legal domination is a matterfor debate.58

The disruptive effect of tlhe economic depression cannot be over-estimated; it brought widespread unemployment for the masses andthrust many of the upper class into debt. Agriculture emerged fromthe insurgency with many of the great estates in ruin, their livestockslaughtered and their barns and dams destroyed. Land values, alreadydepressed by the amortization decree of 1804, declined still further,with the consequence that the burden of ecclesiastical mortgages rela-tive to capital assessment became all the more oppressive. In theBajio and adjacent areas a perceptible trend towards the subdivisionof haciendas has been noted.59 Given their bankrupt condition, it cancome as no surprise to learn that as a class landowners exercised rela-tively little political influence. A sympathetic commentator, CarlosMaria de Bustamante, lamented tlheir absence from Congress anddeplored their public incapacity.60The great conservative of the epoch,Lucas Alamran,sought in vain their effective, united support. Insteadhis reactionary coalition was built upon an alliance of the Church, thearmy and the industrial interest.61The traditional vehicles of social advancement-silver-mining andcommerce-also experienced a profound change. Many of the greatenterprises which had dominated the mining industry were wreckedby the insurgency. Gross national production fell to less than half the1805 peak, a level not to be permanently sulpassed until the 1870s.Extensive investment of British capital restored many mines to work-ing order, although a substantial recovery in output did not begin

58. Bulnes described the political problem of post-independence Mexico as:"Clase propietaria hipotecada, Iglesia rica, Estado pobre. Abundantes clasesmedias, profesionales, famelicas, ecclesi'asticasy militares." Francisco Bulnes, Elporvenirde las naciones hispano-americanas M6xico, 1899), p. 253.59. Jos' Maria de Jauregui, Discurso en que se manifiesta que deben bajarselos reditos a proporcion del quebranto que hayan sufrido en la insurreccion losbienes y giros de los deudores (Mexico, 1820); Jan Bazant, Los bienes de la iglesiaen Mexico, 1856-1875 (Mexico, 1971), pp. 340-348; Luis Gonzalez, Puleblo en vilo(Mexico, 1968), pp. 85-86, 94-97; D. A. Brading, "The Structure of AgriculturalProduction in the Mexican Bajio" (see note 48).6o. Carlos Maria de Bustamante,Continuacion del cuadro histo'ricode la revo-lucion mexicana (4 vols., Mexico, 1953-63), II, 16o-162; Mariano Otero, Obras(2 vols., Mexico, 1967), I, 28-32, 40-41.63i.Lucas Alaman, Documentos diversos (5 vOls.,M6xico, 1947), III, 264-265.


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414 HAHR I AUGUST I D.A. BRADINGbefore the late 1840s. It seems safe to assume that few Mexican for-tunes were created in silver-mining before that decade.62 At the sametime the expulsion of the last remaining Spanish merchants in 1827and 1829 permitted a fresh wave of immigrants to seize control of theimport trade. But these British, French and German merchants differedfrom their gachupin predecessors in that they rarely established fam-ilies which entered the social elite of Mexico.63 The French cameclosest to this pattern, but even during their Porfirian heyday theynever rivalled the previous peninsular comnmandof the main avenuesof upward social mobility.All available evidence thus suggests that the process of eliterecruitment and social change which we deem characteristic of NewSpain cannot be readily applied to the Mexico of Santa Anna. True, thegreat estate continued to absorb as much credit as it could obtain. Thedifference lay in the debility of the export sector and the intrusion offoreign investment. Capital accumulated in mining and trade nolonger flowed so abundantly into domestic agriculture. The chief con-trast, however, centered upon the more active role of the State. Monieswhich previously would have been shipped abroad to finance themilitary ventures of the Spanish monarchy now stayed at home tofructify in native pockets. Whether mere occupancy of public officeenriched many politicians is doubtful. On the other hand, speculationin national debt operations brought great wealth to an entire group ofmerchant-financiers, the infamous agiotistas. Then again, the men whoestablished the new mechanized textile industry depended upon gov-ernment credit and tariff protection to assure the success of theirventure.64At last, therefore, political power was deployed to advancethe economic interests of at least one section of the Mexican elite.

62. M. P. Laur, "De la metallurgiede l'argentau Mexique," Annales des Mines,6th series, 20 (1871), 38-317; Robert W. Randall, Real del Monte. A BritishMining Venture n Mexico (Austin, 1972), pp. 73-85, 201-219.63. Lucas Alaman, Historia de Meijico 5 vols., M6xico, 1969), V, 552-554.64. Robert A. Potash, El banco de Avio de Alexico (Me'xico,1959).

Documents

Brading Goverment and Elite Mexico