Bourbon Reforms

ntroduction

After the Spanish Bourbon King Philip V (b. 1700–1746) acceded to the throne, he and his successors, Ferdinand VI (r. 1746–1759), Charles III (r. 1759–1788), and Charles IV (r. 1788–1807), sponsored a century-long effort to reform and renovate the Spanish empire. These policy changes, known collectively as the Bourbon Reforms, attempted to curb contraband commerce, regain control over transatlantic trade, curtail the church’s power, modernize state finances to fill depleted royal coffers, and establish tighter political and administrative control within the empire. For decades historians of the reform era have debated the coherence and effectiveness of crown policies, focusing largely on the reign of Charles III. According to an important early synthesis, Caroline reformers framed policies that curtailed colonial political and economic freedoms, leading to a “second conquest” of America (see Lynch 1973, cited under General Overviews). Other scholars, however, have argued that Bourbon reform policies lacked such ideological coherence, emphasizing the diverse and often contradictory aims of Madrid policy makers, who struggled haltingly to balance the crown’s various fiscal, commercial, administrative, and military objectives. More recently, specialists on the 18th century have broadened and deepened discussions about reform by dealing with topics such as the intellectual origins of reform, the spread of scientific knowledge, efforts to curtail church power, Bourbon social engineering, and the Atlantic context for reform. Scholars are even questioning the traditional emphasis on the reign of Charles III by considering the efforts of reformers to reverse unequal trade treaties with Spain’s traditional rivals in the first half of the century. Historians are also examining the very different impact of reform in the diverse Spanish American empire, noting the profound consequences of colonial policy innovations in areas such as Mexico, while in other regions, such as Chile and New Granada, the reforms had a much more limited impact. As a result, despite all the innovative new research on the 18th-century colonial policy changes, historians still remain quite divided about the overall timing, impact, and effectiveness of the Bourbon Reforms.

General Overviews

Historians of the Bourbon Reforms have debated the coherence and effectiveness of crown policies, focusing particularly on the reign of Charles III. An important early synthesis proposed that Bourbon reformers framed policies aimed at curtailing colonial political and economic freedoms, arguing that the reforms represented nothing less than a “second conquest of America” (Lynch 1973). An influential overview of the reforms in the Cambridge History of Latin America even contended that such policies led to colonial opposition and “the permanent alienation of the creole elite” (Brading 1984, p. 438). Other scholars, however, have argued that Bourbon policies lacked such ideological coherence, emphasizing instead the diverse and often contradictory aims of Madrid policy makers (Fisher 1982, p. 217). Scholars also have examined the complexity of the reform process, demonstrating that Spanish reformers sometimes promoted markedly different kinds of policies for provinces in its diverse Atlantic empire (Kuethe 1991). Some writers have also studied how European conflicts forced Charles IV to go from one policy to another by the mid-1790s to meet the necessities of financing Spain’s wars (Barbier 1977). Recent contributions to scholarly discussions about the Bourbon Reforms examine a complex and tangled web of interest groups who struggled to shape crown policies over the course of the 18th and early 19th centuries (Stein and Stein 2000, Stein and Stein 2003, Stein and Stein 2009).

Barbier, Jacques. “The Culmination of the Bourbon Reforms, 1787–1792.” Hispanic American Historical Review 57 (February 1977): 51–68.
DOI: 10.2307/2513542Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A revisionist article arguing that Charles IV attempted to follow the reformist traditions established by Charles III until Spain’s engagement in European conflicts forced the king and his ministers to vacillate among very different policies by the late 1790s in a desperate search for the fiscal resources needed to meet the exigencies of war.
Find this resource:
Brading, David A. “Bourbon Spain and Its American Empire.” In The Cambridge History of Latin America. Vol. 1, Colonial Latin America. Edited by Leslie Bethell, 389–439. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1984.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
This chapter presents the Bourbon Reforms under Charles III as an attempt to subjugate of the empire to crown political, social, and economic authority, leading to the permanent alienation of the colonial creole elites.
Find this resource:
Fisher, John. “Soldiers, Societies, and Politics in Spanish America.” Latin American Research Review 17.1 (1982): 217–222.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A review essay covering books published on military reform in the Bourbon period, but it asserts that the Bourbon Reforms have “bewitched” both contemporaries and later historians into seeing a master plan for imperial reform, when the reforms should be viewed as representing a halting, inconsistent, and even contradictory desire to modernize the empire.
Find this resource:
Kuethe, Allan J. “La desregulación commercial y la reforma imperial en la época de Carlos III: Los casos de Nueva España y Cuba.” Historia Mexicana 41.2 (1991): 265–292.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
This article argues that in reforming Cuba, the crown loosened trade regulations for Cuban tropical produce while keeping monopoly controls over Mexican trade, even redirecting large sums from the Mexican treasuries to support Cuba as a strategic military outpost following the Seven Years War.
Find this resource:
Lynch, John. The Spanish American Revolutions, 1808–1826. London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1973.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
In the introduction (pp. 1–37) to this synthesis of the wars of independence in Spanish America, Lynch presents the Bourbon Reforms as a set of policies producing a “second conquest of America,” subjugating creole elites to the crown, which promoted discontent against the reforms, and set the stage for independence after the French invasion in 1807.
Find this resource:
Stein, Stanley J., and Barbara H. Stein. Silver, Trade, and War: Spain, America, and the Making of Early Modern Europe. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
The first volume of a trilogy argues that Spain’s economic weaknesses allowed French, Dutch, and British merchants to gain access to American silver through contraband and supplying merchandise and capital to Spanish monopolists in Seville and later Cádiz. Spanish reformers tried to regain control over the American trade, but their efforts failed as corrupt officials, Spanish monopoly traders, and foreign merchants combined to thwart the reform process.
Find this resource:
Stein, Stanley J., and Barbara H. Stein. Apogee of Empire: Spain and New Spain in the Age of Charles III, 1759–1789. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
The second volume argues that Charles III and his ministers imposed wide-ranging fiscal, administrative, and commercial reforms for Spain’s wealthiest colony, New Spain, after the loss of Havana in 1762. These innovators never intended any large-scale, structural reforms, only adjustments designed to shore up the “gothic edifice” of the empire.
Find this resource:
Stein, Barbara H., and Stanley J. Stein. Edge of Crisis: War and Trade in the Spanish Atlantic, 1789–1808. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
The third volume examines efforts of Spanish politicians to preserve commercial linkages between the metropolis and New Spain, as the empire became swept up in international conflicts resulting from the French Revolution and the rise of Napoleon. The failure of this effort led to the loss of the empire, leaving Spain an underdeveloped nation, incapable of maintaining control over its colonies.
Find this resource:
Published Primary Sources and Translations

A number of diverse published primary sources allow students and specialists to examine important aspects of the Bourbon Reforms. A number of the works of reformist ministers have been published in modern editions (e.g., Campillo 1993). A modern annotated edition and historical analysis of the infamous tract about corruption and abuse in the 18th-century Spanish Andes, the Noticias secrétas, have been published (Juan and Ulloa 1978), along with an abridged English translation of the text (Ramos Gómez 1985). The most significant recent contribution to analyzing the fiscal impact of the Bourbon Reforms has been the multivolume compilation of the summaries of colonial treasury accounts for Peru, Bolivia, Chile, the Río de la Plata, New Spain, and Ecuador (TePaske, et al. 1976; TePaske, et al. 1982; TePaske 1982a; TePaske and Klein 1982b; TePaske and Klein 1986; and Jara and TePaske 1990).

Campillo y Cossío, José del. Nuevo sistema de gobierno económico para América. Edited by Manuel Ballesteros Gaibrois. Oviedo, Spain: Grupo Editorial Asturiano, 1993.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
The most important work of early reformers (proyectistas), this manuscript circulated privately at court from 1742 until its eventual publication in Bernardo Ward’s Proyecto económico in 1779. It advocated a number of important policy innovations adopted by later reformers under Charles III, including free trade within the empire.
Find this resource:
Jara, Alvaro, and John Jay TePaske, eds. The Royal Treasuries of the Spanish Empire in America. Vol. 4, Eighteenth-Century Ecuador. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1990.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
This collection of account summaries from the royal treasury offices of the Audiencia of Quito—Guayaquil, Cuenca, Jaen de Bracamoros, and Quito—provides material exclusively from the 18th century. Early accounts have not been uncovered in the Ecuadorian and Spanish archives.
Find this resource:
Juan, Jorge, and Antonio de Ulloa. Discourse and Political Reflections on the Kingdoms of Peru, Their Government, Special Regimen of Their Inhabitants, and Abuses Which Have Been Introduced into One and Another, with Special Information on Why They Grew Up and Some Means to Avoid Them. Edited by John Jay TePaske; translated by John J. TePaske and Besse A. Clement. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1978.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
The only modern English translation and analysis of the Noticias secretas of Juan and Ulloa, from the copy housed in the New York Public Library. Although this is an abridged version of the text, the translation, annotations, and introduction provide excellent insights into the types of problems that reformers in Spain and the Indies had identified by the 1740s. Originally published in 1749.
Find this resource:
Ramos Gómez, Luis. Las noticias secretas de América de Jorge Juan y Antonio de Ulloa (1735–1745). 2 vols. Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, 1985.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
This is the definitive modern edition of the Noticias secretas. The first volume provides an excellent, detailed examination of the historical context for the writing of Juan and Ulloa’s text, and the second volume provides the full, annotated text of the Noticias secretas. Originally published in 1748.
Find this resource:
TePaske, John J., Herbert S. Klein, and Kendall W. Brown, eds. The Royal Treasuries of the Spanish Empire in America. Vol. 1, Peru. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1982a.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
This is a collection of account summaries for the royal treasuries of Peru, with a brief introduction to using the sources for the fifteen treasury offices in operation for the period 1580–1822. They record all of the income and expenses of each treasury. Significant gaps in the accounts exist for most treasuries in the 17th century, except for the Lima office, and some treasuries were not in operation for the entire period.
Find this resource:
TePaske, John J., and Herbert S. Klein, eds. The Royal Treasuries of the Spanish Empire in America. Vol. 2, Upper Peru (Bolivia). Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1982a.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
This is a collection of account summaries for the royal treasuries of Upper Peru (Bolivia), with a brief introduction to using the sources for the nine treasury offices in operation between 1560 and 1823. They include all of the income and expenses of each treasury. Significant gaps in the accounts exist for most treasuries in the 17th century, except for the Potosí office, and some treasuries were not in operation for the entire period.
Find this resource:
TePaske, John J., and Herbert S. Klein, eds. The Royal Treasuries of the Spanish Empire in America. Vol. 3, Chile and the Río de la Plata. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1982b.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
This is a collection of account summaries of income and expenditures for the royal treasuries of Chile and the Río de la Plata for the five treasury offices in Chile and the fourteen treasuries of the Río de la Plata in operation for the period 1634–1817. Significant gaps in the accounts exist for the 17th century, except for the Buenos Aires and the Santiago offices.
Find this resource:
TePaske, John J., and Herbert S. Klein, eds. Ingresos y egresos de la Real Hacienda de Nueva España. Mexico City: Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, 1986.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
This is a collection of account summaries of income and expenditures for the royal treasuries of New Spain, except for the treasury of Mexico City, for the nine other treasury offices in New Spain in operation between for the period 1590–1817. The most complete accounts are for the treasury at Acapulco, and a few gaps in the records exist.
Find this resource:
TePaske, John J., José Hernández Palomo, and Mari Luz Hernández Palomo, eds. La real hacienda de Nueva España): La real caja de México (1576–1816). Mexico City: Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, 1976.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
This is a complete collection of the account summaries for the royal treasury of Mexico City, which served as a clearing house for surplus income—income after expenses had been deducted—from all the treasuries of the Viceroyalty of New Spain between 1576 and 1816.
Find this resource:
Impact in Spain

The impact of the Bourbon Reforms in Spain, and the need to use colonial wealth to revive the metropolis after the War of Spanish Succession (1700–1713), have received little scholarly attention in recent years. Classic studies in the 1950s challenged the prevailing view that French Enlightenment ideas barely penetrated Spain until the French invasion of 1807, arguing instead for the progressive impact of French intellectual currents before the outbreak of the French Revolution (Sarrailh 1957, Herr 1958). Important overviews of politics, economics, and society in Bourbon Spain and its American empire are still a useful starting point for students or scholars of the period (Lynch 1989, Dominguez Ortiz 1988). One study of rural society and crown finances provides important background information on the problems facing peninsular reformers (Herr 1989), while another focuses specifically on the royal finances of Kings Ferdinand VI and Charles III (Pieper 1992). Finally, two revisionist studies examine the engagement of Spanish intellectuals with Enlightenment thought and foreign intellectuals (and not exclusively French thinkers), arguing that this progressive movement in Spain did not emanate just from enlightened Spanish ministers of the crown (Sánchez-Blanco 2002, Mestre Sanchis 2003).

Dominguez Ortiz, Antonio. Carlos III y La España de la Ilustración. Madrid: Alianza Editorial, 1988.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
An excellent overview of the Enlightenment in Spain and the major political events, such as the Esquilache (Hat and Cloak Riots) of 1766, which played a key role in shaping the Bourbon Reforms under Charles III.
Find this resource:
Herr, Richard. The Eighteenth Century Revolution in Spain. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1958.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
This is the classic study in English of the impact of the French Revolution of the reception of the Enlightenment in Spain. The author argues that the Enlightenment had disseminated widely in Spain until fears of the spread of revolution led to a conservative backlash.
Find this resource:
Herr, Richard. Rural Change and Royal Finances in Spain at the End of the Old Regime. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
An extensive examination of rural society in Spain, focusing primarily on the provinces of Jaen and Salamanca in the 18th century. It examines efforts to reform land tenure patterns and taxation in order to increase royal revenues, culminating with the expropriation of church wealth in 1798.
Find this resource:
Lynch, John. Bourbon Spain, 1700–1808. Oxford: Blackwell, 1989.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
An overview of the political, social, and economic evolution of Spain and its American empire from the accession of the Bourbon dynasty until the French invasion, which argues that reform really began in earnest during the reign of Charles III.
Find this resource:
Mestre Sanchis, Antonio. Apología y crítica de España en el siglo XVIII. Madrid: Marcial Pons, 2003.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A collection of essays that indicates how Spanish thinkers engaged the larger intellectual issues of the day, focusing on foreign accusations about Spain, the extensive cultural role of the church, Spanish treatment of indigenous populations, and the relative absence of original Spanish contributions to European culture.
Find this resource:
Pieper, Renate. La hacienda bajo Fernando VI y Carlos III: Repercussiones económicas y sociales. Madrid: Instituto de Estudios Fiscales, 1992.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A thorough examination of the Spanish treasury under the reigns of Ferdinand VI and Charles III, which gives details about the major sources of income from the various regions of Spain and from the Americas, along with the crown’s expenditures over the century. It also provides an analysis of the treasury’s administrative structure.
Find this resource:
Sánchez-Blanco, Francisco, ed. El absolutismo y las Luces en el reinado de Carlos III. Madrid: Marcial Pons, 2002.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A bold revisionist view of the reign of Charles III, which argues that there was a gap between the ideas of progressive intellectuals in Spain and the relatively conservative and even arbitrary policies pursued by the crown. The author reduces Charles III to a despot who was largely concerned with asserting his authority over the church.
Find this resource:
Sarrailh, Jean. La España ilustrada en la segunda mitad del siglo XVIII. Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1957.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A Spanish translation of the original French edition, which was a revisionist study when published, arguing that the influence of progressive “enlightened” French intellectuals was profound in Spain, which brought useful knowledge and progressive views to Spain, liberating the country from Baroque traditions. Originally published in 1954.
Find this resource:
The Early Bourbon Reforms

Recent work on the Bourbon Reforms has questioned the traditional emphasis on the reign of Charles III, examining how important crown policies during the first half of the 18th century contributed to reform in Spain’s overseas empire. Older studies, however, saw the early Bourbon period largely as an extension of policies pursued by the previous dynasty, viewing changes in commercial policy, for example, merely as unsuccessful efforts to reestablish the old Habsburg system of flotas y galeones (Walker 1979). Moreover, efforts to set legal rates for the forced distribution of European wares in Andean villages in 1751 were viewed essentially as an effort to tax and regulate a corrupt and previously illicit practice (Moreno Cebrián 1977). A pioneering article (Kuethe and Blaisdel 1991) took issue with this viewpoint, however, arguing instead that commercial innovations beginning early in the reign of Philip V laid the groundwork for the much-heralded reforms of Charles III, and also that French influence over Spanish innovations had been greatly overstated. Studies of the Consulado of Cádiz also demonstrate how Spanish merchants tried to curb the growing influence of resident foreigners and their descendants in the port city (García-Mariño Mundi 1999). An important but yet unpublished doctoral dissertation from the University of Liverpool (Pearce 1998) argues that crown ministers in the Viceroyalty of Peru sponsored a wide range of innovations during the first half of the century. A new, major revisionist biography of King Philip V emphasizes his physical and mental difficulties during his reign (Kamen 2001). Two important studies of recovery efforts after the massive Lima earthquake of 1746 emphasize how crown officials tried to modernize and reform urban life as the city was rebuilt (Pérez-Mallaina Bueno 2001, Walker 2008). At the same time, a recent book (Rosenmüller 2008) demonstrates the persistence of bureaucratic corruption, patronage, and influence peddling in the early Bourbon period, a problem that would also bedevil reformers even during the reign of Charles III.

García-Mariño Mundi, Margarita. La pugna entre el Consulado de Cádiz y los jenízaros por las exportaciones a Indias (1720–1765). Seville, Spain: Universidad de Sevilla, 1999.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Examines the efforts of the children of resident foreigners in Spain (jenízaros) to gain entry into the Consulado of Cádiz and participate more actively in the monopoly trading system with the Indies, a privilege that they attained in 1743. Over time the jenízaros increased their role as middlemen, supplying foreign merchandise for the Indies trade, although they never constituted a majority of members in the guild.
Find this resource:
Kamen, Henry. Philip V of Spain: The King Who Reigned Twice. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2001.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
An overview of the reign of the first Bourbon king that argues that Philip’s reign was constantly undermined by the king’s bipolar disorder, leading him to bursts of creative energy followed by long bouts with depression, culminating in his temporary abdication. The king’s duties were taken up largely by his wife, Elizabeth Farnese, and his ministers.
Find this resource:
Kuethe, Allan J., and Lowell Blaisdel. “French Influence and the Origins of Bourbon Colonial Reorganization.” Hispanic American Historical Review 71 (August 1991): 579–607.
DOI: 10.2307/2515883Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
This article contends that commercial innovations beginning early in the reign of Philip V, from the tenure of Abad Julio Alberoni (1715–1719), laid the groundwork for the better-known policy reforms of Charles III, and also that French influence over Spanish innovations had been greatly overstated for the century.
Find this resource:
Moreno Cebrián, Alfredo. El corregidor de indios y la economía peruana en el siglo XVIII. Madrid: Instituto Gonzalo Fernández Oviedo, 1977.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
This study examines efforts by the viceroy of Peru, the Conde de Superunda, to legalize the distribution of European wares (repartimiento de comercio) into rural indigenous villages of the Andes by Spanish rural magistrates (corregidores de indios). The viceroy established a list of fixed prices for the distributions (arancel) and charged the sales tax (alcabala) on these transactions to raise revenues and limit corruption.
Find this resource:
Pearce, Adrian. “Early Bourbon Government in the Viceroyalty of Peru, 1700–1759.” Ph.D. diss., University of Liverpool, 1998.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
This dissertation examines Bourbon reforms of commerce, to curtail contraband, viceregal finances, mining, defense, the church, and colonial administration in the Viceroyalty of Peru from 1700–1759, focusing on how Bourbon viceroys played an active role in the development and implementation of these innovations.
Find this resource:
Pérez-Mallaina Bueno, Pablo Emilio. Retrato de una ciudad en crisis: La sociedad Limeña ante el movimiento sísmico de 1746. Seville, Spain: Escuela de Estudios Hispano-Americanos, 2001.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A political and social history of the disastrous earthquake of 1746 in Lima-Callao and efforts to reconstruct the city by Viceroy José Manso de Velasco, and popular perceptions of the church and different social groups.
Find this resource:
Rosenmüller, Christoph. Patrons, Partisans, and Palace Intrigues: The Court Society of Colonial Mexico, 1702–1710. Calgary, Canada: University of Calgary Press, 2008.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A study of palace intrigues, clientelism, and political corruption at the viceregal court in New Spain during the viceregency of the duke of Alburquerque (1700–1710), as the viceroy, his political allies, local elites, and contrabandists thwarted crown reform efforts.
Find this resource:
Walker, Charles. Shaky Colonialism: The 1746 Earthquake-Tsunami in Lima, Peru, and Its Long Aftermath. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2008.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Walker uses the earthquake and tsunami to examine the complex social, religious, and ethnic fault lines of the capital city. Shaky Colonialism offers insights into popular understandings of race, ethnicity, gender, and Baroque religiosity in Lima during the early Bourbon Reform period.
Find this resource:
Walker, Geoffrey J. Spanish Politics and Imperial Trade, 1700–1789. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1979.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Argues that early Bourbon period efforts to reestablish the old, failing Habsburg system of flotas y galeones was largely an extension of policies pursued by the previous dynasty. He views changes in commercial policy as largely unsuccessful, leading to the establishment of a new system of licensed registry ships sailing from Spain to Lima around the Cape of Good Hope, beginning during the War of Jenkins’ Ear.
Find this resource:
Regional Studies

Important studies of the Bourbon Reforms have focused on the overall political, social, and economic impact of crown policies in different regions of the Spanish Indies. In some areas of the empire, the reforms were successful in raising crown revenues and establishing royal authority, but they also produced some very detrimental long-term consequences, leading to political disorders and economic problems lasting through the independence period (Andrien 1995, Marks 2007). Other scholars, however, argue that the reforms had only limited impact in regions such as New Granada and Chile (McFarlane 1993, Barbier 1980). One revisionist study argues that the infamous repartimiento de comercio was not a forced distribution of European wares in Oaxaca, but instead was a system whereby local magistrates (alcaldes mayores) advanced credit to indigenous communities to stimulate the production of dye in regional indigenous villages (Baskes 2000). Other books have argued that Bourbon policies, such as the establishment of new merchant guilds or economic-aid societies, were embraced by elites in imperial peripheries enjoying increased levels of prosperity (McKinley 1985, Socolow 1978). Even in regions enjoying an economic resurgence, however, the reforms sometimes led to creole protests and revolts (Brown 1986). As a result, despite all the new research on the 18th century, historians remain divided about the overall impact and effectiveness of the Bourbon Reforms.

Andrien, Kenneth J. The Kingdom of Quito, 1690–1830: The State and Regional Development. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1995.
DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511529054Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
This study, based on a quantitative examination of a wide range of fiscal data and of qualitative sources, examines how Bourbon Reforms policies, particularly during the tenure of president-regent José García de Leon y Pizarro (1778–1787), led to heightened fiscal pressure amidst an economic decline, contributing to political turmoil and an overall socioeconomic decline in the region.
Find this resource:
Barbier, Jacques. Reform and Politics in Bourbon Chile, 1755–1796. Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 1980.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Based on a wide array of archival sources, this study examines how the reform efforts of Tomás Alvarez de Acevedo became enmeshed in local political squabbles in Chile, as local elites managed to thwart most of the Bourbon Reform initiatives, which had only a limited long-term impact on the political, social, and economic evolution of Chile.
Find this resource:
Baskes, Jeremy. Indians, Merchants, and Markets: A Reinterpretation of the Repartimiento and Spanish-Indian Economic Relations in Colonial Oaxaca, 1750–1821. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2000.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A revisionist study of the repartimiento de comercio in Oaxaca, which argues that rather than instituting a system of forced consumption, the Spanish rural magistrates advanced credit to Indian producers of cochineal dye, who voluntarily accepted these cash advances, which allowed them to participate actively in the market economy, supplying dye needed by Mexican cloth producers and also to supply overseas markets with cochineal.
Find this resource:
Brown, Kendall. Bourbons and Brandy: Imperial Reform in Eighteenth-Century Arequipa. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1986.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Relies on a sophisticated quantitative analysis of colonial fiscal records and other archival materials to examine Bourbon efforts to reassert royal power in the province of Arequipa, which conflicted with local interests and consequently disrupted the traditional socioeconomic evolution of the region and led to a local rebellion in 1780.
Find this resource:
Marks, Patricia H. Deconstructing Legitimacy: Viceroys, Merchants, and the Military in Late Colonial Peru. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2007.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
An examination of the downfall of Viceroy Joaquín de la Pezuela in 1821, which demonstrates that the coup was the culmination of decades of opposition to the harmful effects of the Bourbon Reforms in Peru, especially imperial free trade in 1778, leading to this early manifestation of Latin American praetorianism.
Find this resource:
McFarlane, Anthony. Colombia before Independence: Economy, Society, and Politics under Bourbon Rule. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1993.
DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511529122Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
This study, based on archival materials from Spain and Colombia, assesses the political, social, and economic impact of the Bourbon Reforms in Colombia from the accession of the dynasty in 1700 to the fall of royal government in the 19th century. It argues that the reforms had only a limited impact on the socioeconomic evolution of the region.
Find this resource:
McKinley, Michael P. Pre-Revolutionary Caracas: Politics, Economy, and Society. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1985.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Presents the late 18th century as a time of prosperity for Caracas elites, as conflicts between hacendados and merchants subsided and the government served local elites. Based on eight hundred wills, the book argues that independence represented a rupture with this late colonial order as the society used the political instability in 1810 to break the colonial system.
Find this resource:
Socolow, Susan Midgen. The Merchants of Buenos Aires: Family and Commerce. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1978.
DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511759826Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
This study of the merchants of Buenos Aires demonstrates how the Bourbon Reforms and the establishment of the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata in 1776 led to a commercial boom, particularly for peninsular Spaniards who migrated to the city in the later 18th century.
Find this resource:
Different Aspects

The effectiveness of the Bourbon Reforms is difficult to assess in large part because of the very range and complexity of the initiatives undertaken over the course of the 18th century. Political and institutional changes, advances in science and literacy, social reforms, clerical reform, mining innovations, military innovations, and commercial and financial changes all occurred during the course of the Bourbon period. Moreover, all of these reforms emerged from a series of political conflicts within Spain and the Indies. In Spain reformers bickered with each other over colonial policy, and they also collided with entrenched interest groups, such as the monopolists of the Consulado of Cádiz. In addition, the dynastic ambitions of the Bourbon monarchs or power politics in Europe frequently intervened to stall, derail, or sometimes even to propel the reform process, as crown officials pushed forward innovations that prepared the empire for the nearly inevitable wars with European rivals over the course of the century. In the Indies colonial bureaucrats, churchmen, and colonial middling and subaltern groups all attempted to shape the reform process to their own ends. The configuration of these conflicting interest groups varied over time in each region of the empire. Such political squabbles over the course of reform within this empire were resolved in political arenas on both sides of the Atlantic.

Political and Institutional Changes

Some of most important early books dealing with the Bourbon Reforms concerned major institutional changes undertaken during the reign of Charles III, which were well documented in Spanish and Latin American archives. Beginning with the pioneering works on the imposition of the intendancy system, these studies demonstrated the crown’s ongoing efforts to implement institutional changes designed to gain greater control over its colonial bureaucracy (Lynch 1958, Fisher 1970). Another area of Bourbon attention was the effort to end the sale of high-ranking positions in the colonial audiencias by 1750, which led to a major shift from a reliance on venal officeholders with strong local connections to more loyal, well-trained peninsular judges in these powerful American courts (Burkholder and Chandler 1977). Despite these impressive innovations, even the most famous of the Bourbon Reformers, José de Gálvez, still manipulated the traditional political use of patronage, influence peddling, and nepotism in order to favor political allies in key colonial bureaucratic positions (Salvucci 1983).

Burkholder, Mark A., and D. S. Chandler. From Impotence to Authority: The Spanish Crown and the American Audiencias, 1687–1808. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1977.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A quantitative analysis of audiencia appointments in the period from the beginning of the sale of these positions in 1687 until the onset of the independence movements. The sales led to the influx of creoles and peninsulars with strong local connections (radicados), while the end of the sales allowed the crown to appoint better-trained, loyal peninsular Spaniards from the end of the sales in 1750 to 1808.
Find this resource:
Fisher, John R. Government and Society in Colonial Peru: The Intendant System, 1784–1814. London: Athlone, 1970.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
An institutional study of the intendancy reforms in the Viceroyalty of Peru and the political imbroglios surrounding the Areche visita after the suppression of the Tupac Amaru uprising in the Cuzco region.
Find this resource:
Lynch, John. Spanish Colonial Administration, 1782–1810: The Intendant System in the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata. London: Athlone, 1958.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
At the time a path-breaking institutional study of the imposition of the intendancy reforms in the Río de la Plata after the creation of the Viceroyalty, based on archival materials in Spain and Argentina.
Find this resource:
Salvucci, Linda. “Costumbres viejas, ‘hombres nuevos’: José de Gálvez y la burocracia fiscal novo-hispana (1754–1800).” Historia Mexicana 33.2 (1983): 224–264.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Despite his longstanding reputation as a reformer during the Bourbon period, this study relies on extensive archival research to demonstrate how José de Gálvez used the old politics of nepotism and clientelism to place his own cronies into key positions of New Spain’s fiscal bureaucracy during his visita of New Spain in the 1760s.
Find this resource:
Reform, Science, and Literacy

Building on pioneering studies of the Enlightenment in Spanish America and of scientific expeditions to the New World, more recent scholarship has deepened scholarly awareness of advances in science and literacy in the New World during the Bourbon century (Lanning 1956, Steele 1964). The crown-sanctioned French scientific expedition to measure a degree on the equator, for example, under the command of Charles Marie de la Condamine, demonstrated both royal interest in scientific knowledge and its dissemination in the Indies (Safier 2008). Another group of scholars also has made considerable strides in understanding the spread of science and scientific learning in the empire (DeVos 2006; Bleichmar, et al. 2009). The crown made a serious effort to found schools in indigenous towns in the 18th century, and studies of literacy levels in the empire reveal that they varied dramatically across regions. In Mexico City perhaps 50 percent of the population possessed at least basic reading skills, while in less cosmopolitan regions, such as Bogotá in New Granada, only 1 to 3 percent of the citizenry had any schooling at all (Tanck Estrada 1999, Tanck Estrada 1977, Earle 1997).

Bleichmar, Daniela, Paula DeVos, Kristin Huffine, and Kevin Sheehan, eds. Science in the Spanish and Portuguese Empires, 1500–1800. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2009.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Although this impressive collection surveys the practice of science in the Spanish and Portuguese empires from 1500 to 1800, it contains a number of essays on the Bourbon period, dealing with topics such as the literary-scientific press, geographical knowledge, medical knowledge, natural history curiosities, and visual culture.
Find this resource:
DeVos, Paula. “Research, Development, and Empire: State Support of Science in the Later Spanish Empire.” Colonial Latin American Review 15.1 (2006): 55–79.
DOI: 10.1080/10609160600607432Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
This article argues that crown support and interest in scientific knowledge about Spain’s overseas possessions began in the 16th century, gaining momentum with Enlightenment interest in science throughout Europe. This interest in science was aimed at increasing colonial power and raising revenue, but it also advanced more purely scientific aims.
Find this resource:
Earle, Rebecca. “Information and Disinformation in Late Colonial New Granada.” The Americas 54 (October 1997): 167–184.
DOI: 10.2307/1007740Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
This article argues that levels of literacy varied widely in Spanish America, with over 80 percent of the population of New Granada remaining illiterate. There were shortages of printing workshops, leading to few printed publications in circulation; censorship and disinformation also impeded the free spread of ideas.
Find this resource:
Lanning, John Tate. The Eighteenth-Century Enlightenment in the University of San Carlos de Guatemala. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1956.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
This pioneering study relied on student theses from a minor Spanish American University in Guatemala to demonstrate that enlightened ideas had penetrated even in regions far from the major centers of colonial power and education. It was an attempt to combat “Black Legend” assertions of Spanish American cultural backwardness.
Find this resource:
Safier, Neil. Measuring the New World: Enlightenment Science in South America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
An examination of the French-Spanish scientific expedition to the Andes to measure a degree on the equator, led by Charles Marie de la Condamine. It examines the transatlantic flow of knowledge from west to east. By exploring monuments and geographical maps, it explores how South America contributed to the production of Enlightenment scientific knowledge in Europe.
Find this resource:
Steele, Arthur Robert. Flowers for the King: The Expedition of Ruiz and Pavon and the Flora of Peru. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1964.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
An elegantly written account of the Ruiz and Pavon expedition to the Viceroyalty of Peru to learn about the plant and animal life of the New World. Spurred by the Enlightenment interest in natural science, the Spain of Charles III attempted to be a world leader in exploring the natural world, but the expedition’s results were never published in full because of bureaucratic delays, squabbles over subsidies, and scholarly arguments.
Find this resource:
Tanck Estrada, Dorothy. La educación ilustrada (1786–1836). Mexico City: El Colegio de México, 1977.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Traces the spread of schooling and literacy in Mexico during the late Bourbon and early republican eras, with over 50 percent of the children in Mexico City attending school, leading to a dramatic rise in both literacy levels and printing.
Find this resource:
Tanck Estrada, Dorothy. Pueblos de indios y educación en el México colonial, 1750–1850. Mexico City: El Colegio de México, 1999.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Examines crown efforts to establish schools for the indigenous population in Mexico during the late Bourbon and early republican periods to teach them basic literacy in Castilian, dealing with crown strategies, the operation of schools, financing, teachers, and curriculum.
Find this resource:
Bourbon Social Reforms

Since around 2000, scholars have made considerable progress in examining a range of Bourbon social innovations and their impact on colonial societies. Studies of marriage, sexuality, honor, and illegitimacy have provided rich details about changing colonial attitudes in the complex multiracial societies of the Indies during the 18th century, even in frontier zones such as New Mexico (Twinam 1999, Gutierrez 1991). Studying social compacts and welfare assistance has provided important insights into the diverse understandings of colonial ideas about poverty; while both a pauper and a landowner could claim to be deserving of public assistance, impoverished Amerindians seldom could (Milton 2007). Examining how elite social networks functioned in a period of economic decline also reveals a great deal about social strategies for maintaining wealth and status in colonial cities, as well as how it reinforced patriarchy (Black 2010, Büschges 2007). One recent study of children and childhood demonstrates how the Bourbon Reforms promoted new policies and attitudes that challenged men and women to employ Enlightenment ideas about childhood in 18th-century Lima (Premo 2005).

Black, Chad Thomas. The Limits of Gender Domination: Women, the Law, and Political Crisis in Quito, 1765–1830. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2010.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Using a wide range of archival sources, this book examines the relationship between the Bourbon Reforms and the operation of society at the local level by focusing on women’s legal, economic, and social status, documenting the removal of limits on patriarchal authority by the late colonial period.
Find this resource:
Büschges, Christian. Familia, honor, y poder: La nobleza de la ciudad de Quito en la época colonial tardía (1765–1822). Quito, Ecuador: Fonsol, 2007.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A biography of the noble families of the city of Quito at a time of economic decline in the textile economy in the north-central sierra, giving a detailed picture on their origins, characteristics, professional and economic activities, and role in the independence of the Audiencia or Kingdom of Quito.
Find this resource:
Gutiérrez, Ramon. When Jesus Came the Corn Mothers Went Away: Marriage, Sexuality, and Power in New Mexico, 1500–1846. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1991.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
More than half of this book deals with the 18th century, providing a statistical and qualitative analysis of honor, social status, marriage, the church, and the Bourbon Reforms on the northern frontier of New Mexico.
Find this resource:
Milton, Cynthia E. The Many Meanings of Poverty: Colonialism, Social Compacts, and Assistance in Eighteenth-Century Ecuador. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2007.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
This book analyzes the different meanings of poverty in multiracial Quito in the 18th century by analyzing court cases where citizens claimed assistance because of their poverty. It reveals that both a legitimate pauper and a property owner could lay claim to the status of “deserving poor,” while poverty-stricken indigenous citizens usually could not.
Find this resource:
Premo, Bianca. Children of the Father King: Youth, Authority, and Legal Minority in Colonial Lima. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2005.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Relying largely on census data, notarial records, laws, and legal cases, this study examines childhood in Lima in the period 1650–1820. During the Bourbon period a series of crown-promulgated social reforms expanded the parental authority of the king to advance secular education and public hygiene, allowing royal courts to intervene more directly in the daily lives of Lima’s citizenry.
Find this resource:
Twinam, Ann. Public Lives, Private Secrets: Gender, Honor, Sexuality, and Illegitimacy in Colonial Spanish America. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1999.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Bourbon officials in the Cámara of the Council of the Indies received petitions to change the social status, legitimacy, or racial identity (cédulas de gracias al sacar) of citizens in the Indies. The author analyzes these petitions from all over the Indies to gather information about the intimate lives of the petitioners and their families.
Find this resource:
Reform of Religion, Culture, and Public Rituals

An important goal of Bourbon regalist ministers was to subordinate the Roman Catholic Church to crown authority, creating a “national” church less responsive to papal authority. Legal and institutional examinations of the weakening of church authority have broadened and deepened scholarly understanding of Bourbon clerical reforms (Farriss 1968, Sánchez Bella 1990, Clune 2008). This process began in earnest when King Ferdinand VI ordered the regular clergy to abandon their role as parish priests in indigenous parishes in the archdioceses of Lima, Mexico City, and Santa Fé de Bogotá in 1749, followed by a general order for the whole empire in 1753, turning these parishes over to secular clergy (Andrien 2009, Brading 1994). A seminal work on parish priests in Mexico during the Bourbon century demonstrates the full range of crown policies curbing the powers of the church up to through the wars of independence (Taylor 1996). Studies of the seizure of church wealth and compensating clerical authorities with government annuities (vales reales) throughout the empire in 1803 have also shown how radical Bourbon efforts became, as Spain looked frantically to finance its ongoing European conflicts (Wobeser 2003). In addition, reformers attempted to reform burial practices in late 18th century Mexico and also to change the emphasis in public rituals from local officials and institutions to the king (Voekel 2002, Curcio-Nagy 2004).

Andrien, Kenneth J. “The Coming of Enlightened Reform in Bourbon Peru: Secularization of the Doctrinas de Indios, 1746–1764.” In Enlightened Reform in Southern Europe and Its Atlantic Colonies, c. 1750–1830. Edited by Gabriel Paquette, 183–202. Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2009.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
This chapter analyzes the royal edicts of 1749 and 1753 removing members of the regular clergy from their rural indigenous parishes (unless they supported an active mission), which deprived the orders of a major source of income and power in the Viceroyalty of Peru.
Find this resource:
Brading, David A. Church and State in Bourbon Mexico: The Diocese of Michoacán, 1749–1810. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1994.
DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511586439Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
This book examines three elements of the relations between church and state in Michoacán: the regular orders, priests and laity, and the bishops and the secular clergy. The first section examines the process of removing the secular clergy from indigenous parishes in Michoacán.
Find this resource:
Clune, John J. Cuban Convents in the Age of Enlightened Reform, 1761–1807. Gainesville: University Presses of Florida, 2008.
DOI: 10.5744/florida/9780813032177.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
This book analyzes the impact of the Enlightenment and crown policy on the lives of Clares, Dominicans, and Carmelites of Havana and the Ursulines of New Orleans to show the declining prestige of the orders in their social milieu.
Find this resource:
Curcio-Nagy, Linda A. The Great Festivals of Colonial Mexico City: Performing Power and Identity. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2004.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A study of the many public rituals in colonial Mexico City from the conquest to independence, which argues that control and legitimacy were at the core of public festivals and rituals. These public events were reshaped by the Bourbons, placing more emphasis on the crown, while scaling down any festivals featuring the king’s ministers.
Find this resource:
Farriss, Nancy M. Crown and Clergy in Colonial Mexico, 1759–1821. London: Athlone, 1968.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
This path-breaking book surveys church-state relations, focusing primarily on the attempts of Caroline reformers to undermine the judicial immunity of the clergy, as the crown made clergymen subject to the secular courts. This process was designed to maintain clerical discipline, but it was resisted by the clergy and pious laymen
Find this resource:
Sánchez Bella, Ismael. Iglesia y estado en la América Española. Pamplona, Spain: Ediciones Universidad de Navarra, 1990.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Based on research in Spanish archives, this legal and institutional history of church-state relations examines royal attempts in the 18th century to curtail the power and privileges of the Roman Catholic Church in Spanish America during the reform period.
Find this resource:
Taylor, William B. Magistrates of the Sacred: Priests and Parishioners in Eighteenth-Century Mexico. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1996.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A prize-winning study of parish priests and parishioners in 18th-century Mexico, based on meticulous archival work in Mexico and Spain. It focuses on priests and their many parish tasks, including relations with their parishioners, laymen and their role in church celebrations, popular religious practices, confraternities, and the political disputes over the course of the century that disrupted parish life, including the role of parish priests in the insurrections surrounding independence.
Find this resource:
Voekel, Pamela. Alone before God: The Religious Origins of Modernity in Mexico. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2002.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Based on archival research, this study examines public debates over transferring burials of prominent citizens from churches and urban lots to suburban cemeteries for reasons of hygiene and health, making burial practices simpler and placing the individual at the center of knowledge.
Find this resource:
Wobeser, Gisela von. Dominación colonial: La consolidación de vales reales, 1804–1812. Mexico City: Universidad Autónoma de México, 2003.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A study of the seizure of church assets by the crown in Mexico in 1803, compensating the church with government annuities (vales reales), and the long-term political, social, and economic consequences of this policy for Spain and Mexico.
Find this resource:
Mining Reform

Bourbon efforts to revive the mining of mercury (used in the refining of silver) and precious metals led to the production of a vast body of archival documents, which historians have utilized to create a series of important book-length studies of mining reform. From the classic institutional study of the Huancavelica mercury mine in 18th-century Peru (Whitaker 1941), a number of books have examined Bourbon mining policies in Mexico (Brading 1971), Peru (Fisher 1977), and Potosí in Bolivia (Tandeter 1993). Gold mining was a less important enterprise to Bourbon planners than silver production, but the reformer Antonio Mon y Velarde directed a largely successful revival of gold production in Antioquia (Twinam 1982).

Brading, David A. Miners and Merchants in Bourbon Mexico. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1971.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A pioneering study of the Bourbon Reforms and their impact on mercantile activities and mining operations in the 18th century, focusing primarily on Guanajuato, Valenciana, and San Miguel Allende. It is based on extensive archival research in Spain and Mexico.
Find this resource:
Fisher, J. R. Silver Mines and Silver Miners in Colonial Peru, 1776–1824. Liverpool, UK: Centre for Latin American Studies, University of Liverpool, 1977.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Based on archival research in Spain and Peru, this book studies the impact of Bourbon policies on mining, the Nordenflicht mining expedition to Peru, the use of technology in mining, and the role of labor and capital in the late colonial mining boom in the Viceroyalty of Peru from the creation of the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata to the end of the colonial period.
Find this resource:
Tandeter, Enrique. Coercion and Market: Silver Mining in Colonial Potosí, 1692–1826. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1993.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Study of the overall revival of mining production in 18th-century Potosí, focusing on forced (mita) and free wage (minga) labor, sources of credit and profit, the activities of ore cutters (kajchas), the impact of the Bourbon Reforms of mining, and the impact of the independence struggles.
Find this resource:
Twinam, Ann. Miners, Merchants, and Farmers in Colonial Colombia. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1982.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
This book examines the visita of the Bourbon reformer José Antonio Mon y Velarde, whose economic development policies abetted the revival of gold mining, commerce, and local agriculture in Antioquia, leading to a regional economic resurgence by the latter 18th century.
Find this resource:
Whitaker, Arthur Preston. The Huancavelica Mercury Mine: A Contribution to the History of the Bourbon Renaissance in the Spanish Empire. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1941.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Classic institutional history of the largely unsuccessful efforts of Bourbon policy makers to revive production at the mercury mines of Huancavelica, focusing on the governorship of Antonio de Ulloa, the Nordenflicht mining mission, and the visita of Antonio de Areche. The study is less about mining operations than the failure of reform to turn around production.
Find this resource:
Military Reform

Military reverses in the Seven Years War, particularly the loss of Havana, led the crown to arm its American subjects, creating disciplined militia regiments throughout the Indies. These momentous decisions produced abundant archival documentation, which several generations of historians have used to examine the various facets of the military reform. From the classic study of the judicial privileges extended to military men (fuero militar) (McAlister 1957), a number of studies emerged in the 1970s examining military reform in regions such as Mexico (Archer 1977), New Granada (Kuethe 1978), and Peru (Campbell 1978). Bourbon military innovations occurred first in Cuba, the bastion of Spain’s Caribbean defenses, which served as the model for later military reforms (Kuethe 1986). Crown efforts to arm free men of color—Afro-Spaniards, Afro-Indians, or “pure blacks”—has provided important information on race relations, racial identity, categories of race, and issues of social mobility for free men of color in colonial Mexico (Vinson 2001).

Archer, Christon. The Army in Bourbon Mexico, 1760–1810. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1977.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Shows that the military reforms of Charles III, covering defense planning, the fortification of Veracruz, and internal defenses, were largely unsuccessful because of the unpopularity of military service and the harm it inflicted on ordinary soldiers. Moreover, the rise of militarism after independence was not tied to Bourbon military policies.
Find this resource:
Campbell, Leon G. The Military and Society in Colonial Peru, 1750–1810. Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1978.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Despite a promising beginning under Viceroy Amat, the author argues that military reforms failed in Peru because of the relative poverty of the Viceroyalty after the separation of Upper Peru in 1776 and inconsistent support by visitador Areche and subsequent viceroys, leading to the army’s dismal performance during the Tupac Amaru rebellion.
Find this resource:
Kuethe, Allan J. Military Reform and Society in New Granada, 1773–1808. Gainesville: University Presses of Florida, 1978.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Based on extensive archival research in Spain and Colombia, this book surveys the successes and failures of Bourbon military reforms in Cartagena, Panama, Guayaquil, Popayán, Quito, and on the frontier, arguing that the impact of these policies varied from region to region.
Find this resource:
Kuethe, Allan J. Cuba, 1753–1815: Crown, Military, and Society. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1986.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Following the fall of Havana in 1762, the crown began implementing a disciplined militia system in Cuba, making key commercial concessions to local elites to secure their allegiance and acceptance of higher taxes needed to fund the military reform policies. The militia defended Cuba during the War of the American Revolution, allowing Spanish regular troops to fight elsewhere.
Find this resource:
McAlister, Lyle N. The Fuero Militar in New Spain, 1764–1800. Gainesville: University Presses of Florida, 1957.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Pioneering study that argues that military reform did revitalize and strengthen the defenses of New Spain, but it also expanded military privileges and put the army beyond the control of civilian authorities, leading to a praetorian tradition in Mexico after independence.
Find this resource:
Vinson, Ben W. Bearing Arms for His Majesty: The Free Colored Militia in Colonial Mexico. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2001.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Vinson examines the role of Mexico’s free colored militia as a means to analyze race relations and social mobility in a period when people of African descent comprised nearly 10 percent of all Mexicans. Based on dense archival research, he examines the lives of thousands of soldiers who served as volunteers or conscripts.
Find this resource:
Commercial Reform

Historians remain divided about the overall impact of commercial reforms on the economic evolution of Spain and the Indies, particularly imperial free trade (1778–1789). A controversial study of Spanish ship registries indicates that the volume of Spain’s trade with her colonies increased dramatically after 1778 (Fisher 1985). Although later studies revised these overly optimistic figures downward, they still indicate a substantial increase in commerce within the empire (García-Baquero González 1976, García-Baquero González 1997). A number of economic historians, however, argued that the higher volume of trade did not promote economic growth in local regions in Spain (Fontana Lázaro and Bernal 1987). Other historians, however, focus on the increased levels of fiscal remittances from American treasuries after the advent of imperial free trade. More recent revisionist studies focus on the differential impact of crown policies and the importance of information and trust in commercial exchanges (Kuethe and Inglis 1985, Baskes 2005, Limikiz 2010). One recent book also examines the impact of legal and contraband British trade with Spanish America (Pearce 2007). These differing perspectives and points of view demonstrate clearly the complexity of Bourbon commercial reforms and the difficulty of measuring their impact on the economic evolution of the diverse Spanish empire.

Baskes, Jeremy. “Risky Ventures: Reconsidering Mexico’s Colonial Trade System.” Colonial Latin American Review 14 (June 2005): 27–55.
DOI: 10.1080/10609160500075177Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
The author argues that many of the apparently irrational aspects of the convoy system supplying Mexico were actually highly effective responses to the uncertainties and risks involved in transatlantic commerce. Imperial free trade actually heightened risk, prompting glutted markets and more merchant bankruptcies.
Find this resource:
Fisher, John. Commercial Relations between Spain and Spanish America in the Era of Free Trade, 1778–1796. Liverpool, UK: Centre for Latin American Studies, University of Liverpool, 1985.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Examines 6,824 ship registries involved in the American trade to argue that commerce between Spain and America experienced a dramatic rise—Spanish imports from the Americas rose fifteenfold between 1778 and 1796, while Spanish exports to the Americas grew 400 percent between 1782 and 1796.
Find this resource:
Fontana Lázaro, Josep, and Antonio-Miguel Bernal. El “comercio libre” entre España y América (1765–1824). Madrid: Fundación Banco Exterior, 1987.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Another economic history arguing that imperial free trade had only a limited impact on the economic development of Spanish regions during the later 18th and early 19th centuries.
Find this resource:
García-Baquero González, Antonio. Cádiz y el Atlántico: 1717–1778. 2 vols. Seville, Spain: Escuela de Estudios Hispano-Americanos, 1976.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Study based on summaries of ship registries during the 18th century that provides a quantitative analysis of the structure of trade between Spain and the Indies after the crown transferred the Consulado to Cádiz until the advent of imperial free trade.
Find this resource:
García-Baquero González, Antonio. “Los resultados de libre comercio y ‘el punto de vista’: Una revision desde la estadística.” Manuscrits 15 (1997): 303–322.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Revises Fisher’s figures about the level of commerce between Spain and the Indies downward by arguing that 1778, a war year, was a poor choice to begin measuring trade; he still finds a substantial increase in commerce after the advent of imperial free trade.
Find this resource:
Kuethe, Allan J., and G. Douglas Inglis. “Absolutism and Enlightened Reform: Charles III, the Establishment of the Alcabala, and Commercial Reorganization in Cuba.” Past and Present 109 (November 1985): 118–143.
DOI: 10.1093/past/109.1.118Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
This article examines how the crown made considerable concessions to Cuban sugar interests to secure their support for imposing the sales tax and for commercial reorganization, over the opposition of the Consulado of Cádiz.
Find this resource:
Lamikiz, Xabier. Trade and Trust in the Eighteenth-Century Atlantic World: Spanish Merchants and Their Overseas Networks. Woodbridge, UK: Boydell, 2010.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
An examination of the trade of Bilbao and Cádiz with Peru during the 18th century, concerning how the roles of trust, kinship, the law, risk, and the flow of information between Spanish merchants and their agents in America shaped the contours of imperial commerce.
Find this resource:
Pearce, Adrian J. British Trade with Spanish America, 1763–1808. Liverpool, UK: University of Liverpool Press, 2007.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Examines the trade of British merchants with the Spanish Indies through the British Caribbean islands, and by supplying goods to Spanish monopoly traders engaged in the American trade from the opening of British Caribbean ports to trade (primarily in slaves and manufactures) from 1763 through the war years between Spain and Britain, from 1796 to 1808.
Find this resource:
Reform and Imperial Finances

As with commercial reform, historians remain divided over how to measure and interpret the fiscal consequence of Bourbon financial innovations. Studies based on Spanish accounts, for example, demonstrated that fiscal returns from the Indies began rising well before the reign of Charles III (Barbier 1980). Moreover, two articles assessing the income and expenditures of the Madrid treasury have argued that the rigidity of crown tax revenues forced the governments of Charles III to borrow heavily to finance foreign wars, which impeded the Madrid government’s ability to foster fiscal, economic, and social reforms in Spain and left the country virtually bankrupt by the death of the king in 1789 (Barbier and Klein 1981, Barbier and Klein 1985). Much of the largesse from the Americas went into financing the construction of the Spanish navy, which the English virtually destroyed in their victory at Trafalgar in 1803 (Barbier 1984). The publication of the long time series of fiscal accounts for New Spain and South America has stimulated a number of important studies of the financial dimensions of the Bourbon Reforms, including TePaske et al. 1976; TePaske, et al. 1982; TePaske and Klein 1982a; TePaske and Klein 1982b; TePaske and Klein 1986; and Jara and TePaske 1990 (all cited under Published Primary Sources and Translations), as well as Klein 1998 and TePaske 2010. The most recent revisionist studies of imperial finances have argued that the Bourbon Reforms had little real impact on the evolution of the Spanish American empire, contending that the weak, decentralized colonial state could only redistribute income from central zones to colonial peripheries (Irigoin and Grafe 2008). Other studies, however, argue that the reforms had a profound fiscal impact, with New Spain serving as the financial sub-metropolis of the Caribbean, exporting silver subsidies to centers of imperial defense such as Cuba (Marichal 2007).

Barbier, Jacques. “Towards a New Chronology for Bourbon Colonialism: The “Depositaría de Indias” of Cádiz, 1722–1789.” Ibero-Amerikanisches Archiv 6.4 (1980): 335–353.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
An examination of the accounts of the Depositaría de Indies in Cádiz (the treasury of the Casa de la Contratación), demonstrating that Indies revenues began to rise during the later years of Philip V’s reign, reaching a peak under Ferdinand VI and declining under Charles III (largely because after 1778 administrative changes made the accounts a less reliable measure of American remittances).
Find this resource:
Barbier, Jacques. “Indies Revenues and Naval Spending: The Cost of Colonialism for the Spanish Bourbons.” Jahrbuch für Geschichte von Staat, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft Lateinamerikas 21 (1984): 171–188.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Demonstrates that the escalating levels of crown spending on the navy to prepare Spain for war with Great Britain during the reign of Charles III drained Spain of revenues remitted from the Indies to support a far larger fleet than Spain needed just to protect commerce.
Find this resource:
Barbier, Jacques A., and Herbert S. Klein. “Revolutionary Wars and Public Finances: The Madrid Treasury, 1784–1807.” Journal of Economic History 41.2 (1981): 315–339.
DOI: 10.1017/S002205070004359XSave Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A meticulous study of the income of the General Treasury in Madrid, showing that the revenues of Charles III were relatively inelastic during his reign, and that the demands of war led to extensive borrowing and the final collapse of royal credit during the wars with Great Britain, despite the considerable sums collected from the Indies.
Find this resource:
Barbier, Jacques A., and Herbert S. Klein. “Las prioridades de un monarca ilustrado: El gasto publico bajo el reinado de Carlos III.” Revista de Historia Económica 3 (Fall 1985): 473–495.
DOI: 10.1017/S0212610900013999Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
An examination of the expenditures of the General Treasury in Madrid during the reign of Charles III, which demonstrates that the growing costs of maintaining the army and navy led to ruinous borrowing that essentially bankrupted the treasury. The crown did not pursue policies aimed at investing Indies revenues to promote the economic development of Spain.
Find this resource:
Irigoin, Alejandra, and Regina Grafe. “Bargaining for Absolutism: A Spanish Path to Nation-State and Empire Building.” Hispanic American Historical Review 88 (May 2008): 172–209.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Advances the revisionist argument that the Bourbon state in the Indies was weak and decentralized, and it largely served to redistribute income from central zones, such as Mexico, to colonial peripheries. The authors contend that the colonial state functioned primarily by negotiation and forging a consensus with colonial elites, a phenomenon they term “bargained absolutism.”
Find this resource:
Klein, Herbert S. The American Finances of the Spanish Empire: Royal Income and Expenditures in Colonial Mexico, Peru, and Bolivia, 1680–1809. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press 1998.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A study of the income and expenditures of the royal treasuries of the Viceroyalty of Peru, the Audiencia of Charcas, and the Viceroyalty of New Spain, which shows the steady rise in income and expenditures during the 18th century, particularly in New Spain, which demonstrates the revival of mining and the greater efficiency of the colonial state.
Find this resource:
Marichal, Carlos. Bankruptcy of Empire: Mexican Silver and the Wars between Spain, Britain, and France, 1760–1810. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2007.
DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511551024Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Demonstrates the profound fiscal impact of the Bourbon Reforms on the fiscal organization and evolution of the Mexican state, which drew ever larger amounts of tax revenue over the later Bourbon period, making New Spain a financial sub-metropolis of the Caribbean, exporting silver subsidies (situados) to Cuba and other strategic outposts to support local defenses.
Find this resource:
TePaske, John J. A New World of Gold and Silver. Edited by Kendall W. Brown. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2010.
DOI: 10.1163/ej.9789004188914.i-342Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Meticulous quantitative analysis of official tax and mintage accounts to provide data on the amounts of gold and silver officially extracted and coined in the treasury districts of Spanish and Portuguese America, placing these data on bullion output within the context of global production in the rise of the early modern world economies.
Find this resource:
Challenges

Serious challenges to Bourbon authority occurred in several key areas of the Spanish Indies, particularly by the reign of Charles III. In the Andean mining town of Oruro, several conspiracies crossing class and ethnic lines emerged to oppose Bourbon innovations, while the inspection of José de Gálvez in New Spain prompted outbreaks of violence, often associated with the expulsion of the Jesuits, in the mining towns of northern Mexico (Castro Gutiérrez 1996). Another theater of unrest was in New Granada, where heightened Bourbon fiscal pressures led to the outbreak of the massive Comunero Rebellion in 1780 (Phelan 1978, Loy 1981). Even more serious was the escalating violence in the Andean highlands, beginning with the rebellion of Juan Santos Atahualpa in 1742 on the eastern slopes of the Andes and culminating in the great age of Andean rebellions in the 1780s (Stern 1987). The rebellions of Tupac Amaru, Tomás Katari, and Julián Apasa-Tupac Katari shook the foundations of Spanish rule in the Andes from Cuzco to Upper Peru (O’Phelan Godoy 1985, Stavig 1999, Serulnikov 2003, Thomson 2002). Taken together, studies of these challenges to Bourbon innovations demonstrate the complex ways that the reforms could lead to serious disruptions of regional societies.

Cajias de la Vega, Fernando. Oruro 1781: Sublevación de indios y rebelión criolla. 2 vols. Lima, Peru: IFEA-IEB, 2004.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Most exhaustive study of the causes and preconditions leading to a series of political upheavals in the Bolivian mining city of Oruro. It examines the structure of power in the city, with particular emphasis on how the rebellions of 1781 led to the formation of unstable alliances across class and ethnic lines.
Find this resource:
Castro Gutiérrez, Felipe. Nueva ley y nuevo rey: Reformas borbónicas y rebellión popular en Nueva España. Zamora, Mexico: Universidad de Michoacán, 1996.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Study of how Bourbon fiscal innovations imposed during the visita of José de Gálvez in New Spain (1765–1772), along with the expulsion of the Jesuits, led to a series of violent upheavals in several mining zones in northern New Spain, which Gálvez suppressed militarily with great brutality.
Find this resource:
Loy, Jane M. “Forgotten Comuneros: The 1781 Revolt in the Llanos of Casanare.” Hispanic American Historical Review 61 (May 1981): 235–257.
DOI: 10.2307/2513830Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
The Comunero Revolt in Socorro spread to the Llanos of Casanare, where Indians and creoles seized power from colonial authorities, attacked the church, and maintained power for four months because of the detrimental economic consequences to local textile production resulting from reforming the sales tax.
Find this resource:
O’Phelan Godoy, Scarlett. Rebellions and Revolts in Eighteenth-Century Peru and Upper Peru. Cologne: Böhlau, 1985.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
An overview of the escalating frequency of revolts and rebellions over the course of the 18th century, culminating in the great age of Andean rebellions of Tomás Katari, Julian Apasa-Tupac Katari, and Tupac Amaru in the 1780s. It treats the socioeconomic problems arising from the Bourbon Reforms and their impact on the outbreak of rebellions.
Find this resource:
Phelan, John Leddy. The People and the King: The Comunero Revolution in Colombia, 1781. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1978.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Traces the outbreak and course of the Comunero Revolt, beginning in Socorro in 1781, which the author sees as a political and constitutional crisis stemming from a clash between Bourbon imperial centralization and more traditional attitudes about colonial political decentralization and creole empowerment.
Find this resource:
Serulnikov, Sergio. Subverting Colonial Authority: Challenges to Spanish Rule in Eighteenth-Century Southern Andes. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2003.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Drawing on court records, government papers, and census materials, the author analyzes how local political problems, imperial reforms, and political corruption of local crown authorities led rural villagers to unite behind a charismatic indigenous commoner, Tomás Katari, to assert their rights and unite against local colonial authorities in the Chayanta region, north of Potosí.
Find this resource:
Stavig, Ward. The World of Tupac Amaru: Conflict, Community, and Identity in Colonial Peru. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1999.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
The author examines how local gender relations, cultural values, struggles over land, conflicts over forced labor, patterns of local crime and violence, and ethnic conflicts led the indigenous peoples of Canas y Canchis to unite behind the charismatic Tupac Amaru and rebel against the colonial government in 1781.
Find this resource:
Stern, Steve J., ed. Resistance, Rebellion, and Consciousness in the Andean Peasant World, 18th to 20th Centuries. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1987.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
The essays in the first half of the collection survey different aspects of the rising tide of indigenous rebellions, beginning with the insurgency of Juan Santos Atahualpa in the eastern slopes of the Andes in the 1740s and culminating with the great rebellions of the 1780s.
Find this resource:
Thomson, Sinclair. We Alone Will Rule: Native Andean Politics in the Age of Insurgency. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2002.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Author analyzes how political struggles at the local level, combined with structural changes in Aymara communities in the La Paz region over several decades, contributed to the unification of indigenous peasants behind the charismatic leadership of Julian Apasa-Tupac Katari, to overthrow the Spanish colonial order and assert Indian political rights.
Find this resource:
The Atlantic Perspective

Some new perspectives on the Bourbon Reforms have come from scholars who place these policies within the context of the wider Atlantic world. An Atlantic perspective has allowed scholars to examine the interconnections among global, regional, and local processes, linking the four continents—Europe, North and South America, and Africa—surrounding the Atlantic basin. Such a perspective also permits historians to reexamine important historical changes, such as the Bourbon Reforms, within a wider Atlantic perspective to encourage comparisons among the European overseas empires. This viewpoint highlights differences between densely populated central regions and the more sparsely settled frontier zones within empires—where European rule was more insecure as various indigenous groups challenged their control, along with rival colonial powers. Moreover, an Atlantic perspective emphasizes the world of merchants and maritime commercial exchanges, including marginal people—sailors, pirates, innkeepers, and prostitutes—who played a role in this trade, particularly in the Caribbean. Wars also connected European overseas possessions as conflicts in Europe spread to America and beyond, while the commerce in slaves sometimes prompted wars among African polities. In short, an Atlantic perspective encourages scholars to explore a wide range of topics and relationships and to see old problems from a different vantage point.

Precursors and Early Practitioners of Atlantic History

Although works examining the Spanish Atlantic emerged relatively recently, there were a number of important precursors of this effort to place the history and Spain and the Indies within a single analytic framework. After Herbert Eugene Bolton’s call for a common history of the Americas in 1933, succeeding generations of scholars have advanced numerous approaches for studying the Spanish Atlantic (Bolton 1933). This trend accelerated after World War II, when the establishment of North Atlantic Treaty Organization brought the notion of a common Atlantic heritage to wide public attention (see Bailyn 2005, cited under Defining the Atlantic World). Early works defined the institutional structure of Spain’s overseas empire, while studies also examined the impact of American treasure’s influence on European price inflation (Hamilton 1934, Haring 1942). This was followed by the massive compilation of Spain’s transatlantic trade statistics, which defined the Spanish Atlantic as commercial “space,” along with studies of the maritime dimensions of the Spanish empire (Chaunu and Chaunu 1955–1959, Parry 1966). More recently scholars have written bold comparative studies (McNeill 1985, Liss 1983, Pérez-Mallaína Bueno 1992). Early historical work on the transatlantic slave trade also examined the role of Africa and slavery in the Atlantic world (Curtin 1969).

Bolton, Herbert Eugene. “The Epic of Greater America.” American Historical Review 38 (April 1933): 448–474.
DOI: 10.2307/1837492Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
This article was the published version of the author’s inaugural speech upon becoming president of the American Historical Association, in which he argued for the Americas having a common history. This broad hemispheric perspective was a precursor to later Atlantic perspectives.
Find this resource:
Chaunu, Pierre, and Huguette Chaunu. Seville et l’Atlantique, 1504–1650. 8 vols. Paris: Colin, 1955–1959.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
This massive compilation and analysis of official Spanish commercial records on the volume of trade passing between Seville and the Spanish Indies by these two Annales historians helped to define the Spanish Atlantic as a commercial space, even though their work falls in the Habsburg period.
Find this resource:
Curtin, Philip. The Atlantic Slave Trade: A Census. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1969.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
This pioneering work on the statistics of the Atlantic slave trade examined the central role of Africa in defining the Atlantic world. Statistics on the numbers of Africans passing across the Atlantic have been refined considerably by the more recent work of David Eltis, et al., The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade: A Database on CD-ROM (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1999).
Find this resource:
Hamilton, Earl J. American Treasure and the Price Revolution in Spain, 1501–1650. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1934.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Although dealing with the Habsburg period, this study of the volume of legal shipments of American treasure and its influence on rising prices in Europe helped show the economic linkages between Europe and the Spanish Indies, even though the author’s thesis that American silver prompted a price revolution has now been largely discarded.
Find this resource:
Haring, Clarence. The Spanish Empire in America. New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1947.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
This pioneering legal and institutional study of the evolution of the Spanish Empire helped shape an Atlantic view of Spanish colonialism in the New World and its links to Europe in the Habsburg and Bourbon periods.
Find this resource:
Liss, Peggy. Atlantic Empires: The Network of Trade and Revolution. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A study of the 18th-century roots of the American and Latin American revolutions that stresses the common role of ideas and commercial exchanges in laying the groundwork for revolution, with the 18th century as the high point in the congruence of the ideas of entrepreneurs, intellectuals, and revolutionary leaders.
Find this resource:
McNeill, John Robert. Atlantic Empires of France and Spain: Louisbourg and Havana, 1700–1763. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1985.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Comparative study of two military outposts of the French and Spanish Empires that served the defense needs of their respective crowns well. The book also examines the economic hinterlands of both fortress cities: the fishing banks off Cape Breton Island and the rich tobacco lands of Cuba.
Find this resource:
Parry, J. H. The Spanish Seaborne Empire. New York: Knopf, 1966.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
An important overview of the Spanish Empire, emphasizing its maritime dimensions and focusing primarily on Mexico and the Caribbean. The author presents a broad synthesis for a more general audience.
Find this resource:
Pérez-Mallaína Bueno, Pablo Emilio. Los hombres del oceano: Vida cotidiana de los tripulantes de las flotas de India, siglo XVI. Seville, Spain: Escuela de Estudios Hispano-Americanos, 1992.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
An important study of Spanish men of the sea, focusing on topics such as the social background of sailors, the ship as a place work, health and disease, and discipline aboard ship, and the mental perspective of Spanish sailing men. English translation by Carla Rahn Phillips, Spain’s Men of the Sea (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998).
Find this resource:
Defining the Atlantic World

Working in an emerging field, historians have struggled to demarcate the Atlantic world as an analytic framework and to agree on an appropriate chronology. Atlantic world history is not defined by a specific set of historical methods; instead, most scholars see the Atlantic Ocean as an “arena of analysis” or analytic construct that historians use to examine key developments in the demographic, economic, social, cultural, and political exchanges across the Atlantic basin in the early modern era (Greene and Morgan 2009, Armitage 2002). According to one the founding figures in the field, the Atlantic world begins with the first encounters of Europeans with the Western Hemisphere and ends with the revolutionary era in the early 19th century (Bailyn 2005). Another encyclopedic overview of the Atlantic world sets the end of the Atlantic world at 1900, when forces of global change incorporated the Atlantic basin into a more integrated world (Benjamin 2009). A series of journal articles has appeared defining the field in mainstream journals, including the American Historical Review, indicating that Atlantic world history has attained the status of a discrete field of historical analysis (Eltis 1999, Games 2006, O’Reilly 2004).

Armitage, David. “Three Concepts of Atlantic History.” In The British Atlantic World, 1500–1800. Edited by David Armitage and Michael Braddick, 11–30. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
In the introduction to this work on the British Atlantic, David Armitage lays out his typologies of Atlantic history. Circum-Atlantic histories provide a transnational view that presents the Atlantic as a unified zone of exchange, circulation, and transmission; trans-Atlantic history involves international comparisons, while cis-Atlantic history examines particular places in a wide Atlantic framework.
Find this resource:
Bailyn, Bernard. Atlantic History: Concept and Contours. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
An examination of the historical and historiographical dimensions of Atlantic history, which brings together European, African, and American history into dialogue with one another in their common, comparative, and interactive elements.
Find this resource:
Benjamin, Thomas. The Atlantic World: Europeans, Africans, Indians, and Their Shared History, 1400–1900. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2009.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A detailed overview of the Atlantic world, emphasizing the interactions and exchanges of Europeans, Africans, and Amerindians, leading to the creation of new peoples, cultures, ideas, and economies over five hundred years.
Find this resource:
Eltis, David. “Atlantic History in Global Perspective.” Itinerario 23.2 (1999): 142–161.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Argues that there was not a single Atlantic society but a series of societies that were fundamentally reshaped by Atlantic interaction, and to make sense of the Atlantic World, historians must focus on cultural patterns, not just economic exchanges.
Find this resource:
Games, Allison. “Atlantic History: Definitions, Challenges, and Opportunities.” American Historical Review 111.3 (2006): 741–757.
DOI: 10.1086/ahr.111.3.741Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A broad overview of the evolution of Atlantic history that discusses the potential challenges and pitfalls of the Atlantic perspective, which argues that the Atlantic linked people in distinctive ways through consumption, production, and commerce.
Find this resource:
Greene, Jack P., and Philip D. Morgan. Atlantic History: A Critical Appraisal. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A collection of essays by noted authorities on the Spanish, Portuguese, French, British, and Dutch Atlantics, the Old World and the Atlantic, it provides both competing and complementary perspectives. The editors also assess the meaning of the Atlantic world and the present state of the field.
Find this resource:
O’Reilly, William. “Genealogies of Atlantic History.” Atlantic Studies 1.1 (2004): 66–84.
DOI: 10.1080/1478881042000226124Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
An article that traces the origins of Atlantic history to Walter Lippmann from 1917, through the growth of NATO after World War II, and then explores the historiographical debates within the field, how different subdisciplines are incorporated into the Atlantic paradigm, and the opportunities that Atlantic history offers.
Find this resource:
The Bourbon Reforms in the Spanish Atlantic World

Studies of the Atlantic world seldom have dealt with the Bourbon Reforms by comparing these innovations with those introduced by other European powers in their colonial empires. A broad overview of African slavery in Latin America and the Caribbean, for example, provides information on 18th-century changes in slavery (Klein and Vinson 2007). A path-breaking new study of artisans and slaves in the revolutionary era demonstrates the importance of free workers and their slaves in the move toward independence in the Río de la Plata (Johnson 2011). Moreover, a recent comparison of the Spanish and English empires of the Atlantic world deals extensively with 18th-century reforms, within the broad context of the entire colonial experiences of Spain and Britain in the New World (Elliott 2006). Likewise, some studies of intellectual and cultural trends cover the reforms in the 18th century (Brading 1991), but more recent studies have examined the growth of regalism and reformist policies under Charles III and even the impact of Enlightenment thinking (Paquette 2008). One influential cultural history examines Spanish attempts to write an official history of the New World to combat the growth of Black Legend attitudes in western Europe in the 18th century—emphasizing Spanish backwardness and cruelty in the foundation and evolution of its New World empire (Cañizares Esguerra 2001). Monographic studies of changing notions of sovereignty and revolution in the Iberian Atlantic world and of Spanish attitudes toward the Amerindian populations on the frontiers of the Spanish empire have made substantial contributions (Adelman 2006, Weber 2005). Nonetheless, the volume of scholarship on the Spanish or Iberian Atlantic worlds does not compare to the more extensive scholarly contributions for the British Atlantic.

Adelman, Jeremy. Sovereignty and Revolution in the Iberian Atlantic. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Argues that the Spanish and Portuguese Empires responded to the pressures of war and merchant capitalism in the 18th century, which led to a transformation of the bonds of loyalty, leading to independence as empire was no longer a viable model of sovereignty.
Find this resource:
Brading, David A. The First America: The Spanish Monarchy, Creole Patriots, and the Liberal State, 1492–1867. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1991.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A broad intellectual history of how creoles created a new identity for themselves, which engaged with native histories and American realities in ways that were idiosyncratic, regionally diverse, and distinctly different from Europe. The last third of the book covers the Bourbon Reforms and the Enlightenment.
Find this resource:
Cañizares Esguerra, Jorge. How to Write the History of the New World: Histories, Epistemologies, and Identities in the New World. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2001.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Explains how Spanish and American intellectuals refuted the views of the French naturalist Buffon by writing a history of the New World that utilized different types of primary sources and produced an intellectual critique of European ideas and epistemologies.
Find this resource:
Elliott, John H. Empires of the Atlantic World: Britain and Spain in America, 1492–1830. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2006.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A broad, comparative history of the colonial empires of Spain and Britain, which identifies how Spain became a model for British overseas expansion, while both powers developed their distinctive styles of government, social organization, and cultural production. The last third of the book covers the Bourbon Reforms up through independence.
Find this resource:
Klein, Herbert, and Ben Vinson III. African Slavery in Latin America and the Caribbean. 2d ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
An updated and revised overview of African slavery in Latin America and the Caribbean, first published by Klein in 1982. It covers 18th-century topics such as an overview of slavery in the century; slavery and the plantation economy in the Caribbean, Brazil, and the Guyanas; life, death, and the family; slave community and culture; and resistance and freedmen.
Find this resource:
Johnson, Lyman L. Workshop of Revolution: Plebeian Buenos Aires in the Atlantic World, 1776–1810. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2011.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
An account (based on extensive archival research in Argentina and Spain) of the historical forces that propelled artisans, free laborers, and slaves in Buenos Aires into Atlantic commerce, which led them to enter the political process and eventually to support the independence of Argentina after the two failed British invasions in 1806 and 1807.
Find this resource:
Paquette, Gabriel. Enlightenment, Governance, and Reform in Spain and Its Empire, 1759–1808. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Examines the intellectual foundations of commercial, administrative, and colonial policy, focusing on the reign of Charles III, and shows how reformers employed both Enlightenment ideas and more traditional Iberian judicial precepts to create a new and distinctive ideology of governance, within the context of the wider Atlantic world.
Find this resource:
Weber, David. Bárbaros: Spaniards and Their Savages in the Age of Enlightenment. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2005.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Examines how 18th-century Bourbon administrators used Enlightenment ideas to formulate consistent policies for dealing with less civilized indigenous peoples, who often resisted such efforts effectively, leading Spanish officers to resort to bloody wars to defeat them. The author concludes that raw power, not ideas, shaped crown policies in the end.
Find this resource: