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The Gold and Silver of Spanish America, c. 1572–1648; Tables Showing Bullion Declared for Taxation in Colonial Treasuries, Remittances to Spain, and Expenditures for Defense of Empire

2005; Duke University Press; Volume: 85; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1215/00182168-85-4-697

1527-1900

John J. TePaske,

History and Politics in Latin America

In many ways, the late Engel Sluiter was a pioneer. Long before the computer age and the ensuing penchant for quantitative analysis, Sluiter saw rich opportunities in the numerical data from the colonial New World. In his research on international rivalries in the Indies and elsewhere, he began compiling such data more than 60 years ago, filed away in cabinets at his home in Berkeley. Not surprisingly, he was quickly drawn to the Spanish royal accounts for determining the costs of imperial defense, trade movements, mining output, and a host of other colonial matters. In this volume—fittingly published by the Bancroft Library at the University of California where he has deposited his microfilm, photocopies, and personal transcriptions—he finally presents his findings for the period from 1576 to 1648.His tables focus on three geographic regions: New Spain, New Granada, and Peru (both Upper and Lower), as well as touching on Caribbean defense. The first and largest portion of the book presents data on gold and silver output for the “Sluiter period.” Perhaps his most important contributions are his gold-production figures for New Granada, including Los Remedios, Cáceres, Zaragoza, Cartago, Guamacó, Mompós (Mompox?), Anserma, Cartagena, Antioquia, and Popayán. Combined with the data on the latter part of the seventeenth century compiled or forthcoming from historians at the University of Alcalá de Henares in Spain (led by Manuel Casado Arboniés and Manuel Lucena Salmoral) and by the Colombian historian Adolfo Meisel for the eighteenth, legally registered gold production for New Granada will be far easier to calculate. Presently, the only figures for gold output are the informed estimates of Germán Colmenares and Jaime Jaramillo Uribe and the mintage figures of M. Barriga Villalba and Jorge Orlando Melo. Sluiter’s work thus fills an important gap.More than that, Sluiter has put forward gold and silver output for the mining districts of New Spain and Peru (Upper and Lower). Compiled from data in the AGI in Seville and a wide variety of Spanish American repositories (in the best sense of the word Sluiter was the quintessential archive rat), the author shuns the realm of the estimators and instead relies on gold and silver declarations made in the cajas of the various mining districts. In the copious notes to his many tables, he provides clear explanations of how he has converted silver and gold tax registries to production estimates, all presented in pesos of 272 maravedís. My only caveat is that his calculations of the amount of silver and gold presented for taxation may be slightly overestimated, but not by significant amounts. (Sluiter assumes a standard tax rate but does not subtract the cobos of 0.5 or 1 percent from the gold or silver presented for payment of the fifth or a tenth.) He puts forward his data in accounting periods rather than calendar years and, as might be expected, has no visual display of his quantitative data.The last two sections deal with silver remissions to Spain, and military and naval salaries and expenditures for various areas of the Spanish Indies, again for the 1572 to 1648 period. In one of his most interesting tables on remissions (table D), he compares gold and silver output in the Spanish Indies for 1576–1645 with the data on shipment to Castile presented in Earl J. Hamilton’s classic work on the price revolution in Spain. That table clearly establishes that more and more precious metals were being retained in the Indies, while less and less reached Castile. Sluiter ignores the controversy over Michel Morineau’s shipment estimates. In addition, the author documents the amounts sent on royal and private account to the Far East from New Spain, as well as remissions to Castile from New Spain, Peru, and New Granada. His defense data recounts the costs of defense for Havana, Puerto Rico, Santo Domingo, and Cartagena, and for fortification and maintenance of Spanish San Martín, Santa Catalina, Florida, and Santiago de Arroyo in Venezuela. Sluiter’s numbers provide a fitting sequel to Paul Hoffman’s book on Spanish defense of the early Caribbean. Particularly enlightening is his discussion of the Dutch in the Caribbean (pp. 140–44), a long-time object of Sluiter’s research.Obviously, Engel Sluiter made good use of his 20 years of retirement in preparing a career’s worth of data for publication. The material he brought forth from his filing cabinets clarifies and enlightens us on new aspects of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries in the Spanish Indies. His notes and brief discussions introducing his tables reveal also how scrupulous a scholar Engel Sluiter was. This volume is an important contribution.