The Bourbon Reforms were a set of economic and political legislation introduced by the Spanish

Spain

Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

 Crown

The Crown

The Crown is a corporation sole that in the Commonwealth realms and any provincial or state sub-divisions thereof represents the legal embodiment of governance, whether executive, legislative, or judicial...

 under various kings of the House of Bourbon

House of Bourbon

The House of Bourbon is a European royal house, a branch of the Capetian dynasty . Bourbon kings first ruled Navarre and France in the 16th century. By the 18th century, members of the Bourbon dynasty also held thrones in Spain, Naples, Sicily, and Parma...

 throughout the 18th century. The reforms were intended to stimulate manufacturing and technology in order to modernize Spain. In Spanish America the reforms were designed to make the administration more efficient and to promote its economic, commercial, and fiscal development. The crown did this in hopes that it would have a positive effect on the economy of Spain. Furthermore, the Bourbon Reforms were intended to limit the power of Creoles and re-establish Spanish primacy over their colonies.

Background

At the end of the 17th century, Spain was an ailing empire facing declining revenues and the loss of military power. It was ruled by a weak King, Charles II of Spain

Charles II of Spain

Charles II was the last Habsburg King of Spain and the ruler of large parts of Italy, the Spanish territories in the Southern Low Countries, and Spain's overseas Empire, stretching from the Americas to the Spanish East Indies...

, who would leave no successors. Even before the death of Charles II, the European powers were already positioning themselves to see which noble house would procure the Spanish throne with its vast empire. Louis XIV of France

Louis XIV of France

Louis XIV , known as Louis the Great or the Sun King , was a Bourbon monarch who ruled as King of France and Navarre. His reign, from 1643 to his death in 1715, began at the age of four and lasted seventy-two years, three months, and eighteen days...

 asked for, and gained, the Pope's consent for his grandson, Philip of Anjou, a grand nephew of Charles II, to ascend the throne. On his deathbed Charles II willed the crown to this French-born successor.

The transfer of the Spanish Crown to the Bourbons, in 1700, did not go uncontested. In the ensuing War of the Spanish Succession

War of the Spanish Succession

The War of the Spanish Succession was fought among several European powers, including a divided Spain, over the possible unification of the Kingdoms of Spain and France under one Bourbon monarch. As France and Spain were among the most powerful states of Europe, such a unification would have...

 (1701–1713), Spain had to surrender some of its European territories, and grant the monopoly of the valuable slave trade with the Americas

Americas

The Americas, or America , are lands in the Western hemisphere, also known as the New World. In English, the plural form the Americas is often used to refer to the landmasses of North America and South America with their associated islands and regions, while the singular form America is primarily...

 to England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

. Philip V of Spain

Philip V of Spain

Philip V was King of Spain from 15 November 1700 to 15 January 1724, when he abdicated in favor of his son Louis, and from 6 September 1724, when he assumed the throne again upon his son's death, to his death.Before his reign, Philip occupied an exalted place in the royal family of France as a...

 took measures intended to counter the decline of Spanish power. Even before the war the state of the Spanish empire was precarious. When Charles II died, the military was practically non- existent, consisting of one division, the treasury was bankrupt, and there was no promotion of commerce or industry. Philip V and his ministers needed to act quickly to reconstruct the empire.

French Influence

The new Bourbon kings kept close ties with France and used many Frenchmen as advisors. Though French innovations in politics and social manners never fully replaced Spanish laws and traditions, they became an important model in both areas. As a result, there was an influx of French goods, ideas and books, which helped spread the ideas of the Enlightenment

Age of Enlightenment

The Age of Enlightenment was an elite cultural movement of intellectuals in 18th century Europe that sought to mobilize the power of reason in order to reform society and advance knowledge. It promoted intellectual interchange and opposed intolerance and abuses in church and state...

 throughout the Spanish world. In a sense, all things French came into fashion during the subsequent century, and gave rise to a new type of person, the afrancesado

Afrancesado

Afrancesado was the term used to denote Spanish and Portuguese partisans of Enlightenment ideas, Liberalism, or the French Revolution, who were supporters of the French occupation of Iberia and of the First French Empire.-Origins:...

, who welcomed this new influence. In addition, during the War of Succession the ports in Spanish America were blockaded by British and Dutch fleets. Spain turned to France for help with the export of its goods. This was the first time in Spanish colonial history that trade occurred with a foreign nation. This new commercial relationship stimulated the colonial economy, especially that of Chile.

Spain

The early reforms were aimed at improving the economic and political structure of Spain. They sought to modernize agriculture, more efficiently construct ships, and develop an infrastructure to monitor and incite economic integration and development on a regional and national level. These reforms unfortunately fell through for Spain. These socio-economic reforms left the country with almost no investment capital. This hindered the nationalization

Nationalization

Nationalisation, also spelled nationalization, is the process of taking an industry or assets into government ownership by a national government or state. Nationalization usually refers to private assets, but may also mean assets owned by lower levels of government, such as municipalities, being...

 of industries and also as a side-effect, it disrupted the class system. It left almost no middle class and separated the lower and upper significantly. As a result of these early reforms, the country was dwindling and its progression rate put it behind its neighboring countries such as Britain

Great Britain

Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...

 and France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

.

The failure of these measures became evident when Spain, under Charles III

Charles III of Spain

Charles III was the King of Spain and the Spanish Indies from 1759 to 1788. He was the eldest son of Philip V of Spain and his second wife, the Princess Elisabeth Farnese...

, lost the Seven Years' War

Seven Years' War

The Seven Years' War was a global military war between 1756 and 1763, involving most of the great powers of the time and affecting Europe, North America, Central America, the West African coast, India, and the Philippines...

 with Great Britain (1756–1763). However, the king's counselors secured more detailed reports of the colonies, and understood the need to take them fully into account. The new wave of reforms included larger exploitation of resources in the colonies, increased taxes, the opening of new ports allowed to trade only with Spain, and the establishment of several state monopolies

Monopoly

A monopoly exists when a specific person or enterprise is the only supplier of a particular commodity...

.

Spanish America

The bulk of the changes in Spanish America came in the second half of the 18th century. Early reforms consisted primarily of creating one new viceroyalty to improve the administration of the overseas possessions. The Viceroyalty of New Granada

Viceroyalty of New Granada

The Viceroyalty of New Granada was the name given on 27 May 1717, to a Spanish colonial jurisdiction in northern South America, corresponding mainly to modern Colombia, Ecuador, Panama, and Venezuela. The territory corresponding to Panama was incorporated later in 1739...

 was created in 1717, although it was suppressed just six years later and only permanently established in 1739. A second viceroyalty was created much later in 1776 in the Río de la Plata

Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata

The Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata, , was the last and most short-lived Viceroyalty of the Spanish Empire in America.The Viceroyalty was established in 1776 out of several former Viceroyalty of Perú dependencies that mainly extended over the Río de la Plata basin, roughly the present day...

. In the same year an autonomous captaincy general was also established in Venezuela

Captaincy General of Venezuela

The Captaincy General of Venezuela was an administrative district of colonial Spain, created in 1777 to provide more autonomy for the provinces of Venezuela, previously under the jurisdiction of the Viceroyalty of New Granada and the Audiencia of Santo Domingo...

. Under Charles III colonial matters were concentrated in a single ministry, which took powers away from the Council of the Indies. Furthermore, the advances Americans (Criollos

Criollo people

The Criollo class ranked below that of the Iberian Peninsulares, the high-born permanent residence colonists born in Spain. But Criollos were higher status/rank than all other castes—people of mixed descent, Amerindians, and enslaved Africans...

) had made in the local bureaucracy in the past century and a half, usually through the sale of offices, were checked by the direct appointment of (supposedly more qualified and disinterested) Spanish officials.

Charles III also initiated the difficult process of changing the complex administrative system of the former ruling family, the Habsburgs. (See José de Gálvez

José de Gálvez

José de Gálvez y Gallardo, marqués de Sonora was a Spanish lawyer, a colonial official in New Spain and ultimately Minister of the Indies . He was one of the prime figures behind the Bourbon Reforms...

.) Corregidores

Corregidor (position)

A corregidor was a local, administrative and judicial position in Spain and its empire. He was the highest authority of a Corregimiento. In the Americas a corregidor was often called an alcalde mayor. They began to be appointed in fourteenth century Castile and the institution was definitively...

were replaced with a French institution, the intendant

Intendant

The title of intendant has been used in several countries through history. Traditionally, it refers to the holder of a public administrative office...

. The intendancies had the desired effect of further decentralizing the administration at the expense of viceroys, captains general and governors, since intendants were directly responsible to the Crown, not to the former, and were granted large powers in economic and political matters. The intendancy system proved to be efficient in most areas and led to an increase in revenue collection. Intendency seats were mainly based in large cities and successful mining centers. Almost all of the new intendants were Peninsulares

Peninsulares

In the colonial caste system of Spanish America, a peninsular was a Spanish-born Spaniard or mainland Spaniard residing in the New World, as opposed to a person of full Spanish descent born in the Americas or Philippines...

, that is people who were born in Spain, exacerbating the conflict between Peninsulares and Criollos

Criollo people

The Criollo class ranked below that of the Iberian Peninsulares, the high-born permanent residence colonists born in Spain. But Criollos were higher status/rank than all other castes—people of mixed descent, Amerindians, and enslaved Africans...

, who wished to retain some control of local administration. Charles III and Charles IV also reversed the advances Criollos had made in the high courts (audiencias). Under the Habsburgs, the Crown had sold audiencia positions to Criollos. The Bourbon kings ended this policy. By 1807, “only twelve out of ninety-nine [audiencia] judges were creoles.”

With regards to the economy, collection of taxes was more efficient under the intendancy system. In 1778 King Charles III established the “Decree of Free Trade,” which allowed the Spanish American ports to trade directly with each other and with most ports in Spain. Therefore, “commerce would no longer be restricted to four colonial ports (Veracruz, Cartagena, Lima/Callao, and Panama)." Tax reductions were given to the silver

Silver

Silver is a metallic chemical element with the chemical symbol Ag and atomic number 47. A soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it has the highest electrical conductivity of any element and the highest thermal conductivity of any metal...

 mining industry. Tobacco

Tobacco

Tobacco is an agricultural product processed from the leaves of plants in the genus Nicotiana. It can be consumed, used as a pesticide and, in the form of nicotine tartrate, used in some medicines...

 proved to be a successful crop after state monopolies were expanded. Also during this time, many of the colonies began to produce an abundance of resources that became vital to many European powers and the British colonies in North America and the Caribbean, despite the fact that most of this trade was considered contraband, because it was not carried on Spanish ships. Most of the Bourbon kings tried to outlaw this trade through various programs like increasing the customs receipts, though the efforts provided little result.

Spanish America barely had an operational military before the Bourbon reforms, and what it did have was inconsistent and scattered. The Bourbons created a more organized militia

Militia

The term militia is commonly used today to refer to a military force composed of ordinary citizens to provide defense, emergency law enforcement, or paramilitary service, in times of emergency without being paid a regular salary or committed to a fixed term of service. It is a polyseme with...

 and first used men deployed straight from Spain as officers, but soon this broke down, as locals took most positions. The colonial militias which became a source of prestige for “status-hungry” Criollos. The hierarchy of the military was racially based. Militias were often created along race lines, with militias for whites, blacks and mixed race people. Almost all the higher officers were Spanish-born, with Criollos occupying the secondary levels of command.

The Bourbons also made the government more secular. The political role of the Church was diminished, though never removed completely. Unlike the Habsburgs, who often selected churchmen to fill political offices, the Bourbons preferred to appoint career military officers. This process reached a high point with the Suppression of the Society of Jesus in 1767. The Jesuits were one of the wealthiest religious order

Religious order

A religious order is a lineage of communities and organizations of people who live in some way set apart from society in accordance with their specific religious devotion, usually characterized by the principles of its founder's religious practice. The order is composed of initiates and, in some...

s and had been instrumental in the missionary work carried out in the Americas and the Philippines. Because they had major rivals in the other orders of the church, their dismissal was greeted with covert approval. The crown also tried to place the more secular clergy

Secular clergy

The term secular clergy refers to deacons and priests who are not monastics or members of a religious order.-Catholic Church:In the Catholic Church, the secular clergy are ministers, such as deacons and priests, who do not belong to a religious order...

 in the church hierarchy, reversing a trend since the beginning of the colonial period of having the regular clergy

Regular clergy

Regular clergy, or just regulars, is applied in the Roman Catholic Church to clerics who follow a "rule" in their life. Strictly, it means those members of religious orders who have made solemn profession. It contrasts with secular clergy.-Terminology and history:The observance of the Rule of St...

 fill these posts. Overall, these changes had little effect on the Church as a whole. Towards the end of the Bourbon reign, on the "eve of independence, the crown attempted to confiscate church property, but the measure proved hard to enforce."

Effects

Though the legislation passed by the Bourbons did much to reform the Empire, it was not enough to save it. The racial tensions continued to grow and there was still massive discontent, the most important of which were the Rebellion of Túpac Amaru II

Rebellion of Túpac Amaru II

The Rebellion of Túpac Amaru II was an uprising of native and mestizo peasants against the Bourbon reforms in the Spanish Viceroyalty of Peru...

 and Revolt of the Comuneros

Revolt of the Comuneros (New Granada)

The Revolt of the Comuneros was an uprising by the inhabitants of the Viceroyalty of New Granada against the Spanish authorities in 1781. While underlying causes may have been economic, ideas of freedom and self-government were expressed...

. This discontent led many people to band together and lead several revolts. Criollos, Mestizos, and Indians were among the most common to be involved in such resistance movements. Over time, these uprisings led to the fight for the independence of the American colonies.

Economy

• Brading, D. A. Haciendas and Ranchos in the Mexican Bajío: León, 1700-1860. Cambridge, 1978. ISBN 9780521222006
• Brading, D. A. Miners and Merchants in Bourbon Mexico, 1763-1810. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1971. ISBN 9780521078740
• Buechler, Rose Marie. The Mining Society of Potosí, 1776-1810. Ann Arbor, Syracuse University, 1981. ISBN 9780835705912
• Deans-Smith, Susan. Bureaucrats, Planters, and Workers: The Making of the Tobacco Monopoly in Bourbon Mexico. Austin, University of Texas Press, 1992. ISBN 9780292707863
• Fisher, John R. Commercial Relations between Spain and Spanish America in the Era of Free Trade, 1778-1796. Liverpool, University of Liverpool, 1985. ISBN 9780902806122
• Fisher, John R. Silver Mines and Silver Miners in Colonial Peru, 1776-1824. Liverpool, 1977. ISBN 9780902806061
• Fisher, John R. Trade, War, and Revolution: Exports from Spain to Spanish America, 1797-1820. Liverpool, University of Liverpool, 1992. ISBN 9780902806221
• Liss, Peggy K. Atlantic Empires: The Network of Trade and Revolution, 1713-1826. Baltimore, 1983. ISBN 9780801827426
• Ringrose, David. Spain, Europe and the "Spanish Miracle," 1700-1900. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1996. ISBN 9780585040691
• Socolow, Susan Migden. The Merchants of Buenos Aires, 1778-1810: Family and Commerce. Cambridge 1978. ISBN 9780521218122
• Van Young, Eric. Hacienda and Market in Eighteenth Century Mexico: The Rural Economy of Guadalajara, 1675-1820. Berkeley, 1981. ISBN 9780520041615

Government

• Andrien, Kenneth J. The Kingdom of Quito, 1690-1830: The State and Regional Development. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1995. ISBN 9780521481250
• Barbier, Jacques A. Reform and Politics in Bourbon Chile, 1755-1796. Ottawa, University of Ottawa Press, 1980. ISBN 9782760350106
• Brown, Kendall W. Bourbons and Brandy: Imperial Reform in Eighteenth-Century Arequipa. Albuquerque, University of New Mexico Press, 1986. ISBN 9780826308290
• Burkholder, Mark A. and D. S. Chandler. From Impotence to Authority: The Spanish Crown and the American Audiencias, 1687-1808. Columbus, University of Missouri Press, 1977. ISBN 9780826202192
• Fisher, John R. Government and Society in Colonial Peru: The Intendant System, 1784-1814. London, Athlone Press, 1970. ISBN 9780485131291
• Fisher, Lillian Estelle. The Intendant System in Spanish America. Berkeley, University of California Press, 1929.
• Floyd, Troy S. (ed.). The Bourbon Reformers and Spanish Civilization; Builders or Destroyers? Boston: Heath, 1966.
• Hamnett, Brian R. Politics and Trade in Southern Mexico, 1750-1821. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1971. ISBN 9780521078603
• Lynch, John.. Spanish Colonial Administration, 1782-1810: The Intendant System in the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata. London, Athlone Press, 1958.
• McFarlane, Anthony. Colombia before Independence: Economy, Society, and Politics under Bourbon Rule. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1993. ISBN 9780521416412
• McKinley, P. Michael. Pre-Revolutionary Caracas: Politics, Economy, and Society, 1777-1811. Cambridge Cambridge University Press, 1985. ISBN 9780521304504

Military

• Archer, Christon I. The Army in Bourbon Mexico, 1760-1810. Albuquerque, University of New Mexico Press, 1977. ISBN 9780826304421
• Cambell, Leon G. The Military and Society in Colonial Peru, 1750-1810. Philadelphia, American Philosophical Society, 1978. ISBN 9780871691231
• Keuthe, Allan J. Military Reform and Society in New Granada, 1773-1808. Gainesville, University of Florida Press, 1978. ISBN 9780813005706
• Keuthe, Allan J. Cuba, 1753-1815: Crown, Military and Society. Knoxville, University of Tennessee Press, 1986. ISBN 9780870494871

Society

• Brading, D. A. Church and State in Bourbon Mexico: The Diocese of Michoacán, 1749-1810. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1994. ISBN 9780521460927
• Farris, Nancy M. Crown and Clergy in Colonial Mexico, 1759-1821: The Crisis of Ecclesiastical Privilege. London, Athlone Press, 1968. ISBN 9780485131215
• Ladd, Doris M. The Mexican Nobility at Independence, 1780-1826. Austin, 1976. ISBN 9780292750272
• Seed, Patricia. To Love Honor and Obey in Colonial Mexico: Conflicts Over Marriage Choice, 1574-1821. Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1988. ISBN 9780804714570