Marks Deconstructing Legitimacy Viceroys, Merchants and The Military in Late Colonial Peru

VI CEROYS,
MERCHANTS,
AND THE
MI LI TARY I N LATE
COLONI AL PERU
patricia h.
marks
DECONSTRUCTI NG
LEGI TI MACY
THE PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIVERSITY PRESS
UNIVERSITY PARK, PENNSYLVANIA
WWW.PSUPRESS.ORG
ISBN 978-0-271-03209-2
9 780271 032092
90000
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marks
Examining the bitter trade disputes that divided Peru and
shaped its conicts with Spain, Patricia Marks casts new light on
Spanish Americas bumpy transition from colony to republic. In
delightfully clear prose, she contributes to our understanding of
the Wars of Independence and the transatlantic struggles about
free trade and representation. This is a landmark book that
oers many surprising and welcome discoveries.
charles f. walker,
university of california, davis
This is an impeccably researched and articulately written
inquiry into the collapse of royal authority in Lima at the time
of independence. Not only does the book yield a bounty of
fresh insights and interpretations into these tumultuous events,
but it also identies actions by the rebels that set an important
precedent in Peruvian politics and reverberated in the political
culture for years to come.
peter f. klaren,
george washington university
patricia h. marks is an independent
scholar who received her doctorate in history
from Princeton in 2003.
Jacket illustrations: Top front: Edward Francis Finden, View of Lima
from the Sea Near Callao. Detail from Alexander Caldcleugh, Travels
in South American During the Years 18192021. London: John
Murray, 1825. Courtesy Rare Books Division, Rare Books and
Special Collections, Princeton University Library (photo: John
Blazejewski). Lower right: Mariano Carillo, Viceroy Joaqun de la
Pezuela. Courtesy Museo Nacional de Arqueologa, Antropologa
e Historia del Per (photo: Daniel Giannoni).
Jacket design by Kimberlly Glyder Design
T
he overthrow of Viceroy Joaqun de
la Pezuela on 29 January 1821 has not
received much attention from historians,
who have viewed it as a simple military uprising.
Yet in this careful study of the episode, based on
deep archival research, Patricia Marks reveals
it to be the culmination of decades of Peruvian
opposition to the Bourbon reforms of the late
eighteenth century, especially the Reglamento de
comercio libre of 1778. It also marked a radical
change in political culture brought about by the
constitutional upheavals that followed Napoleons
invasion of Spain. Although Pezuelas overthrow
was organized and carried out by royalists among
the merchants and the military, it proved to be
an important event in the development of the
independence movement as well as a pivotal factor
in the failure to establish a stable national state in
post-independence Peru. The golpe de estado may
thereby be seen as an early manifestation of Latin
American praetorianism, in which a sector of the
civilian population, unable to prevail politically
and unwilling to compromise, pressures army
ocers to act in order to save the state.
DECONSTRUCTING LEGITIMACY
01.Marks FM-Chap 4 8/22/07 10:56 AM Page i
01.Marks FM-Chap 4 8/22/07 10:56 AM Page ii
DECONSTRUCTING LEGITIMACY
Viceroys, Merchants, and the Military in Late Colonial Peru
PATRICIA H. MARKS
THE PENNSYLVANI A STATE UNI VERSI TY PRESS
UNI VERSI TY PARK, PENNSYLVANI A
01.Marks FM-Chap 4 8/22/07 10:56 AM Page iii

library of congress
cataloging-in-publication data
Marks, Patricia H.
Deconstructing legitimacy : viceroys, merchants, and the military in late colonial Peru /
Patricia H. Marks
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn 978-0-271-03209-2
1. PeruHistoryWar of Independence, 18201829
2. PeruHistoryAutonomy and independence movements.
3. PeruEconimic conditions19th century.
4. Legitimacy of governmentsPeru.
5. MerchantsPeruLimaHistory19th century.
6. Political culturePeruHistory19th century.
7. Civil-military relationsPeruHistory19th century.
I. Title.
F3446.M37 2007
985'.04dc22
2007007604
Copyright 2007
The Pennsylvania State University
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
Published by
The Pennsylvania State University Press,
University Park, PA 16802-1003
The Pennsylvania State University Press
is a member of the
Association of American University Presses.
It is the policy of
The Pennsylvania State University Press
to use acid-free paper.
This book is printed on Natures Natural,
containing 50% post-consumer waste, and
meets the minimum requirements of
American National Standard for
Information SciencesPermanence of Paper
for Printed Library Material,
ansi z 39.481992.
01.Marks FM-Chap 4 8/22/07 10:56 AM Page iv
Disclaimer:
Some images in the original version of this book are not
available for inclusion in the eBook.
CONTENTS
Illustrations vii
Acknowledgments ix
Abbreviations xi
Introduction:
Mercantile Conflict and Political Culture 1
1 City of Kings, City of Commerce 11
2 Bourbon Reformers and the Merchants of Lima 55
3 Sabotaging Reform 107
4 Preventing Independence 169
5 The Free-Trade Dispute 219
6 Merchants, the Military, and the Disintegration 265
of Pezuelas Authority
7 The Pronunciamiento and Its Aftermath 303
Conclusion:
Legitimacy and the Salvation of the State 339
Glossary of Spanish Terms 355
Bibliography 359
Index 389
01.Marks FM-Chap 4 8/22/07 10:56 AM Page v
01.Marks FM-Chap 4 8/22/07 10:56 AM Page vi
ILLUSTRATIONS
figures and maps
1 Edward Francis Finden, View of Lima from the Sea Near Callao. 16
2 Map of Callao and Lima, 1835. 20
3 Map of South America, 1821? 60
4 Anonymous, America Nursing Spanish Noble Boys. 102
5 Le Provincie de Quito, Lima, e Plata, 1794. 190
6 Mariano Carrillo, Viceroy Joaqun de la Pezuela. 243
7 Jos Mara Gutirrez Infantas, Viceroy Jos de La Serna. 309
tables
1 The wealthiest merchants of Lima, 1819. 33
2 Merchants registering 50,000+ pesos for Cdiz, 1803. 39
3 Juan Bautista de Grates consignees in Spain, 1803. 43
4 Destination of funds consigned to Spain aboard three ships, 1803. 4546
5 Criollo Atlantic traders in Peru, 1803. 48
01.Marks FM-Chap 4 8/22/07 10:56 AM Page vii
01.Marks FM-Chap 4 8/22/07 10:56 AM Page viii
During the many years that this has been a work-in-progress, I have
accumulated more debts of gratitude than can possibly be acknowledged
individually. Foremost among those who have helped me along the way
are the archivists and members of the staffs of the Archivo General de
Indias in Sevilla, the Biblioteca Menndez Pelayo in Santander, the Archivo
General de Simancas, the Archivo Histrico Nacional in Madrid, and the
Archivo General de la Nacin Peruana and the Biblioteca Nacional in
Lima. I am also grateful to Rosario Ortiz de Zevallos for opening the
Tagle family archive to the neophyte historian I was in the 1960s. To all of
them, profound thanks.
During the decade I lived in Peru, the late Flix Denegri Luna tutored
me in the basics of Peruvian history, encouraging me to make use of his
splendid private library. Many years later, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski and Jane
Casey Kuczynski (now Mrs. Thomas Hughes) provided encouragement and
refuge during a research trip to Lima. In Spain, Manuela Cristina Garca
Bernal and Julian B. Ruiz Rivera were especially helpful.
Here in the United States, Professor Stanley Stein watched over the
project for more years than can reasonably be expected of anyone. Profes-
sors Jeremy Adelman, Kenneth Mills, and Paul Gootenberg contributed
much-needed criticism and support in the final stages. The resources and
advice provided by the late Barbara Hadley Stein and Peter T. Johnson,
bibliographers for Iberia and Latin America at the Princeton University
Library, have been invaluable. Their successor, Fernando Acosta-Rodrguez,
has also been generous with his aid and advice.
I am grateful to John Delaney, curator of historic maps, for finding and
making available late-eighteenth- and early-nineteenth-century maps
held by the librarys Department of Rare Books and Special Collections.
John Blazejewski produced images of the maps and other materials held
by the library, and AnnaLee Pauls saw to it that they found their way to
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
01.Marks FM-Chap 4 8/22/07 10:56 AM Page ix
my hands. Carlos Antonio Sobrino Zimmermann, curator of the History
collection at the Museo Nacional de Arqueologa, Antropologa e Historia
del Per, made it possible to obtain photographs of portraits of Viceroys
Joaqun de la Pezuela and Jos de La Serna. And special thanks are due
Roberto Vergaray Arias, the knowledgeable and cordial owner of Limas
Librera E. Iturriaga y Cia., who dispatched them to me in Princeton.
An earlier version of Chapter 2 of this book, Confronting a Mercan-
tile Elite: Bourbon Reformers and the Merchants of Lima, 17651795,
was published in The Americas 60, no. 4 (April 2004).
It is, of course, impossible to offer adequate thanks to my family. Daugh-
ters Tamara Marks Leppo and Melissa Marks Sparrow, M.D., were little
girls when this project began. They were cheerful and loving company in
Lima, Sevilla, and Madrid, and over the many years I worked on it (inter-
mittently) in Princeton. My husband, Russell E. Marks Jr., has been
unfailingly supportive in every sense of the word, providing a lifetime of
adventure and good fellowship. This work is dedicated to him.
Princeton, New Jersey
x acknowledgments
01.Marks FM-Chap 4 8/22/07 10:56 AM Page x
agi Archivo General de Indias, Sevilla
agnp Archivo General de la Nacin Peruana, Lima
ahn Archivo Histrico Nacional, Madrid
ahml Archivo Histrico Municipal, Lima
amoz Archivo Manuel Ortiz de Zevallos, Lima
amre Archivo del Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores, Lima
apn-m Archivo del Palacio Nacional, Madrid
bn-m Biblioteca Nacional, Madrid
bnp Biblioteca Nacional Peruana, Lima
cdip Coleccin Documental de la Independencia del Per
HAHR Hispanic American Historical Review
ihcm Instituto de Historia y Cultura Militar, Madrid
JbLA Jahrbuch fr Geschichte von Staat, Wirtschaft und
Gesellschaft Lateinamerikas
JLAS Journal of Latin American Studies
MenP Biblioteca de Menndez Pelayo, Santander, Spain
mhs Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston
n-yhs New-York Historical Society
seg Archivo Militar de Segovia, Spain
sim Archivo General de Simancas, Spain
ABBREVIATIONS
01.Marks FM-Chap 4 8/22/07 10:56 AM Page xi
01.Marks FM-Chap 4 8/22/07 10:56 AM Page xii
On 29 January 1821, there was a revolution in Lima, Peru. It was not a
revolution for independence, similar to the one that had succeeded in Eng-
lands North American colonies a few decades earlier. On the contrary, it
was a revolution intended to prevent Perus independence from Spain. Nor
was it a violent and bloody popular uprising like the French Revolution,
which historians have too often taken to be the only model for events
defined as revolutionary. The overthrow of Viceroy Joaqun de la Pezuela was
nevertheless a revolution in political culture, one that had far-reaching effects
on the subsequent history of Peru. It changed the very idea of legitimate
governance. Instead of legitimacy being derived from the kings appoint-
ment of a viceroy, a group of army officers and merchants took it upon
themselves to decide whether or not Pezuela could legitimately claim the
power and authority inherent in his office. Their decision was based not
on obedience to the kingthe constituted sovereign of Spainbut on
their personal understanding of what makes a ruler illegitimate. It violated
the two fundamental principles of Spanish monarchical polity, the princi-
ples that legitimacy required both continuity of sovereignty and the consent
of the governed.
In spite of its importance, very little has been written about Pezuelas
overthrow.
1
Historians have assumed that the golpe de estado was entirely a
military uprising planned and carried out by peninsular-born officers of
1. Accounts of Pezuelas overthrow are usually limited to a few sentences, but some comprise
several pages: see, most recently, John R. Fisher, Bourbon Peru, 17501824 (Liverpool: Liverpool
University Press, 2003), 11820; Timothy E. Anna, The Fall of the Royal Government in Peru
(Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1980), 17074.
INTRODUCTION: MERCANTILE CONFLICT ANDPOLITICAL CULTURE

01.Marks FM-Chap 4 8/22/07 10:56 AM Page 1
the Army of Lima. According to this view, the military pronunciamiento
the model for many that were to follow in the nineteenth centurywas the
result of the officers ambition for personal advancement and their dissatis-
faction with Pezuelas conduct of the war. In their ultimatum demanding
Pezuelas resignation,
2
the royalist officers blamed the viceroy for the rebels
success, and since then military matters have dominated discussion of the
viceroys fall from power. Nevertheless, both the officers ultimatum and
Pezuelas Manifiesto,
3
in which he answered the charges against him,
indicate that those who engineered the golpe de estado were serving not
only their own interests but also those of a powerful group of royalist
merchants of the consulado de Lima (the merchants guild), who opposed
Pezuelas commercial policies, especially his proposal of 24 July 1818 to
open Limas port, Callao, to direct trade with the British. One of them,
the peninsular-born Gaspar Rico y Angulo, later boasted that he had
been the instigator and organizer of the plot against Pezuela. Writing in
1824, he declared:
Since the year 1818 . . . I have not ceased to combat the scan-
dalous lawlessness of the former government. . . . Convinced
that we would perish ignominiously if we remained subservient
to a man who either did not comprehend the nature of his duty
or did not want to do it, I planned, proposed, and pursued his
abdication from command, as an honorable Spaniard. This enter-
prise, the most important and useful thing that I have undertaken
in my life, cost me four months of risk, labor, and expense.
4
Because of his involvement with the controversial periodicals El Peruano
(181112) and in the 1820s with El Depositario, Gaspar Rico is known to
2 introduction
2. The officers ultimatum (pronunciamiento) is printed in cdip-Tomo 26: Memorias, diarios y
crnicas, 4 vols., ed. Flix Denegri Luna (Lima: Comisin Nacional del Sesquicentenario de la
Independencia del Per, 1971), 3:35358. The officers who signed the pronunciamiento were
briefly characterized by an unfriendly pen in the pamphlet composed by one of Pezuelas
supporters, reprinted in ibid., 52024.
3. Joaqun de la Pezuela, Manifiesto en que el virrey del Per . . . refiere el hecho y circunstancias
de su separacin del mando (Madrid: Imprenta de D. Leonardo Nez de Vargas, 1821; reprinted in
cdip-Tomo 26: Memorias, diarios y crnicas, 3:267505, and hereafter cited as Pezuela, Manifiesto,
with page numbers referring to the cdip version).
4. Relacin de mritos y servicios de . . . Gaspar Rico y Angulo, Cuzco, 23 Mar. 1824, agi-
Lima, leg. 762.
Peruvian history primarily as a publicist, not a merchant.
5
In fact, he was
the Peruvian factor for the powerful privileged trading company, the Cinco
Gremios Mayores de Madrid, from 1801 to 1811, when the directors of the
company finally succeeded in firing him. During his entire residence in Peru,
he was the center of highly politicized mercantile quarrels, some of which
brought him into direct and bitter conflict with the viceroys and caused
one of them to exile him to Spain. After Napoleons army invaded Spain
in 1808, Rico went so far as to criticize the king himselfin printand
especially the all-powerful royal favorite, Manuel Godoy. Throughout it all,
Rico remained an ardent royalist. But his challenges to the authority of the
viceroys and his very public participation in the politics of early nineteenth-
century Peru played a major role in delegitimizing colonial governance.
In every system of government, a great deal of bargaining among elites
and interest groups takes place, however limited or opaque the process
may appear to outsiders. Such was the case in the Spanish empire as well.
The archives are replete with the records of bargaining groups and indi-
viduals, the famous expedientes (case files) that provide historians with so
much fascinating information about how the colonial system worked and
how the lines of conflict shifted over time. The expedientes and the corre-
spondence of officials and private persons reveal that Gaspar Rico and other
elite merchants were adept at promoting the kind of intra-elite conflict
that went far toward draining both power and authority from men charged
with the governance of Peru. Ricos quarrels with rival groups of mer-
chants, especially those associated with the Real Compaa de Filipinas,
contributed greatly to creating and expanding the cleavages within Peruvian
society while diminishing the ability of government to redress grievances
and command obedience to its dictates. The stakes were high, not only
the wealth and power of individual merchants but also the very survival of
a colonial regime heavily dependent on revenue from taxes on trade.
That merchants like Gaspar Rico should challenge the authority of
viceroys and even seek to overthrow them comes as no surprise to students
mercantile conflict and political culture 3
5. See, for example, Timothy E. Anna, The Peruvian Declaration of Independence:
Freedom by Coercion, Journal of Latin American Studies 7, no. 2 (1975), 223; and Ascensin
Martnez Riaza, La prensa doctrinal en la independencia del Per, 18111824 (Madrid: Ediciones
Cultura Hispnica, Instituto de Cooperacin Iberoamericana, 1985), 240, where she declares that
Rico, without being a merchant, was familiar with commercial procedures. Rico continued his
mercantile activities after returning to Peru from Spain in 1818; in July 1819 he was trading in
sugar: see Acta de la Junta general de tribunales, 15 July 1819, MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 4, q. 3.
of the late colonial history of Spanish America. But Peru has appeared to
be exempt from the commercial conflict that provoked political crises in
Mexico City and Caracas during the late colonial period. In the case of
Lima, evidence of its presence has been ignored, in part because historians
have assumed that the consulado of Lima was unified politically, and that
all of its members (many of them born in Spain) were determined to
maintain a supposed Spanish monopoly over the supply of European manu-
factures to Peru.
6
But conflict between factions of merchants matriculated in
the consulado had long existed, and it escalated dangerously in 1818, pro-
voked by royalist military reverses and a crisis in viceregal finance that led
to the viceroys willingness to encourage direct trade with foreigners at Callao.
The officers of the Army of Lima who demanded Pezuelas resignation
had a great deal to say about military matters, as would be expected. They
would not be expected, however, to take an interest in viceregal commer-
cial policy except as it affected the governments ability to support the army
and the war effort. But in their ultimatum, the officers accused Pezuela of
specific crimes against the Spanish laws for the regulation of colonial
trade. The merchants, they said, have been injured by the considerable
losses occasioned by a scandalous contraband trade and by tolerance of
foreigners. Besides being contrary to law, the officers declared, Pezuelas
tolerance of foreigners wronged those who had been most responsive to
viceregal appeals for aid in the battles against the rebels. The merchants
had made great sacrifices to supply the viceroy with the funds necessary
to prosecute the war, but their money had been misused. No one knows
what happened to the immense fortune collected in donations and forced
loans, they wrote; its misuse has been great and indisputable.
7
I am wronged to the greatest degree by the . . . officers of the Army
of Lima who signed the ultimatum, wrote Pezuela on the day he was
4 introduction
6. See, for example, Lilliana Regalado C. and Mara Salinas B., Apuntes sobre la actitud del
consulado limeo en la etapa emancipadora, in Quinto congreso internacional de historia de
Amrica, 6 vols. (Lima: Publicaciones de la Comisin Nacional del Sesquicentenario de la
Independencia del Per, 1972), 3:27677. Another factor is the assumption that all matriculated
merchants signed representations to the viceroys or the crown: see Anna, Peruvian Declaration
of Independence, 230, for example, where he cites a petition by sixty-four merchants and
assumes that they represent the entire membership of the consulado, where in fact they were the
hard-liners who opposed direct trade with foreigners. The petition is Consulado to Pezuela, 27
July 1818, agi-Lima, leg. 1550.
7. Officers pronunciamiento, cdip-Tomo 26: Memorias, diarios y crnicas, 3:356.
overthrown, characterizing the charges against him as unjust, degrading,
and self-serving.
8
In his Manifiesto, the viceroy organized his defense
according to six general ideas and ten specific charges that had been
used to justify the golpe de estado. The second general idea dealt with
the allegation that, in spite of Limas position as the very center of vice-
regal wealth, Pezuela had failed to amass resources sufficient to prosecute
the war successfully. The seventh specific charge discussed the accusation
that the viceroy had been too tolerant of the contraband trade and of the
foreigners whose presence in the ports of Peru had become commonplace.
9
On both of these issuesfinancing the war effort and relations with
foreignerstwo factions of merchants matriculated in the consulado had
a great deal to say during the debates leading up to Pezuelas overthrow.
Those debates took place in the context of complex crises in Spain itself
during the first decades of the nineteenth centurycrises that included
foreign wars and the invasion of Spain by Napoleons army, multiple changes
of government and government policies, royal abdications, and constitu-
tional debates. Between 1808 and 1823, bitter disputes over colonial policy
also shook the Spanish government.
10
Michael P. Costeloe has described
an intense struggle . . . between those who favored a policy of moderation
toward America, by which most meant the use of limited force tempered
with reforms, and those who wanted an all-out military effort with few, if
any, concessions. The conflict between these rival groups came to center
on the issue of free trade and particularly its use as a bargaining counter in
persuading other nations to help in restoring Spanish control of the empire.
11
That struggle was reflected in events in Peru during the period from 1818
to 1821, and it is here that we can locate the point where the interests of
the peninsular army officers who implemented the golpe de estado and
those of the faction of merchants led by Gaspar Rico, who claimed to
have planned it, coincided.
8. Pezuela to Sres. Jefes del E.M.G.D. Jos Canterac y dems que subscriben el papel que va
contestado, 29 January 1821, cdip-Tomo 26, 3:35859.
9. Pezuela, Manifiesto, 28286, 31520.
10. For an admirable account of the confused and changing American policy of the Spanish
government, see Timothy E. Anna, Spain and the Loss of America (Lincoln: University of
Nebraska Press, 1983), esp. chap. 5: In Search of a Policy. See also Roberto Luis Blanco Valds,
El problema americano en las primeras Cortes liberales espaoles, 18101814 (Mexico: UNAM, 1995).
11. Michael P. Costeloe, Spain and the Latin American Wars of Independence: The Free
Trade Controversy, 18101820, HAHR 61, no. 2 (1981): 219. See also Anna, Spain and the Loss of
America, 107, for British opinion on the link between direct trade and American independence.
The Lima pronunciamiento of 29 January 1821, however, was not the
result of a mere four months of risk, labor, and expense, as Gaspar Rico
would have us believe, and was not the work of one man. Nor did it arise
solely from conflict between a single viceroy and an ambitious Spanish
general. On the contrary, the seeds of the first military revolt in Peru since
the sixteenth century were sown by the Spanish Bourbon reformers of the
late eighteenth century who sought to reduce the power of a colonial mer-
cantile elite by disrupting its economic foundations. The reforms provoked
protests that went beyond the normal patterns of intra-elite bargaining:
Their legitimacy was called into question. Merchants soon learned that the
reforms would seriously disrupt their accustomed ways of doing business,
destroying their semi-autonomous submetropolitan entrept. They regarded
the losses to be incurred as nothing less than systematic state-sponsored
despoliation.
Chapter 1 begins by describing the structure and importance of the
intercontinental and interprovincial trades on which Perus prosperity and
the merchants power had been built. But who, exactly, were the merchants
who played such a critical role in the politics of late colonial Peru, and
what alliances did they form among themselves in order to further their
interests? Unlike bureaucrats and military men, they are virtually unknown.
Until recently, neither their identities nor the patterns of their trade were
the subject of historians inquiry. Thus Chapter 1 also describes and analyzes
the merchant elite active in Peru from 1779 to 1821, identifying the wealthiest
members of the group, describing the principal patterns of their trade, and
suggesting where the lines of conflict were likely to lie as the reforms took
hold in Peru.
Although competition among groups of merchants had always existed,
in 1779, when the first matrcula (register of consulado merchants) con-
sidered here was drawn up, there is no evidence of bitter internecine
quarrels comparable to those that split the consulado into factions
following promulgation of the Reglamento de comercio libre of 1778. The
free trade of that set of rules for the regulation of colonial commerce
was an attempt by the crown to abolish the old system by which only
merchants of Cdiz in Spain could trade legally to America, carrying
their goods to four portsHavana, Veracruz, Portobello, or Callao
in all of Spanish America. Instead, merchants resident in thirteen ports
in Spain were permitted to trade with six ports in Spanish South
America alone.
6 introduction
The Bourbon administrative and commercial reforms attempted to
change the structure of Peruvian trade to ensure that the metropolis would
reap the lions share of the profit to be had from colonial commerce.
Chapter 2 describes those changes and the conflicts that arose from them in
Peru. The first conflict involved the large numbers of peninsular merchants
who sailed for Callao in the 1780s. Like other wealthy merchants, both
criollo and peninsular-born, who were already resident in Lima, the new
merchants assumed that they had the right to participate in the affairs of
the consulado. By their sheer numbers, these newcomers, many of them
resident in Spain, threatened to overwhelm the limeo merchants. Ques-
tions about who should and should not be admitted to the consulados
matrcula became crucial contests for power and profit, especially after two
large privileged trading houses established offices in Peru. Thus Chapter 2
also discusses the competition for control of the consulado that arose as a
result of the Bourbon reforms.
With the growth of the Atlantic trade that followed the reforms, the
crown attempted to wrest control over the distribution of both European
imports and locally produced goods from the limeo merchants and transfer
it instead to merchants domiciled in Spain itself. In the normal course of
their comings and goings, the metropolitan merchants would capture a
significant portion of the seaborne interprovincial trade in the Pacific,
formerly dominated by limeo merchants and shipowners. These issues
erupted in battles for economic survival in which the limeos found it
increasingly difficult to compete with their metropolitan rivals, who enjoyed
state support for their enterprises. Limeo problems were exacerbated by
the crowns well-thought-out program of tax reform, which served to
disrupt still further Limas position as submetropolitan entrept.
The limeos perceived the reforms as having destroyed the economy of
Peru, creating poverty where once there had been prosperity. By the end
of the eighteenth century, the grievances of the limeo merchants had
escalated to the point where political conflict threatened to delegitimize
crown authority. Unlike provincial cities such as Arequipa, however, Lima
did not erupt in rioting, though viceroys believed that it came close. When
their traditional form of bargaining with their colonial masters by means
of expediente and correspondence brought no relief, limeos embarked on
a campaign to sabotage the reforms or render them irrelevant by noncom-
pliance. Their efforts are discussed in Chapter 3.
With Gaspar Ricos appointment in 1800 as the Lima factor for the Cinco
Gremios Mayores, political conflict derived from commercial competition
increased. Unwilling to accept viceregal rulings that curtailed the Cinco
Gremios commercial power or enhanced the position of the Filipinas
Company and its allies, Rico repeatedly challenged the authority of every
viceroy who served in Peru between 1801 and 1821. Chapter 3 also discusses
attempts by limeos, in league with local agents of the Filipinas Company,
to deal with Rico, as well as the international context that made it possible
for them to sabotage the reforms that Rico and the metropolitan merchants
championed. In the course of these conflicts, personal enmity between Rico
and the Filipinas Companys factor, Pedro de Abada, erupted into a public
scandal, and Viceroy Fernando de Abascal became convinced that Rico
was involved with men who sought to reduce his authority or remove him
from office. When Abascal exiled Rico to Spain in 1812, however, challenges
to viceregal authority did not depart with him. Ricos periodical, El Peruano,
had given limeos a language with which to question the legitimacy of the
viceroy and his rulings, especially after the liberal Spanish Constitution of
1812 was promulgated in Peru.
With the return of the absolutist regime in Spain at the end of the
Napoleonic war in 1814, liberals like Rico found themselves in a precarious
position. Nevertheless, while in Spain, Rico was able to secure the dismissal
of Abascals charges against him. But by the time Rico disembarked in
Callao in 1818, the new viceroy, Joaqun de la Pezuela, was embroiled in a
desperate attempt to prevent Perus independence. In the struggle against
insurgents both within the viceroyalty and on its borders, the absolutist
and politically moderate viceroy had to contend with liberal hard-liners,
like Rico and General Jos de La Serna, who believed in a purely military
solution to the problem of rebellion, and who questioned Pezuelas deci-
sions on the conduct of the war and the means he favored to pay for it.
Rico quickly assumed a position of power, not as an elected official of the
consulado, but as the spokesman for the metropolitan merchants who insisted
that Pezuelas emergency commercial policies were illegal and inadmissable.
Chapter 4 discusses the issues raised by royalist efforts to pacify Peru, and
Ricos role in the political debates that ensued.
When Pezuela proposed free trade with the English in 1818, Ricos
political power grew steadily, and this process is traced in Chapter 5. By
then, free trade was no longer defined as the ability of any Spanish
merchant residing in designated ports in Spain to trade with Callao and
certain other American ports. Instead, it had come to denote direct trade
with foreigners whose ships anchored in colonial ports to conduct business
without the mediation of merchants resident in Spain or their agents in
8 introduction
Peru. As it developed, the free-trade dispute in Lima became the final
battleground on which the commercial and political conflicts that began in
the 1780s were fought. That dispute played a critical part in destroying the
viceroys legitimacy.
Gaspar Rico and the coterie of liberal, hard-line metropolitan merchants
were convinced that Pezuelas commercial policy seriously compromised
Perus security. Rico and his friends were therefore convinced that the
viceroy had stepped over a line, had in fact delegitimized himself. They
believed themselves justified in seeking redress of their grievances in
another quarter: the similarly liberal, hard-line peninsular officers of the
Army of Lima. But how were Rico and the metropolitan merchants able
to make contact with the peninsular army officers who, for their own
reasons, also wished to see Pezuela replaced? Chapter 6 discusses the long-
standing links between merchants and the military and, more specifically,
Gaspar Ricos membership in two militia units, both of them milicia disci-
plinada, that is, units trained by professional army officers. As rebellion
increased, military training promoted a common view among merchants
and the military of how Perus security was to be safeguarded, one that
blamed foreigners for much of the accelerating movement toward inde-
pendence and ignored the rising tide of colonial grievance.
Like the merchants, however, the army was divided in its opinion of
Pezuelas policy of making use of foreigners to secure vital resources for
the defense of the viceroyalty. Unfortunately for Pezuela, the officers who
supported him were no match for La Serna and his friends, who took
advantage of every opportunity to discredit the viceroy militarily, politi-
cally, and personally. La Sernas insubordination played a large part in the
campaign to deprive Pezuela of the authority that should have attached to
his office, as did the 1820 military pronunciamiento in Spain itself, which
restored the liberals to power there. Pezuela was increasingly isolated, and
his attempts to negotiate with his adversaries only encouraged them to
take advantage of their growing power.
Ultimately, Pezuela and his enemies, both military and civilian, disagreed
over concepts of viceregal legitimacy and authority that proved to be irre-
concilable. Both the army officers and Ricos faction of the consulado became
convinced that Pezuela was a disastrously incompetent viceroy, and it is
this view of the last legitimate viceroy that has prevailed in the historio-
graphy. Indeed, little more than that is said about him and the years of his
rule. But Pezuelas enemies went further: they accused him of being in
thrall to men, both military and civilian, of questionable loyalty to Spain.
They believed, therefore, that his removal from office was both legitimate
and essential to the successful pacification of Peru. When La Serna and
his allies captured control of the newly formed Army of Lima, Pezuelas
fate was sealed.
Chapter 7 recounts the events of 29 January 1821, showing exactly how
La Serna and his allies were able to usurp the remnants of Pezuelas power
and assume the reigns of government. In the aftermath of the pronuncia-
miento, additional evidence of Gaspar Ricos complicity in the plot surfaces,
suggesting that Pezuelas overthrow was the precedent for subsequent
military takeovers in Republican Peru that also served civilian interests.
The conclusion analyzes the coming of independence from the per-
spective of the collapse of a colonial regimes ability to govern, a collapse
that owed much to the crowns failure to understand that allegiance is
always conditional, depending upon the willingness of the kings subjects
to obey and a regimes willingness to hear and redress the grievances of its
citizens. Although few governments know at any given moment exactly
where the limits of allegiance lie, the Spanish colonial system proved
inept in supplying that information to the empires rulers, so far away in
metropolitan Spain, who in their turn were obstinately deaf. As a result, in
Peru a radical change in political culture developed over the course of some
forty years, one that went beyond noncompliance and culminated in a retro-
gressive military revolt. The story of late colonial viceroys and their merchant
and military adversaries reveals much about the nature of power and authority
in late colonial Peru, and about ideas of legitimacy that continue to be
relevant after the passage of almost two centuries of independence.
10 introduction
On 28 October 1746, a massive earthquake shook Lima, the City of Kings,
capital of the viceroyalty of Peru, with its splendid churches and opulent
Andalusian palaces. Small earthquakes wereand arecommonplace in
Lima, but as a Jesuit eyewitness reported in 1746, We may with truth
affirm that none ever broke out with such astonishing violence, or hath
been attended with so vast a destruction. The city had been reduced to
rubble: Of the three thousand houses . . . enclosed by the walls, scarcely
twenty survived undamaged by the earthquakes assault. In Lima, an earth-
quake is usually announced by an oncoming rumble as the stones of the
alluvial plain are rattled. But on this occasion, the destruction did not so
much as give time for fright, for at one and the same instant almost, the
noise, the shock, and the ruin were perceived together. More than 1,400
citizens lost their lives.
The earthquake, with the tsunami that followed, also destroyed Limas
port city of Callao, which overlooked the best harbor on the west coast of
the continent. Callao simply disappeared from the face of the earth; in its
place vast heaps of sand and gravel stretched away along the shoreline.
Upward of 5,000 of a population estimated at 7,000 died there, and twenty-
three ships great and small were destroyed. In both the port and the capital
city, still more people perished in the epidemic that followed.
1
1. Pedro Lozano, A True and Particular Relation of the Dreadful Earthquake which Happend at
Lima, the Capital of Peru, and the Neighbouring Port of Callao, on the 28th of October, 1746 . . .
(London: Printed for T. Osborne in Grays Inn, 1748), 131200; Pedro Jos Bravo de Lagunas y
Castilla, Voto consultivo . . . en la causa que se sigue sobre si se han que preferir en la venta los trigos del
Distrito de esta ciudad de Lima, a los que se conducen por mar del Reino de Chile, 2nd ed. (Lima: En la
Oficina de los Hurfanos, 1761), 14143; Rubn Vargas Ugarte, Historia del Per: Virreinato, siglo
O N E
CITY OF KINGS, CITY OF COMMERCE

And yet, amidst the catastrophe, there was one fortunate circumstance.
As Viceroy Jos Manso de Velasco (later count of Superunda) reported in
his Memoria de gobierno, The sea carried away all the wheat held in the
warehouses of Callao and destroyed the ships that were then in port, but
the special mercy of Divine Providence . . . determined that the vessels
which had sailed to Chile to embark the harvests of that year did not
arrive before the ruin and flooding of the presidio; because if they had
anchored earlier or if the earthquake had happened a few days later, we
would have found ourselves without wheat to consume or ships in which
to transport it.
2
The one happy circumstance that the viceroy could cite in the midst of
the calamitythe safety of the wheat supplyhighlights the importance
of Limas position as the principal entrept of Spanish South America,
where Peruvian silver was exchanged for European manufactures in an
elaborate system of intercontinental and interprovincial trade. Even the
supply of a commodity as essential as wheat depended upon the existence
of seaborne commerce centered on the City of Kings.
Reconstruction was no small task, even though adobe remained the
principal material from which even the most opulent palaces were made.
There was no building stone on the alluvial plain where Lima is located,
and no nearby forest. Wood for humble houses and the elaborate Moorish
balconies so characteristic of Limas grandest architecture had to be imported
from Chile, Guayaquil, or Central America; iron, ornamental tiles, and fine
textiles came from Spain. The silver to pay for it came from Potos, high
in the Andes of Alto Per, now Bolivia, and from other less spectacular
mining centers of the interior. Commerce supplied it all, and the merchants
of Lima prospered even in adversity.
Lima was, and remained, a city of commerce. A few years before the
earthquake, in December 1740, two important visitors had arrived in Lima,
sent by the crown to examine the condition of the viceroyalty. In their
report to the king, Jorge Juan y Santacilla and Antonio de Ulloa described
the frenetic activity of the submetropolitan entrept:
12 deconstructing legitimacy
xviii, 2 vols. (Lima: Librera y Imprenta Gil, 1956; Buenos Aires: Imprenta Lpez, 1957), 1:26374.
Bravo de Lagunas estimated that some 6,000 limeos out of a population of 60,000 perished in
the earthquake and subsequent epidemic; another eyewitness put the death toll in Lima and
Callao at 16,000.
2. Conde de Superunda, Memoria de gobierno, in M. A. Fuentes, ed., Memorias de los
vireyes que han gobernado el Per durante el tiempo del coloniaje espaol, 6 vols. (Lima: F. Bailey,
1859), 4:127.
Lima could not be so magnificent or populous if it were not, as
the principal city of Peru, the general repository of that King-
dom. . . . [I]t is the universal trading-house, or strong-box for
every sort of trade; because, as the center of commerce, whatever
the other provinces produce or make is taken there, as well as
whatever the fleets or licensed ships bring [from Spain]; and Lima,
apportioning as a mother would the merchandise and products to
those that require them, sends it all out to the vast reaches of
those Kingdoms; . . . And thus there is no Province or place in all
of Peru that fails to remit to this City everything it produces or
cultivates, . . . nor one that fails to go there to acquire whatever it
lacks: and thus Lima is the emporium of Commerce, where people
from every place assemble.
3
The destruction of Callao brought only a temporary halt to the trade
of the viceregal capital. New port facilities were quickly improvised and
steadily improved over the next few years. A large fortress was constructed
to defend the port from the English pirates and privateers who were finding
their way to the Pacific, and a new townBellavistawas laid out for the
merchants and port workers who had formerly lived in Callao itself. Before
long, however, the merchants returned to Callao, and the great fairs held
every Monday of the year resumed, with the owners of goods, and those
who want to purchase them, making their deals, and the buyers trans-
porting them afterwards wherever they please in the mule trains maintained
by the owners of warehouses, whose gain depends on the profits from the
freight they charge.
4
The merchants who prospered from Limas entrept
trade established themselves at the pinnacle of both economic and poli-
tical power in the viceroyaltys capital city.
The signs of opulence in the city were easy to see, especially by the two
recently arrived visitors from a more austere Spain. The magnificent palace
built by the first marqus de Torre Tagle with proceeds from his expanding
trade and the emoluments garnered from his position as paymaster of the
city of kings, city of commerce 13
3. Jorge Juan and Antonio de Ulloa, Relacin histrica del viage a la Amrica Meridional, 4 vols.
in 2 (Madrid: A. Marin, 1748), part 2, book 1, chapter 10, 139, 144. The visitors impression was
correct. Between 1650 and 1700, for example, 85 percent of Cuzcos surplus production and 86
percent of La Pazs was marketed in Lima. Laura Escobari de Querejaz, El comercio de
productos cuzqueos en el siglo xvii, in Estado y mercado en la historia del Per, ed. Carlos Con-
treras and Manuel Glave (Lima: Pontificia Universidad Catlica del Per, 2002), 90 and fig. 5.
4. Juan and Ulloa, Relacin histrica, 143.
southern fleet was eloquent testimony to Limas importance as the continents
principal commercial center and the seat of colonial government. Other
merchant families enjoyed similarly fine palaces, but in spite of appearances
their fortunes were precarious. Juan and Ulloa noticed that capital accumu-
lation was not at levels that might be expected from such large-scale trade:
scarcely ten to fifteen commercial fortunes (that is in silver or merchan-
dise . . .) amount to so much as 500 to 600,000 pesos. Limas merchants,
they opined, invested little of their profits, spending it instead on luxuries
and dowries for their daughters. Whatever was left was divided equally
among their offspring, male and female, when they died.
5
And, ever since
the Bourbon monarchs acceded to the throne of Spain, the government in
Madrid had constantly harassed the powerful merchants of Lima with plans
and edicts that threatened to diminish their wealth while increasing the metro-
polis control of commerce and the profits to be had from colonial trade.
THE SUBMETROPOLITAN ENTREPT
It was not for nothing that Lima was known as the City of Kings. The
name derived from the fact that the city had been founded on Epiphany, 6
January 1535, when the Catholic Church celebrates the arrival of three kings
to worship at the manger in Bethlehem. But over the years, as the colonial
town became a prosperous city with a population estimated at 60,000 just
before the 1746 earthquake,
6
the name took on new meaning. Besides being
an entrept, Lima was the seat of colonial government, exercising political
and commercial hegemony over all of Spanish South America from
Buenos Aires to Quito. The viceroy was truly a vice-king, presiding over a
court in which some twenty-four merchants and landowners held ttulos
de Castilla at midcenturymarqueses and counts who jealously guarded
their power and influence both locally and in Madrid.
7
Wealthy merchant
families, like the counts of Vistaflorida and the marqueses de Torre Tagle,
insinuated themselves and their family members into every corner of
viceregal administration, becoming corregidores (provincial governors) and
judges of the Audiencia (high court), and monopolizing both political and
economic power.
5. Ibid., 14445.
6. Bravo de Lagunas, Voto consultivo, 141.
7. Juan and Ulloa, Relacin histrica, 68; Josef Rezabal y Ugarte, Tratado de real derecho de las
medias-anatas seculares y del servicio de lanzas a que estan obligados los ttulos de Castilla . . . (Madrid:
En la Oficina de don Benito Cano, 1792).
The viceroyaltys physical isolation from the Atlantic offered a geo-
graphically determined space within which its merchant elite, with and
without titles of nobility, could operate with a significant degree of
autonomy. Geography also determined that Limas comparative advantage
lay with trade, specifically an entrept carrying trade in European manu-
factures and American products. Set in an oasis in the midst of a narrow
coastal desert and hemmed in by the Andes on the landward side, the
eighteenth-century city depended on small-scale irrigation agriculture and
Chilean grain for subsistence. Lima was located near the mouth of the
Rimac River, which empties into a large bay protected by offshore islands,
an advantage that led naturally to a seaborne coasting trade with settle-
ments to the north and south. The Rimac River valley also led to a pass in
the Andes opening onto a high intermontane plain through which the
great north-south Inca road ran, connecting Lima to the mining centers
of the interior. The European goods that were exchanged for the precious
metals essential to maintain Spains position as a world power were carried
over vast distances, changing hands several times from ship to land in
accord with the requirements of the transport system. Lima, located about
halfway between Panama, with its linkages to the Atlantic commercial
system, and the great silver mountain of Potos, high in the Andes of Alto
Per, was well situated to serve as entrept for the exchange of European
goods for Peruvian silver and for the distribution of efectos del pas, goods
produced within the boundaries of the vast viceroyalty.
The merchants matriculated in the consulado of Lima, established in
1613, developed commercial networks that gave them ready access to
large-scale inventories of imported goods, by no means all of them
acquired in accord with the crowns rules for the regulation of trade. The
limeos were supposed to purchase their imports at a fair in Portobelo,
Panama, where European goods were to be carried by merchants resident
in Spain. From Panama, the Armada del Mar del Sur (South Sea Fleet)
sailed for Callao, Limas seaport and until 1778 the only port on the Pacific
coast legally open to the import trade in European manufactures. Besides
the merchandise purchased by limeos who had personally journeyed to
Panama, the Armada carried goods ordered by or consigned directly to
resident Lima merchants, both criollo and peninsular-born, by merchant
houses in Sevilla or Cdiz.
8
Undeniably, the fleet also carried contraband
8. Enriqueta Vila Vilar, Las ferias de Portobelo: Apariencia y realidad del comercio de
Indias, Anuario de Estudios Americanos 39 (1982): 275340; Pablo Emilio Prez-Malana, La
Armada del Mar del Sur (Sevilla: Escuela de Estudios Hispano-Americanos, 1987).
acquired from a variety of sources.
9
Equally significant, a small but
economically powerful cadre of merchants resident in Lima journeyed to
Spain itself to purchase goods directly from peninsular houses and the
foreign suppliers whose agents frequented Sevilla or Cdiz.
10
For a time in
the seventeenth century Spains trade to her South American colonies was
controlled by merchants based in Lima. When Panamanian corruption
and extortion became intolerable, they went so far as to sabotage the fair
9. Lozano, A True and Particular Relation, 13; Margarita Surez, Comercio y fraude en el Per
colonial: Las estrategas mercantiles de un banquero (Lima: Instituto de Estudios Peruanos / Banco
Central de Reserva del Per, 1995), 41; Fisher, Bourbon Peru, 1519; Sergio Villalobos, Comercio y
contrabando en el Ro de la Plata y Chile, 17001811 (Buenos Aires: eudeba, 1965).
10. Surez, Comercio y fraude, 4044, 50, 77, 93; Julin Ruiz Rivera and Manuela Cristina
Garca Bernal, Cargadores a Indias (Madrid: Editorial mapfre, 1992), 11415; Lutgardo Garca
Fuentes, Los peruleros y el comercio de Sevilla con las Indias, 15801630 (Sevilla: Universidad de
Sevilla, 1997). The American trade originally operated out of Sevilla, but in 1717 it was transferred
to Cdiz.
Fig.1 Edward Francis Finden, View of Lima from the Sea Near Callao. Detail from
Alexander Caldcleugh, Travels in South America During the Years 18192021. London:
John Murray, 1825. Courtesy Rare Books Division, Rare Books and Special
Collections, Princeton University Library (photo: John Blazejewski).
and encourage French merchants out of Saint-Malo, who had been their
principal suppliers in Cdiz, to sail directly to the Pacific to sell their
wares at Callao.
11
After the end of the War of the Spanish Succession in 1713, the new
Bourbon regime and the consulado of Cdiz were determined to capture
control of the Atlantic trade from peruleros, foreign suppliers, and French
contrabanders. As a result, the first half of the new century was marked by
commercial conflict on many fronts and on both sides of the Atlantic.
Like their counterparts in other colonies, limeo merchants were feeling
the weight of multiple changes in the rules for the regulation of trade,
especially changes that diminished their ability to control access to supplies
of European imports. A royal order of 1749 reveals something of the pres-
sure under which they labored: it put their metropolitan rivals on notice
that American merchants were indeed permitted to send their money to
Spain to buy whatever they wished, from whomever they chose, and to
have their goods shipped to them . . . without interference by the crown
or the merchant bodies in Spain.
12
The royal order was controversial, for
it permitted direct trade between American merchants and their suppliers,
without the intervention of Cdiz middlemen or shipowners.
13
Although
it was repeated in 1769 and 1777, the trend was contrary to such tolerance
of colonials. At various times during the eighteenth century, limeos were
forbidden to sail for Spain in their own ships to purchase manufactures,
and metropolitan merchants, before setting sail from Cdiz, had to certify
that none of the goods in their cargoes had been purchased with funds
remitted from Peru by merchants resident there.
14
Finally, in 1778 Article 1
of the reformers Reglamento de comercio libre stipulated that only merchants
11. Surez, Comercio y fraude, 99; Surez, Desafos transatlnticos: Mercaderes, banqueros y el
estado en el Per virreinal, 16001700 (Lima: Pontificia Universidad Catlica del Per, Instituto
Riva-Agero, 2001), 37885; Sergio Villalobos, Contrabando francs en el Pacfico, 17001724,
Revista de Historia de Amrica 51 (1961): 4980; Carlos D. Malamud Rikles, Cdiz y Saint-Malo en
el comercio colonial peruano, 16981724 (Cdiz: Diputacin de Cdiz, 1985).
12. Geoffrey J. Walker, Spanish Politics and Imperial Trade, 17001789 (Bloomington: Indiana
University Press, 1979), 199. The dispute on this point can be followed in R. Antunez y Acevedo,
Memorias histricas sobre la legislacin y gobierno del comercio de los espaoles con sus colonias en las
Indias Occidentales (Madrid: Imprenta de Sancha, 1797), and in the Expediente promovido ante el
Virrey del Per por algunos comerciantes de Espaa, on which the Spanish Consejo pleno de dos
salas ruled on 11 May 1780, in agi-Lima, leg. 1548.
13. For Peruvian interest in dealing directly with suppliers, see Surez, Desafos transatlnticos,
37578.
14. Josef de Azofra to Crown, Madrid, 7 Mar. 1777, agi-Lima, leg. 980; Informe de mesa,
Expediente promovido ante el Virrey del Per, 11 May 1780, agi-Lima, leg. 1548; Ruben Vargas
resident in Spain (mis vasallos de Espaa) were to engage in the Atlantic
trade.
15
As Jos de Glvez, Carlos IIIs minister of the Indies, expressed
the crowns intentions in 1778, The Americans can practise commerce
among themselves, in their own ports, leaving the trade from Spain to
America in the hands of Spaniards of this peninsula.
16
During the first half of the century, limeos were also struggling to
protect the system by which they distributed both European and American
products by sea to Guayaquil and Central America in the north and Chile
to the south, and overland to Quito, Buenos Aires, and to the towns and
mining centers of the mountainous interior. After 1740, when a royal order
permitted ships licensed by the crown (the registros) to sail to the Pacific
on an irregular schedule, displacing the Armada del Mar del Sur, that system,
too, was besieged.
17
Once ships out of Cdiz began to enter the Pacific,
Limas relative isolation from the Atlantic commercial system was reduced.
Merchants resident in Spain and their agents invaded the geographic space
that had been the domain of limeos, and both the quantity of goods
entering the colonial market and their distribution became impossible to
control from Lima. Increasingly, imports (and contraband) were landed
and sold in ports to the south of Callao, and carried along with efectos del
Ugarte, Informe del Tribunal del Consulado de Lima, 1790, Revista Histrica 22 (195556), 299;
Lista de los expedientes de la secretara del Per que existen en poder de la contadura general
para informar, sobre que slo los espaoles europeos pueden hacer la navegacin y expediciones
Amrica, Madrid, 9 Feb. 1791, agi-Lima, leg. 1619. See also Carmen Parrn Salas, De las reformas
borbnicas a la repblica: El consulado y el comercio martimo de Lima, 17781821 (San Javier, Murcia:
Imprenta de la Academia General del Aire, 1995), 16772.
15. Reglamento de comercio libre, 2 Feb. 1778, in Libro de Actas del Consulado de Lima, 3
Oct. 1778, agnp-Hacienda colonial, leg. 907.
16. Quoted by John Lynch, The Spanish American Revolutions, 18081826 (New York: W. W.
Norton, 1973), 13. In 1794, a bureaucrat in Lima, Jos Ignacio de Lequanda, acknowledged that
limeos would be forced to withdraw from the intercontinental and interprovincial trade
because the general welfare requires it: see his Idea sucinta del comercio del Per y medios de
prosperarlo, con una noticia general de sus producciones, Lima, 26 Jan. 1794, British Museum,
Egerton mss no. 771, of which a microfilm copy exists in Firestone Library, Princeton University.
Glvez was minister of the Indies from 1776 to 1787.
17. Sergio Villalobos, El comercio y la crisis colonial: Un mito de la independencia (Santiago:
Universidad de Chile, 1968), 6667, and his Comercio y contrabando, 3844; G. B. Cobb, Supply
and Transportation for the Potos Mines, HAHR 29, no. 1 (1949): 2545; Valentn Vzquez de
Prada, Las rutas comerciales entre Espaa y Amrica en el siglo xviii, Anuario de Estudios
Americanos 25 (1968): 21516. For a viceroys description of the three epochs of trade between
Spain and Peru, see Francisco Gil de Taboada y Lemos, Relacin de gobierno del Excmo. Seor
Virrey del Per, . . . presentada su succesor . . . Ao de 1796, in Fuentes, ed., Memorias de los
vireyes, 6:1057.
pas to markets in the interior without first passing through the hands of
Limas entrept merchants.
18
By the time of the great earthquake of 1746, therefore, the Hapsburg
system of benign neglect, which had permitted the growth of a relatively
autonomous commercial economy in Peru, was unraveling. Each royal
edict had been drawn up in the interest of one group or another of
peninsular-based merchants, most of them from Cdiz, a few from the
Basque provinces. Some of them had pursued their interest in ways that
brought a limited but continuous influx of new merchants to the City of
Kings. For the most part, they were easily assimilated into the mercantile
elite; many of them were brothers, cousins, or nephews of established
merchants, and many other immigrants who served the limeo merchants
as junior members of the business ended by marrying into the family. Like
their counterparts in Spain, the limeos, new and old, were well aware of
where their interests lay, and were not averse to pursuing them in the only
way in which they could be legally furthered: by political activity, lobbying
viceroys and crown for preferential treatment. As the eighteenth century
progressed and the Bourbon commercial reforms had an impact on Limas
trade, competition within the merchant elite and with other sectors of
colonial society affected viceregal politics in significant ways.
THE MERCHANT ELITE OF LIMA, 17751821
Who, precisely, were the merchants of late colonial Peru? The question
is not easily answered. In spite of their importance, very little is known
about them, either as a group or as individuals.
19
In part this is due to the
overwhelming interest among Peruvian historians in political rather than
economic history; in part it derives from the fact that Manuel de
Mendiburu, compiler of Perus principal biographic dictionary and
18. A common complaint throughout the century; see Superunda, Memoria de gobierno,
13542. For an early example, see Juan de Berria, Seor: D. Juan de Berria, diputado del Comercio del
Per, puesto a los reales pies de V. Mag . . . (Madrid, 16 May 1739), nypl, *KB 1739, 10. Note that
documents do not always or even regularly specify that cargoes were bound for Callao, but only
for puertos del Pacfico.
19. The recent work of Cristina Ana Mazzeo de Viv has begun to remedy this problem; see
her edited volume, Los comerciantes limeos a fines del siglo xviii: Capacidad y cohesin de una lite,
17501825 (Lima: Pontificia Universidad Catlica del Per, 2000), and her El comercio libre en el
Per: Las estrategias de un comerciante criolloJos Antonio de Lavalle y Corts, Conde de Premio
Real, 17771815 (Lima: Pontificia Universidad Catlica del Per, 1994), a study of one of the most
important merchants of late colonial Lima.
Fig. 2 Callao and Lima, from The West Coast of South America from Valparaiso to
Lima and Panama, with the Principal Harbours on an Enlarged Scale. London: R. & W.
Blachford, 1835. Courtesy Historic Maps Division, Rare Books and Special
Collections, Princeton University Library (photo: John Blazejewski).
himself the scion of a merchant family,
20
found both priests and noblemen
much more interesting. As a result, information about even the most
powerful merchantsthose who were matriculated in the consulado of
Limais difficult to find, and much of it must be compiled from brief
references scattered throughout archives and secondary sources. In order
to identify all of them, every annual matrcula from 1775 until 1821 would
be needed; unfortunately, only one has been located, that for 1779. There
are, however, four lists of consulado merchants, drawn up in 1803, 1811,
1819, and 1821, that were probably copied directly from the official matr-
culas.
21
But only those merchants who met the consulados requirements
of wealth, residence, and professional standing could be matriculated. The
merchants themselves were frequently unable to agree on who fulfilled
those requirements, partly because the criteria for admission were revised
from time to time, and partly because factions within the consulado
regularly attempted to reduce the voting power of their rivals. Thus poor
or even fairly prosperous merchants, and the great majority of those whose
commerce was confined to the provinces, were excluded. But many of the
more important provincial merchants who were not matriculated in the
consulado attended the Junta general de comercio, called to protest the impo-
sition of additional sales taxes (alcabalas) in 1778, and their names can be
added to the roster of late colonial merchants.
22
Women who were merchants,
however, are much more difficult to identify, even when they were as
prominent as Mara Ignacia Carrillo de Crdoba, countess of Vistaflorida.
20. Manuel de Mendiburu, Diccionario histrico-biogrfico del Per, 2nd ed., 11 vols. (Lima:
Imprenta Enrique Palacios 193135). Some information about merchants can also be found in
Alberto Tauro, comp., Diccionario encyclopdico del Per, ilustrado, 3 vols. (Lima: Editorial Juan
Meja Baca, 1967), and in Diccionario biogrfico del Per, 1st ed. (Lima: Torres Aguirre, 1944).
Most entries give only political or genealogical information, neglecting to mention economic
activities.
21. Matrcula, 1779, agnp-Consulado, leg. 1; Razn de los seores ministros y subalternos, in
Consulado to Amandarro, 26 May 1803, agnp-Hacienda colonial, leg. 1115; Razn de los
individuos del comercio de Lima que han subscripto para mantener soldados, 6 Dec. 1811, agi-
Lima, leg. 1551; Prorrata de los 400,000 pesos, 1819, agnp-Consulado, leg. 34; Cuentos del cupo
de los 150,000 pesos, 1821, cdip-Tomo 21: Asuntos econmicos, ed. Alberto Tauro (Lima:
Comisin Nacional del Sesquicentenario de la Independencia del Per, 1971), 1:379431, 43339,
44146.
22. Acta de la Junta general de comercio, 7 Dec. 1778, agnp-Hacienda colonial, leg. 907. Of
the 205 merchants who attended this meeting, only 32 were matriculated in the consulado on 1
Jan. 1779, less than a month later. See also Oswaldo Holgun, El Visitador Areche y el
Consulado del Comercio de Lima: El problema de la alcabala de reventas, Boletn del Instituto
Riva-Agero 9 (197274): 83109.
When her husband died in 1759, the countess took over the familys
business interests. She was both a landowner and a shipping magnate, a
leader of the shipowners guild,
23
and one of the wealthiest merchants
engaged in the trade with Chile. When she died in 1791, her estate was
valued at almost a million pesos, but in spite of her wealth and political
power, she could not be matriculated as a merchant because she was a woman.
Instead, she depended upon her brother Luis and her peninsular-born son-
in-law Domingo Ramrez de Arellano to represent her at formal meetings
of the consulado.
24
There were other women who were merchants in late colonial Peru,
though few as powerful as the countess of Vistaflorida.
25
Most of them
managed business affairs for husbands, brothers, or sons who engaged in
more prestigious careers such as law or the bureaucracy. Josefa de Tagle y
Portocarrero, sister of the last marqus de Torre Tagle, took care of her
familys business affairs, as had her great-grandmother, Rosa Juliana
Snchez de Tagle, the first marquesa.
26
Josefas uncles and brothers occupied
modestly remunerated positions of importance on the Audiencia of Lima,
in the bureaucracy, and in the Church, thanks to profits on the familys
commercial ventures.
And how should their male relatives, the lawyers and bureaucrats, be
taken into account in a discussion of the merchants of late colonial Peru?
The ordinances of the consulado of Lima expressly forbade lawyers to be
23. The shipowners guild functioned as an integral part of the consulado, but it held separate
meetings to discuss matters of special interest and to make recommendations to the prior,
consuls, and viceroy, and occasionally directly to the crown. In 1782, three of the seventeen
shipowners were women: El cuerpo de navieros del comercio interior de la Mar del Sur to
Crown, 19 Apr. 1782, agi-Lima, leg. 911.
24. Razn del nmero de chacras, trapiches y caleras, in Memorial de los hacendados y
labradores de Lima, 1776, ahn-Consejos suprimidos, leg. 20300; Libro de juntas del Real
Tribunal del Consulado de Lima desde 1770 hasta 1788, agnp-Hacienda colonial, leg. 907; Mark A.
Burkholder, Politics of a Colonial Career: Jos Baqujano and the Audiencia of Lima (Albuquerque:
University of New Mexico Press, 1980), 1213; Oscar Febres Villaroel, La crisis agrcola del Per
en el ltimo tercio del siglo xviii, Revista Histrica (Lima) 27 (1964): 175. See also Roisida Aguilar
Gil, Domingo Ramrez de Arellano: Comerciante naviero y hacendado, in Mazzeo de Viv,
ed., Comerciantes limeos, 17587.
25. An exception would be Rosa de la Fuente, widow of the count of Villar de Fuente, who
also carried on her husbands business, dealing in European imports, mules, and cinnamon:
Joseph Dager Alva, Noble y comerciante: Jos Gonzlez Gutirrez, Conde de Fuente Gonzlez,
in Mazzeo de Viv, ed., Comerciantes limeos, 71.
26. On both Tagle women, see the family papers held in the Archivo Manuel Ortiz de
Zevallos (amoz), Lima. On Rosa Juliana, see Susy Snchez, Familia, comercio y poder: Los
Tagle y su vinculacin con los Torre Velarde, 17301825, in Mazzeo de Viv, ed., Comerciantes
limeos, 3334.
matriculated, and there were laws intended to prevent trade by bureau-
crats.
27
Furthermore, noblemen who sought or held places in the
military orders, especially as caballeros de Santiago, were required to
present proof that they did not engage in trade.
28
Nevertheless, the
record shows that they did, and that Sebastin de Aliaga y Colmenares,
marqus de Zelada de la Fuente, nobleman, bureaucrat, and caballero,
was one of them.
29
The marqus was indeed a merchant, and a highly successful one, in
spite of the fact that he was not matriculated and apparently did not
participate openly in the consulados affairs. Instead, he placed his funds
with other merchants, and exercised his considerable influence on behalf
of one faction of the consulado, those who traded Peruvian sugar for
Chilean wheat. He also owned twenty shares in the Filipinas Company.
30
Zelada de la Fuente owned a large estate near Lima, and inherited the
post of treasurer of the royal mint upon his marriage to the daughter of
the count of San Juan de Lurigancho. He had probably acquired much of
his fortuneand his appetite for profit from commerceduring his
27. Representacin del Real Consulado de la Ciudad de Los Reyes sobre la eleccin del Prior
y Cnsul del Real Consulado de Lima, 22 Aug. 1787, agi-Lima, leg. 1548; Testimonio de reales
cdulas que reglamentan el comercio de efectos trados de Espaa a la ciudad de Lima, 1770,
bnp-Archivo Astete Concha, MS Z-807.
28. The papers of aspirants to the military orders are held in ahn-Ordenes militares. See also
Guillermo Lohmann Villena, Los americanos en las rdenes nobiliarios, 15291900, 2 vols. (Madrid:
Instituto Gonzlo Fernndez de Oviedo, 1947).
29. As was Josef Gonzlez Gutirrez, count of Fuente Gonzlez and count by marriage of
Villar de Fuente, caballero de Santiago. Unlike Zelada de la Fuente, however, he was
matriculated in the consulado and served as its prior in 177374 and 1783. Expediente personal,
Josef Gonzlez de Gutirrez, ahn-Madrid, Ordenes militares: Santiago 65 Moderno;
Representacin . . . sobre la eleccin del prior y cnsul, 1787, agi-Lima, leg. 1548; Expediente
relativo a la prxima eleccin de prior y cnsul del Real Tribunal del Consulado de este reino, 29
Dec. 1790, bnp-mss, C-1692; Mendiburu, Diccionario, 11:425; Dager Alva, Noble y comerciante,
in Mazzeo de Viv, ed., Comerciantes limeos, 6586. See also the case of Isidro de Abarca y
Gutirrez de Cossio, count of San Isidro, who was admitted as a caballero de Santiago in 1775 and
served repeatedly as prior of the consulado: Expediente personal, Isidro Abarca y Gutirrez de
Cossio, ahn-Madrid, Ordenes militares, Santiago 10; Ramiro Flores, El destino manifiesto de
un mercader limeo a fines del siglo xviii: De comerciante a consignatario. La vida y negocios de
don Isidro Abarca, Conde de San Isidro, in Mazzeo de Viv, ed., Comerciantes limeos, 89129.
These two are by no means the only noblemen who were members of one of the military orders
and who openly engaged in trade.
30. Junta general de accionistas de la Real Compaa de Filipinas, Madrid, 23 Dec. 1805, agi-
Filipinas, leg. 991. Zelada de la Fuentes apoderado at the shareholders meeting was the count of
Polentinos. An apoderado was a holder of a power-of-attorney who acted as an agent or proxy for
his client.
tenure as corregidor of Chancay.
31
As a high-ranking bureaucrat and a
nobleman, the marqus kept his commercial ventures out of official records,
such as the consulados matrculas. They were nevertheless an open secret,
and provided grist for Limas ever-active rumor mill. For example, in 1803,
it was said that 170,000 pesos registered aboard the merchantman Aurora
by two dependents of the Cinco Gremios Mayores de Madrid, belonged
in fact to the marqus.
32
On another occasion, Zelada de la Fuente had
offered to back a Chilean merchant, promising him eight thousand pesos
to invest, and his signature, which is more valuable.
33
Although one of the wealthiest, the marqus was by no means the only
bureaucrat of late colonial Peru who was deeply involved in trade. In 1746
the viceroy owned a cargo of wheat aboard a small ship that escaped the
effects of the earthquake and tsunami because it was anchored in a small
port to the south of Callao; he had intended to market the wheat in
Panama.
34
Bartolom de Bedoya, a lawyer serving as advisor to the inten-
dant of Tarma, maintained a lively transatlantic trade in Peruvian bark,
occasionally using the services of the Cinco Gremios Mayores in Peru to
cover his tracks.
35
Not infrequently, commercial ventures undertaken by bureaucrats involved
direct conflict of interest. For example, Ignacio de Cruzeta, administrator
of revenues in the northern port of Paita, owned a merchant house large
enough to require the assistance of his two sons, Gaspar and Manuel, who
also helped him with his official duties. The Cruzetas and their associates
were accused of mounting a major trade in contraband goods via Panama,
which, of course, paid none of the import taxes the elder Cruzeta was
31. Razn del nmero de chacras, in Memorial de los hacendados, ahn-Consejos, leg. 20300;
Lohmann Villena, Los americanos, 2:267; Vicente Palacio Atard, Areche y Guirior: Observaciones
sobre el fracaso de una visita al Per (Sevilla: Escuela de Estudios Hispano-Americanos, 1946), 23;
Manuel Moreyra y Paz Soldn, La moneda colonial en el Per: Captulos de su historia (Lima: Banco
Central de Reserva del Per, 1980), 16185.
32. Vicente Morales y Durez to Directors, Cinco Gremios Mayores, 26 Apr. 1803, agi-Lima,
leg. 1620. For a general account of the Madrid guilds and their trade, see Miguel Capella and
Antonio Matilla Tascon, Los Cinco Gremios Mayores de Madrid (Madrid: N.p., 1957).
33. Jaime Eyzaguirre, ed., Archivo epistolar de la familia Eyzaguirre, 17471854 (Buenos Aires:
Impresora Argentina, 1960), 143. For a similar case, see Dager Alva, Noble y comerciante, 7879.
34. Conde de Superunda, Memoria de gobierno, in Fuentes, ed. Memorias de los vireyes,
4:127.
35. Duplicados de registros, 1803, agi-Lima, leg. 726; Morales y Durez to Directors, Cinco
Gremios Mayores, 30 Mar. 1803, agi-Lima, leg. 1620. Peruvian bark (cascarrillo) was used
medicinally to treat fevers.
charged with collecting.
36
Paita had long been notorious as a center of
illicit trade. In November 1740, when the English privateer George Anson
raided the settlement, he and his men were surprised to find such a large
amount of gold and silver in a town so small and poor. They had also
captured a small fishing boat . . . near the Islas de los Lobos, where it was
plying the coast from Callao to Paita. He confiscated more than 70,000
pesos in gold on board. . . . Evidently the man was trying to reach Paita in
time to join the other merchants waiting to depart for Panama and the coast
of New Spain.
37
More than a half-century later, the Cruzetas apparently
saw no reason not to participate in a lucrative trade that defied the colo-
nial rules for the regulation of trade.
Examples of bureaucrats who were also merchants could be multiplied
endlessly, and included the judges of the Audiencia of Lima,
38
but perhaps
one more instance will suffice. Fernando de Abascal, marqus de la Con-
cordia, viceroy of Peru from 1806 until 1816, celebrated for his unyielding
rectitude in the pursuit of Spains continued rule in America, was accused
by criollos and peninsulars alike of trading in wheat, sugar, and tobacco, to his
immense profit.
39
Less powerful bureaucrats were sometimes less fortunate.
36. El contador general de Indias . . . informe sobre las causas que motivaron la separacin
del destino a D. Francisco Borja Portalanza, 2 Feb. 1815, with attached papers, agi-Lima, leg. 626.
Cruzeta was one of the provincial merchants who attended the Junta general de comercio on 7
Dec. 1778, where opposition to Areches new taxes was voiced: Actas, Junta general, agnp-
Hacienda colonial, leg. 907.
37. Jorge Juan y Santacilla and Antonio de Ulloa, Discourse and Political Reflections on the
Kingdoms of Peru, ed. and intro. by John J. TePaske; trans. John J. TePaske and Besse A. Clement
(Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1978), 55.
38. Leon Campbell, A Colonial Establishment: Creole Domination of the Audiencia de
Lima during the Late Eighteenth Century, HAHR 52, no. 1 (1972): 125. For opinions about the
quality of judges serving during the decade immediately prior to independence, see agi-Lima,
leg. 602, 649, 773; Manuel Lorenzo de Vidaurre, Plan del Per, cdip-Tomo 1: Los idelogos, 13
vols. (Lima: Comisin Nacional del Sesquicentenario de la Independencia del Per, 1971), vol. 5:
Plan del Per y otros escritos por Manuel Lorenzo de Vidaurre, ed. Alberto Tauro, 25.
39. Jos de la Riva Agero, Manifestacin histrica y poltica de la revolucin de la Amrica y
ms especialmente de la parte que corresponde al Per y Ro de La Plata (Buenos Aires: Imprenta de
los Expsitos, 1818), 4243; Antonio Izquierdo Martnez to Ministro de Hacienda, 9 May 1811,
and Pedro Trujillo to Ministro de Hacienda, 31 Aug. 1813, agi-Lima, leg. 772; Miguel de
Eyzaguirre to the Regency, 8 Aug. 1813 as summarized for the Consejo de Indias on 28 June 1815,
agi-Lima, leg. 602; Gaspar Rico to Fernando de Abascal, Havana, 18 Nov. 1812, agi-Lima, leg.
1016; Javier Mara de Aguirre to Crown, London, 23 Mar. 1823, agi-Lima, leg. 798. Viceroys who
profited from trade were commonplace in Spanish America. For the notorious case of the first
count of Revillagigedo, viceroy of Mexico from 1746 until 1755, see Andrs Cavo, Los tres siglos de
Mjico durante el gobierno espaol hasta la entrada del ejrcito trigarante ( Jalapa: Tipografa
Veracruzana de A. Ruiz, 1870), 290. For earlier examples in Peru, see Madelaine Glynn D. Evans,
The Landed Aristocracy in Peru, 16001680 (Ph.D. diss., University of London, 1972), 220;
During the late colonial period, it was common for bureaucrats to
invest government funds in commercial ventures, preferably those offering
short-term profits. At the conclusion of the venture, the capital would be
returned to government coffers, and the bureaucrat would add the profit
to his personal assets. Occasionally, however, the venture failed or took
longer than expected to complete, and the hapless bureaucrat found himself
descubierto, without cash on the day when the funds had to be accounted
for. In such cases, bureaucrats were not the only ones who suffered: their
bondsmen had to accept losses as well. Before appointment to a post
requiring responsibility for public funds, a bureaucrat had to find guaran-
tors for the amount in his charge annually. Bondsmen were usually merchants,
but landowners also served, earning 6 percent on their investment. When
commercial ventures undertaken by bureaucrats failed, those who earned
their living primarily from trade were sometimes brought to the point of
bankruptcy. When the notorious and large-scale forced sale of imports
(the repartimiento trade) undertaken by provincial governors is added to
the equation, it becomes even more obvious that bureaucrats involved in
trade, but not matriculated in the consulado, were necessarily important
participants in the politics and economics of commerce.
40
Finally, it is important to recognize one more sector of the economically
active population whose members were rarely matriculated in the consulado,
but who might be classified as merchants. They were the hacendados,
landowners who traded in sugar, wines, brandies, and cloth produced in
the obrajes (textile workshops) installed on their haciendas. In Peru, the
Gremio de hacendados existed independent of the consulado throughout
the colonial period. Only rarely did the two guilds join forces to combat
governmental decrees, and the landowners were frequently at odds with
one faction of the consulado, the Atlantic-trade merchants living both in Peru
and Spain. In those disputes, the merchants enjoyed certain advantages:
Demetrio Ramos Prez, Trigo chileno, navieros del Callao, y hacendados limeos entre la crisis
agrcola del siglo xvii y la comercial de la primera mitad del xviii, Revista de Indias 26, nos. 1056
(1966): 269.
40. Guillermo Lohmann Villena, El corregidor de indios en el Per bajo los Austrias (Madrid:
Ediciones Cultura Hispnica, 1957); Alfredo Moreno Cebrin, El corregidor de indios y la economa
peruana en el siglo xviii (Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientficas, Instituto G.
Fernndez de Oviedo, 1977); John Fisher, Government and Society in Colonial Peru: The Intendant
System, 17841814 (London: The Athlone Press, 1970), 9096, 236; Miguel de Eyzaguirre to
Agustn de Eyzaguirre, Lima, 1 Aug. 1807, in Eyzaguirre, Archivo epistolar, 131; David Cahill,
Repartos ilcitos y familias principales en el Sur Andino, 17801824, Revista de Indias 48 (1988):
44973.
they were wealthier and more numerous, and their loans to the beleaguered
viceregal government were critically important.
41
Because many of the
landowners held titles of nobility, however, their political power was
greater than their economic position would normally have permitted. One
group of hacendados, those producing agricultural commodities for export,
were able to gain viceroys support by offering them opportunities to
participate in their trade.
During the Napoleonic war in Spain (180814), the regency suggested
that the two groups should be united in a newly structured consulado com-
posed half of merchants and half of landowners. Jos Antonio de Errea, a
peninsular merchant and former prior of the consulado, was among those
whose opinion on the proposal was sought.
42
In his report, Errea acknowl-
edged that agriculture and commerce were intimately related, but insisted
that the union of merchants and landowners in a single guild was not
practical in Peru. He pointed out that unless everyone who sold a few
vegetables in the market were matriculated as an hacendado, it would be
impossible to achieve the mandated division of power in the consulado.
Moreover, few landowners could meet the consulados criteria for membership.
Spains outmoded rules for the regulation of trade had effectively deprived
Peruvian landowners of markets for their surpluses; sugar, cacao, and Peru-
vian bark were, for various reasons, difficult to sell in their traditional
markets, and the crown would permit no new outlets to be developed.
Thus landowners could not expect much of a profit from their enterprises,
and merchants were reluctant to purchase what landowners produced,
leading to ongoing friction between the two groups.
The lack of common interest between the consulado merchants and
the landowners, even those producing for export, is striking, and may have
derived in part from the fact that so few merchants in Peru invested in
land. In 1775, ninety-six people who owned land in the valleys near Lima
protested an attempt to raise their taxes; an additional 115 provided state-
ments about the area and yield of the land they were working in those same
41. Anna, Fall of the Royal Government, 1114, 110, 124, 13941. Details of many loans and
grants are in agnp-Consulado, leg. 24; agnp-Hacienda colonial, leg. 1239; and Consulado to
Crown, 3 May 1817, agnp-Hacienda colonial, leg. 1227.
42. Jos Antonio de Errea to the Prior and Cnsules, Real Consulado de Lima, 2 Apr. 1814,
agnp-Consulado, leg. 4. The consulados in Cuba, Caracas, and Mexico admitted landowners to
membership: Mercedes M. Alvarez F., Comercio y comerciantes y sus proyecciones en la independencia
venezolana (Caracas: Vargas, 1963), 48.
valleys. Only ten of the 211 were matriculated in the consulado in 1779.
43
Forty years later, the gap between the two groups seems to have widened:
only 8 of the 330 merchants assigned quotas in the forced loan of 1819 are
known to have been landowners.
44
Landowners engaged in export agriculture had good reasons for refusing
to seek membership in the consulado. Whenever the consulado was required
to raise money for viceregal defense, its officers attempted to maximize
the number of individuals liable for quotas. During the last decade of
Spanish rule, landowners sometimes found that they were alleged to be
merchants rather than hacendados, and placed on the consulados roll
against their will. The consulado insisted that they were subject to assess-
ments because they were among those persons who engage in commerce
. . . whether in a single instance or habitually. Without exception, in the
exercise of their double profession, they have been able to increase their
profits.
45
In such cases, the landowners had difficulty maintaining their
independent status. Merchants who had ceased to trade in order to dedicate
themselves to agriculture found themselves once again matriculated, and
sometimes subject to double assessments, as Fernando del Mazo discovered.
Mazo arrived in Peru about 1788 as one of the agents of the Cinco
Gremios Mayores de Madrid. He was dismissed in 1801 and spent the
next decade in litigation with the company while apparently carrying on a
much reduced trade in his own name.
46
Unlike most peninsular merchants,
Mazo invested in land, in his case a sugar estate in Pisco named Caucato,
which had once belonged to the Jesuits. Perhaps because he had difficulty
obtaining imported goods, he began withdrawing from commerce. By 1811,
43. Razn del nmero de chacras, in Memorial de los hacendados, ahn-Consejos, leg. 20300;
Matrcula del Real Tribunal del Consulado, 1779, agnp-Consulado, leg. 1. In 1779, there were 164
merchants matriculated in the consulado. One of the exceptions to the rule was the count of
Fuente Gonzlez, who owned Hacienda Retes: see Dager Alva, Noble y comerciante, 6586.
44. Prorrata de los 400,000 pesos, 1819, agnp-Consulado, leg. 34; Toma de razn de los
enteros en Caxas Reales de los 600,000 pesos por cuenta del milln de pesos, 1819, agnp-
Consulado, leg. 33.
45. Consulado to Viceroy, 23 Sept. 1820, agnp-Hacienda colonial, leg. 1239. For an earlier
version of the same argument, see Consulta del consulado, 29 Mar. 1817, in Informes y consultas
expedidas por el Real Tribunal del Consulado desde 9 de enero de 1816 hasta 2 de abril de 1818,
agnp-Hacienda colonial, leg. 1227.
46. The exact date of Mazos arrival in Peru is not known. He first appears on the scene in the
dispute over the consulados matricula of 1791: Expediente relativo a la prxima eleccin . . . , 29
Dec. 1790, bnp-mss, C-1692; Expediente sobre el conducto de los apoderados de los Cinco
Gremios Mayores de Madrid en el Per, 18038, agi-Lima, leg. 1620.
when the list of merchants required to contribute to the support of the
royalist army fighting in Alto Per was drawn up, Mazos name did not
appear. In 1817, however, when Viceroy Joaqun de la Pezuela was mounting
a costly expedition to recover Chile from the insurgents, the consulado
sued Mazo for collection of 2,000 pesos in overdue quotas. Mazo appealed,
insisting that he was no longer a merchant, but a sugar producer, and as
such was not subject to the consulados jurisdiction. The importance of
the point at issue may be judged by the consulados long report on the
case, which declared that Mazo was to be considered a merchant in spite
of his wishes, and reminding the viceroy that other landowners were also
matriculated.
47
In 1819, the consulado again assigned Mazo a quota in the
forced loan, this time amounting to 6,000 pesos. Those quotas had been
prorated according to the consulados estimate of the relative wealth of the
merchants: there were only nine judged to be wealthier than Mazo.
48
Mazo was by no means the only erstwhile member of the consulado who
attempted to sever ties with the guild during the last decade of colonial
rule. Unlike landowners or lawyers, for example, the merchants were
constantly dunned for money by an increasingly desperate viceregal govern-
ment, especially after 1816 when Joaqun de la Pezuela became viceroy.
Many noblemen, landowners, and bureaucrats who had in the past traded
more or less openly became anxious to escape all association with commerce.
49
Their last-minute behavior, however, should not obscure the fact that, like
most of the economically active sectors of Peruvian society, they engaged
in trade.
It is thus difficult to define the merchants as a separate group in
Peruvian society, and impossible to assume that they acted as a single power
block with a common set of interests. On the contrary, when commercial
disputes arose, as they often did even among merchants matriculated in
the consulado, many of the citizens of Lima took sides, to the despair of
the viceroys. Viceroy Teodoro de Croix (178490) blamed those disputes
for the repeated disturbances and rumors which involve whole families,
47. Razn de los individuos de este comercio, 1811, agi-Lima, leg. 1551; Nota de los seores
que no han satisfecho hasta el da las cuotas que les seal el Real Tribunal del Consulado . . .
para las presentes urgentissimas atenciones de su cargo y reconquista de Chile, 1817, bnp-mss, D-
6327; Informes y consultas expedidas por el Real Tribunal del Consulado desde 9 de enero de 1816
hasta 2 de abril de 1818, agnp-Hacienda colonial, leg. 1227.
48. Prorrata de los 400,000 pesos, 1819, agnp-Consulado, leg. 34.
49. See, for example, Informe del consulado de Lima al Virrey, 23 Sept. 1820, agnp-Hacienda
colonial, leg. 1239, where the consulado discusses petitions to be excused from paying quotas in
the forced loan.
and in which almost the entire population has an interest.
50
Viceroys
Fernando de Abascal and Joaqun de la Pezuela were forced to cope with such
disturbances while fighting for the survival of Spains hegemony in Peru.
Were the consulado merchants a reasonably representative sample of
the rest of the population, which, although not matriculated, participated
in commerce and the disputes arising from it? Not entirely: the consulado
merchants were wealthier than the majority of those who earned their
living exclusively from trade, and proportionately more of them were
engaged in the Atlantic trade rather than the interprovincial trade. But it was
the consulado merchants who were highly politicized, and whose factions
represented the interests of various sectors of the mercantile community.
They were the ones who brought conflicting pressures to bear on the
viceroys, who attempted to mold government policies to their liking, and
who limited the viceroys options when it came to the pacification of Peru.
And there were a great many of them in late colonial Peru.
Between 1779 and 1821, at least 938 individual merchants were matri-
culated in the consulado of Lima. Their precise number is impossible to
ascertain because not all of the forty-two annual matrculas have been
located. The earliest, for 1779, is nothing more than a list of 164 names
entered in the consulados records on 1 January, when the merchants who
believed themselves eligible for matriculation presented themselves at the
customary convocation.
51
This is the only official matrcula that has been
located, but another list, dated 26 May 1803, probably contains the names
of most, if not all, the merchants matriculated in that year. It yields 142
names copied from the matrcula in response to a request from the consulados
newly appointed agent in Madrid.
52
Another three lists may be assumed
to be reasonably complete; they were drawn up to indicate the share each
of the consulado merchants paid toward loans collected for the defense of
the viceroyalty or the first independent government of Peru.
53
In addition to the matrcula and quasi-matrculas,
54
ships registers can
provide the names of merchants and information about them, helping to
50. Teodoro de Croix, Relacin que hace el Excmo. Seor . . . virrey que fu de estos Reynos
del Per y Chile, a su succesor . . . , in Fuentes, ed., Memorias de los vireyes, 5:34041.
51. Matrcula, 1779, agnp-Consulado, leg. 1.
52. Razn de los seores ministros y subalternos, in Consulado to Amandarro, 26 May 1803,
53. Razn de los individuos del comercio de Lima, 1811, agi-Lima, leg. 1551; Prorrata de los
400,000 pesos, 1819, agnp-Consulado, leg. 34; Cuentos del cupo de los 150,000 pesos, 1821, cdip-
Tomo 21, 1:379431, 43339, 44146.
54. For the sake of simplicity, matrcula will be used to refer to all of the lists described above.
identify those involved in the Atlantic trade. Still more consulado merchants
can be identified by consulting the various letterbooks and books of minutes
kept by the consulados staff, and the petitions and memoranda drawn up
by the several factions of merchants and forwarded to the viceroy or the
crown. These sources yield the names of merchants who attended a
particular meeting of the consulado or who were involved in disputes, and
they tend to be the same ones whose names already appear on one or
more of the matrculas. The same is true of notarial records, which are
invaluable sources of information about the merchants birthplaces, social
milieu, and business ventures.
55
What kinds of information can be gleaned about the merchants from
sources that are, for the most part, only lists? To begin with, there is some
value in knowing the names of the people who earned their living as
merchants, and who were successful enough to merit matriculation in the
consulado of Lima, even against their will. That information has not been
readily available, and it can be an important source for understanding
political events during the late colonial period. For example, the political
activities of the count of Vega del Ren are well known, as is the fact that
he owned a large estate.
56
When his name appeared on the consulados
matrculas for 1819 and 1821, however, it came as a surprise, indicating that
he, like the marqus de Zelada de la Fuente, was one of those hacendados
and noblemen who were deeply involved in trade.
57
There are less direct examples, too, of the importance of knowing the
names of those who were engaged in trade. Jos Baqujano y Carrillo is
known to history as a lawyer and judge of the high court of Lima, whose
political pronouncements and election to Spains Supremo Consejo de Estado
in 1812 constituted early warning signals that Peruvian grievances were not
being addressed by royal government.
58
Once again, attention has been
55. Notaries records are in agnp-Seccin notarial (hereafter agnp-Notario, with the name
of the notary appended). See also Archivo Nacional del Per, Indice de notarios de Lima y Callao
cuyos protcolos se hallan en el Archivo Nacional del Per (Lima: Gil, 1928).
56. Jos Matas Vsquez de Acua Menacho, count of Vega del Ren, was born in Lima in
1784, the only surviving child of an old criollo family. He was arrested and imprisoned for his part
in several conspiracies against the colonial authorities: Csar Pacheco Vlez, Las conspiraciones
del Conde de la Vega del Ren, Revista Histrica 21 (1954): 355425; Pruebas de Jos Matas
Vsquez de Acua, ahn-Ordenes militares, Santiago 93 moderno.
57. Prorrata de los 400,000 pesos, 1819, agnp-Consulado, leg. 34; Cuentas del cupo, 1821,
cdip-Tomo 21, 1:407.
58. Burkholder, Politics of a Colonial Career, 21, 92, 11018, 12224, and passim; Antonio Miralla, Breve
descripcin de las fiestas celebradas en la capital de los Reyes del Per con motivo de la promocin del Excmo. Sr.
D.D. Jos Baqujano y Carrillo . . . al Supremo Consejo de Estado (Lima: Imprenta de los Hurfanos, 1812).
focused on politics rather than economics, even though Baqujano wrote
the lengthy and important Disertacin histrica y poltica sobre el comercio
del Per, published in the Mercurio Peruano in 1791. Though he himself
was not matriculated, he served as legal counsel to the consulado. Further-
more, Baqujanos parents, brother (a merchant matriculated in the consulado
of Cdiz), cousins, and closest associates were merchants; knowing that,
we can proceed to analysis of what interests he, and they, represented in
the political disputes of late colonial Peru.
59
The matrculas of 1819 and 1821 are unusually interesting because they
can be used to establish rough estimates of the relative wealth of mer-
chants just before and immediately following independence. Both are records
of forced loans in which each merchants quota was set by a commission
appointed by the consulado. Quotas were based on the amount of sales
taxes (alcabalas) paid, though personal knowledge of individual circumstances
was also taken into account. Thus it is possible to rank the merchants
according to wealth, though the rankings are only approximate. Merchants
were notorious for their ability to avoid taxes, and assessments for quotas
were disputed with some frequency. In 1817, the consulado refused Juan Ruiz
Dvilas petition to lower his quota, saying that he was generally believed
to be one of the wealthiest merchants and that his income had recently
increased. Furthermore, His house is full of merchandise, notably a con-
siderable quantity of [Chilean] tallow displayed within sight of passersby.
60
The matrcula for 1819 provides some surprises that differentiate the
consulado of Lima from its peninsular-dominated Mexican counterpart.
Unexpectedly, the wealthiest merchant house in Lima in 1819 was owned
by a criollo, Ignacio Santiago de Rotalde, the son of a Sevillian merchant
and a criolla mother. Ignacios brother and partner Manuel also ranked
among the twenty wealthiest merchants, as did Manuels criollo son-in-
law, Martn Jos Prez de Cortiguera. The family played a prominent role
in the politics of commerce on both sides of the Atlantic. Manuel served
as consul of the consulado of Lima from 1805 until 1808, and again after
59. Jos Baqujano y Carrillo, Disertacin histrica y poltica sobre el comercio del Per,
Mercurio Peruano, edicin facsimilar, 12 vols. (Lima: Biblioteca Nacional del Per, 1964), 1:20916,
22126, 22935, 23742, 24552, 25356, 26568, 27375, 28289; Relacin de los mritos y servicios
del Dr. D. Jos Baqujano y Carrillo, Madrid, 4 Dec. 1793, agi-Lima, leg. 1548; Burkholder,
Politics of a Colonial Career, 1617. The Mercurio Peruano, a periodical published by the Sociedad
Amigos del Pas, carried articles focusing on Peruvian history, politics, and economics.
60. Consulado to Viceroy, 26 June 1817, Informes y consultas expedidas . . . desde 9 de enero de
1816 hasta 2 de abril de 1818, agnp-Hacienda colonial, leg. 1227; cdip-Tomo 21, 1:379431.
independence, from 1822 until 1823. A third brother, Jos, was sent to
Spain to attend to the familys business in Cdiz, where he was matri-
culated in the consulado and became one of its most important members.
61
The Santiago y Rotaldes strategy for maintaining the familys connection
to the Atlantic trade was by no means unique: at least four other powerful
merchant families of LimaBaqujano y Carrillo, Gonzlez Gutirrez,
Lavalle, and Comparet y Blacaderalso dispatched a first-generation criollo
61. A fourth brother, Luis Eduardo, was a priest. Information about this merchant family is
scattered in archives such as bnp-mss, C-1690; agnp-Notario Ayllon Salazar 18121818; agnp-
Hacienda colonial, leg. 907; agnp-Consulado, leg. 24; agi-Lima, Legs. 726, 1548, 1549, 1551; agi-
Indif. gen., legs. 2256, 2439. See also Martn Jos Prez de Cortiguera to Ministro de Hacienda,
Cdiz, 27 Jan. 1804, agi-Indif. gen., leg. 2439; Lohmann Villena, Los americanos, 1:393; Mendi-
buru, Diccionario, 11:426.
Table 1: The wealthiest merchants of Lima, 1819
a
Name * = criollo Quota
b
Quota
c
+ = peninsular 1819 1821
* Santiago de Rotalde, Ignacio 12,000 6,000
+ lvarez del Villar, Antonio 9,000 bankrupt
+ Aramburu, Martn de 8,000 200
+ Izcue, Francisco Xavier de 8,000 4,000
* Prez de Cortiguera, Martn Jos 8,000 3,000
+ Abada, Pedro de 7,000 3,500
+ Gorbea y Badillo, Manuel 7,000 3,000
+ Hurtado, Pablo 7,000 emigr
+ Castaeda, Juan Miguel 6,000 deceased?
+ Mazo, Fernando del 6,000 emigr
+ Caldern, Guillermo 6,000
+ Macho, Juan 5,800 2,500
+ Arias, Dmaso de 5,000 2,000
+ Arismendi, Jos Santos 5,000 4,000
Estella, Pedro de 5,000
Ortiz de Villate, Manuel 5,000
Revoredo, Andrs 5,000 2,500
+ Ruiz, Miguel Fernando 5,000 2,000
* Santiago de Rotalde, Manuel 5,000 2,000
+ Zuloaga, Francisco Mara 5,000 emigr
a
Prorrata de los 400,000 pesos, 1819, agnp-Consulado, legajo 34. Birthplaces of the merchants
and additional notes are from far too many sources to list here, but most are from wills in notarial
archives, testimonios de mritos y servicios, letters and memoranda, and lists of merchants who
signed petitions or were present at meetings.
b
In pesos fuertes.
c
In pesos fuertes. cdip-Tomo 21: Asuntos econmicos, vol. 1, pp. 379431, 43839, 44146.
son to Spain.
62
It was a clever way to outflank the provision of the 1778
Reglamento de comercio libre that reserved the Atlantic trade to the kings
vasallos de Espaa.
According to the commission that assigned the quotas in the forced
loan, the second wealthiest merchant in Peru in 1819 was the peninsular
Antonio lvarez del Villar. He arrived in Peru in 1783 with a large ship-
ment of goods out of Cdiz, which he unloaded in Buenos Aires and
carried overland to Lima. By 1803 he had amassed a considerable fortune
by Peruvian standards. Ten years later, when he realized that his affairs
were in disarray, he was embarrassed but not desperate. Provided that all
those who owed him money paid their debts, he would have had 112,785
pesos left after paying his own creditors. By the middle of 1819, however,
his entire fortune was in jeopardy. His hopes for recovery had been dashed
by the incredible misfortune afflicting not only the merchants of this
kingdom, but almost the entire population.
63
He then applied for appoint-
ment as administrator of customs in Lima but was declared ineligible
because he was a comerciante fallido and was being sued by his creditors.
64
By 1821 the process was complete; lvarez del Villar was bankrupt, and his
name does not even appear on the matrcula for that year. Nevertheless,
when the quotas for the forced loan of 1819 were drawn up, his power and
prestige were still formidable enough to justify the consulados high opinion
of his ability to contribute heavily to the forced loan.
Only the criollo merchant house was able to survive the upheavals of
the last decade of colonial rule, albeit with difficulty. Both houses were
62. Juan Agustn Baqujano y Carrillo, older brother of Jos, maintained a merchant house in
Cdiz until his death in 1807: Burkholder, Politics of a Colonial Career, 2, 1617. Juan Gonzlez de
la Fuente, younger brother of the count of Fuente Gonzlez, also returned to Spain: Dager Alva,
Noble y comerciante, in Mazzeo de Viv, ed., Comerciantes limeos, 67, 70. Pedro Comparet y
Blacader was the Cdiz representative of the criollo merchant house registered as Juan Antonio
Comparet y Hermanos. Pedro returned to Peru, where he remained after independence.
Sebastin, the third brother, was active in the independence movement. Duplicados de registros,
1803, agi-Lima, leg. 726; cdip-Tomo 21, 1:9899, 37778, 428; Gaceta del Gobierno de Lima
Independiente, 3 vols. (Buenos Aires: Talleres Grficos de Guillermo Kraft., 1950), 1:392, 3:829;
Gaceta del Gobierno del Per: Perodo de gobierno de Simn Bolvar, 3 vols. (Caracas: Fundacin
Eugenio Mendoza, 1967), 1:392, 3:47.
63. Testimonio de los mritos y servicios de D. Antonio lvarez del Villar, 1819, agi-Lima,
leg. 761. lvarez del Villar was born in Villa de Cabra, Crdoba, Spain.
64. Pezuela to Ministro de Hacienda, 7 July 1819, in which he recommended lvarez del Villar
highly, and his subsequent confidential letter no. 385, 9 July 1819, in which he described the diffi-
culty of giving an honest opinion of the merits of office-seekers because of the number of people
who saw his official letters, and in which he declared lvarez del Villar unsuited for the appoint-
ment because of bankruptcy proceedings against him. Both letters are in agi-Lima, leg. 628.
dependent upon regular and continued access to European merchandise
via the Atlantic trade, and the nature of their trade rather than their respec-
tive birthplaces was probably the critical factor in their rise to wealth and
their subsequent difficulties. It is obvious, however, that peninsular-born
merchants had an advantage over their criollo competitors when it came
to amassing a fortune: of the twenty wealthiest merchants in 1819, thirteen
had been born in Spain and only three were criollosand members of
the Santiago de Rotalde family. The birthplaces of the remaining four are
still unknown.
The consulado merchants, criollo and peninsular alike, were by defini-
tion more successful than the majority of those who earned their living
exclusively from trade. One of the most important criteria for admission
to the consulados matrcula was payment of alcabalas of at least 750 pesos
annually, or employment of a minimum capital of 12,000 pesos during the
course of the year.
65
Again, it is obvious that peninsular-born merchants
had an advantage. Of the 938 merchants whose names appear on at least
one of the lists so far located, the birthplaces of only 204 (22 percent) are
known. Of them, 126 (62 percent) were peninsulars. Educated guesses can
supply birthplaces for another 29. Of them, 19 are believed to have been
criollos. If those guesses are correct, about 45 percent of the consulado
merchants whose birthplaces are known were criollos.
66
Thus, while penin-
sulars constituted a solid majority, the fact that more than one-third of
those whose birthplaces are firmly established were criollos indicates that
merchants born in America could compete for profits from commerce with
their Spanish-born rivals in Peru.
But place of birth is not the only relevant variable to be taken into
account. Patterns of trade were also of critical importance, and in Peru there
were two dominant patterns, roughly conforming to the commerce of the
two oceans, the Atlantic and the Pacific. Following the Bourbon reforms
of the late eighteenth century, especially the Reglamento de comercio libre of
1778, the Atlantic trade was intended to be the exclusive domain of Spanish
65. Sales taxes were assessed at 6 percent of the declared value of goods; thus the 750 pesos in
alcabalas and the 12,000 pesos in capital employed were roughly equivalent.
66. Note, too, that six merchants were born in Europe outside Spain. They had obtained
citizenship and were thus eligible to trade to the colonies, and should be counted as peninsular
merchants. For the regulations regarding such cases, see Antunez de Acevedo, Memorias
histricas, and Manuela Cristina Garca Bernal, Los espaoles, hijos de extranjeros, en el
comercio indiano, 31
o
Congreso luso-espaol para el progreso de las ciencias: La burguesa mercantil
gaditana, 16501860 (Cdiz: Instituto de Estudios Gaditanos, 1976), 17382.
merchant houses, whose agents sailed to Peru with consignments of Euro-
pean manufactures, returning to the peninsula with cargoes of precious metals
and local products such as cacao and Peruvian bark. Criollo merchants,
and even peninsulars who had settled permanently in Peru, were supposedly
excluded from the Atlantic trade, but as three ships registers from 1803
reveal, the system was by no means leak-proof. Criollos were able to make
and maintain a place for themselves in the Atlantic trade, though some-
times under circumstances that could not be widely duplicated.
Between 23 January and 30 March 1803, the warship Santa Rufina and
the merchantmen Joaquina and Aurora set sail from Callao for Cdiz.
67
While not the first ships to depart at the end of the war with Britain, their
captains were besieged by merchants and others anxious to remit funds to
Spain. The warship carried only specie, but the merchantmen also admitted
commodities, principally tin, Peruvian bark, and cacao.
On the three ships of 1803, 239 individuals and five partnerships regis-
tered specie or commodities or both for Spain. By no means were all of
them matriculated in the consulado in 1779 or 1803, nor were they revealed
to have been merchants by later matrculas or consulado documents. Unless
their names appear on at least one of the five matrculas, and unless their
transactions included funds registered on their own account or that of a
Spanish merchant, they were eliminated from the list of Atlantic traders
present in Peru. Thus the 123 merchants identified in these registers as
Atlantic traders were by no means all of those involved in the intercon-
tinental trade. For example, Ignacio Santiago de Rotalde appears only as
an agent in 1803, transferring the trivial sum of 1,500 pesos to an obscure
woman
68
; his brother Manuel does not appear at all. Clearly, they used their
own ship in their transatlantic trade, and would not have been included
on the list in the absence of additional information.
69
Birthplaces are known for 53 (43 percent) of the Atlantic traders resident
in Peru in 1803. Of them, 17 (32 percent) were criollos, 35 (66 percent) were
peninsulars, and one was born in France. At least 16 of the 35 peninsulars
were married in Peru and can be considered permanent immigrants. Thirty-
three of all the 1803 Atlantic traders remained in Peru throughout the last
67. Duplicados de registros, 1803, agi-Lima, leg. 726.
68. On the banking activities of Peruvian merchants, see Alfonso Quiroz, Deudas olvidadas:
Instrumentos de crdito en la economa colonial peruana, 17501820 (Lima: Fondo Editorial,
Pontificia Universidad Catlica del Per, 1993); Mazzeo, Comercio libre en el Per, 193213.
69. Antonio Prez de Cortiguera to Ministro de Hacienda, Cdiz, 27 Jan. 1804, agi-Indif.
gen., leg. 2439; List of ships sailing from Callao for Cdiz, 18161818, agi-Indif. gen., leg. 2256
decade of Spanish rule and contributed to all three forced loans. Thus the
evidence shows that at the beginning of the nineteenth century criollos
could and did compete in the Atlantic trade with peninsular merchants
domiciled in Peru.
About two-thirds of the 123 Atlantic traders of 1803 were no longer
matriculated in the consulado of Lima by 1821. Some, of course, had died;
others had retired. Some returned to Spain as the revolutions for inde-
pendence gained momentum. But many were probably cargadores de Espaa
no longer interested in the Peruvian trade. This group of peninsular mer-
chants was resident in Spain, and it was they who attempted to monopolize
the supply of imported goods either by carrying them directly to Callao in
their own ships or by consigning them to agents resident in Peru. Taken
together, the cargadores and their agents comprised an important faction
of merchants matriculated in Limas consulado, the metropolitan merchants.
According to contemporary witnesses, they constituted the greatest obstacle
to the ability of criollos (and peninsular-born permanent residents) to
compete in the Atlantic trade because they or their principals in Spain rarely
consigned merchandise to limeos, as another faction of the consulado can
be called. The resident or limeo merchants were primarily engaged in the
Pacific trade, including re-export of European imports and the sugar-wheat
exchange between Peru and Chile. Many of them were peninsular-born
merchants who emigrated to Peru in the 1750s and 1760s. The metro-
politan merchants were either Spaniards resident in Spain or those who,
although sometimes long-term residents of Lima, were primarily engaged
in the Atlantic trade and had direct ties to merchants matriculated in the
consulado of Cdiz or other peninsular consulados. This faction included the
cargadores de Espaa, those shipowners and agents of peninsular commer-
cial houses who were only temporarily but sometimes repeatedly in Lima.
70
70. On the distinction between resident or limeo merchants and metropolitan merchants,
which does not take into account patterns of trade, see Parrn Salas, Reformas borbnicas, 172;
Mara Encarnacin Rodrguez Vicente, Notas sobre la emigracin espaola al Per a fines del
siglo xviii y comienzos del xix, Revista Internacional de Sociologa, 2
a
poca, Tomo 31, nos. 56
(1973): 35455, where she distinguishes between merchants who were already engaged in
commerce and those who are going to do so when they arrive in Peru. The latter, she says, are
the genuine immigrants. Pierre Chaunu distinguishes between the colonists on the one hand
and the peninsular and European transients on the other; see his Interpretacin de la
independencia de Amrica Latina, in La independencia en el Per, ed. Heraclio Bonilla and Jos
Matos Mar (Lima: Instituto de Estudios Peruanos, 1972), 176. See also Scarlett OPhelan Godoy,
El mito de la independencia concedida: Los programas polticos del siglo xviii y del temprano
xix en el Per y Alto Per, 17301814, in Independencia y revolucion, 17801814, 2 vols., ed. Alberto
Flores Galindo (Lima: Instituto Nacional de Cultura, 1987), 2:185. For another example of a
Who were the cargadores matriculated in the consulado? Merchants whose
residence in Lima lasted only as long as required to complete a single
business venture (which sometimes took three years) are almost invisible.
The exceptions are few, and usually depend on chance encounters with
seemingly trivial data. For example, some of the Cdiz merchants to whom
funds were consigned in 1803 had themselves made voyages to Peru, usually
as ships masters or supercargoes, but sometimes as traders to the mining
districts in the interior of the viceroyalty. Among them were Juan Miguel
de Lostra, later a partner in the powerful Aguerrevere, Lostra and Com-
pany of Cdiz, and Gaspar de Amenabar, whose brother Silvestre lived in
Peru most of his active life.
71
Some of them were probably merchants
whose names appear on only one of the five matrculas so far located. And
some of the merchants domiciled in Spain and only temporarily in Peru
can be identified in cases like those of Antonio de Avendao, Roque de
Salinas, and Manuel Lorenzo de Saldamando.
Saldamando appears in Peru only in 1803, when he was matriculated in
the consulado and consigned 78,240 pesos aboard the three ships sailing
for Spain.
72
He was probably acting as agent for Simn, Feliz, and Manuel
Pascual Gutirrez, merchants of Cdiz. The pattern of his trade indicates
that limeo merchants would have found it difficult to participate in the
Atlantic trade if they had to depend on him for supplies of European
goods. Saldamando had only one Peruvian connection, the peninsular
Matheo de Cosso, who was then serving as the consulados diputado del
similar distinction, see Anthony McFarlane, The Rebellion of the Barrios: Urban Insurrection in
Bourbon Quito, in Reform and Insurrection in Bourbon New Granada and Peru, ed. John R.
Fisher, Allan J. Kuethe, and Anthony McFarlane (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University
Press, 1990), 237.
71. Expediente relativo a la prxima eleccin . . . , 29 Dec. 1790, bnp-mss, C-1692 and C-
4151; Matrcula del Real Consulado, 1779, agnp-Consulado, leg. 1; Informe de Gaspar de
Amenabar, 30 Nov. 1784, in Libro de informes y consultas del consulado, 177996, agnp-
Hacienda colonial, leg. 1031. Silvestre, born in Guipzcoa, had been matriculated in the
consulado of Cdiz beginning in 1761; by 1779 he was in Lima and matriculated in the consulado
there. He and his brother Gaspar, who lived in Cdiz but appeared in Lima intermittently in the
1770s and 1780s, owned one of the largest businesses in the Peruvian trade: see, for example,
Registers for the Santa Rufina, Joaquina, and Aurora, 23 Jan., 1 Feb., and 30 Mar. 1803, agi-Lima,
leg. 726. In his Tradiciones peruanas completas (Madrid; Aguilar, 1964), 73233, Ricardo Palma
describes how Silvestre cornered the market for womens stockings when Spain was at war with
England.
72. Duplicados de registros, 1803, agi-Lima, leg. 726; Consulado to Manuel Jos de Aman-
darro, 26 May 1803, agnp-Hacienda colonial, leg. 1115.
Table 2: Merchants registering 50,000+ pesos for Cdiz in 1803
Name Number of Number of Amount
b
transactions
a
consignees
Grate, Juan Bautista de 97 31 325,927
c
Uriarte, Juan Antonio de 24 22 158,568
lvarez del Villar, Antonio 61 33 154,686
Moreno, Pedro 42 22 151,188
Isasi, Jos Hermenegildo 37 23 135,758
Avendao & Salinas
d
10 1 133,916
Inda, Francisco de 26 11 103,700
Elizalde Hermanos
e
70 34 101,033
Amenabar, Silvestre 14 5 100,395
Izcue, Francisco Xavier de 35 25 95,235
Gorbea y Badillo, Manuel 5 2 87,609
Saldamando, Manuel Lorenzo 31 11 78,241
Errea, Jos Antonio de 5 1 77,553
Casa y Piedra, Diego de la
f
4 2 75,500
Arias, Izcue & Company
g
16 15 75,098
Prtica, Juan de 16 11 69,408
Romn Idiquez, Jos 11 6 65,387
Zuloaga, Francisco Mara 7 4 62,701
Agero, Jacinto
h
2 1 57,408
Corts, Josef 3 2 57,252
Larreta, Mathas de 36 19 54,661
Saldamando & Garca del Ro
i
18 10 54,366
Arias, Dmaso de 14 10 51,876
2,330,466
a
Each transaction was listed separately because consignees in Spain differed, and because funds
were transferred on several persons account and at their risk (cuenta y riesgo de . . .).
b
In pesos fuertes, rounded off.
c
An additional 46,000 pesos was registered by other members of the Grate family.
d
Antonio de Avendao and Roque de Salinas were merchants of Cdiz; all the funds registered
by them on the three ships were consigned to them.
e
Includes Antonio and Jos Matas de Elizalde separately and their joint company.
f
Casa y Piedra was acting as executor of the will of the count of San Isidro, one of the wealthiest
merchants of late colonial Peru.
g
Dmaso de Arias and Francisco Xavier de Izcue.
h
Agero and Corts were alleged to have been merely couriers for the Cinco Gremios Mayores
de Madrid, whose factor, Gaspar Rico, was attempting to conceal the amount being registered by
the Gremios.
i
Manuel Lorenzo Saldamando and Antonio Garca del Ro.
comercio in Arequipa.
73
Saldamando also operated in partnership with
Antonio Garca del Ro, master of the Santa Rufina. Together, they regis-
tered 50,298 pesos on the warship and another 4,068 pesos on the Joaquina,
all belonging to merchants of Cdiz.
74
When the Santa Rufina set sail, Antonio de Avendao was on board,
and that fact alone makes his case more complex than that of Saldamando.
The warship carried only specie, and Atlantic-trade merchants who had
been unable to remit funds to their principals in Spain during the war
with Britain were clamoring to place them aboard the well-armed ship.
Avendao himself registered funds aboard both the Santa Rufina and the
Joaquina, and he as well as other merchants consigned funds to him for
delivery in Cdiz.
75
Moreover, he was operating in partnership with Roque
de Salinas, who had been in Peru in 1780 and again in 1790, but whose name
does not appear on any of the matrculas located so far.
76
The partnership
was consignee for 103,916 pesos in funds from Peru, none of it belonging
to a criollo merchant. On separate registers, six individuals in Peru consigned
30,000 to Salinas in first place.
77
Eight people, including Avendao, named
him as consignee in second place, for a total of 166,338. Only one of those
fourteen people, Diego de Aliaga y Santa Cruz, was a criollo merchant.
78
73. Cosso, born near Santander, went to Arequipa in 1758, where he built the splendid
mansion next to the cathedral. In 1795, he was named to a post in the Chucuito treasury, which he
was permitted to serve by proxy. See Jos de la Riva Agero, El Per histrico y artstico: Influencia
y descendencia de los montaeses en l (Santander: J. Martnez, 1921), 127; Ricardo Magdaleno,
comp., Catlogo XX: Ttulos de Indias (Valladolid: Archivo General de Simancas, 1954), 624.
74. Funds belonging to a given individual were registered at his cuenta y riesgo whether he
himself signed the register or his funds were transferred for him by another agent who had
possession of them when the register was drawn up.
75. Avendao registered a total of 52,636 pesos consigned to himself at his own cuenta y riesgo.
He also registered funds belonging to three other merchants, who consigned 9,676 pesos to him.
Duplicados de registros, 1803, agi-Lima, leg. 726.
76. Salinas attended a Junta de navieros in 1780 and was involved in the dispute over the
consulados matricula in 1790: Acta, Junta de navieros, 18 Nov. 1780, Libro de juntas del Real
Tribunal del Consulado desde 1770 hasta 1788, agnp-Hacienda colonial, leg. 907; Expediente
relativo a la prxima eleccin . . . , 29 Dec. 1790, bnp-mss, C-1692.
77. Merchants registering funds for Spain usually named several consignees, specifying that
funds were to be delivered to those designated in second or third place if the principal were
absent. In the case of partnerships, merchants in Peru sometimes named one in first place and
the other in second. It appears from such data that Salinas was also associated with Bartolom de
Ayala of Cdiz; 79,000 pesos consigned to Salinas in second place were for Ayala in the first
instance. Duplicados de registros, 1803, agi-Lima, leg. 726.
78. Acta, Junta general de tribunales, 15 July 1819, MenP-Pezuela, Sig. 4, q. 6. Aliaga, scion of
one of the oldest criollo families, was actively involved in the independence movement prior to
San Martins invasion in 1820: Lohmann Villena, Los americanos, 2:267; Joaqun de la Pezuela,
Memoria de gobierno, ed. Vicente Rodrguez Casado and Guillermo Lohmann Villena (Sevilla:
Escuela de Estudios Hispano-Americanos, 1947), 59293.
Clearly, peninsular merchants only temporarily in Peru accounted for
large sums of commercial capital, but Atlantic-trade merchants resident in
Peru accounted for more. Of the twenty-one individuals and four partner-
ships registering funds in excess of 50,000 pesos aboard the three ships,
five were not residents of Peru.
79
They accounted for only 19 percent of
the funds remitted by those registering more than 50,000 pesos. By way
of contrast, Juan Bautista de Grate y Zelayeta alone was responsible for
registering almost 326,000 pesos, or about 14 percent of the total remitted
by this group of merchants; an additional 46,000 pesos were registered by
other members of the Grate family. Grates pattern of trade illustrates
important characteristics of the newly arrived metropolitan merchants
resident in Peru with whom the limeos had to compete.
Grate died before the quotas for the forced loan of 1819 were assigned,
and his heirs were required to contribute only 2,000 pesos. In 1803, however,
he was one of the most powerful merchants in Peru, and as such had
served as both prior and consul of the consulado. He maintained offices in
Lima, Cuzco, Arequipa, La Paz, and Cochabamba in addition to his
correspondents in Cdiz. Born in Urdas, Navarra, he had gone to Peru
before 1770 and had established himself as a bullion merchant. Bullion
merchants were usually refiners as well, and Grate was no exception. He
owned Hacienda de Tingo near Arequipa, where silver ores were combined
with mercury in the refining process. Besides silver, he traded in raw cotton,
chocolate and cacao, wine, wax, hosiery, Peruvian bark, cloth and clothing,
spices, and confections. Much of his merchandise was imported from Europe,
but some was produced in America.
80
It would indeed have been difficult for a limeo merchant to compete
with Grates house, either in the Atlantic trade or the trade to the
interior of the viceroyalty. In the first place, his credit was such that he
dealt with no fewer than thirty-one merchant houses in Spain, giving him
considerable control over supply to his chosen market. Second, he selected
79. They were Antonio de Avendao, Avendaos partnership with Salinas, Juan Antonio de
Uriarte, master of the Aurora, Manuel Lorenzo de Saldamando, and Saldamandos partnership
with Antonio Garca del Ro.
80. Prorrata de los 400,000 pesos, 1819, agnp-Consulado, leg. 34; Grate to Juan Pedro
Zelayeta, 5 Jan. 1814, bnp-mss: Correspondencia (letters are indexed by names of senders and
recipients), where he mentions that he sold Tingo to Bernardo Gamio for 42,996 pesos; will of
Juan Bautista de Grate, 20 Apr. 1770, agnp-Notario Juan Bautista Tenorio y Palacios; Mendiburu,
Diccionario, vols. 5, 339, and 11, 426; Grate to Zelayeta, 25 Nov. 1792, bnp-mss: Correspondencia;
Razn de los efectos existentes, Cuzco, Nov. 1778, bnp-mss, C-3904; Grate to Juan de Goyeneche,
21 Mar. 1801, bnp-mss: Correspondencia.
81. But compare the powerful merchant house of Elizalde, Larreta y Cia., founded in 1786
and lasting until 1792, where the associates were not members of an extended family but natives
of Navarra, Spain; in their case, regional ties were crucial: Deolinda Mercedes Villa Esteves,
Liderazgo y poder: La lite comercial limea entre el comercio libre y la guerra de la
independencia. El caso de Antonio de Elizalde, in Mazzeo de Viv, ed., Comerciantes limeos,
14950. This was a pattern common to other regions of Spanish America: see John E. Kicza,
Colonial Entrepreneurs, Families, and Business in Bourbon Mexico City (Albuquerque: University of
New Mexico Press, 1983), 5152; Susan M. Socolow, The Merchants of Buenos Aires, 17781810:
Family and Commerce (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978), 18, 5253, 16971. Zelayeta
was active in the affairs of the consulado through the end of the colonial period, and was still in
Peru in September 1825: Actas del Consulado de Lima, 181624, agnp-Consulado, leg. 24; Gaceta
del Gobierno de Lima Independiente, 3:829; Gaceta del Gobierno . . . Bolvar, 1:392; cdip-Tomo 21,
1:37778, 403; Razn de efectos existentes, Arequipa, July 1790, bnp-mss, C-4151. Irigoyen
supplied Grate with goods produced locally, especially rough cloth. He also dealt in Peruvian
bark. Grate registered 4,017 pesos cuenta y riesgo of Irigoyen, consigned to Martina de Moliner.
Duplicados de registros, 1803, agi-Lima, leg. 726.
82. Razn de los efectos existentes, Arequipa, July 1790, bnp-mss, C-4151; Expediente
relativo a la prxima eleccin . . . , 29 Dec. 1790, bnp-mss, C-1692; Duplicados de registros, 1803,
agi-Lima, leg. 726; Lohmann Villena, Los americanos, 1:17980, 2:280; Pedro Jos Rada y Gamio,
El arzobispo Goyeneche y apuntes para la historia del Per (Rome: Imprenta Poliglota Vaticana,
1917), 59.
his associates in Peru in accord with the time-honored custom of distrust
of strangers; family ties were important to the organization and structure
of his business. For example, Grates cousin, Juan Pedro de Zelayeta, was
his junior partner. Some of the merchandise that Grate sold on credit to
miners was supplied by his nephew, Juan Miguel de Irigoyen. Grate then
acted as banker for Irigoyens transfers of funds to Spain.
81
Grates transatlantic network depended upon a similar set of
relationships. Another supplier for Grate was Juan Miguel de Lostra, a
peninsular merchant then temporarily in Peru. Soon after 1793, Lostra
returned to Cdiz, where he formed a partnership with Juan Josef and
Juan Miguel de Aguerrevere. The Aguerrevere family of merchants was
related to the Goyeneche family of Arequipa; the family patriarch had
migrated to Peru in 1765, and married into the Barreda y Benavides
family. Grate handled most of their transatlantic business. The
Goyeneche-Barreda-Benavides connection was responsible for the fact
that Grate consigned a total of 101,443 pesos to Aguerrevere y Lostra;
this amount represented almost 31 percent of all the funds he transferred
to Spain aboard the three ships of 1803. Of this, 18,441 pesos belonged to
Grate himself, and none of his own money was entrusted to any of the
other merchant houses in Spain with which he did business.
82
Like other peninsular-born merchants resident in late colonial Lima,
Grate was the nexus of a complex system of commercial relationships
Table 3: Juan Bautista de Grates consignees in Spain, 1803
Name
a
(* = Those to whom only Grate consigned funds) Amount
b
Aguerrevere, Lostra & Co. 101,443
Bartolom de Alzasua* 39,869
Paul Larrieta & Co. 24,606
Joaqun Pico de Villanueva 17,000
Viuda de Istrriz Hijos 13,404
Francisco de Barreda y Benavides 12,400
Jos Manuel de Goyeneche y Barreda 11,400
Micaela & Martina Molinar, & Juan Francisco Espelosn
c
11,374
Juan Miguel Aguerrevere 11,000
Wenceslao Helme 10,351
Victorio Iigo 10,000
Jos Ignacio de Hemas
d
10,000
Santiago Cristbal Castaeto 8,413
Ventura Lacomba 6,788
Juan Bautista Chayrasco* 6,191
Manuel Pascual Gutirrez
e
5,000
Juan Mara Bialet 5,000
Martnez, Padre Hijo 3,851
Juan de Tresierra 3,000
Juan de Borda Ilzauspea 2,985
Juan Francisco de Veamurgua 2,374
Gaspar de Amenabar & Fermn Ramn de Barrera 2,249
Jaime Fourrat* 1,465
Juan Bautista Rapallo 1,146
Viuda de Guilln 1,000
Fermn Ramn de Barrera 1,000
Ramn Tobar* 1,000
Juan Francisco Veamurgua & Pedro Martnez Murgua 769
Manuel de Tejada y Hermoso* 400
Pedro Martnez Murgua* 361
Bernardo Mara Mrquez* 88
a
The list does not include those to whom Grate consigned funds in second or third place.
b
Figures are rounded off to the nearest peso.
c
Juan Francisco Espelosn was in Peru in 1806, and was active in the affairs of the consulado:
agi-Lima, legajo 1549.
d
Grates consignment to Hemas was composed entirely of funds belonging to the heirs of Juan
Segalas. Pedro Moreno consigned another 42,906 pesos belonging to the same estate to Hemas,
who was Segalas executor. Juan Antonio de Uriarte, master of the Aurora, registered 6,897 pesos,
cuenta y riesgo of Hemas, which may also have been part of Segalas estate.
e
These funds were consigned to Simn Gutirrez in second place; Simn had been in Cuzco in
1778, in charge of Grates office: Razn de los efectos existentes, November 1778, bnp-mss,
legajo C-3904.
extending into the interior of Peru and across the Atlantic to Spain.
83
In
1803, no fewer than ninety-seven separate transactions were required to
handle his business on only three ships. Nine people in Peru used his services
to transfer funds to Spain; thirty-one people in Spain were designated as
consignees for those funds. None was a criollo merchant matriculated in
the consulado of Lima. Grate, like other consulado merchants, seldom if
ever registered funds for his peers, either criollo or peninsular. Instead, he
worked with merchants like Irigoyen or Pablo Iribarren, who were not yet
wealthy enough to be matriculated in the Lima consulado.
As a result of trading patterns like that of Grate, it was extremely
difficult for criollo merchants to participate in the Atlantic trade, and the
matter of consignments became a critical issue in their eyes. If peninsular
merchants resident in Peru refused to form alliances with criollos, then
the latter had to maintain, somehow, direct relationships with peninsular
merchants domiciled in Spain. This they found difficult to do. The problem
was not always the fact that the cargadores de Espaa or the owners of
Spanish merchant houses consigned goods to only one agent in Peru, as a
glance at Table 4 makes clear. No fewer than sixteen persons in Peru in
addition to his brother Silvestre dealt with Gaspar de Amenabar. Aguerre-
vere y Lostra dealt with nine. Of the forty-five individuals or merchant
houses in Spain named as consignees for more than 19,000 pesos, six had
only one correspondent in Peru. But exclusive representation could also be
a problem, channeling imports from many peninsular sources through only
one agent. The Elizalde brothers, for example, dealt with twenty-one mer-
chant houses in Spain, and all but one of them consigned goods to them alone.
Could criollos make a place for themselves in the Atlantic trade? Jorge
Juan and Antonio de Ulloa, writing in 1746, insisted that they could.
84
Seventy years later, after the Reglamento de comercio libre of 1778 had declared
the Atlantic trade closed to Americans, Jos de la Riva Agero disagreed.
In 1816 Riva Agero, a criollo office-seeker who later served as a president
of independent Peru, described the frustration of well-born criollos who
had to compete with metropolitan merchants in Peru:
United, they conspire against the Americans, and are their
perpetual rivals in matrimony and in commercial enterprise.
83. Compare the network of the still more powerful Isidro Abarca y Gutirrez de Cosso,
count of San Isidro, in Flores, Destino manifiesto de un mercader, esp. 12325.
84. Juan and Ulloa, Discourse and Political Reflections, 22021.
TABLE 4: Destination of funds consigned to Spain aboard three ships, 1803
a
Consignee in Spain Amount
b
Consignors in Peru
Gaspar de Amenabar 275,700 Silvestre de Amenabar
Josef Ruiz
Andrs Pereyro Hormelo
Andrs Revoredo
Antonio Escolano y Concha
Matas Rodrguez
Jos Ramn Idiquez
Marcos Parrondo
Miguel Fernando Ruiz
Lorenzo A. de la Madrid
Francisco Mara Zuloaga
Juan Bautista de Grate
Agustn Caldas
Sebastin de Ugarriza
Jos Ignacio Iriarte
Juan Jos de Rubio
Luis Santiago de Rotalde
Cinco Gremios Mayores 237,074 Fernando del Mazo
Ramn Cavallero
Gaspar Rico y Angulo
Antonio Ortiz de Taranco
Gregorio Fernndez
Elizalde Hermanos
Paulino Dominguez
Mariano Arriaga
Jos Pascual de Vivero
Aguerrevere, Lostra & Co. 131,084 Bernab Valds
Pedro Jos de Espinosa
Juan Bautista de Grate
Miguel de Grate
Francisco de Inda
Toms Ortiz de Zevallos
Baltasar de Laya y Llano
Domingo de Zepeda
Ambrosio Ibez
Juan A. Snchez de Cueto
c
107,500 Diego de la Casa y Piedra
Luis de Albo y Cabada
Francisco de la Fragua
Bartolom Lopetedi 95,553 Jos Antonio de Sarria
Jos Antonio de Errea
Antonio Fernndez
continued next page
Avendao, Salinas & Co. 95,535 Antonio de Avendao
Juan & Antonio Macho
Juan de Prtica
Jos Manuel Brito
Pedro Villacampa
Bartolom Ayala 88,241 Silvestre Amenabar
Agustn Dorca
Francisco Lizardi
Francisco Gil
Manuel Gorbea y Badillo
Jos Gorbea y Badillo
Juan Francisco Espelosn 82,195 Francisco Xavier del Campo
Juan & Antonio Macho
Antonio lvarez del Villar
Francisco Vsquez de Uzieda
Angel Toms de lfaro
Josef Saldivar
Ximenez Texada, Garca & Co. 79,879 Ramn de Soz
Jos Po Garca
Jos Correa
Pedro Moreno
Antonio de Avendao 62,312 Antonio de Avendao
Diego de Aliaga y Santa Cruz
Juan de Prtica
Martn de Guisasola
Paul Larrieta & Co. 60,607 Juan Bautista de Grate
Jos Hermenegildo Isasi
Jos Ignacio Hemas 59,803 Juan Bautista de Grate
Pedro Moreno
Diego Palacio
d
57,408 Jacinto Agero
a
Includes only those who received more than 50,000 pesos aboard the three ships, as tabulated
from the Duplicados de registros, 1803, agi-Lima, legajo 726. Because of the multitude of sources
from which it is drawn, additional information about merchants cannot be footnoted here.
b
c
All funds consigned to Snchez de Cueto were cuenta y riesgo of the estate of Juan Gmez
Pomar, who had been born in Santander and whose brother Jos traveled to Peru at least once.
d
Funds consigned to Palacio in Madrid were placed in escrow by the directors of the Cinco
Gremios Mayores. They believed that Agero had registered funds that rightfully belonged to
the Gremios.
TABLE 4 (cont.): Destination of funds consigned to Spain aboard three ships, 1803
a
Consignee in Spain Amount
b
Consignors in Peru
Because the latter is exclusively theirs thanks to the ties of friend-
ship, family, and province, the Americans remain in a certain sense
excluded from this lucrative trade, and without the credit necessary
to prosper at the level of their rivals. The poverty of Americans is
directly related to the distance from their Spanish fathers, grand-
fathers, or great-grandfathers; thus it is rare that a fortune survives
to the grandson. . . . The [peninsulars] enjoy the protection of
their countrymen, the Spanish governors; . . . the [criollos] lack
protection and do not know the merchants of the peninsula who
remit their goods on consignment.
85
Analysis of the three ships registers of 1803 confirms Riva Ageros
perception that peninsulars dominated the Atlantic trade, and that the
sons of peninsular merchants enjoyed an advantage, too, if only a slight
one. Of the seventeen criollo Atlantic traders identified from their activity
in 1803 (Table 5), nine were first-generation Americans. But five were from
old criollo families.
86
Indeed, Diego de Aliaga y Santa Cruz traced his
paternal lineage back to the daughter of one of the first conquistadors of
Peru.
87
Thus distance from the Spanish forebear is an inadequate expla-
nation of criollo marginalization in the Atlantic trade.
Nor is lack of capital an adequate explanation. All of the criollo
merchants matriculated in the consulado were wealthy, compared with the
majority of merchants, peninsular and criollo alike. Furthermore, eight of
the seventeen criollo Atlantic traders were shipowners, and therefore not
necessarily dependent upon consignments from peninsular merchant houses.
Like the Santiago de Rotalde brothers, they could have sailed directly to
Spain in search of European goods, provided that a family member was
matriculated as a merchant in the peninsula. Nor is it likely that they
85. Riva Agero, Manifestacin histrica y poltica, 89. On the importance of family and
regional networks in launching and maintaining a commercial career, see the essays in Mazzeo de
Viv, ed., Comerciantes limeos. Another factor in the decline of commercial fortunes from
founder to the third generation was Spanish inheritance law, which stipulated that fortunes were
to be divided equally among all the children of a family, male and female: Socolo, Merchants of
Buenos Aires, 3133.
86. The first-generation criollos were Comparet y Blacader, Larriva, Ortiz de Zevallos,
Palacios Aguirre, Prez de Cortiguera, Quirs, Santiago de Rotalde, and the counts of Premio
Real and Villar de Fuente. From old criollo families were Albo y Cabada, Aliaga y Santa Cruz,
Querejaz y Santiago Concha, Ramrez de Laredo, and Vsquez de Larriva. The birthplace of
Jos Vsquez de Olmedo, father of Vsquez de Uzieda, and those of the fathers of Rodrguez and
Ruiz Dvila have not been located.
87. He was Gernimo de Aliaga: Mendiburu, Diccionario, 1:22030.
lacked capital or credit to invest in imports. A merchant who owned a ship
large enough to be counted a naviero was already unusually successful;
thus it is important to know something about how the criollo might have
acquired the ship.
Not surprisingly, four of the criollo shipowners are known to have had
wealthy fathers. The count of Villar de Fuente was the son of a former
prior of the consulado. Santiago de Rotaldes father also played an impor-
tant role in the affairs of the merchant guild. Both Villar de Fuente and
Santiago de Rotalde may have inherited their first ships: their fathers
were also shipowners.
88
Ramrez de Arellano, count of San Javier, and the
88. Mendiburu, Diccionario, 11:425. Luis de Santiago was one of the thirty electors in 1780, and
attended many of the meetings of the consulado between 1770 and 1788: Representacin del Real
Consulado . . . , 22 Aug. 1787, agi-Lima, leg. 1548; Libro de juntas, 17701778, agnp-Hacienda
colonial, leg. 907.
Table 5: Criollo Atlantic traders in Peru, 1803
Name Birthplace Amount registered
a
Albo y Cabada, Luis Manuel de Lima 32,000
Aliaga y Santa Cruz, Diego de Lima 8,000
Comparet y Blacader, Juan Antonio Lima 27,236
Gonzlez de la Fuente, Jos Manuel
b
Lima 14,000
Larriva, Vicente de Lima 4,000
Lavalle y Corts, Jos Antonio de
c
Trujillo 378
Ortiz de Zevallos, Toms Guayaquil 8,000
Palacios Aguirre, Jos Ignacio Santiago 20,000
Prez de Cortiguera, Martn Jos Lima 12,940
Querejaz y Santiago Concha, Agustn
d
Buenos Aires 46,422
Quirs, Francisco Antonio
e
Cerro de Pasco 900
Ramrez de Laredo, Gaspar Antonio
f
Santiago 1,823
Rodrguez, Miguel Concepcin 2,187
Ruiz Dvila, Juan Lima 3,189
Santiago de Rotalde, Ignacio Lima 1,500
Vsquez de Larriva, Mariano
g
Lima 1,000
Vsquez de Uzieda, Francisco
h
Lima 44,800
a
b
Count of Villar de Fuente and, after his fathers death in 1804, also count of Fuente Gonzlez.
c
Count of Premio Real; the small sum registered on these ships does not reflect his importance.
d
Querejazs parents were both born in Peru. He was also fundidor mayor of Limas Casa de
Moneda, and by 1803 was among the leading merchants of Peru, though not matriculated in the
consulado.
e
Son of the peninsular-born administrator-general of the Mining Tribunal.
f
Count of San Javier.
g
Son of Francisco Vsquez de Uzieda, who follows.
h
Prior of the consulado, 18031804. He had been cnsul in 17911794.
count of Premio Real had fathers who were corregidores, while the latter
himself served as corregidor of Piura.
89
Three of the shipowners were
engaged in one of the most active trades open to merchants in Lima, the
sugar-wheat exchange with Chile.
90
Except for Santiago de Rotalde and
the slave-trading count of Premio Real, however, none of the criollo
shipowners is known to have used his own ship in the transatlantic trade.
Instead, each of them registered funds on other ships sailing for Spain.
Thus it appears that the accumulation of adequate capital to invest in
imports was an important factor in gaining a place in the Atlantic trade,
as Riva Agero suggested. Ownership of a large ship was an indication of
the criollos credit-worthiness. But unless the criollo had a direct family tie
to the consulado merchants of Spaina brother, perhaps, or an uncle
participation in the Atlantic trade remained unlikely.
Nevertheless, the data suggests that many criollos did become wealthy
from trade in spite of the strictures imposed by the Reglamento de comercio
libre. By what means, besides inheritance, could a criollo merchant accu-
mulate enough capital to secure a place in the consulado? No adequate
answer is yet available because the careers of merchants prior to qualifying
for matriculation remain obscure, and their profits from participation in
the ubiquitous contraband trade cannot be accurately assessed. But one factor
was clearly important: the ability to borrow money to invest in modest
commercial ventures that, little by little (and sometimes quite suddenly),
yielded profits that permitted an aspiring merchant, criollo or peninsular-
born, to expand his business.
One of the principal activities of successful merchants in late colonial
Peru was banking. By lending capital to each other and to less affluent
merchantsusually family members or men from the same region of Spain
they could earn 6 percent interest. By borrowing money, well-connected
new merchants could begin a career that might carry them to the summits
of viceregal wealth and power. Isidro de Abarca y Gutirrez de Cosso,
count of San Isidro and one of the most powerful merchants of late
colonial Peru, got his start in trade by accumulating capital in the form of
loans. He later became an important source of commercial capital for other
89. Simancas, Catlogo XX, 540, 587, 602, 603; Genealoga hombres de mayo, Revista del
Instituto Argentino de Ciencias Genealgicas (1961), 209; Juan Luis Espejo, Nobiliario de la Capitana
General de Chile (Santiago: Editorial Andrs Bello, 1967), 5034.
90. They were Jos Ignacio de Palacios, Vicente de Larriva, and the count of San Javier:
Consulado to Viceroy, 23, 28 Mar. 1819, amre-Libro MS 2-17; Junta de dueos de navos del
trfico de este Mar del Sur, 6 Sept. 1776, agnp-Hacienda colonial, leg. 907; Febres Villaroel,
Crisis agrcola, 175.
merchants.
91
Bureaucrats and landowners also participated in the credit
markets. The case of the count of Zelada de la Fuente, who loaned money
and his signature to an unnamed Chilean merchant, was fairly typical. This
was a risky business, however; even small inventories did not always sell
quickly, and some could not be disposed of at all. Thus debt collection often
depended on supplying the borrower with new merchandise, also on credit.
92
Riva Agero suggested yet another way in which new merchants could
accumulate capital: peninsular merchants, he complained, were perpetual
rivals in matrimony. This was not the comment of a disappointed lover;
it was embedded in a paragraph about the system by which criollos were
excluded from the most lucrative branches of trade. Marrying a wealthy
criolla woman with an ample dowry provided a new merchant with the
means to invest in the inventories essential to his success.
93
Writing in the
middle of the eighteenth century, Jorge Juan and Antonio de Ulloa reported
that newly arrived Spaniards, some from very humble backgrounds, could
expect to acquire money from dowries and thereafter increase their
profits.
94
From Juan and Ulloa to Riva Agero, there is persistent testi-
mony to the fact that peninsular immigrants were preferred to criollos as
husbands for the daughters of well-to-do families. One padre de familia
imported young men specifically for the purpose of marrying his four
daughters, who were not renowned for their beauty or charm. Juan Miguel
Castaeda, who migrated to Peru from Viscaya in 1767, offered a generous
dowry to the young men; one of them, Joaqun de Asin, got his start in
Peru with the 10,000 pesos supplied by his father-in-law, with whom he
later established a textile factory.
95
In spite of the difficulties of breaking into the system that promoted
capital accumulation, at least some criollos were able to do so, as the data
on their ability to secure places in the consulado attests. Again, we know
too little about how they did so to be able to generalize. We do know,
anecdotally, that ambitious criollos employed some ingenious strategies to
improve their fortunes. One of the more interesting cases involved a criollo
91. Flores, Destino manifiesto de un mercader, 93, 9597.
92. Abascal to Ministro de Hacienda, no. 523, 8 Mar. 1811, agi-Indif. gen., leg. 1623.
93. For examples of this pattern, see the portraits of individual merchants in Mazzeo de Viv,
ed., Comerciantes limeos. Socolow, Merchants of Buenos Aires, 4143, points out that in Buenos
Aires dowries were less important than the wifes social connections to established merchants.
94. Juan and Ulloa, Discourse and Political Reflections, 227.
95. Alberto Flores Galindo, Aristocracia y plebe, Lima, 17601830: Estructura de clases y sociedad
colonial (Lima: Mosca Azul Editores, 1984), 71, 78; will of Joaqun de Asin, 25 Aug. 1820, agnp-
Notarios.
who took advantage of a loan, a partnership formed with family and
friends, an acquaintance with a cargador de Espaa, an opportunity to sail
for Spain as a member of a ships crew, and his marriage to succeed in his
chosen profession.
By 1819, the first-generation criollo Martn Jos Prez de Cortiguera
was one of the wealthiest merchants in Peru.
96
He had none of the
advantages of inherited wealth, however. His father, Antonio Prez de
Cortiguera, had been born in Spain, and was apparently one of those poor
peninsulares, described by Juan and Ulloa, who migrated to the towns of
the interior of Peru and set themselves up in trade.
97
Unlike some of his
competitors, he did not marry a wealthy Peruvian woman; his wife had no
dowry, and when he married her, his own capital amounted to no more
than 2,500 pesos. But when Antonio made his will in 1804, he declared
that he was worth 50,000 to 60,000 pesos, including the value of the two
houses he owned, and he attributed his wealth to the aid given him by
Martn Jos.
98
Thus it was the criollo son rather than the peninsular
father who made the familys fortune.
How did Prez de Cortiguera raise the capital necessary to begin his
ascent? As far as is known, his father had no business relationship with a
merchant house of Cdiz that the son could have inherited. Instead, in
1803 Martn Jos secured the position of paymaster (maestre de plata)
aboard the merchantman Castor, which anchored in Cdiz on 21 June
1803. Shortly before sailing, he formed a company with his father and four
friends, each of whom contributed capital to the enterprise. Prez de Corti-
guera himself borrowed 30,555 pesos to invest in the venture.
99
The loan appeared to be well secured. His contract as maestre de plata
called for payment of a commission of 0.5 percent on the 611,100 pesos
belonging to the royal treasury and shipped to Spain aboard the Castor. It
was enough to cover his loan. He intended to invest in Castilian goods,
using the merchant house of Francisco de Paula Canibell as his principal
96. Prorrata de los 400,000 pesos, 1819, agnp-Consulado, leg. 34.
97. Juan and Ulloa, Discourse and Political Reflections, 21819, 228. Antonios attendance at the
Junta de comercio of 7 Dec. 1778, where provincial merchants protested imposition of the alcabala
de reventas, plus the fact that he was not matriculated in the consulado in 1779, indicate that he
was only moderately successful as a merchant.
98. Will of Antonio Prez de Cortiguera, 8 Feb. 1804, agnp-Notario Figueroa, 1804.
99. The friends were Patricio Quebeda, Agustn Bustillos de la Concha, Damian de Arteta,
and Juan Navarro y Acaro. Only Arteta was matriculated in the consulado. Consulado to
Amandarro, 26 May 1803, agnp-Hacienda colonial, leg. 1115; Duplicados de registros, 1803, agi-
Lima, leg. 726; Prez de Cortiguera to Crown, 27 Jan. 1804, agi-Indif. gen., leg. 2439.
supplier. Canibell had been in Peru in 1786 and 1787, and possibly once or
twice thereafter.
100
Prez de Cortiguera may have become acquainted with
him then.
Shortly after his arrival in Cdiz, Prez de Cortiguera delivered the
government funds entrusted to him to the General Treasury office, expecting
to be paid his commission promptly. To his chagrinindeed, panicthe
money was not forthcoming. The treasury alleged that Prez de Corti-
gueras contract was not valid as written, and that no such commission
was due him. In January 1804, he was still without the funds he had counted
on investing. In an urgent letter to the minister of finance, he again
petitioned for payment, describing the difficulties in which he and his
associates had been placed by the treasurys refusal to honor his contract.
101
His case, along with those of three other maestres de plata with identical
contracts written in Peru (including, fatefully, Jos Santiago de Rotalde),
102
went to the Council of the Indies. Two more years were required before
the matter was favorably settled. Finally, on Christmas Eve 1806, Prez de
Cortiguera embarked on the return trip to Peru, merchandise in hand.
103
From that time forth, his fortunes improved remarkably. He married
the daughter of Manuel Santiago de Rotalde. By 1816 he had been appointed
one of twenty-two apoderados del comercio de Cdiz resident in Lima. By
1817 he owned his own ship, and by 1819 only two merchants matriculated
in the consulado of Limaone of them his wifes uncle, Ignacio Santiago
de Rotaldewere judged to be wealthier than he was.
104
Not everyone, of course, could marry into the Santiago de Rotalde family,
but marriage was not the only means of raising capital. Prez de Corti-
gueras case suggests other entrepreneurial strategies that criollos could
100. Representacin del Real Consulado . . . , 22 Aug. 1787, agi-Lima, leg. 1548.
101. Prez de Cortiguera to Ministro de Hacienda, Cdiz, 27 Jan. 1804, agi-Indif. gen., leg.
2439. His problems were undoubtedly related to the unusually difficult fiscal situation in Spain:
see Jacques Barbier, Peninsular Finance and Colonial Trade: The Dilemma of Charles IVs
Spain, Journal of Latin American Studies 12 (1980): 2137.
102. The others were Simn de Agreda, master of the Fuente Hermosa, and Ramn de
Larreta, master of the Joaquina. Prez de Cortiguera to Ministro de Hacienda, Cdiz, 27 Jan.
1804, agi-Indif. gen., leg. 2439.
103. Registro de pasajeros, fragata Hermosa Mexicana, Cdiz, 24 Dec. 1806, agi-Indif. gen.,
leg. 2172.
104. Mendiburu, Diccionario, 10:75; Apoderados del comercio de Cdiz to Prior y Cnsules,
Real consulado de Lima, 25 June 1816, agnp-Hacienda colonial, leg. 1227; Acta, Junta de navieros,
14 Jan. 1817, agnp-Consulado, leg. 24; Prorrata de los 400,000 pesos, 1819, agnp-Consulado, leg.
34. Two other merchants, Martn de Aramburu and Francisco Javier de Izcue, were judged to be
as wealthy as Prez de Cortiguera.
have employed, even ones that would have permitted them to make a
place for themselves in the Atlantic trade. Why did not other criollo
merchants establish relationships with one or more of the many cargadores
de Espaa who carried goods to Callao after the Reglamento de comercio
libre took effect? Could not consignments have been won by that means,
especially by criollos who had inherited wealth, or who had earned it in
the sugar-wheat exchange? There seem to be very few cases where such
opportunities were seized. Diego de Aliaga y Santa Cruz was associated
with Avendao, Salinas and Company, doubtless because both partners made
voyages to Peru. Vicente de Larriva dealt with Estevan Ventura Mestre,
who had been in Peru at least once before 1803. The criollo prior of the
consulado, Francisco Vsquez de Uzieda, did not need to rely on chance
acquaintances with cargadores, but at least one of the Cdiz merchants to
whom he consigned funds made repeated trips to Peru.
105
Analysis of more ships registers will certainly reveal more such contacts.
Meanwhile, it is important to realize that by this means at least a few
criollos could and did establish themselves in the Atlantic trade in spite of
Spanish strictures against it. It is also possible that direct acquaintance
was not necessary: in 1803, Jos Ignacio de Palacios Aguirre consigned 15,000
pesos to Francisco de Iriarte,
106
and there is as yet no evidence that Iriarte
was ever in Peru. Nor is there evidence of a voyage to Spain by Palacios.
In any case, the Atlantic trade was not Palacios principal interest.
Palacios was born in Santiago, Chile, but spent most of his adult life in
Lima. He acquired his fortune in the wheat trade, but his association with
Iriarte suggests that he may also have been trading directly with Asia.
Both trades were consistently profitable. In 1819, Palacios wealth was such
that, in addition to his quota of 2,000 pesos in the forced loan, he was
able to lend the government 90,000 pesos to help finance the war against
the Chilean rebels. Even in 1823, he retained enough of his fortune to provide
Perus independent government with a loan of 200,000 pesos in the form
of cash and supplies.
107
105. Duplicados de registros, 1803, agi-Lima, leg. 726; Jos Agustn de la Puente Candamo,
Historia martima del Per: La independencia, 17901826, 2 vols. (Lima: Editorial Ausonia, 1975),
2:16874; Razn individual de los pleytos decididos por el consulado de Lima, 26 May 1804, agi-
Lima, leg. 1549; Duplicados de registros, 1803, agi-Lima, leg. 726.
106. Duplicados de registros, 1803, agi-Lima, leg. 726.
107. El conde de Torre Alegre, la Compaa de comercio Uztriz, San Gins, y Jos Matas
de Elizalde con Francisco Iriarte, vecino de Cdiz, sobre pertenencia de 200,000 y ms pesos,
Cdiz, 1796, ahn-Consejos suprimidos, leg. 20243: Apelaciones de la Casa de Contratacin;
Pruebas de Jos Ignacio de Palacios Aguirre, Orden de Calatrava, 1805, ahn-rdenes militares,
Jos Ignacio de Palacios y Aguirre and Juan Bautista de Grate between
them personify two important types of merchants in late colonial Peru,
around which factions of the consulado tended to coalesce. Merchants like
them who engaged in the Pacific trade centered on the sugar-wheat exchange
and the entrept trade on the one hand, or else in the trade to the interior
focused on importation of Castilian goods and the bullion trade, were
reputed to be among the wealthiest in Peru. The former was largely the
province of criollos, and formed the core of the Pacific interprovincial trade.
The latter was an integral part of the intercontinental system, and was
dominated by peninsular-born merchants trading to Peru in accord with
the provisions of the Reglamento de comercio libre of 1778. But the Regla-
mento was by no means the only reform that compromised the ability of
limeos to profit from a career in commerce. Because commerce and
governance were so enmeshed one with the other, commercial grievances
could and did give rise to political crises, many of them provoked by the
Bourbon reforms of the last decades of the eighteenth century.
Calatrava, 74 moderno; Consulado to Viceroy, 28 Mar. 1819, in Informes del tribunal del consulado,
181820, amre-Libro MS 2-17; Mariano Felipe Paz Soldn, Historia del Peru independiente,
18221827 (Madrid: Editorial-Amrica, 1919), 34142.
After Spains humiliating defeat in the Seven Years War (175763), when
the British had occupied Havana and Manila, a series of territorial, commer-
cial, and tax reforms brought significant change to the viceroyalty of Peru.
One goal of the reforms was to reduce the power of colonial elites that had
become obstacles to effective control and exploitation of Spains American
colonies.
1
In the viceroyalty of Peru, the resident merchants matriculated
in the consulado of Lima were a principal target of the reformers. During
the first half of the eighteenth century, they had constructed close-knit
family networks of economic and political power that spanned the conti-
nent, north to south,
2
interposing themselves between the crown and its
other colonial dependencies in Spanish South America.
The structure of the reforms intended to diminish the power of the
consulado merchants is not readily apparent. References to the reforms are
scattered throughout the archives and secondary sources. Taken separately,
they can seem to be ad hoc responses to reports like those submitted to
the crown by Jorge Juan and Antonio de Ulloa, who returned to Spain in
1746 after eleven years in Peru, and by Manuel de Amat, who served as
1. Lynch, Spanish-American Revolutions, 2. See also Josep Fontana, La crisis colonial en la
crisis del antiguo rgimen espaol, in Flores Galindo, Independencia y revolucin, 1:2023, where
he discusses internal documents of the administration . . . in which the American territories are
always called colonies and are compared with the British and French islands of the Caribbean
that were believed to yield many more benefits to the metropolis than did Spains American
possessions.
2. Jess Turiso Sebastin, Comerciantes espaoles en la Lima borbnica: Anatoma de una lite de
poder, 17011761 (Valladolid: Universidad de Valladolid, 2002), 133221.
T WO
BOURBONREFORMERS ANDTHE MERCHANTS OF LIMA

viceroy from 1761 to 1776.
3
But taken together, the reformers measures for
enhancing crown control over Perus quasi-autonomous submetropolitan
economy were remarkably coherent, suggesting the existence of a well-
considered policy and a strategy for its implementation.
4
Three of the
reformsthe creation of the viceroyalty of Ro de la Plata, the imposition
of the intendant system, and the reforms in the mining sectorhave been
the subjects of book-length studies focused on their impact on Peru.
5
A
similarly comprehensive study of Perus maritime trade at the end of the
colonial period provides a great deal of information about the viceroyaltys
commercial economy and the crowns effort to deprive the merchants of
Lima of what had become a monopoly, as it was called by the reformers.
6
The crown believed that Peru was a political and economic drain on the
empire, thanks to the Lima merchants dominance of trade throughout
Spanish South America. That dominance was held partly responsible for
the great Indian rebellion led by Tpac Amaru in the 1780s, which began
as a protest against repartimientos, the system of forced sales to Indians by
provincial governors who were supplied by Limas merchants. The Lima
monopoly was also held responsible for the viceroyaltys poor performance
as a source of revenue. Compared to Mexico, Peru had been an unpro-
fitable colony throughout the first half of the eighteenth century. Whereas
revenues grew steadily in Mexico, in Peru they did not recover their
17001709 levels until the 1760s, when Viceroy Manuel de Amats reforms
3. Juan and Ulloa, Discourse and Political Reflections; Manuel de Amat y Junient, Resumen
por menor de las grabes dolencias en que ha enfermado esta basta gobernacin del Per, Lima, 12
Mar. 1762, agi-Lima, leg. 639. See also Amats Memoria de gobierno, ed. y estudio preliminar de
Vicente Rodrguez Casado y Florentino Prez Embid (Sevilla: Escuela de Estudios Hispano-
Americanos, 1947); and anonymous reports like Estado poltico del Reyno del Per: Govierno sin
leyes, ministros relajados, tesoros con pobreza, fertilidad sin cultivo, sabidura desestimada,
milicias sin honor, ciudades sin amor patricio, la justicia sin templo, hurtos por comercios,
integridad tenida por locura, agi-Lima, leg. 957.
4. On the development of reformist commercial policy, see Stanley J. Stein and Barbara H.
Stein, Apogee of Empire: Spain and New Spain in the Age of Charles III, 17591789 (Baltimore: Johns
Hopkins University Press, 2003). For a short summary from an interesting perspective, see Allan
J. Kuethe, Imperativos militares en la poltica comercial de Carlos III, in Soldados del Rey: El
ejrcito borbnico en Amrica colonial en vsperas de la Independencia, ed. Allan J. Kuethe and Juan
Marchena F. (Castell de la Plana: Universitat Jaume I, 2005), 15159.
5. Guillermo Cspedes del Castillo, Lima y Buenos Aires: Repercusiones econmicas y polticas de
la creacin del Virreinato de La Plata (Sevilla: Escuela de Estudios Hispanoamericanos, 1947);
Fisher, Government and Society; and Fisher, Silver Mines and Silver Miners in Colonial Peru,
17761824 (Liverpool: Center for Latin American Studies, University of Liverpool, Monograph
Series no. 7, 1977); Miguel Molina Martnez, El Real Tribunal de Minera de Lima, 17851821
(Sevilla: Diputacin Provincial, 1986).
6. Parrn Salas, Reformas borbnicas.
were put in place.
7
The reformers therefore targeted the merchants of Lima
with a variety of measures designed to reduce Perus economy to some-
thing more nearly approaching final-demand commerce based upon an
expanded Atlantic trade, in which imports would be paid for by export of
precious metals and agricultural commodities produced by peripheral
regions of the viceroyalty. That trade, they believed, could be efficiently taxed,
thereby yielding increased revenues required to support Spains status as a
great power.
According to the policy developed by the reformers, the peninsular
economy was to concentrate on producing manufactured goods, especially
cloth, for internal consumption and for an expanding American trade.
Those manufactures would provide the crown with revenue from taxes
collected at each step from Spanish factory to American consumer. America
in turn was to produce raw materials for peninsular industry to supple-
ment those that could be provided by Spanish agriculture and ranching,
and subject to taxes comparable to those levied on peninsular exports to
America.
8
More important, however, were the precious metals of Mexico
and Peru, which were to be the principal exports of those two viceroyalties
in exchange for peninsular manufactures.
9
The mining sectors of the econo-
mies of both Mexico and Peru therefore received considerable attention
from the architects of the new colonialism. As Viceroy Francisco Gil de
Taboada y Lemos expressed it in 1791, government should devote as much
attention to seeing that the principal occupation of [Perus] inhabitants
bourbon reformers and the merchants of lima 57
7. Herbert S. Klein, The American Finances of the Spanish Empire: Royal Income and
Expenditures in Colonial Mexico, Peru, and Bolivia, 16801809 (Albuquerque: University of New
Mexico Press, 1998), tables 3.2, 4.1, and 5.1.
8. Ricardo Krebs, El pensamiento histrico, poltico y econmico del Conde de Campomanes
(Santiago: Universidad de Chile, 1960), 267; Jaime Vicens Vives, An Economic History of Spain,
trans. Frances M. Lpez-Morillas (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969), 537; Fontana, La
crisis colonial, 1:23. On the idea that agricultural exports could be developed in Peru, see
Francisco Gil de Taboada y Lemos, Relacin de gobierno . . . Ao de 1796, in Fuentes, ed.,
Memorias de los vireyes, 6:11112; Gregorio Cangas, Descripcin dialogada de los pueblos y
costumbres del Per, La causa de la emancipacin del Per (Lima: Instituto Riva-Agero, 1960),
245335; Alonso Carri de la Vandera, Reforma del Per, ed. Pablo Macera (Lima: Universidad
Mayor de San Marcos, 1966); and Jos Ignacio de Lequanda, Idea sucinta del comercio del Per y
medios de prosperarlo, con una noticia general de sus producciones, Lima, 26 Jan. 1794, British
Museum, Egerton mss no. 771, 96108v. For a pessimistic assessment of Perus agricultural
potential, see Informe del consulado, 22 Dec. 1790, published in Carlos Deustua Pimentel, El
Tribunal del Consulado de Lima (Lima: concytec, 1989), 6970.
9. Molina Martnez, Real Tribunal de Minera, 85. See also Gil de Taboada, Relacin de
gobierno, 108, where the viceroy links Perus import capacity to the value of precious metals
produced by its miners.
consists in the working of its mines, as to assuring that very little of that
product remains in their hands.
10
The reform of the mining sector imposed in Peru, especially the estab-
lishment of the Real tribunal de minera in 1787, was intended to increase
production, which would in turn yield more revenue to the crown. To
accomplish that goal, some reformers believed that miners had to be freed
from control by merchants, who supplied them with mules, tools, mercury,
cloth, and credit and also marketed their bullion, all at substantial profit.
11
But others insisted that the repartimiento trade was a necessary means of
forcing Indians out of subsistence agriculture to work as free laborers in
the mines.
12
The viceroys of Peru saw commerce, from the repartimiento
to the Atlantic trade, as the principal means by which precious metals,
either specie or bullion, were transferred to Spain. Thus merchants like the
count of San Isidro, former prior of the consulado, and Juan del Risco, a
brother-in-law of Viceroy Avils, were encouraged to purchase mines,
10. Gil de Taboada to Pedro de Lerena, 5 May 1791, cdip-Tomo 22: Documentacin oficial
espaola, ed. Guillermo Lohmann Villena, 3 vols. (Lima: Comisin Nacional del
Sesquicentenario de la Independencia del Per, 1971), 1:23. See also Josef de Glvez, Discurso y
reflexiones de un vasallo sobre la decadencia de nuestras Indias espaolas, agi-Estado, leg. 86A,
no. 2, 69v.
11. Lequanda, Idea sucinta, 120120v; Ruben Vargas Ugarte, Informe del Tribunal del
Consulado de Lima, 1790, Revista Histrica 22 (195556): 299; Molina Martnez, Real Tribunal
de Minera, 84, 87. According to one observer, The clauses of the loan contracts . . . have been
passed on to posterity as the very incarnation of usury; he also notes that the miner was
obliged to receive half the value of the loan in merchandise, frequently useless and always at
exhorbitant prices, to pay debts in undervalued bullion, and to capitalize the unpaid interest:
Csar Antonio Ugarte, Bosquejo de la historia econmica del Per (Lima: Imprenta Cabieses, 1926),
30. For scathing critiques of the system by which merchants maintained their control of mining,
see Lequanda, Idea sucinta, 120121v, and Dionisio Vizcarras report of 1821 in Coleccin de leyes,
decretos, y rdenes publicadas en el Per desde su independencia hasta nuestros das, 13 vols. (Lima:
Imprenta de Jos Masas, 183154), 1:7677. Note, also, that the merchants rarely invested directly
in mines: Fisher, Silver Mines, 9799. Nor were the profits engendered by the mining sector
invested in Peruvian enterprises or infrastructure: Kendall W. Brown, La regulacin estatal de
la mina de mercurio de Huancavelica, in Contreras and Glave, eds., Estado y mercado en la
historia del Per, 128.
12. Concolorcorvo [pseud. Alonso Carri de la Vandera], El lazarillo de ciegos caminantes
desde Buenos Aires hasta Lima (Gijn, 1773; reprint Paris: Descle de Brouwer, 1938), 24547;
Lequanda, Idea sucinta, 179v, opined that There is no better incentive for Indians than debt,
and that alone causes him to work. Jrgen Golte, Repartos y rebeliones: Tpac Amaru y las
contradicciones de la economa colonial (Lima: Instituto de Estudios Peruanos, 1980), 74, asserts
that mining production in Peru grew because Indians needed wages to pay for repartimiento
goods. In Mexico, abolishing repartos reduced Indian participation in the monetized sectors of
the economy: Pedro Prez Herrero, Reformismo borbnico y crecimiento econmico en la Nueva
Espaa, in El reformismo borbnico: Una visin interdisciplinar, ed. Agustn Guimer (Madrid:
Alianza Universidad, 1996), 106.
thereby making them eligible for office in the mining tribunal.
13
As a result,
although mining output grew, there was little structural change in the
inefficient and debt-plagued mining industry, and merchants continued to
control the profits, most of which were to be transferred to Spain as a
natural part of the Atlantic trade.
14
Like many before and after them, the Bourbon reformers believed that
commerce was the essential tie that bound America to Spain. As Viceroy
Gil de Taboada informed the crown, It is certain that the security of the
Americas must be measured by their dependence on the Metropolis, and
this dependence is founded upon consumption. On the day when [Ameri-
cans] can supply themselves with all that is necessary, their dependence
will be voluntary, and neither the military forces that we have there nor
the gentleness of government, nor the best-administered justice will be
sufficient to secure our possession.
15
Other bureaucrats elaborated on the
theme, to the detriment of limeo merchants. In his influential report of 6
December 1776, the Spanish auditor-general, Toms Ortiz de Landzuri,
decried the existence of intercolonial trade which caused Spains own
trade with her colonies to diminish.
16
By eliminating the submetropolitan
entrept and cementing direct commercial ties between Spain and each
district of Spanish South America, the crown intended to bind all of the
colonies more closely to the metropolis.
To maintain their commercial hegemony, limeo merchants fought to
exclude metropolitan merchants, especially the cargadores de Espaa, from
their internal marketsdefined as any city, town, or mining center in
Spanish South America.
17
But after midcentury, the Bourbon reformers
13. Flores, Destino manifiesto de un mercader, 11415; Fisher, Silver Mines, 34, 37, 38,
100102; Juan de Echevarra to Crown, 3 Jan. 1804, agi-Lima, leg. 1357. Gaspar Rico to Soler, 8
Jan. 1804, agi-Lima, leg. 1357. See also Parrn Salas, Reformas borbnicas, 8183.
14. For examples of the success of this policy, see John R. Fisher, Commercial Relations
between Spain and Spanish America in the Era of Free Trade, 17781796 (Liverpool: Centre for Latin
American Studies, University of Liverpool, Monograph Series, no. 13, 1985), 79.
15. As quoted by Carlos Deustua Pimentel, Concepto y trmino de colonia en los
testimonios documentales del siglo xviii, Mercurio Peruano, Ao 29, vol. 35, no. 330 (1954), 692.
The same idea is expressed in Gil de Taboadas annotations to the Informe del Real Tribunal del
Consulado sobre el comercio de este virreynato, published by Deustua Pimentel, Tribunal del
consulado, 75. For a similar attitude, see Krebs, Pensamiento . . . de Campomanes, 270; Glvez,
Discurso y reflexiones, 22, 27.
16. Walker, Spanish Politics and Imperial Trade, 224; Jos Muoz Prez, La publicacin del
Reglamento de comercio libre a Indias de 1778, Anuario de Estudios Americanos 4 (1947): 631.
17. Expediente del consulado de Lima sobre que los comerciantes espaoles vendan
precisamente en aquella capital las ropas que llevasen en navos de registro sin internarlos a las
provincias de arriba, 1770, agi-Lima, leg. 1554; Antunez y Acevedo, Memorias histricas, appendix 20,
Fig. 3 South America. Boston: Cummings & Hilliard, 1821? Courtesy Historic Maps
Division, Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Library (photo:
John Blazejewski).
Image Not Available
made their opposition to limeo pretensions explicit: on 25 July 1767, a royal
decree empowered merchants resident in Spain to carry imports directly
to internal markets in Peru,
18
and Article 8 of the Reglamento de comercio libre
of 1778 permitted them to engage in the American interprovincial trade.
19
Thus limeo entrept merchants, both criollo and peninsular-born, were
to be replaced by merchants based in Spainthe metropolitan merchants
who would trade directly to each district, consigning goods to their agents
or carrying them personally to markets throughout Spanish South America,
often without transshipping them via Callao.
20
The logic of this imperial
division of commercial labor implied that an entire group of the Lima
elite, the resident merchants who engaged in the interprovincial entrept
trade in foreign manufactures and efectos del pas, would be run out of
business by metropolitan competitors who, together with their agents in
America, consigned goods only to each other and also distributed them to
the provinces.
21
The entrept merchants of Lima were to be displaced,
and profits from expanded trade were to accrue not to limeos, as they
had in the past,
22
but to metropolitan Spaniards.
THE EFFECTS OF ADMINISTRATIVE REFORM
Colonial administrative reform was high on the crowns agenda, and it
contributed to the process by which the power of the consulado of Lima
and its merchants was reduced. The old viceroyalty, which once governed
most of Spanish South America, was dismembered. As early as 1717, the
territory north of Lima was temporarily separated, and in 1739 the viceroyalty
xxxiiilxxxvii, appendix 21, xcvxcvii, and appendix 22, ciiciii; Vzquez de Prada, Rutas
comerciales, 217. This was still an issue at the end of the century: see Acta, Cabildo de Lima, 1
Mar. 1799, ahml-Cabildo, Libro 39.
18. Testimonio de reales cdulas que reglamentan el comercio de efectos trados de Espaa a
la ciudad de Lima, Aranjuez, 15 June 1770, bnp-Archivo Astete Concha, ms Z-807. Note that
this real cdula forbade metropolitan merchants to engage in the retail trade in the provinces.
19. Reglamento de comercio libre, 2 Feb. 1778, in Libro de Actas del Consulado de Lima, 3
Oct. 1778, agnp-Hacienda colonial, leg. 907.
20. An informe de mesa of 17 Mar. 1794, in agi-Indif. gen., leg. 1623, makes it clear that
merchants sailing from Cdiz to Pacific ports were not supposed to take on cargoes or transfer
goods from one ship to another at Callao without special permission from the crown. In this
case, the crown granted permission for the Cinco Gremios Mayores de Madrid to transfer
merchandise bound for San Blas and California from one ship to another in Callao. See also
Informe de mesa, 28 Mar. 1794, ahn-Hacienda, libro 8046.
21. For a typical protest against the decision to permit direct trade from Spain to the interior,
see Junta general de comercio to Crown, 11 July 1778, agnp-Hacienda colonial, leg. 907.
22. Juan and Ulloa, Relacin histrico, part 2, book 1, chapter x, 139.
of Nueva Granada was permanently established. The Pacific port town of
Guayaquil was attached to the new viceroyalty in spite of its close economic
ties to Lima, making it more difficult for merchants matriculated in the
consulado to trade there and to build and repair their ships in Guayaquils
shipyards. Guayaquils merchants were soon trading directly with the penin-
sula, but the Lima consulado continued to exercise jurisdiction over the
towns trade, naming a deputy to hear commercial disputes there. Appeals
from the deputies rulings continued to be heard in Lima as late as 1820.
23
Nor were the old commercial networks connecting Lima to the north and
to the Caribbean terminals of the Atlantic trade severed by the creation of
the viceroyalty of Nueva Granada; efectos del pas and European imports
continued to make their way to Lima. Finally, in 1803, a royal decree returned
Guayaquil and its province to the jurisdiction of the viceroy of Peru, where
it remained until 9 October 1820, when the port declared its independence
from Spain.
24
The case of Chile was more vexed. In June 1784, a royal order estab-
lished Chiles independence from the viceregal government at Lima, and
in 1788 it was elevated to the rank of a captaincy-general with its own
governor. Because the captains-general . . . were treated more and more
as little viceroys, with authority equal in every respect to that of the
viceroys of New Spain and Peru, it was no longer possible for the viceroy
at Lima to dictate commercial policies as freely as his predecessors had
done.
25
Chilean merchants were already competing with those of Lima,
not only in the trans-Andean trade to Potos and Buenos Aires but also in
the Pacific coasting trade. A decade earlier, in 1774, the town council of
Santiago had successfully petitioned the crown for permission to sell merchan-
dise in the ports immediately south of Lima (including Arica), whence it
23. Gil de Taboada, Relacin de gobierno, 115; Michael T. Hamerly, Historia social y
econmica de la antigua provincia de Guayaquil, 17631842 (Guayaquil: Archivo Histrico del
Guayas, 1973), 147.
24. Berria, Seor, 5v, 89v; Gil de Taboada, Relacin de gobierno, 115; Lequanda, Idea
sucinta, 211211v; Sobre la segregacin de la provincia de Guayaquil del Vireynato de Santa F
para incorporarla en el del Per, ao de 1804, ashm, Documentos relacionados con el Per,
Seccin C, Subgrupo V.
25. Luis Navarro Garca, Intendencias en Indias (Sevilla: Escuela de Estudios Hispano-
Americanos, 1959), 46. For examples of viceregal power in this regard, see the case of Viceroy
Count of Superunda and the Chilean wheat trade at midcentury, in Bravo de Lagunas, Voto
consultivo; Ramos Prez, Trigo chileno; and Viceroy Manso de Velascos ruling in the case of a
Chilean attempt to export beans (menestras) to Acapulco, Realejo, Panama, or Guayaquil in 1750:
Benjamn Vicua Mackenna, Historia de Valparaso, 2 vols., in Obras Completas de Vicua
Mackenna (Santiago: Universidad de Chile, 1936), 2:286.
would be carried to the mining districts of Alto Per without passing
through the hands of limeo entrept merchants.
26
In 1776, Viceroy Manuel
de Guirior informed the crown that he was only reluctantly enforcing a
royal order permitting coastal traders to land colonial products in any Pacific
port without first touching at Callao. The result, as Guirior believed, was
that the merchants of Chile were rapidly capturing the market of Alto Per.
27
Much of the trade between Lima and Chile, however, remained in the
hands of the merchants of Lima.
28
After the earthquake of 1687, when
Lima became dependent upon Chilean wheat for subsistence, Chile in turn
purchased most of its sugar from the limeo merchants who dealt with
Peruvian producers. The merchants of Lima and the hacendados of the
central coast were the principal beneficiaries of the sugar-wheat exchange. They
formed the nucleus of the Pacific-trade interest group in the consulado
which fought off attempts to diminish their dominance of that branch of
interprovincial trade.
29
Commercial relations were cemented by family ties
as, following the earthquake of 1746, some families of Lima moved one of
their members to Chile. And as peninsular merchants settled in Chile in
increasing numbers after 1778, they often assigned family members to oversee
branches of their merchant houses in Lima, augmenting the ranks of limeos
with close and long-standing ties to Chile.
30
Thus the consulado of Lima
apparently had little reason to protest the reformers creation of the captaincy-
general to the south, and no such protests have been found.
26. Daniel Martner, Estudio de poltica comercial chilena e historia econmica nacional (Santiago:
Imprenta Universitaria, 1923), 9394; Villalobos, Comercio y la crisis colonial, 8485; Villalobos,
Comercio y contrabando, 11314.
27. Demetrio Ramos Prez, Minera y comercio interprovincial in hispanoamrica, siglos xvi, xvii,
y xviii (Valladolid: Universidad de Valladolid, 1970), 278; Villalobos, Comercio y la crisis colonial,
94.
28. See Informe del gobernador A. OHiggins al gobierno de Espaa, 21 Sept. 1789, where he
complains about Chiles continued dependence on Peru, discussed in Hernn Ramrez Necochea,
Antecedentes econmicos de la independencia de Chile (Santiago, 1959), 6869. See also Ramos Prez,
Minera y comercio interprovincial, 227, 291; Flores Galindo, Aristocracia y plebe, 5658; Villalobos,
Comercio y contrabando, 115.
29. Ramrez Necochea, Antecedentes econmicos, 6869. By 1790, complaints about the
monopoly of the merchants of Lima were once again being heard, especially in Chile: Ramos
Prez, Minera y comercio, 227, 291. See also Flores Galindo, Aristocracia y plebe, 2129, 50, 5658.
The Pacific traders have been identified by analysis of lists of merchants who signed key petitions
in commercial disputes of the late colonial period.
30. Ramos Prez, Minera y comercio, 274; John L. Rector, Transformaciones comerciales
producidas por la independencia de Chile, Revista Chilena de Historia y Geografa, no. 143 (1975):
112. Family ties can be traced in Espejo, Nobiliario. See also Paul Rizo Patrn, Vinculacin
parental y social de los comerciantes de Lima a fines del perodo virreinal, and the essays about
six leading merchants in Mazzeo de Viv, ed., Comerciantes limeos.
The contrast with the well-known disputes accompanying creation of
the viceroyalty of Ro de La Plata in 1777 could hardly be more striking.
31
The reason for the bitter controversy is readily apparent: Alto Per, with
its mining districts and relatively large population, was removed from Perus
jurisdiction and attached to the new viceroyalty with its capital at Buenos
Aires. It is well to remember that, as late as 1776, Alto Per as a whole
was responsible for 63.1 percent of silver production from Perus mines.
Moreover, since silver was by far the most important commodity in
Perus trade with the metropolis . . . the loss was particularly serious.
32
The reformers were determined to make the new viceroyalty independent
of Lima, and to that end they diverted surplus revenues from Alto Per,
once remitted to the Lima treasury, to Buenos Aires. In the last three
decades of the century, the Lima treasury was deprived of some 42 million
pesos in revenues, an enormous sum that, had these revenues continued to
flow to Lima, could have gone far to prevent the deficits that later made
viceregal government dependent on loans from the consulado.
33
But the reformers did not stop here in their effort to establish the new
viceroyalty at Perus expense. They also issued a series of decrees that not
only deprived Lima merchants of the bullion and specie that represented
profit on large-scale commercial operations but also made it difficult for
them to sell the goods imported to Lima specifically for the mining centers
and the towns of the interior. While viceroys Guirior and Croix leapt to
the limeos defense with appeals to the crown to abolish the new vice-
royalty, their counterpart in Buenos Aires, Pedro de Cevallos, issued decrees
intended to close its borders to trade by the merchants of Lima; merchants
of Buenos Aires, however, were permitted to introduce both European
imports and locally produced goods into Chile and the truncated vice-
royalty of Peru.
34
At the consulados urging, Guirior retaliated by ordering
31. The standard account is still Cspedes del Castillo, Lima y Buenos Aires. Note that 1777
marks the year when the decision was taken to make the new viceroyalty permanent; it had been
temporarily established in 1776.
32. Fisher, Government and Society, 67.
33. John J. TePaske, The Fiscal Structure of Upper Peru and the Financing of Empire,
Essays in the Political, Economic, and Social History of Colonial Latin America, ed. Karen Spalding
(Newark: University of Delaware, Latin American Studies Program, 1982), 7778.
34. Cspedes del Castillo, Lima y Buenos Aires, 14142; Virgilio Roel Pineda, Historia social y
econmica de la colonia (Lima: Editorial Grfica Labor, 1970), 197; Teodoro de Croix, Repre-
sentacin del virrey que fu del Per Caballero Croix y fiscales sobre el arreglo de lmites de aquel
virreinato, supresin del de Buenos Aires, extincin de su Audiencia . . . , agi-Lima, leg. 1549;
Germn O. E. Tjarks, El Consulado de Buenos Aires y sus proyecciones in la historia del Ro de la
the borders of Peru closed to imports first landed at Buenos Aires, but his
order was revoked by the crown in July 1778.
35
One decree, issued by
Cevallos in July 1777, was especially onerous: it forbade export of gold
and silver bullion to the viceroyalty of Peru.
36
Although it could not be
adequately enforced, it consolidated change in the direction of trade from
Potos-Arica-Lima to Potos-Tucumn-Buenos Aires. It also exacerbated
the chronic shortage of specie in Peru, a shortage that remained a serious
problem through the end of the colonial period. In August 1784 the crown
declared Cevallos decree void, but by then damage had been done to Limas
trade to its lost province, and that trade never recovered its former volume.
37
Another decree, this one issued by the crown, had a similar effect on
trade from Lima to the mining provinces of Alto Per. It permitted mercury
from Almadn in Spain to be routed through Buenos Aires to Potos, thus
freeing the new viceroyalty from dependence on the erratic output of
mercury mines at Huancavelica in Peru.
38
(Mercury was essential for the
amalgamation process by which silver was separated from base ores.) In
1786, the principal mine collapsed; the contractor, who had been given an
exclusive license to exploit the mine by the crowns inspector-general in
Peru, had been fulfilling his production quota by mining mercury from the
rock beams that supported the mine. Thereafter, crown policy actively opposed
Plata, 2 vols. (Buenos Aires: Universidad de Buenos Aires, 1962), 1:32; Scarlet OPhelan Godoy,
Las reformas fiscales borbnicas y su impacto en la sociedad colonial del Bajo y Alto Per,
Historia y Cultura 16 (1983): 116, 119.
35. Cspedes del Castillo, Lima y Buenos Aires, 14142; Vargas Ugarte, Historia . . . siglo xviii,
1:371; Villalobos, Comercio y la crisis colonial, 9798.
36. Cspedes del Castillo, Lima y Buenos Aires, 11921, 145. The decree was given royal approval
on 16 Nov. 1780 in spite of protests from the merchants of Lima.
37. John Lynch, Spanish Colonial Administration, 17821810: The Intendant System in the
Viceroyalty of the Ro de la Plata (London: University of London, Athlone Press, 1958), 4142; Roel
Pineda, Historia social y econmica, 197; Marqus de Torre Tagle and Francisco de Valdivieso y
Pradas, Informe que de orden del Rey, han dado los seores diputados de Lima, Madrid, 1815,
amoz; Informe del consulado de Lima sobre el proyecto de que se acuen veinte millones de
pesos de plata cortada o macuquina . . . que gire por este reyno sin peligro de la exportacin, Jan.
1817, agnp-Hacienda colonial, leg. 1227; Fisher, Government and Society, 130.
38. Cevallos had petitioned the crown to that effect in October 1777, and the petition was
quickly granted: Cspedes del Castillo, Lima y Buenos Aires, 121; Areche to Glvez, 20 Sept.
1777, agi-Lima, leg. 1082. On Huancavelica, see Amat, Memoria de gobierno, 242; Fisher,
Silver Mines, 7485, 108; Vicente Rodrguez Casado, La mina de Huancavelica en el siglo
xviii, Revista de Indias 5 (1941): 8392; Fisher, Government and Society, appendix 5, Produc-
tion of Mercury at Huancavelica, 17591812. Note that the decline of Huancavelica began in
1748 with a crown decision to ship mercury to Peru from Almadn: Vargas Ugarte, Historia . . .
siglo xviii, 1:276.
investment in Huancavelica.
39
One effect was to destroy the Peruvian guild
of mercury miners, who had used limeo merchants to market their ore,
transshipping it via Lima and the southern port of Arica to Potos. Another
was to reduce the limeo entrept merchants trade in European imports
and efectos del pas. As maritime traffic to the south Atlantic increased,
more imports, including mercury, were carried to Buenos Aires and sent
on to the mining centers of Alto Per. It was less expensive to use the
carting route from Buenos Aires via Tucumn to Potos.
40
Far more important, however, in forcing change in trade routes was the
Reglamento de comercio libre of 1778. By its terms, six ports of Spanish South
America (Montevideo, Buenos Aires, Valparaiso, Concepcin, Arica, and
Callao) were officially opened to free tradethat is, direct trade between
those ports and thirteen ports of Spain.
41
Henceforth, the Atlantic trade
was not constrained by the necessity of clearing port in Cdiz in the
peninsula, or touching at Callao in Peru.
42
Protests by Peruvian viceroys
and limeo merchants fell on deaf ears. The crown made it clear, in a
royal order of 5 March 1778, that it would tolerate no opposition to the
designation of Buenos Aires, capital of the new viceroyalty, as a puerto
habilitado.
43
Thus goods landed at Buenos Aires could be sold anywhere
in Spanish South America, including the interior provinces of Peru once
39. Fisher, Government and Society, 14446, and Silver Mines, 7879; Jos Lagos, Reflexiones a
favor de los Reynos del Per, 10 July 1787, agi-Lima, leg. 1029. For a late colonial protest against
crown policy that allowed the Huancavelica mercury mines to fall into disrepair, see Santiago
Corbaln to Crown, 14 Mar. 1819, agi-Lima, leg. 774.
40. In Viceroy Amats time (176176), mercury produced at Almadn in Spain could be placed
at Callao for 17 pesos per quintal, while that produced at Huancavelica cost 79 pesos per quintal.
Transport costs from Huancavelica to Potos increased the cost of mercury to miners there to 99
pesos per quintal. Amat, Memoria de gobierno, 24445.
41. Note that the Reglamento de comercio libre of 1778 was in fact a codification of the new
commercial regulations, which had been issued in a series of reales rdenes since 1765; Mexico and
Venezuela were not included until 1787. Vzquez de Prada, Rutas commerciales, 22930. See
also Testimonio de reales cdulas que reglamentan el comercio de efectos trados de Espaa a la
ciudad de Lima, 1770, bnp, Archivo Astete Concha, Z-807; and Muoz Perez, Publicacin del
Reglamento, 61564. A printed copy of the decrees that preceded the Reglamento, dated 2 Feb.
1778, was attached to the Libro de actas, Consulado de Lima, 3 Oct. 1778, agnp-Hacienda
colonial, leg. 907.
42. Junta general del comercio de Lima, 11 July 1778, agnp-Hacienda colonial, leg. 907. The
decree opening the ports had been issued on 2 Feb. 1778 and confirmed by a real orden of 5 Mar.
1778. Note that, in spite of the Reglamento de comercio libre, Cdiz remained the principal Spanish
port for the American trade: John R. Fisher, The Effects of Comercio Libre on the Economies of
New Granada and Peru: A Comparison, in Reform and Insurrection, ed. Fisher et al., 148, 15354.
43. Acta, Junta de comercio, 3 Oct. 1778; Junta general del comercio de Lima, 11 July 1778; Real
orden, El Pardo, 5 Mar. 1778, with Guiriors cmplase of 12 Sept. 1778, all in agnp-Hacienda
colonial, leg. 907.
dominated by the merchants of Lima. The metropolitan merchants were
quick to take advantage of the newly established trade route. In the
notarial records, in petitions by merchants addressed to the crown, and
even in merchants rsums, there are references to the practice of avoiding
the dangerous sea passage around Cape Horn and instead carrying goods
overland from Buenos Aires to Lima, selling off parts of inventories along
the way.
44
Buenos Aires thus joined the Pacific ports to the south of Callao
as an entrept, displacing Lima from its position of dominance. From that
time forward, it became increasingly difficult for the limeo merchants to
compete in their traditional markets with the metropolitan merchants who
imported European goods via the ports of the new viceroyalty of Ro de
La Plata and the captaincy-general of Chile.
45
Along with the dismemberment of the viceroyalty came a reduction in
the jurisdiction of the consulado of Lima. Its charter had specified that its
jurisdiction extended not only to Lima but also throughout the Reynos y
provincias del Per, Tierra Firme, y Chile,
46
that is, almost all of Spanish
South America. The consulado was the court in which most ordinary
commercial disputes were heard, and it served as a court of appeals in
cases referred to it by its members and by the commercial deputies
resident in other colonial cities. As long as the Lima consulado exercised
control over the resolution of quarrels within the merchant community
throughout Spanish South America, its rulings could contribute to the
maintenance of Limas commercial hegemony.
47
During the late eighteenth
century, however, as trade to other ports increased and new political units
were established, merchants resident there sought to gain their indepen-
dence from the Lima consulado. They began by attacking the requirement
44. Walker, Spanish Politics, 213. For examples, see Acta, Junta general de comercio, 30 Mar.
1780, agnp-Hacienda colonial, leg. 907; and Testimonio de los mritos y servicios de Antonio
lvarez del Villar, 1819, agi-Lima, leg. 761.
45. Lequanda, Idea sucinta, 167v; Martner, Estudio de poltica comercial, 9394.
46. Robert Sidney Smith, El ndice del archivo del Tribunal del Consulado de Lima (Lima:
Archivo Histrico del Ministerio de Hacienda y Comercio, 1948), xx; Mara Encarnacin
Rodrguez Vicente, El Tribunal del Consulado de Lima en la primera mitad del siglo xvii (Madrid:
Ediciones Cultura Hispnica, 1960), 318. There are seven known editions of the consulados
charter, dated 1630, 1635, 1643, 1680, 1723, 1768, and 1820. The 1643 charter is in Representacin del
Real Consulado . . . , 22 Aug. 1787, agi-Lima, leg. 1548. For the 1723 edition, see Rodrguez
Vicente, Tribunal del Consulado, 297378. Copies of others are in the Brown University Library
(1680), the New York Public Library (1768), and the Duke University Library (1820).
47. As remarked by Elsa Urbina Reyes, El Tribunal del Consulado de Chile: Sus orgenes
y primeros aos, Boletn de la Academia Chilena de la Historia, Ao 29, no. 67 (1962), 111.
Lequanda, Idea sucinta, 70v71v, points out that judicial fees were an important source of funds
for the consulado.
that all appeals in commercial disputes were to be heard in Limas juzgado
de alzadas (court of appeals). In Buenos Aires, a juzgado was established in
1756. In 1767 the power to hear appeals in Santiago was vested in a judge
of the Audiencia of Chile, and in 1777 a royal order created a full-fledged
court of appeals there.
48
In both instances, opposition by the consulado of
Lima was tenacious, protracted, and ultimately futile. After 1795, when
consulados were established in Buenos Aires and Santiago, what little was
left of limeo control disintegrated.
49
COMPETITION FOR CONTROL OF THE CONSULADO
Although the consulado of Lima objected to the redefinition of the politi-
cal space within which limeo merchants operated, by 1786 its leaders
were preoccupied by a much more serious matter: control of the consulado
itself. The disputes centered on who should be granted voting rights in
the consulados elections. The registro trade and especially the Reglamento de
comercio libre had led to a significant increase in the number of peninsular-
based merchants who demanded matriculation in Limas consulado, which
carried with it the right to vote for slates of electors who would in turn
select the prior and consuls.
50
The matrcula for 1779 listed only 164 names,
but in the election of January 1787, 298 merchants cast their votes.
51
48. Gernimo Manuel de Ruedas to Glvez, Buenos Aires, 14 June 1779, and Josef de Azofra
to Francisco de Milla, Madrid, 30 June 1785, agi-Lima, leg. 1546; Tjarks, Consulado de Buenos
Aires, 1:46; Robert Sidney Smith, A Research Report on Consulado History, Journal of Inter-
American Studies 3, no. 1 (1961): 47; Urbina Reyes, Tribunal del Consulado, 11112, 13234.
49. The royal decree establishing the consulado of Buenos Aires was dated 30 Jan. 1794:
Tjarks, Consulado de Buenos Aires, 1:57. The Real cdula de ereccin del Consulado de Buenos
Ayres, which includes its ordenanzas, is printed in Documentos para la historia argentina, 10 vols.
(Buenos Aires, 191355), vol. 7: Comercio de Indias, comercio de negros y de extranjeros, 17911809,
intro. by Diego Luis Molinari (1916), 4775. On 1 Feb. 1793, the king, in the Consejo de Estado,
ordered that consulados be organized in Veracruz, Cartagena, and Chile: ahn-Estado, leg. 176.
The royal order establishing the consulado of Chile was dated 26 Feb. 1795: Villalobos, Comercio y
la crisis colonial, 165.
50. Matriculation and election processes are described in the 1768 Ordenanzas del Tribunal del
Consulado de esta Ciudad de los Reyes, y Reinos del Per, Tierra Firme y Chile . . . , nypl, *ke 1768,
2023, 5962.
51. Matrcula del Real Tribunal del Consulado de Lima, Ao de 1779, agnp-Consulado, leg.
1; Representacin del Real Consulado de la Ciudad de los Reyes sobre la eleccin del prior y
cnsul del Real Consulado de Lima, 22 Aug. 1787, agi-Lima, leg. 1548. Flores Galindo,
Aristocracia y plebe, 59, says that in 1791 there were 393 merchants in Lima, but does not indicate
whether that number refers only to those matriculated in the consulado or includes lesser retail
merchants. The number of new merchants trading to Lima is difficult to ascertain, as is their
identity; see the letter from the consulado to the viceroy, 8 Aug. 1782, agnp-Hacienda colonial,
In 1787 the limeo faction, led by the peninsular-born but acriollado
count of San Isidro,
52
attempted to exclude the new merchants from the
matrcula by modifying the criteria for membership.
53
The limeos proposed
that henceforth matriculation should be limited to merchants resident in
Lima for at least two years; that their business should be large enough to
require payment of 1,000 pesos in alcabalas, double the previous amount,
for which they had to present a receipt; that the merchant be a legitimate
Spaniard (neither mestizo or Indian, nor a foreigner or son of a foreigner);
and that shipowners seeking matriculation must be among those whose ships
were required to carry subsidies to Valdivia and Juan Fernndez, that is,
locally owned and registered.
54
The last requirement excluded many of the
metropolitan merchants while favoring limeos engaged in the interpro-
vincial maritime trade.
Fifty-three metropolitan merchants, represented by Javier Mara de
Aguirre, were unable to meet these requirements, as were three of the most
important peninsular-born merchants resident in Lima.
55
None of them
could exhibit a receipt showing that their taxes had been paid in full; they
therefore insisted that, according to the consulados charter a certain level
of tax was to be owed, not paid. Alleging that, in any case, the consulado
leg. 1031: In this Tribunal there are not and never have been books or notebooks listing
merchants matriculated in Cdiz who have come to this part of America, nor of those who arrive
with licenses, because [the consulado] has not been required to demand that they present their
licenses. Pierre Chaunu, Interpretacin de la independencia de Amrica Latina, in Bonilla and
Matos Mar, Independencia en el Per, 136, attests to a generalized sense among criollos of having
been subjected to a peninsular invasion.
52. Not only Spaniards born in America should be considered criollos, but also those
individuals who were not born there whose center of family, social, cultural, and economic life
was profoundly rooted in this territory: Victor Peralta Ruiz, En defensa de la autoridad: Poltica y
cultura bajo el gobierno del Virrey Abascal: Per 18061816 (Madrid: Consejo Superior de
Investigaciones Cientficas, 2003), 143.
53. Santiago Saenz to Crown, Madrid, 22 Aug. 1787, agi-Lima, leg. 1548. San Isidro used the
1643 edition of the charter as the basis for change rather than the editions published in 1680, 1723,
or 1768: Representacin del Real Consulado . . . , 22 Aug. 1787, agi-Lima, leg. 1548. The new
merchants have been identified by reference to lists of merchants signing petitions in disputes;
see especially the expediente on the dispute of 178687 in agi-Lima, leg. 1548, the Expediente
relativo a la prxima eleccin . . . , 29 Dec. 1790, bnp-mss, C-1692, and Despachos expedidos
para el viaje de navos mercantes a puertos del Per y Espaa [178396], bnp-mss, C-587.
54. Acta, Junta de comercio, 12 Sept. 1786, agnp-Hacienda colonial, leg. 907.
55. They were Francisco Martnez Maraon, Jos Antonio de Errea, and Mathias de Larreta:
Consulado to Viceroy, 1 Jan. 1787, agi-Lima, leg. 1548; Javier Mara de Aguirre et al. to Viceroy
Teodoro Croix, 30 Dec. 1786, 15 Jan. 1787, agi-Lima, leg. 1548; Informe de mesa, Madrid, 25 June
1789, bnp-mss, C-1692. In the Extracto of the case prepared for the Consejo de Indias, 7 May
1789, Aguirres party is called los cargadores de Espaa: File of the Consejo de Indias, 420
May 1789, agi-Lima, leg. 1547.
was not authorized to modify the charter and that the new rules were there-
fore illegal, the excluded merchants successfully disrupted the election.
At each stage of the dispute, the viceroy, Teodoro de Croix, and the
superintendent of the royal treasury, Jorge de Escobedo, ruled in favor of
the metropolitan faction. The new merchants were excused from paying
their taxes in full; the rest of the revised requirements for matriculation
were set aside; the consulado was ordered to enroll Aguirre and fifty-five
additional merchants, making them eligible to vote; and eight of the most
powerful criollo merchants, including Jos Antonio de Lavalle y Corts,
count of Premio Real, who was a candidate for prior, and the count of San
Javier, leader of the shipowners who traded to Chile, were forbidden to
cast their votes on the grounds that they, like many young men who did
not want to be priests, had studied law.
56
Nevertheless, in the ensuing election,
the limeo faction won. The count of Premio Real was elected prior,
57
but
the new merchants came within four votes of capturing control of the
consulado. They continued to deny the legality of Premio Reals election,
which was finally confirmed by Viceroy Croix, who feared that Lima would
erupt in public rioting if a new election were held. In his Relacin de
gobierno Croix admitted that he had been unnerved by the vehemence of
the quarrels arising from the consulados attempt to limit matriculation.
58
In 1789, when the Council of the Indies ruled on the disputed matrcula
and election, its decision represented an attempt at compromise, but one
that favored the metropolitan faction: the consulado could not require two
years residence in Lima as a condition for matriculation, but lawyers had
to refrain from practicing law for two years before being admitted to the
consulado. Merchants whose capital amounted to at least 12,000 pesos could
56. Decree issued by Jorge de Escobedo, 6 Dec. 1786; rulings issued by Viceroy Croix, 30 Dec.
1786 and 1 Jan. 1787; Croix to Consulado, 2 and 3 Jan. 1787; Aguirre to Croix, 15 Jan. 1787, all in
agi-Lima, leg. 1548. The other limeos excluded were the count of San Antonio de Vista Alegre,
Francisco Calatayud, Mariano and Francisco Martn Luengo, and Jacinto de Segurola: Aguirre to
Croix, 15 Jan. 1787, agi-Lima, leg. 1548; Junta general de comercio sobre si los abogados deban
tener voz y voto en las elecciones de prior y cnsules, 11 May 1787, agnp-Hacienda colonial, leg.
907. Croixs partiality toward the metropolitan merchants was heartily resented by the limeos,
who instructed their apoderado in Madrid to protest to Crown: Santiago Saenz to Crown,
Madrid, 22 Aug. 1787, agi-Lima, leg. 1548.
57. Representacin del Real Consulado, 22 Aug. 1787, agi-Lima, leg. 1548. See also Mazzeo,
Comercio libre en el Per. In late colonial Peru, three other criollos served as priors of the consulado:
Francisco Vsquez de Uzieda, Luis Manuel Albo y Cabada, and Jos Manuel Gonzlez de La
Fuente, count of Villar de Fuente.
58. Deposition of Premio Real before the juez de alzadas, 16 Jan. 1787; Premio Real to Croix,
three notes written between 17 and 21 Jan. 1787; Aguirre to Croix, 21 Jan. 1787, and Croix to
Consulado, 21 Jan. 1787, all in agi-Lima, leg. 1548; Croix, Relacin . . . a su succesor, 34145.
not be excluded, even if they were residents of Spain only temporarily
present in Lima. Any shipowner, regardless of whether he carried subsi-
dies to Valdivia or Juan Fernndez, was to be admitted, including, of course,
owners or supercargoes of the registro ships. Only two of the rulings were
relatively evenhanded in their effects. Anyone generally believed to be
Spanish had the right to be matriculated, without investigation into his
ancestry. The minimum alcabala was set at 750 pesos, not 1,000 pesos as
the consulado had decreed; but it was to be paid in full, not merely owed,
as the metropolitan merchants had alleged.
59
By the time the Councils ruling reached Peru in 1790, the merchants
were embroiled in yet another dispute on eligibility for matriculation, one
that represented a second attempt by a differently constituted metropolitan
faction to seize control of the consulado.
60
By then, the Real Compaa de
Filipinas had established an office in Lima, and it had formed an alliance
with the Cinco Gremios Mayores de Madrid to transport massive quantities
of manufactures to Callao, displacing the cargadores de Espaa and their
consignees in Lima.
61
The point at issue was whether or not dependents
of the two privileged trading companies could be matriculated, and once
again two factions emerged that split the consulado. In this case, however,
the count of San Isidro, then serving as prior of the consulado, acted on
behalf of the newly established companies: he had recently been appointed
agent for the Filipinas Company.
62
But it was immediately clear that the
Cinco Gremios, not the Filipinas, posed the more serious threat not only
to limeo merchants but also to independent metropolitan merchants
who had disputed the matrcula in 1787.
As in 1787, the consulado was so evenly divided that a few votes could
change the outcome of the election. The limeos, led by the count of Fuente
Gonzlez, could identify only twelve merchants who might plausibly be
59. File of the Consejo de Indias, 420 May 1789, agi-Lima, leg. 1549; Real orden, Madrid, 25
June 1789, bnp-mss, C-1692.
60. Expediente relativo a la prxima eleccin . . . , 29 Dec. 1790, bnp-mss, C-1692. See also
Recurso sobre la recusacin del juez de alzadas, 10 Jan. 1791, agnp-Consulado 1, leg. 11, cuaderno
184; Vargas Ugarte, Informe del Consulado, 299.
61. Ramiro Flores, Iniciativo privado o intervencionismo estatal: El caso de la Real
Compaa de Filipinas en el Per, in El Per en el siglo xviii: La era borbnica, ed. Scarlett
OPhelan Godoy (Lima: Pontificia Universidad Catlica del Per, Instituto Riva-Agero, 1999),
170. On the two companies, see Capella and Matilla Tascon, Cinco Gremios Mayores, and Mara
Lourdes Daz-Trechuelo Spinola, La Real Compaa de Filipinas (Sevilla: Escuela de Estudios
Hispano-Americanos, 1965).
62. Real orden, 24 Aug. 1786, agi-Lima, leg. 639; Consulado to viceroy, 10 Jan. 1791, bnp-mss,
C-1692.
excluded from the matrcula because they did not meet the requirement
that those eligible had to be owners of their own merchant houses or in
partnership with other merchants.
63
The twelve, they insisted, were not
partners but dependents of the Cinco Gremios. The certain and unassail-
able fact, they wrote, is that various merchandise has arrived consigned
to their names, which was embarked in Cdiz in the name of the Gremios
and marked with their brand. Moreover, the supposed consignees did not
claim the merchandise themselves in the customs house, as was customary;
instead, it had been cleared by the apoderados (legal agents) of the Cinco
Gremios. Nor were those consignees known to operate their own businesses
in Lima. According to the limeos, the Cinco Gremios large shipments
had been broken up because the company wished to increase its voting
strength in the consulado elections. If such a precedent were allowed to
stand, the Cinco Gremios could create as many merchants as necessary to
win any election, augmenting their voting strength by forty or fifty men
in accord with the value of each years shipments to Callao.
64
As a result,
control of the consulado would pass not merely to metropolitan merchants
domiciled in Spain, but to a single peninsular merchant house and its
agents in Peru. The requirement that any merchant matriculated in the con-
sulado be an owner or partner in his business therefore attracted important
Atlantic-trade merchants to the limeo faction, notably the Elizalde brothers
and their allies.
65
Thus the deliberations of the commission appointed by the viceroy on
30 December 1790 took on great importance. The commission was composed
of two merchants named by each faction and charged with investigating
the tenderos and cajoneros, lesser merchants who would be eligible for
matriculation on the basis of either taxes paid or capital employed, if they
could be proven independent of the Cinco Gremios. The commissioners
disagreed not only on the issue of the lesser merchants independence, but
on whether they were Spaniards, and even whether those who were also
bureaucrats could be matriculated. The matter was referred to Viceroy Gil
de Taboada and, as might be expected, his decree of 4 January 1791 favored
the Cinco Gremios while attempting to appease the limeos. He ruled
63. Count of Fuente Gonzlez et al. to Gil de Taboada, 2 or 3 Jan. 1791, bnp-mss, C-1692.
Parrn Salas, Reformas borbnicas, 42, lists their names.
64. Fuente Gonzlez et al. to Gil de Taboada, Jan. 1791, bnp-mss, C-1692.
65. Villa Esteves, Liderazgo y poder, 15155. Also among them were Silvestre Amenabar,
Juan Bautista de Grate, Luis Josef de Santiago, Juan Miguel de Lostra, and Antonio lvarez del
Villar: Fuente Gonzlez et al. to Gil de Taboada, Jan. 1791, bnp-mss, C-1692.
that tenderos and cajoneros alleged to be dependents of the Cinco Gremios
could establish their eligibility solely on the basis of their own sworn state-
ments, without investigation or verification. Any tendero or cajonero unani-
mously admitted by the four members of the commission could not be
denied matriculation on any pretext. Anyone previously admitted, with a
single exception, should be matriculated; the exception consisted of those
merchants who were sons or grandsons of foreigners, who could be excluded
even if previously matriculated. Another ruling favored metropolitan mer-
chants generally: the viceroy reiterated the Council of the Indies dictum that
all shipowners, including the owners of peninsular registro ships, were to
be admitted, provided that they met the conditions as to nationality and
capital employed. Yet another ruling, one that permitted bureaucrats to be
matriculated unless they were serving in the administration of justice or in
the treasury offices, also favored the metropolitan faction, thanks to Bourbon
appointments of peninsular Spaniards to vacancies in the viceregal govern-
ment.
66
Nevertheless, the metropolitan merchants were not satisfied, and
attempted once again to exclude members of the rival faction from the
matrcula. Gil de Taboada, exasperated, demanded that the two factions
cease their squabbling; the level of political mobilization in Lima on the
issue of the consulado election had once again reached unacceptable pro-
portions, and there was no citizen who did not take the cause for his
own.
67
The limeos were able to win the 1791 election, but only because a
powerful group of peninsular-born merchants led by the Elizalde brothers
and the count of Fuente Gonzlez were also enlisted in opposition to the
Cinco Gremios.
68
But by 1799 metropolitan dominance of the consulado
was a fact, and the town council was instructing its agent at court to seek
a royal order that would guarantee criollo access to the offices of prior and
consul on a rotating basis.
69
Apparently, the crown was unwilling to venture
66. Count of San Isidro and Cayetano Fernndez Maldonado to Gil de Taboada, 30 Dec.
1790, and Gil de Taboadas decree of 4 Jan. 1791, bnp-mss, C-1692; Csar Pacheco Vlez, La
emancipacin del Per y la revolucin burguesa del siglo xviii, Mercurio Peruano, Ao 29, vol.
35, no. 332 (1954), 840; Anna, Fall of the Royal Government, 30. For the crowns rulings on
matriculation of bureaucrats in the consulado, which conformed to Gil de Taboadas, see Real
orden, Madrid, 14 Apr. 1789, and Real orden, Madrid, 16 Feb. 1790, agnp-Hacienda colonial,
leg. 900.
67. Francisco Flores to Gil de Taboada, 10 Jan. 1791, and Dionisio Franco (Gil de Taboadas
secretary) to Consulado, 10 Jan. 1791, bnp-mss, C-1692.
68. Villa Esteves, Liderazgo y poder, 15153; J. M. Medrano and Carlos Malamud, Las
actividades de los Cinco Gremios Mayores en el Per: Apuntes preliminares, Revista de Indias 48
(1988): 429.
69. Acta, Cabildo de Lima, 1 Mar. 1799, ahml-Cabildo, Libro 39.
far toward redressing grievances of limeo merchants. No royal order creating
an alternativa in the consulado has been found, but a clear pattern emerged:
priors were peninsular-born, sometimes recent arrivals in Lima, while the
office of consul alternated between criollos and Spaniards.
It was the dispute of 179091 that revealed most clearly the dimensions
of the threat to the trade of the limeo merchants and provoked an unsuc-
cessful attempt to draw up a new set of ordinances for the consulado.
70
It
became obvious that the limeos most dangerous rival was not the Real
Compaa de Filipinas, but the Cinco Gremios Mayores de Madrid and
their agents in Lima and Arequipa, who were importing huge quantities
of merchandise. In September 1792, the town council of Arequipa led by
Matheo de Cosso, the consulados commercial deputy, protested that during
1790 and 1791, the Cinco Gremios had imported merchandise valued at no
less than a million and a half pesos, swamping the market.
71
The limeos
and their allies in Arequipaagain, merchants in league with the Elizaldes
and Fuente Gonzlezpetitioned viceroy and crown for some measure of
relief from the Cinco Gremios competition,
72
but they were no match
for the privileged trading company. In 1794, the directors of the Cinco
Gremios Mayores in Madrid succeeded in having one of their depen-
dents named apoderado at court for the consulado of Lima. At the behest
of Fernando del Mazo and Ramn Cavallero, the Cinco Gremios agents
in Lima, the peninsular-born prior and one consul called a meeting of
the consulado on little notice, ostensibly to choose between two men pre-
viously nominated. At the last moment, Fernando de La Serna y Santanders
name was proposed; he was the Cinco Gremios secretary and not legally
eligible to serve as an apoderado. But Mazo and Cavallero had taken care
to pack the consulados meeting with Cinco Gremios allies: the vote was
37 to 28 in La Sernas favor. His appointment was confirmed by the
crown on the enthusiastic recommendations of the directors in Madrid
and the all-powerful Manuel de Godoy, duke of Alcuda and the royal
favorite. Only three menone member of the Council of the Indies, the
70. Acta, Junta general de comercio, 1 Feb. 1791, bnp-mss, C-562.
71. agnp-Hacienda colonial, leg. 1115; Villa Esteves, Liderazgo y poder, 15354.
72. Autos seguidos ante el Real Tribunal del Consulado por los comerciantes de Arequipa,
solicitando que se deje sin lugar la creacin de la Factora que los comisionados de los Cinco
Gremios Mayores de Madrid han establecido en la ciudad de Arequipa, 1791, agnp-Consulado,
Gremios Mayores de Madrid 249, cuaderno 185; Testimonio del informe que el cabildo y
consulado de la ciudad de Lima dieron al expediente seguido sobre la implantacin de Casas-
Factoras en Arequipa, Cuzco y dems lugares interiores del Reyno, considerados perjudicial al
comercio del Per, 1792, agnp-Consulado, leg. 151.
former apoderado whose appointment had been expected to be renewed,
and Francisco Vsquez de Uzieda, the criollo consul in Limahad the
courage to protest.
73
EXPANSION OF THE ATLANTIC TRADE
It was the Cinco Gremios large shipments of goods to Peru that not only
promised a continuing struggle for control of the consulado, but that most
seriously disrupted networks of supply by which limeo entrept merchants
could obtain the merchandise essential to remain in business. They believed
that regaining some measure of control over supply was therefore essential
to their economic survival. But Spanish policy reflected the idea, put for-
ward by Campomanes, Glvez, and many others, that contraband would
disappear if the colonial market were fully supplied at competitive prices
by Spanish merchants.
74
Between 1778 and 1796, Spains exports to her
American colonies increased fourfold,
75
and limeo merchants had to contend
with periods of market saturation and volatile prices, both of which were
attributed to the breakdown of mechanisms to control the quantity of
merchandise introduced into the Peruvian market.
A major and continuing element in the economic thought of colonial
Peruand indeed throughout Spanish Americawas fear of market satura-
tion, inventories of goods of any provenance that could not be sold at a
profit because they were not in short supply.
76
So pervasive was the fear of
73. Crown to Prior and Consuls, Consulado de Lima, 14 Apr. 1794, agi-Lima, leg. 1548;
Diputados directores, Cinco Gremios, to duke of Alcuda (Manuel de Godoy), Madrid, 1 Mar.
1794; Alcuda to Diputados directores, 3 Mar. 1794; Diego de Gardoqui to Alcuda, Madrid, 23
Mar. 1794; Alcuda to Josef Garca Len y Pizarro, Aranjuez, 26 Mar. 1794; Informe de Len y
Pizarro, Aranjuez, 29 Mar. 1794; Alcuda to Gardoqui, Aranjuez, 4 Apr. 1794; and Gardoqui to
Alcuda, Aranjuez, 14 Apr. 1794, all in ahn-Estado, leg. 3208, no. 324; Consulado de Lima to
Diego de Gardoqui, 8 Feb. 1795, agi-Lima, leg. 1539. The king himself authorized La Serna para
servir el empleo de Diputado o primer apoderado en la corte de la Junta Central de Comercio del
Consulado de Lima, no obstante faltarle la circunstancia de ser Agente, declarando legtimo el
nombramiento hecho en su persona a pluralidad de votos de los individuos de dicha junta.
74. Krebs, Pensamiento . . . de Campomanes, 266, 268; Glvez, Discurso y reflexiones, 25. Juan
and Ulloa at midcentury made the same proposal to control contraband in Peru; see their
Discourse and Political Reflections, 6667. See also Gil de Taboadas annotation to the Informe del
Consulado, in Deustua Pimentel, Tribunal del Consulado, 55.
75. Fisher, Commercial Relations, 48, 88.
76. El consulado y comercio del Per por medio de su diputado en la corte [ Josef de
Azofra], 21 May 1774, agi-Lima, leg. 874; Glvez, Discurso y reflexiones, 36, 37v, 38. For a typical
complaint on the dangers of glut, see the 1752 Testimonio de los autos del Real Acuerdo de
Justicia sobre la introduccin promovida por los individuos del comercio de Espaa, que residen
en la ciudad de Lima, por los gravsimos daos que ocasionarn los registros de Buenos Aires con
being caught with unsalable goods that it determined daily commercial
practice in which the quantity of merchandise in stock was a carefully
guarded secret. The minutes of a Junta general de comercio called in March
1780 illustrate the point. With the declaration of war against Great Britain
in June 1779, the Spanish crown sought to prevent the sale of English cloth
in the colonies, cloth which prior to that time had been legally re-exported
to Peru via Spain. British cloth had captured a significant share of the
Peruvian market, and its sale at acceptably high prices was important to
Peruvian commerce.
77
On 15 July 1779, a royal decree instructed the mer-
chants of Lima to declare their inventories of British cloth within three
months, and to dispose of all of it within a year. The merchants objected
that the decree obviously will cause irreparable damage to the individuals
of this trade because . . . it calls for divulging the quantity of English goods
legitimately imported . . . thereby informing everyone of the merchandise
which each one has and of that which is abundant or scarce, a difficulty so
serious in commerce that with it free circulation is absolutely impeded.
78
They assumed that they could not sell their stocks of imported cloth at
acceptable prices if customers and other merchants could gain access to
information about inventories. Prices would inevitably fall, especially if the
census of British cloth revealed that supplies were plentiful. The consulado
therefore petitioned the crown for abrogation of those articles of the decree
that would have reduced their ability to maintain the perception of scarcity.
Lima merchants blamed the Reglamento de comercio libre of 1778 for the
glut that ultimately destroyed their increasingly tenuous control of supply,
but there was little that they could do except protest. Indeed, the period
from 1778 until 1796 is replete with petitions and reports demanding modi-
fication or revocation of the Reglamento, and in all of them the fear of market
saturation plays a prominent part.
79
After the end of the war with England
la introduccin de ropas, agnp-Consulado, leg. 5, cuaderno 51. See also Acta, Junta de comercio,
3 Oct. 1778, agnp-Hacienda colonial, leg. 907, where the consulado petitioned the crown to limit
the number of registro ships permitted to sail for the Pacific. Villalobos, Comercio y contrabando,
discusses many instances of market saturation that prompted complaints by merchants in Ro de
la Plata, Chile, and Peru.
77. Acta, Junta general de comercio, 30 Mar. 1780, agnp-Hacienda colonial, leg. 907. Fisher,
Commercial Relations, 52, points out that demand for English cloth was driven by the fact that it
was less expensive than Spanish cloth.
78. Consulado to Viceroy, 14 Apr. 1780, agnp-Hacienda colonial, leg. 1031.
79. Representacin del Real Tribunal del Consulado de Per sobre el comercio libre entre
Espaa y Amrica, Madrid, 3 Feb. 1788, agnp-Hacienda colonial, leg. 23; Acta, Junta general de
comercio, 3 Oct. 1778, agnp-Hacienda colonial, leg. 907; Vargas Ugarte, Informe del Con-
sulado, 272.
in September 1783, those fears were realized. Metropolitan merchants rushed
to take advantage of their freedom to trade directly to Peru, badly over-
estimating the truncated viceroyaltys capacity to import and assuming,
erroneously, that inventories of European goods at Lima would have been
depleted during the course of the recent war. They were not, thanks to the
loss of markets in Alto Per to the new viceroyalty of Ro de la Plata and
to the opening of Perus remaining interior markets to goods imported via
Buenos Aires and Pacific ports to the south of Callao. Thus the metro-
politan merchants landed large new inventories of European goods in a
market already oversupplied.
The dimensions of the ensuing glut are impossible to measure with
precision. Viceroy Gil de Taboada reported imports to Callao in 1785 valued
at 6,965,231 pesos, and more than double that amount (14,734,084 pesos)
in 1786. According to Viceroy Croix, beginning in 1783 imports valued at
8.5 million pesos annually were carried to Lima, and he insisted that, in
1786, the value was 22 million pesos.
80
Jos Baqujano y Carrillo said that
sixteen ships anchored in Callaos harbor during the year following Sep-
tember 1785; he believed that they were carrying goods valued at 24 million
pesos. Both the consulado of Lima and the authorities in Madrid were
convinced that, between 1786 and 1790, the metropolitan merchants exported
goods valued at 46 million pesos to Peru, or about 9 million pesos annually
to a market accustomed to consuming no more than 4,625,000 per year,
and that at a time when Limas submetropolitan trade to the interior and
to Alto Per had been flourishing.
81
Even though there was no agreement
as to the precise value of imports, it is clear that the glut was immense: in
1788, the consulado collected 114,645 pesos in anchorage fees for ships sailing
from Spain, compared to an annual average of 10,242 pesos from 1775 to 1779.
82
The disaster lingered long in the memories of the merchants of Lima;
after independence the British consul in Lima was told that the glut of
the 1780s had been so terrible that some merchants burned their cargoes.
83
80. Gil de Taboada, Relacin de gobierno, 1213 (the viceroys statistics were taken from
Lequandas Idea sucinta); Croix to Glvez, 16 Aug. 1787, agi-Lima, leg. 1546, cited by Cspedes
del Castillo, Lima y Buenos Aires, 177.
81. Baqujano, Disertacin histrica y poltica, 239, where he puts the usual capacity to
import at 4 million pesos annually; undated memo in agi-Lima, leg. 1541; Vargas Ugarte, Informe
del consulado, 270. In his Relacin de gobierno, 1213, Gil de Taboadas figures for this period
add up to 32,888,798 pesos.
82. Estado que manifiesta lo atesorado en cajas del Real Tribunal del Consulado desde 1
o
de
enero de 1774 hasta 31 de diziembre de 1802, agi-Lima, leg. 737.
83. Report of Charles M. Ricketts, in British Consular Reports on the Trade and Politics of Latin
America, 18241826, ed. R. A. Humphreys (London: Offices of the Royal Historical Society, 1940), 112.
The effects on the commercial economy of Lima were severe. Estimates
placed losses by importers alone at 10,500,000 pesos between 1786 and 1790,
and those losses were compounded by a fall in prices for Peruvian exports
to Europe, especially cacao and Peruvian bark. As a result, the consulado
complained, bankruptcies among both resident merchants and their metro-
politan rivals were commonplace.
84
Nevertheless, there was no sympathy
in official circles for calls to dismantle the commercial reforms, prohibit
importation of European goods via Buenos Aires, and forbid sailings of
merchant ships from Spain for two years.
85
Viceroy Gil de Taboada did
not blame the Reglamento for the problem, but the metropolitan merchants
who failed to adjust the level of their shipments to consumption in this
part of America, adding that they had confused true liberty of commerce
with an unlimited license to import as much as they pleased.
86
In his
opinion, the Reglamento needed no modification.
The second effect of market saturation on the economy of Lima, one
that aggravated a situation already existing because of the loss of Alto
Per, was the increasing scarcity of specie. Between 1761 and 1774, of the
100,667,838 pesos coined by the mints of Lima and Potos, only 265,853
pesos (2.6 percent) remained in Peru. In the decade from 1778 to 1787,
legally registered specie exported to Spain from Peru exceeded the amount
coined in Limas mint by 7,594,596 pesos,
87
and it is not inappropriate to
assume that still more bullion and specie were shipped as contraband.
88
According to the consulado, the viceroyaltys circulating capital was being
84. Vargas Ugarte, Informe del consulado, 27071. Bankruptcies also proliferated among the
merchants of Cdiz; see Antonio-Miguel Bernal, Libre comercio (1778): Un primer ensayo de
modelo general, in El comercio libre entre Espaa y Amrica Latina, 17651824, ed. Antonio
Miguel Bernal (Madrid: Fundacin Banco Exterior, 1987), 25.
85. Croix to Marqus de Sonora (Glvez), remitiendo una representacin del consulado de
Lima, 16 Aug. 1787, agi-Lima, leg. 639; Santiago Saenz de Azofra to Crown, 3 Feb. 1788, agi-
Lima, leg. 1548.
86. Gil de Taboada, Relacin de gobierno, 107.
87. Cspedes del Castillo, Lima y Buenos Aires, 179; Vargas Ugarte, Historia . . . siglo xviii, 1:316.
Fisher, Effects of Comercio Libre, 154, calculates that from 1782 to 1796 Peru exported an average
4.4 million pesos annually. In the decade following 1778, the Casa de Moneda coined a total of
42,048,174 pesos, while 49,642,770 pesos were legally registered for Spain: Cspedes del Castillo,
Lima y Buenos Aires, 17980.
88. This was a perennial and significant problem. In Cdiz in 1778, large shipments of
unregistered gold and silver were discovered on board two ships that had sailed from Callao, El
Astuto and Aguila. Tadeo Haenke recounted the case of the Buen Consejo, which sailed from
Callao in 1779 with 2,500,000 pesos on board, according to the register. When it was captured
by the British, some 5 million pesos were found on board. Vargas Ugarte, Historia . . . siglo
xviii, 1:383; Pedro Dvalos y Lissn, Historia republicana del Per, 10 vols. (Lima: Gil, 193338),
1:114.
extracted at such a rate that there was no hope of replacing it.
89
The third
effect, following inexorably on the second, was to reduce limeo merchants
ability to invest in imported goods.
90
Thus the merchants who so vigorously
protested implementation of the Reglamento de comercio libre believed that,
along with their own bankruptcy, the economy of the viceroyalty would
collapse unless control of supply were, somehow, restored to them.
But that control was precisely what the Bourbon reformers sought to
deny the so-called monopolist merchants of Lima,
91
not only by the poli-
tical and commercial reforms of the late eighteenth century but also by
licenses granted to the Cinco Gremios Mayores de Madrid and the Real
Compaa de Filipinas to trade to Peru. In other regions of Spanish America,
privileged trading companies appeared as a step in the transition from a
rigidly monopolistic system centered in Cdiz, to another system, much
more flexible, and open to new Spanish and American ports. Those com-
panies began to decline after 1765 and practically disappeared after the
decree of 1778.
92
In Peru, the opposite was true: privileged trading companies
were unknown there until after the Reglamento de comercio libre was pro-
mulgated. The reason for the anomaly becomes apparent when close attention
is paid to the determined efforts of Bourbon reformers to diminish limeo
dominance of trade in Spanish South America.
Of the two privileged trading companies operating in Peru after 1784,
only the Real Compaa de Filipinas enjoyed a monopoly in the strict
sense of the word. By the terms of its charter, granted on 10 March 1785,
93
the company was given an exclusive license to trade with Asia, but it was
a trade structured in such a manner as to increase the power of metro-
politan merchants trading to Peru. The directors of the Filipinas company
were strongly urged to send their ships to Manila from Spain by way of
Buenos Aires and the Pacific ports of South America.
94
Homeward-bound
ships were at first required to sail directly to the peninsula by way of the
89. Fisher, Government and Society, 131. See also ndice de las representaciones que el virrey del
Per D. Teodoro de Croix remite al Exmo. Sr. . . . D. Antonio Valds, 5 Aug. 1788, agi-Lima, leg. 639.
90. Gil de Taboada, Relacin de gobierno, 108; Vargas Ugarte, Informe del consulado,
27071.
91. Ricardo Krebs, Campomanes y la poltica colonial espaola en el siglo xviii, Boletn de la
Academia Chilena de la Historia, Ao 22, no. 53 (1955), 50.
92. Vzquez de Prada, Rutas comerciales, 225, 228.
93. Real cdula de ereccin de la Compaa de Filipinas, Madrid, 10 Mar. 1785, Banco de
Espaa, Archivo Histrico, Secretara, leg. 559.
94. Article 26, Real cdula de ereccin. Note that by the terms of its original charter, the Real
Compaa de Filipinas was forbidden to trade to Mexico, which would continue to be served by
the Manila galleon at Acapulco.
Cape of Good Hope at the southern tip of Africa, and not under any
pretext returning . . . to America, unless provided with a special license,
which the king declared he would never grant without grave cause which
would force me to annul a provision so important to the industry, com-
merce, and navigation of my dominions and ports of Europe.
95
Instead,
Asian goods were to be landed first in Spain, and then carried to Callao as
part of the Atlantic trade. The Filipinas charter stipulated that, once their
Asian goods were landed in Spain, their monopoly dissolved and the
company became subject to the provisions of the Reglamento de comercio
libre on an equal footing with any other peninsular merchant house. Further-
more, the company was required to present Asian cargoes for sale in large
lots in peninsular ports, where they could be purchased freely by other
metropolitan merchants, including those trading to the colonies. The com-
pany was granted one important competitive advantage in the trade in Asian
goods to the ports of Spanish South America, however: in return for the high
risks involved in voyaging around the world, it was permitted to re-export
its Asian goods from Spain to America without paying taxes normally assessed
against foreign manufactures.
96
That provision was enough to allow the com-
pany an informal monopoly of supply of one branch of imports in both
Buenos Aires and Lima, where the Filipinas company maintained agencies.
The Real Compaa de Filipinas was also specifically licensed to parti-
cipate in the registro trade in European merchandise to Callao and the
other South American ports open to direct trade with the peninsula. The
company could load goods of any provenance in Spain not only for the
American market, but for Manila as well. Moreover, the merchandise sold in
America on the outward voyage to Manila could be replaced with colonial
products deemed salable in Asia, without paying export taxes at the port of
embarkation. And unlike the merchants of Lima, the agents of the Fili-
pinas company could re-export both European and Asian goods that had
found no buyers, and carry them to other American ports, also exempt
from export taxes. Finally, by their sales of both Asian and European goods
in Peru, the company could be expected to acquire the funds necessary to
increase their purchasing power in Asia.
97
Given the structure of trade set forth in the charter, the Filipinas com-
pany could have served a specific purpose in the Bourbon reconquest of
95. Article 32, Real cdula de ereccin.
96. Articles 24, 35, and 44, Real cdula de ereccin.
97. Articles 24, 26, 27, Real cdula de ereccin. Between 1785 and 1789, the company registered
2,790,000 pesos for Macao out of Callao: Lequanda, Idea sucinta, 87.
Peru: it could make it possible for Atlantic-trade merchants domiciled in
Spain to preempt a branch of trade that had previously been the domain
of limeo merchants trading (usually illegally) with Acapulco, where the
Manila galleon dropped anchor, or even with Macao itself.
98
Theoretically,
both the contraband trade and Limas submetropolitan entrept trade in
those goods would collapse. But in 1793, only eight years after it was char-
tered and in spite of the crowns declaration to the contrary, company
ships were permitted to return directly to Peru from Manila, without first
sailing for Spain via the Cape of Good Hope.
99
Their goods were landed
at Callao and sold at wholesale for distribution to the markets of the
interior, in much the same manner as they would have been in Spain. And
contrary to the reformers intent, limeo merchants consigned their funds
to Manila aboard the Filipinas ships in order to purchase Asian goods
directly, and those goods were in turn consigned to them in Limathe
free and reciprocal consignments repeatedly and unsuccessfully sought
in the Atlantic trade. Both practices proved important to members of the
limeo faction of the consulado, who could thereafter acquire highly prized
merchandise at competitive prices from the Filipinas company, merchan-
dise that permitted them to participate in the interprovincial trade in spite
of increasing difficulty in securing consignments from other Spanish mer-
chant houses.
100
98. Contraband traffic in China goods to Peru was notorious: Clarence H. Haring, The
Spanish Empire in America (New York: Harcourt, Brace, & World, 1963), 312. Not even the
merchants of Manila, who had been granted a two-year license to trade directly to Peru in 1779,
had been able to compete with the transpacific traders of Lima. In the 1780s, a group of powerful
limeo merchants formed an association to trade directly to Asia, returning to Peru via the Cape
of Good Hope and Spain with European manufactures as well: Areche no. 465 to Glvez, 26
Aug. 1782, agi-Lima, leg. 1087; El Conde de Torre Alegre et al. . . . sobre pertenencia de 200,000
y ms pesos, Cdiz, 1796, ahn-Consejos, leg. 20243; Dager Alva, Noble y comerciante, 77. See
also lvaro Jara, Las conexiones e intercambios americanos con el Oriente bajo el marco
imperial espaol, siglos xvixviii, La comunidad del Pacfico en perspectiva, ed. F. Orrego, 2 vols.
(Santiago: Editorial Universitaria, 1980), 1:3572; William L. Schurz, The Manilla Galleon (New
York: E. P. Dutton, 1959), 36771; Consulado to Visitador, 21 Jan. 1782 and 4 Feb. 1783, agnp-
99. Reales rdenes, 20 July 1793 and 12 July 1803, Documentos para la historia argentina,
7:3738, 24344; Joaqun de la Pezuela to Ministro de Hacienda, no. 161, 18 Sept. 1817, agi-
Filipinas, leg. 993.
100. Lequanda, Idea sucinta, 4748; Rafael Cornejo and Bartolom de la Parra to Viceroy,
Jan. 1786, agi-Lima, leg. 1548; El cuerpo de navieros del comercio interior de la Mar del Sur
existente in Lima al Rey Nuestro Seor, 19 Apr. 1782, agi-Lima, leg. 911; Vicente Morales y
Durez to Directors, Cinco Gremios Mayores de Madrid, 26 Apr. 1803, agi-Lima, leg. 1620;
Article 26, Real cdula de ereccin, Real Compaa de Filipinas; John R. Fisher, Imperial Free
Trade and the Hispanic Economy, 17781796, JLAS 13 (1981): 41. R. Flores, Iniciativa privada,
Unlike the Filipinas, the Cinco Gremios competed directly with the
entrept merchants of Lima. The first agency of the Cinco Gremios was
established in Arequipa in 1784, and was followed by a second office at
Lima in November 1786.
101
By the end of 1795, limeo merchantsand
also independent metropolitan merchants matriculated in the consulado
were thoroughly alarmed by the expansion of the Cinco Gremios trade to
Peru. In a petition that the consulados agent in Madrid forwarded to the
crown,
102
they asserted that the Cinco Gremios had contributed greatly to
the disastrous and persistent market saturation that, they believed, might
soon ruin the entire commercial class of Peru, as well as the Peruvian trade
of the Real Compaa de Filipinas. During only three years, from 1784 to
1786, the Cinco Gremios alone had imported goods valued at 4,571,911 pesos,
an amount larger than the annual output of Limas mint;
103
because their
agents were paid on a commission basis, it seemed unlikely that they would
voluntarily reduce their shipments. When they remitted their profits to
Spain, the consulado argued, the viceroyalty would suffer a continuing and
serious drain of specie and bullion.
Even more menacing, in the consulados opinion, was the fact that the
Cinco Gremios, unlike the Filipinas, was not only a wholesale importer; it
was also engaged in the retail trade in the interior provinces, where it sold
goods for less than the wholesale prices paid by competitors. By 1795, the
Cinco Gremios was said to control half the commerce of Lima, and was
therefore well positioned to establish a monopoly over supply of imported
goods. Once that was accomplished, the consulado believed that prices
would be raised to unprecedented levels, and the Cinco Gremios would
proceed to establish a similar monopoly of the viceroyaltys export trade.
104
16061, dates this policy to 1792, when, as a result of the crisis provoked by a royal decree ending
its monopoly of imports of Indian cotton textiles, the company decided to concentrate on
supplying Peruvian importers.
101. Capella and Matilla Tascn, Cinco Gremios Mayores, 286, 295, 29798; Expediente sobre el
conducto, testimonio general no. 6a, 7 Aug. 1800, agi-Lima, leg. 1620.
102. El consulado de la ciudad de Lima . . . hace presente el riesgo que amenaza a todo el
comercio de las vastas provincias que comprende su distrito, como un efecto necesario de las
factoras proyectadas por los Cinco Gremios Mayores de Madrid, Madrid, 28 Dec. 1795, agi-
Indif. gen., leg. 1623. The consulados apoderado at court was Antonio Bustillo de Cevallos.
103. In 1784, Limas Casa de Moneda produced 3,909,829 pesos; in 1785, 3,553,763 pesos; and
1786, 4,047,960 pesos: Fisher, Government and Society, 25455;
104. El consulado de la ciudad de Lima . . . hace presente, Madrid, 28 Dec. 1795, agi-Indif.
gen., leg. 1623; Consulado to Viceroy, 12 Dec. 1795, agnp-Hacienda colonial, leg. 1087; Informe
del consulado, 29 Oct. 1795, in Gil de Taboada, Relacin de gobierno, 12224; Capella and
Matilla Tascn, Cinco Gremios Mayores, 29798. For the Filipinas Companys long-standing
The Lima merchants were convinced that, if the Cinco Gremios activi-
ties in Peru were to go unchecked, only a modest retail trade within the
boundaries of the much-reduced viceroyalty would remain to them. Their
submetropolitan entrept trade could not survive such drastic and continuing
loss of control over supply as the Cinco Gremios trade implied. Indeed,
that gloomy prospect had become apparent soon after the Cinco Gremios
established their agency in Arequipa: merchants resident there, who sold
imported goods to the mining districts of southern Peru, no longer journeyed
to Lima to purchase their inventories.
105
That was precisely what the
Bourbon reformers wished to accomplish by their encouragement of the
trade undertaken by the Cinco Gremios. The peninsular bureaucrat who
summarized the consulados complaint for the crown went so far as to
celebrate the possibility that the Gremios will administer the final blow
to the monopoly of the merchants of Lima, who like those of Cdiz and
Mexico, attempt to control commerce in the place of their residence,
adding that the merchants of Lima had long opposed any changes that
reduced their excessive profits.
106
The Cinco Gremios dominance in the Peruvian market was also intended
to serve a second purpose, one which the consulados complaint could not
risk mentioning. Officially, neither limeo nor metropolitan merchants
were permitted to engage in the repartimiento trade to the interior whereby
Indians were forced to buy merchandise, much of it useless to them, from
the provincial governors who had been supplied with both capital and
merchandise by powerful merchants like the count of San Isidro. The
repartimiento was a principal cause of Tpac Amarus rebellion in 1780,
but it did not disappear in the wake of the viceroys or the crowns decrees
abolishing it. On the contrary, it survived virtually intact, in part because
the subdelegates (local magistrates reporting to the intendants) had not
been provided with a living wage. Thus the way was open to merchants
who simply continued their customary trade and time-honored commercial
practices. Writing in 1807, Miguel de Eyzaguirre, the Audiencias con-
scientious protector of Indians, declared that if it were not illicit to give
refusal to engage in retail trade, see Jos Munarriz, Suplemento al Correo Universal de Literatura y
Poltica, o refutacin de sus nmeros 1
o
y 2
o
en lo relativo a la Compaa de Filipinas (Madrid:
Imprenta de Ibarra, 1820), 15.
105. El consulado de la ciudad de Lima . . . hace presente, Madrid, 28 Dec. 1795, agi-Indif.
gen., leg. 1623; Gil de Taboada, Relacin de gobierno, 121.
106. Informe de mesa, Madrid, 6 Apr. 1796; Crown to Viceroy, Aranjuez, 9 May 1796; and
Informe de mesa, Madrid, 2 June 1800, all in agi-Indif. gen., leg. 1623.
another name to Peru, it ought to be called the Kingdom of Corruption
and Repartimiento.
107
In the face of passionate defense of repartimientos
and successful resistance to authorityby the merchants of Lima, it seemed
obvious that only their complete removal from dominance of the trade to
the interior could end the practice. The reformers in Madrid believed
that, if the Cinco Gremios were able to establish their agencies in all of
the most important provincial capitals, as they intended to do, all the
apologists for repartimientos would be confounded; . . . by this means, and
not by means of the lawsuit pending in the Council [of the Indies], the
scandalous debate on whether it is convenient to re-establish repartimientos
will be ended.
108
Not all goods for local consumption were imported from Europe,
however; cloth, wines and brandies, and other products were supplied by
Peruvian workshops and haciendas, often competing directly with Spains
principal exports to America. But the Cinco Gremios had been entrusted
with a third task, described by Viceroy Gil de Taboada. Gil lamented the
fact that cloth produced in Cuzco continued to supply markets of the
interior, to the detriment of the agriculture, industry, and shipping of the
metropolis. In Gils opinion, metropolitan merchants ought to supply
the interior in such a manner that the factories of the district, unable to
compete, are dedicated to another occupation which is useful and capable
of maintaining the greatest number of relationships with the Metropolis.
The Gremios have begun to establish warehouses in Arequipa, and will
perhaps do the same in Cuzco. Only they with their capital are able to
undertake this enterprise. Thus, he advised, the complaints of the consulado
against the activities of the Cinco Gremios ought to be ignored, and declared
107. Miguel de Eyzaguirre to Agustn de Eyzaguirre, 1 Aug. 1807, in Eyzaguirre, Archivo
epistolar, 131. See also real orden, 26 Feb. 1787, agi-Lima, leg. 639; Informe annimo, 1809, sent to
the Junta Central in Spain, in ahn-Estado 58, Doc. 134. On the persistence of repartimiento, see
also Moreno Cebrin, Corregidor de indios, 65859, 722, 73132; Fisher, Government and Society,
9096, 236; Cahill, Repartos ilcitos. The repartimiento was officially abolished in December 1780.
108. Informe de mesa, Madrid, 6 Apr. 1796, agi-Indif. gen., leg. 1623. For arguments in favor
of repartimiento, see Carri de la Vanderas 1782 Reforma del Per, and Lequanda, Idea sucinta,
179v180v; Jorge Escobedo y Alarcn, Proyecto sobre la extincin de repartos y modo de verificar
los piadosos socorros . . . , 20 Aug. 1784, attached to Escobedo to Glvez, no. 323, agi-Lima, leg.
1098; Acta, Junta general de comercio, 25 Oct. 1784, agnp-Hacienda colonial, leg. 907; Jos
Lagos, Proyecto econmico para los habitantes del Per, Cdiz, 13 Oct. 1786, agi-Lima, leg. 1029.
On the importance ascribed by Campomanes to metropolitan factoras throughout the Indies, see
Krebs, Campomanes y la poltica colonial espaola, 56. See also Alfredo Moreno Cebrin, La
Ordenanza de Intendentes del Per y su preocupacin por la liberalizacin del giro comercial
provincial, in Estado y mercado en la historia del Per, ed. Contreras and Glave, 14683.
to be without foundation and opposed to liberty of commerce in general.
The crown agreed.
109
If the viceroy and the crown had their way, the monopoly of the
consulado of Lima, an association of many merchants born both in Spain
and America who competed with each other, would be replaced in large part
by a single powerful peninsular merchant house capable of dominating
the trade to the interior and, by its ability to import large quantities of
European goods, to destroy local sources of supply. The effects on the
Lima commercial elite would be severe: the limeo merchants would have
nothing to sell at wholesale because they would have no access to large-scale
inventories either of imports or of locally produced goods. The crowns
impatience with limeo complaints was expressed clearly by the bureau-
crat who wrote that everything that is contrary to the interests of the
merchants of Lima, especially competition, has been resisted by the con-
sulado on the pretext of being prejudicial to the commerce of Peru. It
opposed navigation via Cape Horn, freedom of shipping [i.e., the registro
trade], importation by way of Buenos Aires, and now it complains of the
establishment of trading houses by the Gremios.
110
But the crowns definition
of competition was perceived by limeos as its opposite: a new monopoly
of every branch of the viceroyaltys trade.
THE PACIFIC TRADE IN AMERICAN PRODUCTS
As part of their reform project, the Bourbons also attempted to deprive
limeo merchants of inventories of locally produced goods, the efectos del
pas. Three sectors of the viceregal economycloth manufacturing, sugar
production, and the trade in aguardientes (brandy and rum)were especially
targeted; they were major components of limeo interprovincial trade.
The regulations drawn up to implement this policy exhibit a pattern of
crown discrimination against Peruvian enterprise and commerce that set
the viceroyalty apart from other colonies.
Locally-produced textiles were an important part of the quasi-autonomous
submetropolitan economy. As late as 1791, cloth produced in the obrajes and
chorrillos scattered throughout the viceroyalty and as far north as Quito
accounted for 570,187 pesos (36 percent) of Perus exports to Chile and
109. Gil de Taboadas comments were appended to the Informe del consulado de Lima, 5
May 1791; they and the crowns ruling are undated: Deustua Pimentel, Tribunal del Consulado;
Expediente sobre el conducto, agi-Lima, leg. 1620.
110. Informe de mesa, 6 Apr. 1796, agi-Indif. gen., leg. 1623.
Buenos Aires.
111
But Viceroys Croix and Gil explicitly sought to destroy
local manufacture of cloth, replacing it with cloth imported by metropoli-
tan merchants. In a letter to the minister of the Indies, Croix reminded
him that Spain cannot lose sight of the opportunity to destroy and ruin
those obrajes.
112
Gil criticized the newly appointed intendants for failing
in their duty to assess the state of manufacturing establishments in their
districts, and to propose prudent means which can be employed to weaken
them, without the people noticing. He asserted that if the factories . . .
were to decline because of the instability of prices, that is a great benefit
to the state resulting from free trade.
113
Thus, in 1799 when a group of
merchants in Lima attempted to develop the cloth industry, as the Mexi-
cans had been allowed to do, the crown put a stop to it.
114
The effect of
this policy was to grant metropolitan merchants a protected market precisely
in that merchandise, cloth, which was an essential component of the
limeos interprovincial trade in efectos del pas.
115
The relentless campaign
to deprive limeos of locally produced products that could compete with
imports also destroyed the Peruvian hat industry. The crown ruined it by
passing a law by which all vicua wool produced in Peru had to be
exported to Spain, thereby making it impossible for local manufacturers to
acquire essential raw materials; instead, the royal hat factory administered
by the Cinco Gremios Mayores de Madrid was granted an exclusive
license to manufacture hats, importing its raw materials and selling its
product free of sales taxes and other royal imposts.
116
The Bourbon reformers strategy was also evident in the encourage-
ment given metropolitan shipowners to engage in the coasting trade,
117
in
the ruling by the visitador (inspector-general) that efectos del pas were to
111. Baqujano, Disertacin histrica, Estados 1, 2, 4, which follow p. 228.
112. Quoted by Parrn Salas, Reformas borbnicas, 185. See also Gil de Taboada to Pedro de
Lerena, 5 May 1791, cdip-Tomo 22, 1:24; Discurso annimo sobre la minera, comercio y
agricultura del Per . . . Ao de 1803, Archivo, Real Academia de la Historia (Madrid), Tomo
LXVIII, 71569.
113. Gil de Taboada to Antonio Valds, 20 July 1790, cdip-Tomo 22, 1:9, 10. See also
Lequanda, Idea sucinta, 5065v, for his Reflexiones sobre s sera o no conveniente extinguir las
manufacturas en el Per.
114. Villa Esteves, Liderazgo y poder, 16465. The royal order of 9 May 1795 permitted Mexico
to develop plantings of linen and hemp and to establish factories and looms for any type of cloth.
115. Baqujano, Disertacin histrica, 225.
116. A los virreyes del Per y Buenos Ayres y subdelegados de Real Hacienda, Madrid, 6
Dec. 1784, agi-Lima, leg. 1130; Capella and Matilla Tascon, Cinco gremios mayores, 17577.
117. Acta, Junta de comercio, 3 Oct. 1778, agnp-Hacienda colonial, leg. 907, where the
consulado appealed to the crown to prohibit trade by the registro ships in efectos del pas, leaving
that part of the coasting trade in the hands of limeo shipowners. See also Informe del consulado
pay almojarifazgo when transported by sea,
118
and in royal decrees like that
of 20 January 1774, which prohibited all trade in frutos del Per with Mexico,
Santa Fe, and Tierrafirme.
119
A principal component of that maritime trade,
aguardiente, was subjected to a sales tax of 6 percent and a surtax of 12.5
percent, payable at the point of production; the market was also restricted
by royal monopolies in Guayaquil and Panama.
120
Since the limeos
needed to sell wines and spirits in Guayaquil in order to pay for new ships
and repairs to old ones, the prohibition struck directly at their ability to
engage in the seaborne interprovincial trade. So important was this trade
to maritime strength in the Pacific that Viceroy Amat had suspended the
provision, apparently only temporarily, for it was in effect in 1794 when
Jos de Lequanda wrote his Idea sucinta del comercio del Per. In 1814,
taxes on Peruvian aguardiente totalled 29.5 percent, and Peruvians were still
protesting the royal monopoly that excluded their aguardientes from markets
to the north.
121
In any case, the crowns policy toward Peru contrasted
markedly with the encouragement given to Chileans to develop their inter-
provincial trade in aguardiente. In 1795, a company of merchants in Santiago
was granted an eight-year monopoly to trade in brandy and other efectos
del pas to Alto Per; they were exempted from the 12.5 percent tax, from
sobre la representacin que han hecho en este Superior Govierno los dueos de embarcaciones
del trfico de los puertos de esta Mar del Sur y de la otra costa para que no se conceda licencia
alguna a los navos de registro de Espaa para traficar en ellos los frutos y producciones del pas, 3
July 1780, agnp-Hacienda colonial, leg. 1031.
118. Consulado to Visitador, 11 May 1780, agnp-Hacienda colonial, leg. 1031. Areche was
confirming chapter 1, article 5 of Amats Reglamento para el govierno de la aduana de esta ciudad y
mtodo de la recaudacin y administracin de los reales derechos de almojarifazgo y alcabala del Reyno
del Per (Lima: San Jacinto, 1773).
119. Amat, Memoria de gobierno, 219. The real cdula is printed in Documentos para la historia
argentina, 5:30610, and lists, besides wines and brandies, additional Peruvian products that could
not be traded to other American provinces. But note that cacao out of Guayaquil could be
exported to Acapulco (but not by merchants like Juan Miguel de Castaeda, resident in Lima),
and indigo could be imported to Peru: Flores, Destino manifiesto de un mercader, 104 n. 39;
ndice de las representaciones que el Virrey del Per . . . Croix dirige a . . . Antonio Valds, 5 Aug.
1788, agi-Lima, leg. 639.
120. Kendall W. Brown, Bourbons and Brandy: Imperial Reform in Eighteenth-Century Are-
quipa (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1986), 78, 17476; Gil de Taboada,
Relacin de gobierno, 203, 208, 240. The decree raising the alcabala to 6 percent was dated 23
June 1777.
121. Lequanda, Idea sucinta, 211v; Amat, Memoria de gobierno, 219, 253; Consulado to Viceroy,
16 Feb. 1798, agnp-Hacienda colonial, leg. 1087; Viceroy to Crown, 8 Mar. 1798, agi-Lima, leg.
1548; Prior and Consuls to Marqus de las Hormasas, Ministro de Hacienda, 26 Mar. 1798, and
Consulado to Manuel Jos de Amandarro, 20 Apr. 1803, both in agnp-Hacienda colonial, leg.
1115; Francisco Salazar Carrillo de Crdoba to Secretario . . . de las Indias, Madrid, 17 Aug. 1814,
agi-Lima, leg. 1018-B.
the sisa tax of 2.5 pesos, and from the alcabala due on value added between
Chile and Potos.
122
In 1799, the town council of Lima summed up the
limeos anger at the royal decree of 1774, declaring that free trade exists
only in name, because when exportation of certain products and the recip-
rocal communication between ports of both Americas is prohibited, there
is no such privilege.
123
Opposition to the sugar-wheat trade with Chile, dominated by limeos,
was equally explicit. The count of Campomanes, for example, deplored the
monopoly of the Chilean trade by limeos, blaming it for the lack of direct
trade between Chile and the peninsula.
124
The reformers therefore launched
a three-pronged attack on the sugar industry: in the 1780s, the crown
forbade the importation of machinery for sugar mills and the establish-
ment of new refining facilities; Negro slaves, the labor force on sugar
haciendas, were subjected to import taxes from which they were exempt
in other Spanish provinces; and taxes on hacendados and their tenants
who produced sugar were sharply increased.
125
The agricultural sectors of
other colonies did not receive similar treatment. Sugar production in Mexico
was encouraged by reduced taxes.
126
The crown actively promoted Guaya-
quils trade in cacao, and permitted slaves and agricultural equipment to
be imported duty-free to Cuba, Santo Domingo, Puerto Rico, and Caracas,
extending the privilege to Buenos Aires in 1791. Although a royal order of
1795 permitted slaves to be imported duty-free to Callao and Paita in Peru,
its implementation was apparently delayed, ignored, or rescinded; in
1796 the consulado of Lima petitioned the viceroy for permission to
import slaves to Peru tax-free, and in 1799 import duties were still being
122. Real orden, 21 Mar. 1795, Documentos para la historia argentina, 7:92.
123. Acta, Cabildo de Lima, 1 Mar. 1799, ahml-Cabildo, Libro 39.
124. Krebs, Campomanes y la poltica colonial espaola, 50.
125. Ugarte, Historia econmica, 27, where he also points out that Indians were forbidden by
law to work in the sugar mills; Turiso Sebastin, Comerciantes espaoles, 12122; Gisela Morazzini
de Prez Enciso, La intendencia en Espaa y en Amrica (Caracas: Imprenta Universitaria, 1966),
20; Razn de las chacras y huertas de los contornos de esta capital de Lima y cantidades que
satisfacen sus respectivos dueos al ao, bn-m, mss, leg. 1344: Documentos relativos al Per,
19262, no. 6; cdip-Tomo I, vol. 3: Jos Baqujano y Carrillo, ed. Miguel Maticorena Estrada (Lima:
Comisin Nacional del Sesquicentenario de la Independencia del Per, 1976), 19; Amat, Memoria
de gobierno, 221. Eduardo Arcila Faras, in his Prlogo to Morazanni de Prez Enciso, La
intendencia, 20, notes that Spain had embarked on a policy of assigning a certain type of
production to each of the component parts of the empire, and prohibiting comparable production
in other regions equally capable of the same activity. Sugar production was assigned to Mexico
and Spains Caribbean colonies.
126. Prez Herrero, Reformismo borbnico, 103.
charged every time a slave was moved by sea from one of his masters
properties to another.
127
The reformers efforts to disrupt the sugar-wheat exchange between
Callao and Chile led them to promote wheat production in the valleys
around Lima. But in the 1770s, land that could have been dedicated to
wheat was planted in sugar or alfalfa. As one commentator has noted, when
alfalfa displaced wheat, [Limas] countryside was placed at the service of
commerce in the form of food for the mules that carried merchandise to
the interior, much of it for the repartimiento trade.
128
Moreover, some of
the hacendados who produced sugar were also shipowners engaged in the
sugar-wheat exchange.
129
Therefore, if sugar production and the importa-
tion of Chilean wheat could be made uneconomical, and if the landowners
could be persuaded to produce wheat instead of either sugar or alfalfa,
then another branch of seaborne interprovincial trade controlled by limeo
merchants could be reduced or eliminated along with the transport system
that supported overland trade from Lima to the provinces of the interior.
The reformers logic was impeccable, and the web of policies they spun to
promote this outcome was impressive. An additional weapon used by the
reformers to bring about this result was a system of discriminatory taxes
resembling those applied to Peruvian wines and brandies.
TAXATIONAND INTERPROVINCIAL TRADE
One of the goals of the Spanish reformers was to increase revenue, but
they did not always impose new or higher taxes. On the contrary, some
taxes were decreased or abolished, while others were raised.
130
The pattern
of change in Peru was by no means random, however; it was crafted in
127. Hamerly, Historia social y econmica, 12425, and the Real cdula, 28 Feb. 1789, cited by
Ricardo Levene, La poltica econmica de Espaa en Amrica y la revolucin de 1810 (Buenos Aires:
Coni Hermanos, 1914), 109; Flores, Destino manifiesto de un mercader, 104 n. 39; Sergio
Villalobos, El comercio extranjero a fines de la dominacin espaola, Journal of Inter-American
Studies 4 (1962): 521; Consulado to Viceroy, 21 Apr. 1796, agnp-Hacienda colonial, leg. 1087; Acta,
Cabildo de Lima, 1 Mar. 1799, ahml-Cabildo, Libro 39.
128. Febres Villaroel, Crisis agrcola, 16372.
129. For names of shipowners to compare with lists of hacendados previously cited, see Junta
de navieros sobre la prohibicin del corte de maderas en Guayaquil, 19 Apr. 1769, agnp-
Consulado, leg. 23; Junta de dueos de navos de este Mar del Sur, 5 Sept. 1776, and Junta de
dueos de navos, 21 June 1786, both in agnp-Hacienda colonial, leg. 907; El cuerpo de navieros
del comercio interior de la Mar del Sur existente en Lima, 19 Apr. 1782, agi-Lima, leg. 911.
130. Guillermo Cspedes del Castillo, Reorganizacin de la hacienda virreinal peruana en el
siglo xviii, Anuario de Historia del Derecho Espaol 23 (1953): 32969.
such a way that it penalized trade via Callao-Lima while promoting trade
via other American ports.
131
Reformers like Viceroy Amat, the notorious
visitador Josef Antonio de Areche, and their successors also used tax policy
to attack the agricultural foundations of limeo interprovincial trade. Admit-
tedly, the alcabala paid by local hacendados and their tenants was ripe for
reform. Since the sixteenth century, they had been paying only 2,955 pesos
annually in the form of a negotiated cabezn or lump sum prorated among
them according to the relative value of the yield from their lands. Amats
Junta de encabezamiento raised the alcabala to 14,000 pesos annually, some
2,200 pesos less than would be owed at the new rate of 4 percent of
declared sales.
132
Areche, who arrived in Lima in June 1777 with orders to
raise the alcabala to 6 percent, estimated the value of the agricultural yield
at 500,000 pesos annually, which would have yielded 30,000 pesos. He
attempted to negotiate a new cabezn of 21,000 pesos,
133
but the hacendados and
their tenants insisted that profits from their agricultural activities were too
meager to support the increased tax.
134
As they declared in their protests
to the viceroy, theirs were high-cost operations, most of their properties were
mortgaged to the Church, and prices for agricultural goods had declined.
135
131. The reformers understood well that tax policy affected trade; the count of Campomanes
devoted much of his 1762 treatise to this question: Reflexiones sobre el comercio espaol a Indias, ed.
Vicente Llombart Rosa (Instituto de Estudios Fiscales, 1988).
132. Amat raised the alcabala from 2 to 4 percent in 1772: David Cahill, Taxonomy of a
Colonial Riot: The Arequipa Disturbances of 1780, in Reform and Insurrection, ed. Fisher et al., 258.
133. Mara Encarnacin Rodrguez Vicente, Haciendas y hacendados de Lima haca 1781,
Revista de Indias, nos. 13138 (197374): 639; Amat, Memoria de gobierno, 594, 600601; Areche to
Glvez no. 374, 22 Feb. 1782, ahn-Consejos, leg. 20300; Holgun Callo, El visitador Areche, 88.
134. It is doubtful, however, that the hacendados were perfectly honest in declaring the value
of the profits they enjoyed from exploitation of their properties. For a case in which the
hacendado was able to evade investigation, see Snchez, Familia, comercio y poder, 43. See also
Marcel M. Haitin, Prices, the Lima Market, and the Agricultural Crisis of the Late Eighteenth
Century in Peru, JbLA 22 (1985): 16799, where he argues that evidence for a crisis in Peruvian
agriculture in the late eighteenth century is suspect.
135. The investigator for the junta de cabezn, who established the value of sales of the
products of haciendas in the valleys of Lima, also recorded data about the costs of production
that support the hacendados allegations of penury, and even Areche acknowledged that hacendados
had serious economic troubles: Areche to Jos de Glvez no. 374, 22 Feb. 1782, ahn-Consejos, leg.
20300; Pleito de los labradores de Lima, Testimonio no. 1, and Memorial de los hacendados y
labradores de Lima, Feb. 1776, also in ahn-Consejos, leg. 20300; Gil de Taboada, marginal
notation on the Informe del consulado of 1790, in Deustua Pimentel, Tribunal del Consulado, 51,
111. The consulados Informe of 1790 also noted the drop in price for cacao and cascarrillo exported
to Europe. See also the case of the count of Fuente Gonzlez, whose mortgages on his Hacienda
Retes required him to pay about 25 percent of his costs to his creditors, and who realized a profit
of only 3.8 percent on his agricultural activities between 1806 and 1812: Dager Alva, Noble y
comerciante, 80, 81, 83. On the accumulation of agricultural debt, see Quiroz, Deudas olvidadas, 37.
As Areche soon discovered, however, titled hacendados and their families,
who often had other sources of income, exercised considerable political
power. After an acrimonious battle in which Viceroy Manuel de Guirior
supported the agriculturists against the visitador, the cabezn was set at
10,000 pesos annually, much more than they had been accustomed to paying
but less than half the amount Areche had hoped to impose.
136
Neverthe-
less, the visitador won an important concession from the hacendados and
their tenants: the new cabezn would be assessed only against those agri-
cultural products sold within the city of Lima and its immediate valleys;
produce exported beyond the limits of the province would be subject to
alcabalas at the full 6 percent of value.
137
The effect on interprovincial trade
soon became obvious: limeo entrept traders in agricultural goods were
at a competitive disadvantage in their traditional markets. As early as 178788,
the consulado was actively seeking the means to reduce competition from
sugar imported from Cuba and Brazil, but in Spain, no one supported their
position. On the contrary, in 1792 the crown reduced taxes on sugar
imported to Buenos Aires from Havana, some of it distributed afterward to
Chile and Alto Per, and allowed Mexican sugar to be exported duty-free
from Veracruz. By then, it was also cheaper to export sugar to Chile from
Mexico than from Lima.
138
The same pattern of favoring trade that bypassed
136. Palacio Atard, Areche y Guirior, 2728, 297; Fisher, Government and Society, 19; Areche to
Glvez no. 374, 22 Feb. 1782, ahn-Consejos, leg. 20300; Memorial de los hacendados y
labradores de Lima, Feb. 1776, ahn-Consejos, leg. 20300, 429v465v; Pleito de los labradores de
Lima, Testimonio no. 1, also in ahn-Consejos, leg. 20300; Razn de las chacras y huertas de los
contornos de esta capital de Lima, bn-m, mss, leg. 1344: Documentos relativos al Per, 19262,
no. 6.
137. Rodrguez Vicente, Haciendas y hacendados, 641; Palacio Atard, Areche y Guirior, 28,
cites a clarification issued in a real orden of 13 Aug. 1779 whereby Peruvian products will pay the
alcabala at 6 percent in all sales and resales.
138. Ramrez Necochea, Antecedentes econmicos, 7273; Mazzeo, Comercio libre, 84; Villalobos,
Comercio y la crisis colonial, 22627; Consulado to Viceroy, 26 July 1798, agnp-Hacienda colonial,
leg. 1087. In 1792, the crown reduced the almojarifazgo payable on Cuban sugar imported to
Buenos Aires in ships that carried salted meat to Havana: Documentos para la historia argentina,
7:12. Writing in 1794, Lequanda, Idea sucinta, 192v, expected Limas sugar exports to Chile to
decline because of competition from Mexican sugar. Foreign sugar, too, was competing in what
might have been Perus market. In 1784, Jorge Escobedo, Areches successor as visitador, blamed
the economic decline of Trujillo on imports of Brazilian sugar via Buenos Aires to Alto Per:
Quiroz, Deudas olvidadas, 111. In 1798, the consulado seconded the appeal of the hacendados to
prohibit importation of Brazilian sugar; in 1806, the consulado instructed its apoderado at court to
secure a real orden forbidding importation of Brazilian sugar to Buenos Aires, and its appeal was
seconded by the town council of Lima in 1809: Consulado to Viceroy, 26 July 1798, agnp-
Hacienda colonial, leg. 1087, and Consulado to Manuel Jos Amandarro, 23 May 1806, agnp-
Hacienda colonial, leg. 1115; Instructions issued by the cabildo to Jos Silva y Olave, its repre-
sentative at Crtes, 11 Oct. 1809, agi-Lima, leg. 802.
the merchants of Lima was behind a decree of 1796: sugar could be exported
from two northern ports, and imports carried to them, free of taxes.
139
The principle could not always be applied, however, as Areche discovered
in 1782 when he attempted to raise taxes on wheat imported by Lima from
Chile. To stimulate local production, Areche ruled that, while wheat could
be exported tax-free from Chile, it was subject to import taxes at Callao
totaling 12 percent, which included alcabalas assessed at Areches new rate
of 6 percent.
140
The aim was to raise the cost of Chilean wheat to the point
where locally produced grain could be grown at a profitand deprive limeo
merchants and shipowners of one of their principal cargoes in the sugar-
wheat exchange.
141
But it also had a politically virulent effect: it raised the
price of bread. Little is known about the popular protests that followed,
but they forced Areche to suspend collection of the tax while the matter
was referred to Madrid. A crown ruling of 22 April 1785 abolished import
taxes on Chilean wheat, and a royal order of 7 May 1786 exempted wheat
and flour from payment of alcabalas. Even so, the crowns rulings were
late in coming: the alcabala on wheat sold in Mexico and New Granada
had been abolished by a royal order of 30 April 1776.
142
Changes in the administration and structure of taxes on commerce in
nonagricultural products were also an integral part of the reformers effort
to diminish Limas interprovincial trade while increasing revenue. These
reforms, too, were initiated by Viceroy Amat and vigorously pursued by
visitador Areche. Amat began his attack on the activities of the limeo
merchants soon after his arrival in 1761, confronting them for the tax evasion,
contrabanding, and bribery that had been aided and abetted by corrupt
bureaucrats.
143
He ordered the merchants to pay arrears on alcabalas, and by
the end of his tenure in July 1776, 463,026 pesos had been collected. His
campaign against corrupt bureaucrats also yielded gratifying results: alcabala
and almojarifazgo collections rose precipitously, from a total of 970,248 pesos
in 175458 to 2,250,526 pesos in 176468. When he established a customs
house opposition was intense, but once it began operations in July 1773, tax
collections on imports of European goods rose by a respectable 28 percent
139. Fisher, Government and Society, 150.
140. El cuerpo de navieros del comercio interior de la Mar del Sur existente in Lima, 19 Apr.
1782, agi-Lima, leg. 911; Cabildo to Crown, 29 May 1782, agi-Lima, leg. 802.
141. Vicua Mackenna, Historia de Valparaso, 2:240.
142. Febres Villaroel, Crisis agrcola, 13536, 163, 17678; Gil de Taboada, Relacin de
gobierno, 238, 241.
143. Amat, Resumen por menor, agi-Lima, leg. 639.
as compared with the previous year.
144
As Amat pointed out, the increased
collections were due not to an increase in trade to Peru, but to nothing more
than the elimination of fraud and embezzlement.
145
The campaign to make tax collection on commerce more honest and
efficient was accompanied by a demand for increased revenue from a tradi-
tional source. Previously, the alcabala had been paid in the form of a nego-
tiated cabezn by each of the thirty-two gremios or guilds of Lima.
146
Five
of them, known as the cinco gremios mayores, were merchant guilds rather
than guilds of producers.
147
As in the case of the hacendados and their tenants,
who formed one of the thirty-two guilds, Amat empowered the Junta de
encabezamiento to ascertain the value of the cinco gremios annual sales.
148
The junta calculated that the merchants annual sales amounted to 500,624
pesos, on which the five guilds were ordered to pay 16,000 pesos in
alcabalas, less than the 20,000 pesos that would have been paid at the rate
of 4 percent and much less than the 30,000 pesos due after Areche raised
the alcabala to 6 percent.
149
In either case, the increase was significant: the
five merchant guilds had been paying only 5,670 pesos annually, thereby, in
Amats words, defrauding the royal treasury.
150
Areche began his campaign
by insisting that the guilds pay the arrears in alcabalas due according to
the assessment levied in 1775, 16,000 pesos annually, which the guilds had
withheld in protest. But from July 1777 forward, the guilds arrears were to
144. Amat, Memoria de gobierno, 58485, 592; Amat, Reglamento para el gobierno de la aduana,
41. Note that 1774 was the first full year of the aduanas operation and that it had functioned
during the last quarter of the previous year. In a ruling that foreshadowed later administrative
reforms in political boundaries, the aduana of Lima was denied jurisdiction over Chile, Buenos
Aires, and Paraguay. For an example of opposition to the aduana, see Mariano de Loredo,
Verdadera situacin del Per desde el ao de 1777 hasta el de 1786, agi-Lima, leg. 1448, and
Carlos Deustua Pimentels discussion of it, El virreinato del Per entre 1777 y 1786: Estudio de
un informe, Mercurio Peruano, Ao 29, vol. 35, no. 324 (Mar. 1954): 10622.
145. Amat, Memoria de gobierno, 581, 582, 596. The increase in yield of the two taxes antedated
the 1772 increase in the alcabala from 2 percent to 4 percent.
146. Amat, Memoria de gobierno, 600601. The reformers attempted to raise the alcabala
payable by all thirty-two guilds from 27,780 pesos to 71,028 pesos.
147. In descending order of wealth and power, the merchant gremios were almaceneros,
tenderos, cajoneros, mesilleros, and mercachifles. They are not to be confused with the privileged
trading company, the Cinco Gremios Mayores de Madrid, or with artisanal guilds such as the
shoemakers.
148. Amat, Memoria de gobierno, 580, 594.
149. Holguin Callo, El visitador Areche, 88. See also OPhelan Godoy, Reformas fiscales
borbnicas, 119, where she points out that local authorities in southern Peru had not always
collected alcabalas at 4 percent as decreed by Amat, and therefore the increase to 6 percent came
as a severe shock.
150. Amat, Memoria de gobierno, 594, 600601; Holgun Callo, El visitador Areche, 86.
be paid at the rate of 6 percent on sales. Areche threatened to prosecute
those who failed to comply. Nevertheless, the consulado organized an effec-
tive campaign of noncompliance that forced Areche to negotiate the entire
question of taxes on commerce, both old and new. Negotiation was not to
Areches liking; he viewed it as something akin to rebellion. Lima is a land
where the only goal is to frustrate collection of the kings dues, he wrote,
where everything is kept in a state of confusion by their criminal behavior.
151
The negotiations took as their starting point the policies set forth in
Amats ordinance governing the operations of the customs house, which was
to be the principal locus for collecting taxes on commerce. When he arrived
in Lima in June 1777, Areche carried with him instructions to abolish a
series of taxes, including the almojarifazgo and avera collected on European
imports, replacing them with a single tax, the alcabala, set at 6 percent. It
was also collectible on efectos del pas that had been exempt when traded
within the boundaries of the viceroyalty.
152
Furthermore, to the dismay of
Limas entrept merchants, Amat had established the alcabala de reventas
by which all merchandise was subject to payment of the tax every time it
changed hands, not only at first sale, but also on the second, third, and
following sales, and this includes land and everything else until their
sale ceases and they are consumed.
153
With the establishment of internal
customs housesespecially those in Arequipa and Cuzcocharged with
collecting the new alcabala at the new rate, the commercial network
linking Lima to Potos was further disrupted.
154
Merchants, both limeo
and provincial, protested vigorously, pointing out that Areche was under
crown orders to make Limas aduana as similar as possible to Mexicos,
where the alcabala de reventas was not collected. Therefore, they insisted,
Areches order confirming it should be revoked.
155
As one scholar described
their stance, the merchants of Lima had put themselves on a war footing
in opposition to the visitador.
156
151. Areche to Glvez, 20 Dec. 1778, agi-Lima, leg. 1082; Holgun Callo, El visitador
Areche, 8889, 92. Areches ultimatum was dated 29 July 1778.
152. Amat, Reglamento para el gobierno de la aduana, 9; Instruccin que deve observar D. Josef
Antonio de Areche en la visita y arreglo de los Tribunales de cuentas, caxas y ramos de Real
Hazienda en los Reynos del Per, Chile y Provincias del Ro de la Plata, 20 June 1776, agi-Lima,
leg. 1082.
153. Amat, Reglamento para el gobierno de la aduana, chapter 2, article 9, 24.
154. OPhelan Godoy, Reformas fiscales borbnicas, 116.
155. Areche to Consulado, 27 Nov. 1778, and Acta, Junta general de comercio, 7 Dec. 1778,
156. Holgun Callo, El visitador Areche, 95, 98.
Areches plan reduced taxes on transatlantic trade, but raised them on
local and interprovincial trade.
157
In response, the limeos attempted to
persuade the visitador that the alcabala was to be collected only on the sale
of imports when first landed at Callao, and not on resales. This would have
shifted the tax burden to the metropolitan importers. Areche rejected that
argument, and on 27 November 1778 he wrote a strongly worded letter to
the consulado demanding compliance with the new tax law. But in this
case, too, Areche was unable to impose his will. By November 1778, the
merchants had the visitador at a disadvantage. Their protests to the crown
in 1773 and 1774, when Viceroy Amat was attempting to increase alcabalas,
had borne fruit in the form of a royal order of 19 January 1777, by which
Areche was enjoined to consider reducing taxes and to cooperate with the
consulado in working out a settlement acceptable to both sides. It was not
until January 1779, however, that Areche forwarded a copy of the royal order
to the consulado, whose officers took pleasure in informing the visitador that
they had been apprised of its contents long before. When the adminis-
trator of the custom house acting on Areches orders, demanded payment
of the new alcabala the merchants simply refused to do so.
158
It is important to understand that the limeo merchants were able to win
concessions from the visitador only partly by their stubborn refusal to obey
orders issued by crown authorities in Peru. As soon as they discovered
that Amats successor, Manuel de Guirior, lacked the power to overrule
Areche, they appealed directly to the crown for redress of their grievances,
confident that, as in the past, some branch of the Spanish government
could be persuaded to modify the offending decree in their favor. In fact,
the consulados agent in Spain had been able to mobilize support for the
limeo position, and by April 1779, Areche and Joaqun Jos de Arrese,
the former prior who represented the consulado in the negotiations with
the visitador, had reached an agreement. The alcabala de reventas would
not be exacted on goods sold within the province of Lima; instead, the citys
five merchant guilds would pay a much reduced annual quota, as they had
before the reforms proposed by Amat. Areche attempted to influence the
decision as to what amount should be settled upon; he suggested that they
157. Ibid., 88; Palacio Atard, Areche y Guirior, 26, 27.
158. Informe del Real Tribunal del Consulado sobre las resoluciones que tiene tomadas el
Seor Intendente de Real Hacienda . . . sobre el mtodo de exigir los derechos de alcabala, 16
Mar. 1780, agnp-Hacienda colonial, leg. 1031; Areche to Consulado, 27 Nov. 1778, agnp-
Hacienda colonial, leg. 907, enclosing a copy of the decree issued on 14 Nov. 1778; Holgun Callo,
El visitador Areche, 8990, 95, 97, 100.
agree to pay the 16,000 pesos set by the Junta de cabezn in 1775 as the
amount minimally acceptable to the crown.
159
On 20 April 1779, Joaqun
Manuel Azcona, prior of the consulado, called a meeting of its officers,
including the members of the Junta conciliar, an advisory board composed
of some two dozen of the most powerful merchants.
160
Refusal to meet
Areches demands was no less adamant than on previous occasions when
more than two hundred merchants had been present. The consulado pro-
posed a cabezn of only 12,000 pesos. Surprisingly, Areche accepted, even
though the agreement was contrary to the interests of the metropolitan
faction of the consulado. The cabezn was to be paid from funds belonging
to the consulado, but those funds were to be collected from the Atlantic
traders in the form of increased duties on imports. The settlement was
ratified by the Junta general de comercio on 4 May 1779, and the crown
approved it on 1 June 1780. The agreement remained in force for the
remaining forty-two years of the colonial period.
161
Additional elements of tax policy helped to reduce limeo commercial
dominance in other provinces of Spanish South America. The intendant
of the royal treasury in Buenos Aires ruled that goods imported into the new
viceroyalty (including the mining districts of Alto Per) from Chile and
the interior provinces of Peru were to pay 4 percent in alcabalas but those
imported from Lima were subjected to 6 percent. In addition, 3 percent in
almojarifazgo was to be collected from limeo merchants trading overland
to the interior in spite of the fact that the tax was traditionally due only
on goods carried by sea. Furthermore, the taxable value of imports via Buenos
Aires was set at 12 percent over cost, but at 20 percent if imported by way
of Lima. According to the consulado, all this amounted to the same thing
as stopping imports . . . and would result in the merchants of Buenos Aires
making themselves the rulers and sole suppliers of those interior provinces.
162
159. Areche to Consulado, 17 Apr. 1779, discussed in Holgun Callo, El visitador Areche, 100101.
160. In late colonial Peru, members of the junta conciliar were chosen by vote of all those
matriculated in the consulado. In contested matriculas, rival slates were presented to the mem-
bership. Since one of the juntas duties was to choose the prior and consuls, it was often referred
to as the junta electoral. See, for example, the Expediente relativo a la prxima eleccin . . . , 29
Dec. 1790, bnp-mss, C-1692. The relationship between the late colonial junta conciliar and the
organismo asesor described by Rodrguez Vicente, Tribunal del Consulado, 8586, is not clear.
161. Holgun Callo, El visitador Areche, 98105; Gil de Taboada, Relacin de gobierno, 234;
Cmara de comercio de Lima independiente to Excmo. Sr., 17 Dec. 1822, cdip-Tomo 21, 1:35859.
162. Informe del Real Tribunal del Consulado sobre las resoluciones que tiene tomados el Sr.
Intendente de Real Hacienda del Vireynato de Buenos Aires sobre el mtodo de exigir los derechos
de alcabala en los lugares que expresan, 16 Mar. 1780, agnp-Hacienda colonial, leg. 1031. The
consulado had repeatedly protested this provision (article 21) of the Reglamento de comercio libre.
The limeos ability to compete in the mining districts of Alto Per was
also compromised by the imposition of export taxes on goods shipped to
Arica from Callao. Arica was part of the intendancy of Arequipa within
the viceroyalty of Peru, and had served for centuries as a port of entry for
goods bound from Callao to Potos. Prior to this time, Castilian goods
paid no tax on their re-export from Callao for other Peruvian ports.
163
The dispute centered on interpretation of Article 39 of the Reglamento de
comercio libre of 1778. The administrator of the Lima customs house insisted
that goods landed at Callao and re-embarked for Arica and other ports of
the Pacific coast were subject to an export tax of 3 percent on Spanish
manufactures and 7 percent on foreign goods. Those goods had already
paid taxes on landing in Callao and would be subject to yet another tax when
off-loaded at Arica, and a third tax upon leaving the port for districts of
the interior. Those same goods were paying alcabalas de reventa every time
they were moved from one city or town of the interior to another. And in
1785 an additional tax was imposed on imported goods held in warehouses
in Callao for re-export; known as almacenaje, it was collected at the rate of
4 pesos per month on every one hundred pieces in the warehouse.
164
The political effects of the new taxes were serious. Limeos were not
alone in their opposition to them. Provincial merchants also objected to multi-
ple taxation of imports in addition to the alcabalas de reventa collected by
internal customs houses even on foodstuffs. Indeed, the new taxes imposed
first by Amat and then by Areche were the major factor leading to riots
that broke out in Arequipa and other towns of the interior in 1780, and
were still being cited as serious grievances in 1814.
165
In 1779 the con-
sulado, asked to inform the viceroy on the complaint of the merchants,
once again sought to defend the submetropolitan trade of the limeos,
alleging that Article 39 was being misinterpreted. It seemed obvious to the
consulado that no export taxes should be charged against goods which,
163. Rodrguez Vicente, Tribunal del Consulado, 170.
164. Gil de Taboada, Relacin de gobierno, 240. The decree was dated 21 Jan. 1785.
165. OPhelan Godoy, Reformas fiscales borbnicas, 116, 12728; Parrn Salas, Reformas
borbnicas, 193. Unlike the five merchant guilds of Lima, the merchants trading in the provinces
of the interior did not pay their alcabalas according to a cabezn, and were therefore subject to the
full 6 percent on each sale. Abolition of these taxes was among the petitions presented to the
crown by Perus delegates to Cortes in 1814. Informe del Tribunal del Consulado sobre la
representacin de los comerciantes de las provincias interiores, 27 Nov. 1779, agnp-Hacienda
colonial, leg. 1031; Fisher, Government and Society, 1819; Francisco Salazar Carrillo de Crdoba to
Secretario de Estado y del Despacho Universal de las Indias, Madrid, 17 Aug. 1814, agi-Lima,
leg. 1018-B.
although disembarked briefly in Callao, were still in the possession of
their original owner when landed later at Arica. Furthermore, the limeos
insisted, Arica should be considered a port-of-transit in which goods bound
directly for the interior would pay no import taxes. Merchandise sold in
Arica itself, of course, would be subject to the normal duties on imports,
but the consulado strongly suggested that, in this case, the tax should be
computed only on the value added since the original landing at Callao.
166
The tax was not rescinded until 1804, when its collection was modified in
favor of the cargadores de espaa, not the limeos.
167
The dispute on the export tax is further evidence of the determination
of Bourbon reformers to destroy the limeos commercial dominance in
Spanish South America, and in this case the effects were more or less as
intended. By 1790, the consulado claimed that trade between Callao and
Arica had ceased, thanks to successful imposition of a form of taxation
whereby goods re-exported by sea were considered to be part of the system
of comercio exterior. The result, according to the consulado, was that all is
calamity and misfortune for the commerce of Lima.
168
The policy of favoring other regions of Spanish America continued
into the 1790s. A royal order of 18 November 1794 permitted re-export of
European goods from Mexico to the ports of this Southern Sea free of
taxes, and one dated 10 April 1796 reduced taxes on Mexican efectos del
pas to a quarter of their previous levels.
169
Thus, although Areche had not
been able to increase the tax burden as much as he hoped, his tax policies
had succeeded in establishing two important principles: first, provinces
beyond the borders of the Lima intendancy were foreign, and second,
trade by sea was not to be considered part of Perus internal commerce
even if goods were landed at another port within its viceregal boundaries.
Perhaps Areches compromises on the alcabala de reventas and the cabezn
payable by the Lima guilds can be explained not by the power or cleverness
166. Informes del Tribunal del Consulado, 27 Nov. 1779 and 16 Mar. 1780, agnp-Hacienda
colonial, leg. 1031. By value added, the consulado apparently meant the higher price charged
after costs of transshipment from Callao were taken into account; see Rodrguez Vicente,
Tribunal del Consulado, 16970.
167. Avils to Ministro de Hacienda no. 432, 23 Feb. 1805, agi-Lima, leg. 732. The real orden
was dated 10 Aug. 1804.
168. Gil de Taboada, Relacin de gobierno, 121, 12629; Vargas Ugarte, Informe del
consulado, 297.
169. Vargas Ugarte, Informe del consulado, 28990; Informe del consulado, 29 Oct. 1795, in
Gil de Taboada, Relacin de gobierno, 12425; Real orden, Aranjuez, 10 Apr. 1796, agnp-
of the limeo merchants, but by the fact that the dispute diverted attention
from a second aspect of reform, a system of taxation that, by raising the
cost of interprovincial trade, could be expected to curtail Limas position as
submetropolitan entrept. That goal was kept in sight even when the most
stringent regulations were relaxed. An apparently liberalizing decree issued by
the crown in 1800, which reduced taxes on Perus seaborne trade, was held to
be applicable only to trade among the ports of the truncated viceroyalty.
170
THE GRIEVANCES OF A MERCANTILE ELITE
By the end of the eighteenth century, limeos were convinced that the
Bourbon reforms had been all too successful and that they had been singled
out for particularly harsh treatment. Their economy and their personal
fortunes had been highly dependent on a submetropolitan entrept trade,
one that to a significant degree had been usurped by metropolitan mer-
chants, many of them transients, with little or no interest in the economic
welfare of Limas permanent residents. Limeo merchants were not only
deprived of access to large-scale inventories of both imported and locally
produced merchandise; their access to markets was curtailed by prohibitions
against the export of key commodities to other parts of Spanish America,
by the creation of new viceroyalties and an independent captaincy-general,
and by tax reforms that made it difficult for them to compete either with
their metropolitan rivals or with merchants from other cities and towns in
Spanish America. Moreover, a great deal of wealth was being extracted
from Peru by the increasingly numerous metropolitan merchants who traded
directly to Spain: transatlantic exports of precious metals, as well as products
such as Peruvian bark, cacao, copper, and tin, rose markedly during the
years from 1784 to 1796,
171
but little of that trade was in the hands of limeo
merchants.
172
Even their guild, the old and powerful consulado of Lima,
had become the instrument of metropolitan advantage. In the opinion of
limeo merchants, the reforms had benefitted everyone but themselves.
What an unfortunate fate has befallen the Viceroyalty of Peru, wrote
the consulado in 1798, for when new channels of prosperity should have
170. Hamerly, Historia social y econmica, 129.
171. Mazzeo de Viv, ed., Comerciantes limeos, xv, 1114; Susana Aldana, Poderes en una regin
de frontera: Comercio y familia en el norte, 17001830 (Lima: Panaca, 1999), 147.
172. The most notable exception to this general rule was the count of Premio Real: see
Mazzeo, Comercio libre. For the classic expression of this grievance, see Riva Agero,
Manifestacin histrica y poltica, 89.
been opened, instead even those that were peculiarly its own and were an
important part of its subsistence have been closed to it.
173
As a result of the reforms, limeos were convinced that the Peruvian
economy as a whole had become significantly more dependent on an
intercontinental trade with diminishing local multiplier effects. Profits
were accruing less to limeos and more to newly arrived cadres of penin-
sular merchants and their Spanish suppliers. Thus the perception of poverty
and ruin in the viceregal capital was so widespread that it formed an almost
unbroken chorus of complaint from merchants and bureaucrats alike. The
anonymous author of the Descripcin de Lima, written about 1777, insisted
that the high standard of living with which Areche had rebuked the
citizens of Lima was more appearance than reality. There were very few
fortunes of the magnitude of 500,000 pesos; moreover, he declared, there was
no one in the city who could satisfy in cash a warrant or promissory note
of a mere 500 pesos.
174
According to Mariano de Loredo, a peninsular-
born merchant, by 1777 Lima was already suffering from a severe recession;
whatever opulence was still visible in 1786 had been purchased with savings
accumulated decades before, much of it in the form of worked silver orna-
ments and tableware.
175
Jos de Lagos, one of Areches tax collectors, declared
that the miserable situation in which today we see the Kingdom of Peru
merits great compassion: her agriculture, her industry, and her commerce
with branches almost unknown, because they no longer exist.
176
In a protest
to the crown of February 1788, the consulado bitterly denounced the changes
in taxation and the rules for the regulation of trade, insisting that commerce
is very rapidly approaching its ultimate ruin.
177
One of Perus most important
merchants, Juan Bautista de Grate, complained in 1793 that we are seeing
bankruptcies here every day, and the cabildo of Lima believed that the
merchants frequent bankruptcies resulted from the permission granted to
ports south of Callao to trade directly to the interior.
178
The peninsular-born
173. Consulado to Viceroy, 26 July 1798, agnp-Hacienda colonial, leg. 1087.
174. Aurelio Mir Quesada, Una descripcin indita de Lima en el siglo xviii, Revista Histrica
26 (196163): 18485; Areche to Consulado, 27 Nov. 1778, agnp-Hacienda colonial, leg. 907.
175. Deustua Pimentel, El virreinato del Per, 11113. See also the Informe of the consulado,
1790, in Deustua Pimentel, Tribunal del Consulado, 89. Areche had attempted to inventory, assess,
and tax the worked silver accumulated by generations of limeos, which he claimed had not paid
the royal quinto: Areche to Guirior, 6 Nov. 1777, agi-Lima, leg. 1082.
176. Jos de Lagos, Proyecto econmico, agi-Lima, leg. 1029.
177. Representacin del Real Tribunal del Consulado del Per sobre el comercio libre entre
Espaa y Amrica, Madrid, 3 Feb. 1788, agnp-Hacienda colonial, leg. 23.
178. Grate to Juan Pedro de Zelayeta, 21 Oct. 1793, bnp-mss, Correspondencia; Acta,
Cabildo de Lima, 1 Mar. 1799, ahml-Cabildo, Libro 39.
bureaucrat Jos Ignacio de Lequanda wrote in 1794 that it would be
difficult to find another city in civilized countries which has suffered such
damage from recession as has this capital of Peru, adding that if any is
worthy of compassion, surely Lima can justifiably take precedence.
179
Even
Viceroy Gil de Taboada, so ready to promote direct commercial ties to
Spain at the expense of Limas entrept merchants, was led to comment
on the pitiful decline of this capital.
180
And the widespread discontent with the economic condition of post-
reform Peru led an anonymous artist to produce an extraordinary, politically
explosive painting, America Nursing Spanish Noble Boys. In it, a richly
costumed woman, America, sits on a canopied throne in the midst of a
landscape full of the lush flora and fauna of Peru, while Americans bring
her gifts symbolizing the abundance of the viceroyalty. In the left foreground,
a bearded Spanish official wears a headdress bearing the double-eagle emblem
of the crown; his posture conveys his sense of entitlement. Meanwhile,
American children gather around America or lie suffering at the foot
of her throne. But only the Spanish noble boys are permitted to take
nourishment from her abundant bosom. The inscription at the bottom of
the painting drives the point home:
Where else has the world seen what we here see . . .
Foreigners feed, while her own sons moan in misery.
181
The Bourbon reformers were correct in believing that, by ignoring and
indeed opposing limeo merchant interest, they could increase revenues
collected in the form of taxes on an expanding Atlantic trade. But by
179. Lequanda to Gardoqui, 24 Jan. 1794, British Museum, Egerton ms 771, 65v66.
180. Gil de Taboada, Relacin de gobierno, 12629. The viceroy, however, was willing to
sacrifice Lima; in his comments on the consulados Informe of 1790 calling for an end to
importation via Buenos Aires, he wrote, The pretension of the Tribunal will appear useful for
preserving Limas splendor but it is prejudicial to the development and prosperity of both
viceroyalties, unjust for their inhabitants, and entirely opposed to the interests of the State:
Deustua Pimentel, Tribunal del consulado, 93.
181. Donde se ha visto en el Mundo lo que aqu estamos mirando . . . / Los hijos propios
gimiendo y los Estraos mamando. George Kubler and Martin Soria, Art and Architecture in
Spain and Portugal and Their American Dominions, 15001800 (Baltimore: Penguin, 1959), 179.
Unfortunately, the present location of the painting is unknown. Kubler placed it in the Dennis
Osborne Collection in Montevideo, Uruguay, but the collection cannot be located. The
photograph he used, which is reproduced here courtesy of Yale University Press, was supplied to
him by Mortimer Brandt, owner of an art gallery in New York City, who retired in the 1960s and
died in 1993: NewYork Times, 9 Sept. 1993.
Fig. 4 Anonymous, America Nursing Spanish Noble Boys. From George Kubler and
Martin Soria, Art and Architecture in Spain and Portugal and Their American Dominions,
15001830. Baltimore: Penguin, 1959. Courtesy Princeton University Library (photo:
John Blazejewski).
Image Not Available
attacking Limas Pacific-based entrept economy, with its dense networks
of internal and interprovincial commerce and its productive capacity in sectors
other than mining and intercontinental export agriculture, the Bourbon
reformers also condemned the viceroyalty to continue its relatively poor
performance as a source of revenue. Between 175059 and 178089, income
from taxes on trade increased by about 44 percent in Peru; much of that
growth, however, resulted from higher tax rates, more efficient collection,
and an anomalous spike in imports in 1786. In Mexico, by comparison,
revenue from taxes on trade rose to more than three times its mid-century
level.
182
After October 1796, when Spain was again at war with England,
the reforms had changed the old Peruvian viceregal economy enough to
make disuption of the Atlantic trade the occasion for the collapse of Limas
maritime trade, on which revenue was highly dependent. It is difficult to
assess the extent of the breakdown because key royal treasury accounts for
taxes on trade from 1790 to 1809 are missing.
183
Consulado accounts, however,
can provide an idea of the dimension of the problem. In 1796, the con-
sulado took in 31,206 pesos in anchorage fees from ships that had sailed
from the peninsula; in 1798 receipts had fallen to 4,119 pesos, and in 1799 a
mere 2,624 pesos were collected.
184
There was little or no recovery after the turn of the century. Alexander
von Humboldt, who visited Lima in 1802, remarked on the enormous
difference in wealth apparent in Peru and Mexico.
185
The end of the war
in 1804 brought no discernible relief.
186
According to Francisco Javier Mari-
tegui, who had examined inventories of deceased merchants and records
of bankruptcies, there were few merchants who could be called wealthy.
187
In 1811, in a letter protesting Abascals plan to raise taxes to support the
182. Klein, American Finances, tables 3.4, 4.3, 5.3. Note that totals before 1780 were calculated
including income from the treasuries of Alto Per; the total for the 1760s reflects the success of
Amats bureaucratic reforms; the total for the 1770s reflects the increase in alcabalas from 4
percent to 6 percent and imposition of the alcabala de reventas; and the total for the 1780s
excludes income from the treasuries of Alto Per but reflects the glut of 178687.
183. Klein, American Finances, 41.
184. Estado que manifiesta lo atesorado en cajas del Real Tribunal del Consulado desde 1
o
de
enero de 1774 hasta 31 de diziembre de 1802, agi-Lima, leg. 737.
185. Alexander von Humboldt, Ensayo poltico sobre el reino de la Nueva Espaa, 2nd ed.
(Mexico: Porra, 1973), 86.
186. Consulado to Manuel Jos de Amandarro, 23 May 1806, agnp-Hacienda colonial, leg. 1115.
187. Maritegui, Anotaciones a la Historia del Per independiente de don Mariano Felipe Paz
Soldn (N.p., n.d. [Lima, 1869]), 5. See also the Informe de mesa, 30 Sept. 1813, agi-Lima, leg.
1010, in which Viceroy Abascals gloomy report on the political and economic condition of the
provinces of Peru was summarized for the crown.
war effort against rebel American provinces, Ignacio de Orue issued a
ringing denunciation of the new commercial regime. He insisted that the
reforms had brought nothing but poverty to Peru. Commerce had been
reduced to exchanging specie for merchandise, and the absence of freedom
to export products, the tight limits placed on mercantile activity, the prohi-
bition against carrying their products to Asia, the governmental monopolies
had all resulted in draining the blood from this political body.
188
Here, then, in the perception of crown prejudice against limeo merchants
and of economic decline brought about by the Bourbon reforms,
189
is the
basis for assertions that free trade destroyed the commercial importance
of Lima, assertions that John Fisher has demonstrated to be inaccurate.
190
Although commercial activity at Lima continued and indeed increased, it
bypassed succeeding generations of limeo consulado merchants. Com-
merce, firmly in the hands of new (and constantly renewed) cadres of metro-
politan merchants, had been reduced to something resembling an extractive
industry, as Viceroy Gil de Taboada hoped it would be, and as Ignacio de
Orue angrily affirmed. Instead of increasing the power of colonial govern-
ment, the reforms had led to the formation of highly politicized rival factions
within the consulado of Lima, factions whose disputes spilled over into an
urban society in which almost everyone engaged in trade, either directly
or indirectly.
191
The merchants had never offered perfect or unquestioning
obedience to the crowns rules for the regulation of trade, but now a storm
of protest led to public debate on the equity of the states control of
economic life.
As early as 1781, when the reforms initiated by Amat and Areche were
barely under way, and before the full impact of the commercial reforms,
Jos Baqujano y Carrillo understood what could be expected politically
from such treatment at the hands of Perus colonial master. In his Elogio
del Excelentsimo Seor D. Agustn de Jauregui y Aldecoa, delivered at the
University of San Marcos, Baqujano warned the new viceroy that discontent
188. Ignacio de Orue to Viceroy, 19 Jan. 1811, ahml-Cabildo, Libro 42. The cabildo of Lima
supported Orues attack in the session of 22 Jan. 1811.
189. Anna, Fall of the Royal Government, 14, believes that the perception of the weakness of
Perus economy before the independence era was accurate, and cites the Estado de los productos
naturales y artificiales del Per en el vireynato de Lima, y computo de su valor comercial cada ao
(agi-Lima, leg. 1525) as evidence. For an example of limeo awareness that they had been treated
differently from other regions of Spanish America, see Consulado to Viceroy, 16 Feb. 1798, agnp-
190. Fisher, Effects of Comercio Libre, 15051.
191. Lequanda, Idea sucinta, 70v; Baqujano, Disertacin histrica, 23233.
at their treatment by the crown was creating rising disgust and discourage-
ment among limeos. Baqujano rejected Areches argument that Peru
was treated differently from other American colonies because it was more
corrupt and disobedient, insisting that Limas suffering at the hands of
government was unjust. Improving men against their will, he wrote, has
always been the deceitful excuse for tyranny.
192
This was a stunningly subversive proposition, one that could destabi-
lize the colonial regime: in Spanish political thought, tyranny made a ruler
illegitimate, and the people had the right to resist a tyrant.
193
In Lima, as
the last decades of colonial rule would show, that resistance took the form
of increasingly pervasiveand subversivedisobedience. Spains power and
authority were beginning to collapse in the very center of viceregal govern-
ment, undermined from within by a growing sense that the fatherland was
treating its Peruvian subjects unjustly.
192. Baqujano, Elogio del Excelentisimo Seor D. Agustn de Jauregui y Aldecoa, and
Areche to Glvez, 21 Nov. 1781, in cdip-Tomo 1, 3:88, 190.
193. O. Carlos Stoetzer, The Scholastic Roots of the Spanish American Revolutions (New York:
Fordham University Press, 1979), 52, 73, 153.
Between 1796 and 1820, there was no armed rebellion in the City of Kings.
In spite of limeos anger at the Bourbon reforms and their economic
effects, no viceroy was unseated. Although governance in Spain very
nearly collapsed in the wake of Napoleons invasion, no governing junta
was established in Lima like those in other cities and towns of Spanish
America. Instead, the viceroys at Lima sent men and money to put down
rebellions wherever they appeared on the continent. The resources to support
Spains hegemony were extracted from the merchants of Lima, whether in
the form of taxes, contributions, or forced loans, and were transmitted to
viceroys surrounded by the language of compliance and loyalty to the
crown. It is no wonder, then, that Lima has been perceived as the bastion
of royalism in a revolutionary time. But armed rebellion and pronuncia-
miento are not the only indicators of significant change in political reality.
The ways in which people bring about redress of grievances can be modified
or transformed without the overthrow of the regime, and these actions can
lead to a slow but inexorable revolution in political culture.
For one faction of the merchants of Lima, noncompliance with the law
coupled with a war of words were weapons used to redress their grievances.
These, of course, were traditional methods of dealing with an unresponsive
government. Unable to maintain their commercial hegemony by means of
negotiation, protest, and petition, and frustrated in their attempts to com-
pete legally with their metropolitan rivals, limeos also resorted to other,
more aggressive strategies for protecting and expanding what remained of
their trade, strategies that created a new reality more to their liking without
resort to force of arms or palace coup. Fortunately for them, the reformers
zeal was diminished, first by the recall to Spain of Areche and his successor,
T HR E E
SABOTAGINGREFORM
Jorge de Escobedo, in 1781 and 1787 respectively, and then by the deaths of
Jos de Glvez in June 1787 and of King Carlos III in December of the
following year. With the departure from Peru of Viceroy Francisco Gil de
Taboada y Lemos in June 1796, the stage was set for successful sabotage of the
reforms. And when yet another war broke out in Europe, the limeos chances
of reducing the reforms to irrelevance were suddenly greatly improved.
WARTIME OPPORTUNITY AND LIMEO RESPONSE
With the declaration of war against England in October 1796, the Spanish
government could dedicate neither time nor attention to efforts to refine,
strengthen, and enforce the decrees supporting the Reglamento de comercio
libre of 1778.
1
On the contrary, the crown itself issued orders that under-
mined the reformed commercial regime, opening opportunities for limeo
merchants to compete with their metropolitan rivals and trade directly with
foreigners whose merchantmen anchored in colonial ports. The new decrees,
however, did not always improve the situation of limeos. For example, on
23 August 1796, prior to the formal declaration of war, the crown rescinded
one of the most important provisions of the Reglamento of 1778, the article
limiting participation in the Atlantic trade to the kings vasallos de Espaa.
Spanish Americans were permitted, until further notice, to mount expe-
ditions to the designated ports of the metropolis in their own ships laden
with local produce, and to return with cloth and manufactures . . . in the
same manner and form as Spanish merchants trade from Spain.
2
The
response in Lima was negligible, if not invisible, perhaps because the royal
order did not apply to Peru: no acknowledgment of it has been found in
the registers of viceregal correspondence. Even though limeos owned large
ships that dominated the sugar-wheat exchange with Chile, no limeo-
owned ships engaging in the Atlantic trade between 1796 and 1804 have
been identified. A list of ships sailing from Callao for Cdiz in 181618
shows only one criollo family, the Santiago de Rotaldes, engaged in the
1. Jacques A. Barbier, The Culmination of the Bourbon Reforms, 17871792, HAHR 57, no. 1
(Feb. 1977): 68. According to Fisher, Commercial Relations, 16, It was not the demise of Charles
III but the outbreak of war between Spain and Britain . . . which was to bring to an end the
system of free trade inaugurated in 1778.
2. Real orden, 23 Aug. 1796, Documentos para la historia argentina, 7:12021. The real orden gave
three reasons for permitting Americans to participate in the Atlantic trade: the increase in trade
to Spain in American products, the consequent need to increase navigation between metropolis
and colonies, and the influence of the actual circumstances in Europe on freight charges derived
from the scarcity of ships and the costs of arming them.
Atlantic trade in its own ship, the Comercio, which anchored in Cdiz in
1816; but one brother of this family lived in Cdiz and was matriculated in
its consulado, and therefore legally permitted to engaged in the Atlantic
trade under the provisions of the Reglamento.
3
As far as is known, metro-
politan merchants did not charter limeo-owned ships for voyages from
Callao to the peninsula. The Filipinas Company owned most of the ships
used in its colonial trade, or chartered them in England, and no instance
is known where the Cinco Gremios Mayores employed ships owned by
limeos either to carry its imports to Callao or transfer profits to Spain.
Metropolitan merchants in Lima used Spanish warships (especially for remit-
ting specie), their own ships, or those of their peninsular correspondents.
Whenever Spain was at war with England, the consequences of depen-
dence on peninsular Spanish shipping in both the Atlantic trade and
interprovincial seaborne commerce in the Pacific were revealed in all their
clarity. In April 1797, when Admiral Horatio Nelson successfully block-
aded Cdiz, the effect was immediate and dramatic: Spains exports to her
American colonies fell from 251.9 million reales in 1796 to a mere 11 million
reales in 1797. The effect on traffic from Spanish America to Spain was
also remarkable. For example, the value of American products exported
from Montevideo dropped from 5,470,675 pesos registered in 1796 to 534,078
pesos in the following year.
4
With the defeat and destruction of the Spanish
fleet in two epic sea battlesCape St. Vincent in February 1797 and
Trafalgar in October 1805the era of Spains naval power ended, and with
it her ability to defend her American possessions from foreign commercial
encroachment.
5
Recovery of the fleet was impossible during the land-based
sabotaging reform 109
3. List of ships sailing from Callao for Cdiz, 181618, agi-Indif. gen., leg. 2256.
4. Richard Herr, The Eighteenth-Century Revolution in Spain (Princeton: Princeton Univer-
sity Press, 1958), 38889; Vzquez de Prada, Rutas comerciales, 243; John R. Fisher, Trade, War,
and Revolution: Exports from Spain to Spanish America, 17971820 (Liverpool: Institute of Latin
American Studies, University of Liverpool Monograph Series no. 16, 1992), 15, 80; Hernn
Asdrbal Silva, Hamburgo y el Ro de la Plata: Vinculaciones econmicas a fines de la poca
colonial, JbLA 21 (1984): 192. See also Javier Cuenca Esteban, Statistics of Spains Colonial
Trade, 17921820: Consular Duties, Cargo Inventories, and Balances of Trade, HAHR 61, no. 3
(Aug. 1981): 382.
5. Jos Mara Delgado Ribas, El impacto de las crisis coloniales en la economa catalana,
17871807, in La economa espaola al final del antiguo rgimen, ed. Josep Fontana (Madrid:
Alianza, Banco de Espaa, 1982), vol. 3: Comercio y colonias, 15658: Of the forty-six frigates and
sixty ships of the line that formed the Royal Navy in 1790, only five all but unserviceable units
survived in December of 1805; and Jos Cervera Pery, Marina y poltica en la Espaa del siglo xix
(Madrid: Editorial San Martn, 1979), 28 n. 1: Trafalgar is the crucial moment, . . . The
instrument that permitted Spain to conserve her empire disappears from the horizon of her
policy as a means to pursue it and to support her diplomacy.
Peninsular War (180814), when every resource at the regimes command
was confiscated for the use of the army.
6
The effects of successful British privateering could be equally dramatic.
In 1804, four frigates out of Callao were captured off Cdiz. A Catalan
merchant in Lima reported that they were carrying 10 million pesos, but
Josep Delgado Ribas believes that only 4.5 million were on board. Even
accepting the lower figure (which may exclude unregistered specie), the
loss was immense; it exceeded the total value of gold and silver minted in
Limas Casa de Moneda in 1802 and in 1803.
7
As Viceroy Amat understood,
the security of the viceroyalty depended on maintaining a strong maritime
presence off the west coast of Spanish South America, and the few ships
that made their way from Cdiz to Callao annually were inadequate to
the task. But after Trafalgar, defense of the viceroyalty of Peru was left to
luck, and the hope that British warships and merchantmen would find
other, more accessible Spanish colonial targets to occupy their attention
as they did in 1806 when they invaded Buenos Aires.
The British blockade of Cdiz, privateering, and the occupation of
Buenos Aires prompted another change in trade to America. With Spanish
merchants unable to supply the colonies with the quantity of European
manufactures imported in the years preceding the crisis, the government
feared that colonial industry would recover sufficiently to compete with
Spanish factories and the foreign goods carried to America by metropolitan
merchants.
8
To prevent the reversal of one of the hard-won victories of
the reform, on 18 November 1797 the crown opened colonial ports to
neutral trade. In part because of pressure from the consulado of Cdiz, the
decree was repealed on 20 April 1799, but the crowns dependence on
neutral trade became far too significant to permit it to lapse.
9
Instead of a
general decree, then, the crown continued and expanded the old practice
of granting special licenses to merchants and court favorites in return for
payment of a subsidy to the crown, or in lieu of repayment of debts owed
them by a bankrupt government. The licensees were allowed to trade directly
6. Enrique Manera, Prlogo, in Cervera Pery, Marina y poltica, 12.
7. Delgado Ribas, Impacto de las crisis coloniales, 156; Fisher, Government and Society, 255.
8. Informe de mesa, 6 Dec. 1800, agi-Lima, leg. 1549; Informe de la junta de diputados
consulares, 26 Aug. 1817, agi-Consulados, leg. 62.
9. Barbier, Peninsular Finance, 2829; Barbier, Commercial Reform and Comercio Neutral
in Cartagena de Indias, 17881808, in Fisher et al., Reform and Insurrection, 110, 111; Fisher, Trade,
War, and Revolution, 6061. Parrn Salas, Reformas borbnicas, 41129, discusses neutral trade with
Spains American colonies.
from foreign ports to the colonies in neutral ships carrying foreign manu-
factures. These privileges were often bought and sold as though they were
themselves merchandise, especially after 1804 when another war with
Great Britain broke out.
10
But these measures opening colonial ports to neutral trade were not
supposed to apply to Callao or the other ports of the Pacific. Curiously,
the Pacific ports appear to have remained an exception in the thinking of the
government at Madrid. Among the reasons alleged for excluding Pacific
ports was a desire on the part of the crown to protect the trade of the
Filipinas Company, which obtained special licenses to trade directly to
Callao in neutral ships from neutral ports. Nevertheless, it is clear that
officially sanctioned neutral trade did extend to Callao, at first indirectly
via overland trade in imports carried by neutrals to Buenos Aires, and
directly after 1804.
11
Jacques Barbier discovered records of eleven foreign ships
that anchored in Callao between 1804 and 1808 under the terms of royal
licenses. One more, the Carlota out of Boston, has since been identified.
12
Estimates of the value of manufactures imported to Callao on neutral
ships between 1804 and 1808 are so far impossible to come by, but Barbier
believes that the influx of legal foreign goods was unprecedented. The
number of alien ships arriving legally, and the size of these vessels, would
seem to imply a powerful impact on the local economy.
13
The impact on
the metropolitan merchants in Lima can be surmised from a comment by
one of their leading members, who complained to a friend about the
arrival of ships from Hamburg: Fifteen days ago a frigate out of Hamburg
arrived in Callao with a cargo reported to be worth 250,000 pesos. A
consortium has decided to buy the whole of it, and it is said that other
ships will arrive in the same way, and with this there is no way that we can
participate in commerce, because they can sell their goods for less than those
10. The text of the decree dated 13 Aug. 1801 is in Documentos para la historia argentina, 8:192,
and the text of another decree dated 16 Sept. 1801 is in ibid.,7:19293. For the text of the decree
dated 23 Nov. 1804, which placed Spanish shipping on a war footing, see ibid., 7:3023.
11. Real orden, 24 Oct. 1806, agi-Lima, leg. 650; Arthur P. Whitaker, The United States and
the Independence of Latin America, 18001830 (New York: W. W. Norton, 1964), 11; Jacques A.
Barbier, Comercio neutral in Bolivarian America: La Guaira, Cartagena, Callao, and Buenos Aires,
in Amrica Latina en la poca de Simn Bolvar: La formacin de las economas nacionales y los intereses
econmicos europeos, 18001850, ed. Reinhard Liehr (Berlin: Colloquium Verlag Berlin, 1989), 369.
12. Barbier, Comercio neutral, table 4, 374; Papers of Thomas Handasyd Perkins, Massa-
chusetts Historical Society, Boston. Parrn Salas, Reformas borbnicas, 44850, lists thirteen, but
two of those ships were contrabanders. For more on the Carlota case, which resulted in a lengthy
lawsuit, see Sres. de la Sala 1
a
al fiscal Pelegrin, ahn-Consejos, leg. 21721.
13. Barbier, Comercio neutral, 375.
that come from Cdiz.
14
Viceroy Avils, in a letter to the crown written
just before he turned the viceroyalty over to his successor in 1806, saw
grave danger in the policy of granting licenses for neutral trade. Foreigners
were regularly abusing the permissions, he declared, importing and exporting
large quantities of merchandise clandestinely, and also acquiring valuable
intelligence about the coasts of Spains Pacific colonies. Worst of all, they
were corrupting the very officials charged with enforcing the rules for the
regulation of trade.
15
Even though his letter was seen by the powerful royal
favorite, Manuel Godoy, the crown ignored Avils criticism, and instead
issued yet another royal order calling on the viceroy to prevent foreign
ships from trading in Peru without express royal permission.
16
After the Napoleonic invasion of Spain in 1808 and the subsequent
alliance with England, the problem became more acute. A British traveler
in Lima, William Bennet Stevenson, commented that the Spanish mer-
chants felt very severely the decrease of their monopoly, by the nonarrival
of vessels from Cdiz, as well as by the arrival of several vessels, under
Hamburgh [sic] colours, with British cargoes and masters, under the pro-
tection of passports from the constituted sovereignties of Spain.
17
But it
is doubtful that limeo merchants could acquire supplies of legally
imported foreign manufactures on the same footing as their metropolitan
rivals. For them, the problem of consignments from peninsular merchant
houses continued to exist in part because, with one known exception,
18
limeos neither applied for nor purchased licenses to trade directly from
foreign European ports in neutral vessels. Those licenses were owned by
Spaniards, most of them resident in the peninsula, who continued to
consign goods to metropolitan merchants in Lima or to the supercargoes
of ships that carried them to Callao. Only metropolitan Atlantic-trade
merchants like Juan de Campoblanco, Javier Mara de Aguirre, and agents
of the Filipinas Company are known to have applied for such licenses
14. Juan Bautista de Grate to Juan Pedro de Zelayeta, 11 July 1807, bnp-mss, Correspon-
dencia.
15. Informe de mesa, Aranjuez, 14 May 1807, summarizing Avils letter of 8 July 1806, agi-
Cuzco, leg. 29.
16. Informe de mesa, Aranjuez, 14 May 1807, agi-Cuzco, leg. 29; Abascal to Crown, Sept.
1809, acknowledging the real orden of 17 May 1809, agi-Lima, leg. 650.
17. William Bennet Stevenson, A Historical and Descriptive Narrative of Twenty Years
Residence in South America, 3 vols. (London: Hurst, Robinson, 1825), 1:12021.
18. Antonio de Lavalle offered to donate 20,000 pesos to the crown in exchange for
permission to import goods to Lima from Hamburg in a small neutral ship: Informe de mesa,
Madrid, 17 Sept. 1806, agi-Lima, leg. 1549.
from Lima.
19
But apparently not even Aguirre, an apoderado of the Cdiz
consulado, could acquire such licenses if he were resident in Lima. Aguirres
petitions were rejected, probably because he was known to have organized
a consortium of metropolitan merchants whose clear goal was to compete
successfully with the Filipinas Companys monopoly of imports landed
at Callao.
20
Unlike Aguirre, however, both the Cinco Gremios Mayores and their
new factor, Gaspar Rico, stood to benefit from crown policies on neutral
trade to Peru. Born in Logroo, Spain, Rico arrived in Peru in March 1793
aboard the merchantman Neptune and went to work as an administrator
of Estancia de Atosaco in Tarma. Within two years, however, he was involved
in the affairs of the Cinco Gremios Mayores de Madrid, probably as an
assistant to the senior factor, Fernando del Mazo. Sometime before the
turn of the century, Rico returned to Madrid, where he took advantage of
the discontent among the directors of the Cinco Gremios with the poor
profits reported by the Lima factora. By November 1801, he was back in
Lima as diputado administrador for the Peruvian operations of the Cinco
Gremios, replacing Mazo and his second, Ramn Cavallero.
21
Rico proved himself an energetic entrepreneur, well able to seize the
opportunities opened to metropolitan merchants by the crowns policies
on neutral trade. On his way to Lima, he had signed a contract in Buenos
Aires with Julin Hernndez Barruso to charter ships in Europe and Rio
de Janeiro; they were to be used to export hides and other local products
19. See the registers of three ships that sailed from Callao in 1803, in agi-Lima, leg. 726, and
the list of consignees in Parrn Salas, Reformas borbnicas, 44751, noting that Gaspar de Osma,
fronting for Rico, not the limeo count of Fuente Gonzlez, was the consignee of the Cordelias
cargo. See also Juan de Campoblanco to Crown, Madrid, 8 Oct. 1805, agi-Lima, leg. 1549, and various
petitions like the one in which Doa Margarita OBrien del comercio de Santander . . . solicita
permiso para hacer una expedicin de 300 toneladas desde puerto y en buque neutral con destino
al Callao, ofreciendo el donativo de 20,000 pesos fuertes, 12 Aug. 1807, agi-Lima, leg. 1549.
20. Flores, Iniciativa privada, 114. In 1812 a Junta general de tribunales meeting in Lima at
Abascals behest resolved to maintain the prohibition against direct sailings to foreign ports:
Acta, Junta general de tribunales, 12 June 1812, agi-Lima, leg. 744. Aguirres petitions are in agi-
Lima, leg. 1549. See also Aguirre to Crown, 26 Nov. 1808, agi-Lima, leg. 736; Consejo de la
Regencia to Viceroy, 11 Dec. 1810, agi-Lima, leg. 1549. Parrn Salas, Reformas borbnicas, 437,
reports that the petitions originating in Peru for trade with foreign countries were not success-
ful, except in the case of the count of Premio Real because he was dedicated to the slave trade.
21. Jacinto de Agero to Audiencia of Lima, 18 Apr. 1803; Rico to Directors, Cinco Gremios,
23 May 1804, and Villar de Fuente to Directors, Cinco Gremios, 9 Aug. 1804, all in Expediente
sobre el conducto, agi-Lima, leg. 1620; Gaspar Rico, Compendio o extracto de las tropelas y excesos
verificados por los directores de los Cinco Gremios Mayores en Madrid, y por comisin de ellos, contra D.
Gaspar Rico y D. Antonio Taranco, socios y apoderados de la Compaa en el Per (Lima: En la
Imprenta de los Hurfanos, Ao 1811; a copy is in agi-Indif. gen., leg. 1623), 9.
from Buenos Aires to neutral ports and return with cargoes of foreign
merchandise. But the directors of the Cinco Gremios rejected the proposal.
Hernndez Barruso then purchased part of the license granted by the
crown to the marqus de Bedmar, traveled to the United States, and worked
with one of the leading merchants of Boston, Thomas Handasyd Perkins,
to charter ships and purchase goods to be sold in Buenos Aires, Chile,
and Lima.
22
Four hundred tons of goods from the Bedmar license were to
be imported to Peru, and at least three shipsthe Washington, the Cordelia,
and the Carlota (which was owned by Perkins)sailed from Boston under
its terms. The Cordelias cargo alone consisted of 25 tons of merchandise
purchased for US$107,915.61, and included prohibited goods. The cargoes
of all three were consigned to Rico or to his young cousin, the lawyer
Gaspar Antonio de Osma, who was fronting for him.
23
As the principal agent for the notorious Caja de Consolidacin de vales
reales in Peru, Rico and the Cinco Gremios had a second opportunity to
profit from neutral trade.
24
Like the licensed neutral trade, the Consoli-
dacin was part of a scheme undertaken by a nearly bankrupt government
in Madrid to acquire as much American treasure as possible. Since 1780,
when the crown issued the first vales reales (bonds that also served as a
22. Testimonios generales nos. 7a, 9a, and 9b, 4 May 1801, Expediente sobre el conducto, agi-
Lima, leg. 1620; Seores de la Sala Primera, 22 Apr. 1813, ahn-Madrid, Consejos suprimidos, leg.
21721; Jos Manuel Aparici to Martn de Garay, Madrid, 28 Jan. 1817, agi-Lima, leg. 1619; Rico,
Compendio de las tropelas, 5354. Bedmar (Antonio Mara de Acua y Prado) was owed 933,747
reales by the crown in compensation for the 1780 confiscation of Potoss Casa de Moneda, in
which Bedmars family owned the posts of ensayador and fundidor. He was licensed to import 600
tons of foreign goods to America, 500 tons of which were purchased by Hernndez Barruso:
Crown to Viceroy of Ro de la Plata, 8 July 1803, Documentos para la historia argentina, 7:21819,
32728. See also Thomas Handasyd Perkins Papers, bound vol. 36, Massachusetts Historical
Society, Boston; Avils residencia in ahn-Consejos suprimidos, leg. 21287.
23. Crown to Viceroy of Buenos Aires, 8 July 1803, Documentos para la historia argentina,
7:21819 (A fourth ship, the Protector, was also bound for Lima but was destroyed in a storm off
Cape Cod: Thomas Handasyd Perkins to James Gorham, Boston, 11 Oct. 1804, and Perkins to
Julin Hernndez Barruso, Boston, 14 Oct. 1804, Perkins Papers, bound vol. 36, mhs); Seores de
la Sala Primera, 22 Apr. 1813, ahn-Madrid, Consejos suprimidos, leg. 21721; Villalobos, Comer-
cio extranjero, 529. See also the account book of John Stoughton, Spanish consul in Boston from
1802 to 1809, entries dated 9 and 12 May 1804, certifying sundry documents for Ship Cordelia
expedition to Lima, and certifying to cargo measurement etc. for Sr. Barruso, n-yhs;
Declarations of Julin Hernndez Barruso, Boston, 7 and 8 May 1804, ahn-Madrid, Consejos
suprimidos, leg. 21287; Rico to Richard Codman, Lima, 7 Nov. 1804, and Villar de Fuente to Juez
comisionado, 9 Nov. 1804, in ahn-Consejos suprimidos, leg. 21287; Villar de Fuente to Viceroy, 11
Sept. 1804, Expediente sobre el conducto, agi-Lima, leg. 1620.
24. Informe: Contesta el diputado principal de la Junta Superior de Consolidacin, Lima, 8
Nov. 1806, agi-Lima, leg. 769; Rico and Diego Miguel Bravo de Rivero to Viceroy, 11 Nov. 1808,
agi-Lima, leg. 802; Gaspar Rico, Relacin de mritos y servicios, 23 Mar. 1824, agi-Lima, leg. 762.
paper currency), government debt had escalated out of control.
25
The value
of the bonds fell, and, in order to prevent further weakening as well as
secure new loans, the crown was forced to redeem them, or at least keep
the interest payments up-to-date. In 1798, with Romes approval, the Caja
de amortizacin began the task by confiscating and auctioning off Church
property in Spain and cancelling loans made by ecclesiastical institutions
there. The proceeds were to be deposited in the Caja de Consolidacin de
vales reales, which undertook to pay the former owners 3 percent interest
on the principal. In December 1804, Church assets in Spanish America and
the Philippines were also subjected to confiscation. In Peru, as in Mexico,
those assets comprised primarily mortgages and other loans; the loans were
to be called in, with the principal repaid to the state instead of to the
lending institution.
26
Not only individuals such as landowners and merchants
were affected by the sudden withdrawal of the credit on which both trade
and agriculture depended. The consulado of Lima was also in debt to
ecclesiastical corporations and pious foundationseven to individual nuns
and monks.
27
When such loans were called, the consulados financial position
was compromised and a number of merchants were driven into bankruptcy.
Although most of the funds of obras pas in Peru were loaned to merchants,
landowners, too, were hard-hit.
28
Gaspar Rico had no mercy toward them
and their attempts to appeal the rulings of the local Junta de Consolidacin:
The lawyers who promote gratuitous lawsuits in order to obstruct the sacred
purposes of the King in the alienation of obras pas should be arrested and
punished by this junta when they deserve it, and the same should befall
any private person.
29
The Consolidacin also removed a large quantity of
25. Pedro Voltes Bou, Carlos III y su tiempo (Barcelona: Editorial Juventud, 1964), 149; Antonio
de P. Ortega Costa and Ana Mara Garca Osma, Noticia de Cabarrs y de su procesamiento
(Madrid: Ferreira, 1974), 4445; Modesto Lafuente, Historia general de Espaa desde los tiempos
primitivos hasta la muerte de Fernando VII (25 vols), vol. 18: Aos 18141822 (Barcelona: Montaner y
Simon, 1889), 47; Capella and Matilla Tascn, Los Cinco Gremios Mayores, 242; Reinhard Liehr,
Endeudamiento estatal y crdito privado: La consolidacin de vales reales en Hispanoamrica,
Anuario de Estudios Americanos 41 (1984): 558; Barbier, Peninsular Finance and Colonial Trade,
2137.
26. Liehr, Endeudamiento estatal y crdito privado, 560; Brian R. Hamnett, The
Appropriation of Mexican Church Wealth by the Spanish Bourbon Government: The
Consolidacin de Vales Reales, 18051809, JLAS 1 (1968): 91; Barbier, Peninsular Finance, 32;
Avils to Ministro de Hacienda, 23 Nov. 1805, agi-Lima, leg. 732.
27. Ordenacin de la cuenta del impuesto en la plata y oro que se cobran en la Tesorera del
Real Tribunal del Consulado de Lima correspondiente a los aos de 1779 y 1780, agi-Lima, leg.
1540. The consulado was granted the right to tax imports in order to pay interest on the loan.
28. Cabildos instructions to Jos Silva y Olave, 11 Oct. 1809, agi-Lima, leg. 802.
29. Rico to Dr. D. Francisco de Paula Paez, 6 June 1807, bnp-mss, Correspondencia.
specie from Limas circulating capital: when it was abolished in 1808, 1,487,093
pesos had been collected, and the cabildo blamed it for the precipitous
drop in circulating specie.
30
At that time, the total commercial value of
Perus annual production . . . added up to only 8,745,815 pesos. This
wealth was supposed to support at least 5 million pesos worth of imports
annually and a further four to five million a year on government.
31
Article 9 of the royal decree establishing the Caja de amortizacin per-
mitted funds paid into the Caja to be invested while awaiting distribution
to the treasury or to the European bankers and merchant houses that had
provided the crown with emergency loans.
32
It was this provision that
authorized Manuel Sixto Espinosa, administrator of the Caja, to invest
Consolidacin funds in colonial commmerce in neutral ships sailing from
neutral ports both in Europe and the United States. Espinosa operated with
a great deal of secrecy and independence. Thus it is difficult to know exactly
how many commercial ventures were organized by the Consolidacin; nor can
we estimate the value of the cargoes it imported in neutral ships. But it is
known that some of the neutral ships trading to Callao between 1805 and 1809
were in fact either licensed by the Caja or ventures in which it hadan interest.
33
Part of the cargo of the Washington belonged to the Caja de Consolidacin.
In addition to carrying goods for the Rico/Hernndez Barruso venture,
the Washington was licensed to import dry goods valued at a minimum of
100,000 pesos, and consigned to the local Junta de Consolidacin, of which
Gaspar Rico was diputado principal.
34
The size of the shipments aboard
30. Testimonio de los mritos y servicios de D. Diego Bravo de Rivero y Zavala, agi-Lima,
leg. 627-A; Cabildos instructions to Jos Silva y Olave, 11 Oct. 1809, agi-Lima, leg. 802.
Compare the Mexican Consolidacin, which collected at least 10.5 million pesos: Hamnett,
Appropriation of Mexican Church Wealth, 45. On 6 Nov. 1809, Rico also proposed creating
vales patriticas modeled on the vales reales, which would have transferred an additional 4 million
in specie to Spain to support the war effort: Consulta del consulado sobre el proyecto de D.
Gaspar Rico, 22 Dec. 1809, agnp-Hacienda colonial, leg. 1173.
31. Anna, Fall of the Royal Government, 14, where the author comments that Peru . . . was
living disastrously beyond its means.
32. Real decreto . . . en que se erige una Caja de Amortizacin con el obgeto de consolidar las
deudas del Estado, Aranjuez, 26 Feb. 1798, ahn-Hacienda, libro 8050, doc. 5707.
33. Carmen Parrn Salas, La dislocacin del comercio americano y las ltimas tentativas
normalizadoras, 18081818, JbLA 30 (1993): 154; Abascal to Ministro de Hacienda, 23 May 1808,
agi-Lima, leg. 736; Expediente formado con motivo de haver exigido el Consul General de
Lisboa D. Jos de Lugo cerca de 100,000 reales velln a D. Jos Ventura Montano, agi-Indif.
gen., leg. 2439; Barbier, Comercio neutral, 373; Barbier, Peninsular Finance, 3334.
34. Contrata de fletamiento de la fragata Americana nombrada el Washington, Madrid, 9 July
1805, agi-Buenos Aires, leg. 16; Informe: Contesta el diputado principal de la Junta Superior de
Consolidacin, Lima, 8 Nov. 1806, agi-Lima, leg. 769; Rico, Relacin de mritos, 23 Mar. 1824,
agi-Lima, leg. 762.
the three ships out of Boston, whether owned by the Consolidacin, the
Cinco Gremios, or Rico, would have given Rico control over a significant
portion of Perus licensed imports. But thanks to Viceroy Gabriel de Avils
personal dislike of Rico and to the crowns dismay at the abuse of the
Bedmar license by Hernndez Barruso, Rico was prevented from taking
possession of the merchandise imported from Boston.
35
All three ships
and their cargoes were embargoed upon arrival in Callao, the Washington
on the grounds that the licenses owned by Bedmar had been annulled by
royal decrees of 20 June and 15 July 1805. The Cordelias cargo was said to have
been consigned to Rico personally and purchased with funds embezzled by
him from the Cinco Gremios, while the Carlotas was confiscated and sold
by the count of Villar de Fuente, who had been empowered to audit the
accounts of the Cinco Gremios in Lima.
36
Thus one threat from Rico to
the trade of both limeos and metropolitan merchants was averted. By the
time the ships arrived in Callao, however, Ricos adversaries had devised a
more effective strategy to reduce his abililty to dominate the Peruvian com-
mercial economy. Their strategy ended by ruining the Cinco Gremios
business in Peru, destroying its usefulness as an agent of reform.
THE ATTACK ON THE CINCO GREMIOS MAYORES
Neutral trade by the Cinco Gremios and the Caja de Consolidacin exacer-
bated conflict between Gaspar Rico and both the limeo and metropolitan
merchants in Lima, not least because the scale and character of Ricos
business demanded that he regularly remit large sums of money to the
peninsula. During the war of 17961802, both the metropolitan merchants
35. Seores de la Sala Primera, 22 Apr. 1813, ahn-Madrid, Consejos suprimidos, leg. 21721;
Rico to Francisco de Liao, 7 Apr. 1806, bnp-mss, Correspondencia; Rico to Miguel Cayetano
Soler, 8 Jan. and 23 Jan. 1804, agi-Lima, leg. 1357; Rico, Compendio de las tropelas, 7879;
Expediente promovido por haberse negado a la Compaa de los Cinco Gremios Mayores de
Madrid registrar 200,000 pesos en la fragata Dolores, Testimonio general no. 16, Expediente
sobre el conducto, agi-Lima, leg. 1620. See also Avils to Ministro de Hacienda, no. 359, 23 Sept.
1804, agi-Lima, leg. 1620.
36. Abascal to Ministro de Hacienda, 23 Dec. 1806, agi-Lima, leg. 734; Testimonio . . . de los
autos sobre arribo de la fragata General Washington, 24 May 18068 July 1808, agi-Lima, leg.
734; Seores de la Sala 1
a
, Supremo Tribunal de Justicia, Cdiz, 25 Jan. and 22 Apr. 1813, ahn-
Consejos suprimidos, leg. 21721; Informe de mesa, Madrid, 1 June 1805, agi-Indif. gen., leg. 1623;
Rico, Compendio de las tropelas, 2023; Real orden explicando las concesiones otorgadas al
Marqus de Bedmar, 31 Mar. 1806, Documentos para la historia argentina, 7:32728. Parrn Salas,
Reformas borbnicas, 44046, discusses the fraudulent practices associated with the Bedmar
license, notably by Hernndez Barruso. See also Villalobos, Comercio extranjero, 52930. For
more on the Cordelia, see the two expedientes in ahn-Consejos suprimidos, leg. 21287.
and the Cinco Gremios found it difficult to remit funds to their penin-
sular correspondents, and large sums had accumulated in Lima. In accord
with a royal order of 1786, however, the amount of specie that could be
carried aboard a warship or merchantman bound for Spain was strictly
limited.
37
Thus merchants were clamoring for licenses to embark specie
for Cdiz, still the principal port for the American trade. In July 1803,
Rico insisted on his right to register 200,000 pesos aboard the Dolores,
which was licensed to carry a total of 750,000 pesos belonging to the
entire merchant community. The Cinco Gremios had secured a royal order
instructing the viceroy to grant the company preference in the registration
of funds aboard ships bound for the peninsula; Rico therefore assumed that
he could remit as much as he pleased to the exclusion of other merchants.
The consulado protested, demanding that the interests of the majority of
Atlantic-trade merchants not be set aside in favor of the Cinco Gremios,
which reportedly had on hand some 800,000 pesos to be remitted to
Madrid.
38
Ricos aggressive defense of Cinco Gremios interest in this case
infuriated metropolitan merchants resident in Lima, prompting them to
join forces with limeos who were also angry at Rico.
Rico himself was perceived as posing the most serious threat to the
interests of other merchants in Lima. Prior to 1800, the Cinco Gremios
activities might have been considered a normal extension of the trade of a
large and powerful peninsular commercial house, but with Ricos return to
Lima the Cinco Gremios business had taken a new and ominous turn.
The limeo merchants and some of their metropolitan rivals saw in Rico a
man whose ambitions encompassed not only domination of Perus import
trade but also its internal trade and the trade in exportable efectos del pas.
Their assessment was correct. In a letter to the directors in Madrid, Rico
made it clear that he had no intention of limiting the activities of the Cinco
Gremios to the importation of woolen cloth produced by royal factories in
Spain, as called for by the Cinco Gremios charter.
39
His was a grander vision:
37. Real orden, Aranjuez, 22 Apr. 1786, agnp-Hacienda colonial, leg. 900.
38. Avils to Ministro de Hacienda, 6 July 1803, agi-Indif. gen., leg. 1623; Rico to Avils, 8
July 1803, agi-Lima, leg. 1620; Expediente promovido por haberse negado a la Compaa de los
Cinco Gremios Mayores de Madrid registrar 200,000 pesos en la fragata Dolores, Testimonio
general no. 16, Expediente sobre el conducto, agi-Lima, leg. 1620. In 1800, the diputados directores
of the Cinco Gremios estimated that they had some 400 million reales detained in Peru: Informe
de mesa, 2 June 1800, agi-Indif. gen., leg. 1623.
39. Ordenanza 7, Real cdula aprobando las ordenanzas con que se han de gobernar los Cinco
Gremios Mayores, 19 Sept. 1783, ahn-Hacienda, Libro 8034, 382v. Agents of the Cinco Gremios
were explicitly forbidden to trade in foreign cloth.
Middle America, South America, the coasts of Africa and of
Asia . . . contain numerous and interesting commodities offering
opportunities for the progressive investment of the present and
future capital of the Gremios. No one would deny this calcula-
tion. Why, then, are they not employed to our own benefit, and
by extension, to that of the entire nation? . . . I insist that cloth is
a useful business as a means to develop other more important
ones, not as the end of mercantile ventures. Although it might be
convenient for the company to refrain from sending manufactures,
it will never be convenient to abstain from trade in colonial products
nor to absent ourselves from trade among all the colonies.
40
Besides participating in the Atlantic trade both in imports and exports,
Rico was proposing that the Cinco Gremios compete with limeo mer-
chants in the Pacific carrying trade, the richest branch of which was the
trade with Chile based on the sugar-wheat exchange.
Like other merchants in Lima, Ramn Cavallero, a former factor of
the Cinco Gremios, believed that Rico was overreaching. As Cavallero put
it, the Cinco Gremios could not expect to make a large profit from Peru
because the trade of this country is modest, and Rico and others want to
make it gigantic by force, which it will never be.
41
Ricos principals in
Madrid were equally wary of grandiose new schemes. Rico had been
instructed by them to limit his ventures to those that had proven safe, in
order not to risk [the companys] capital and credit by investing in ques-
tionable enterprises in which it had never before engaged.
42
According to the terms of his contract, Ricos primary job on arrival in
Peru was to collect the debts (said to be 3 million pesos at the end of 1802)
owed to the Cinco Gremios in Peru; only when accounts had been cleared
was he authorized to embark on new ventures.
43
It had always been diffi-
40. Rico to Directors, 23 May 1804, Testimonio general no. 29, Expediente sobre el conducto,
agi-Lima, leg. 1620.
41. Cavallero to Gregorio Santibaez, 31 Mar. 1803, agi-Lima, leg. 1620. Santibaez was one
of the directors of the Cinco Gremios Mayores de Madrid.
42. Report of Diputados directores to Crown, 25 Mar. 1805, agi-Indif. gen., leg. 1623.
43. Instructions on liquidating accounts issued to Rico, Antonio Ortiz de Taranco, and Josef
Garca de Santiago, by Diputados directores, Cinco Gremios Mayores, Madrid, 6 May 1800,
Testimonio general no. 1, and Confidential instructions of 11 Aug. 1800, Testimonio general no. 2,
Expediente sobre el conducto, agi-Lima, leg. 1620; Rico and Taranco to Diputados directores, 23
Dec. 1802, agi-Lima, leg. 1620; Rico and Taranco to Villar de Fuente, 17 July 1804, Testimonio
general no. 33, Expediente sobre el conducto, agi-Lima, leg. 1620; Report of Diputados directores
cult to collect commercial debt in Peru, but at the beginning of the century
the viceroyaltys weak economy made it all but impossible. Rico claimed
that some of his ventures were undertaken with a view to improving the
chances that debters could clear their accounts. This was common practice;
as Viceroy Abascal later put it, merchants assume that debt collection is
rarely achieved without entering into new ventures with the debtors.
44
Thus Rico proposed that the Cinco Gremios supply mercury to Peruvian
miners and participate in the lucrative trade in mules (in which Villar de
Fuente was heavily engaged); both enterprises, he argued, would increase
silver production, which would in turn permit miners to pay their debts.
In 1812, auditors estimated that Rico had entered into new business ventures
with the companys debtors that were worth almost 4 million pesos.
45
Other ventures were apparently more attuned to increasing the short-
term profits that could be extracted from Peru, and Rico lost no time in
organizing them. In Arequipa, on his way to Lima in 1801, he signed two
contracts, one to purchase tin for sale in Lima or Europe, and one to ship
a large quantity of sugar to Chile with instructions to undersell the market
there in order to assure a prompt profit of 25,000 pesos. After arriving in
Lima, he vigorously opposed the consulados lawsuit that had so far pre-
vented the Cinco Gremios from establishing the provincial factoras long
envisioned; the interest of Peruvian commerce in general, he wrote, is
not the same as that of a few merchants of Lima. He signed contracts to
import slaves to Peru in direct competition with the Filipinas Company,
to Crown, Madrid, 25 Mar. 1805, agi-Indif. gen., leg. 1623. Note that in 1812 auditors believed
that 1,259,457 pesos were owed to the Cinco Gremios at the beginning of Ricos tenure: Abascal
to Ministro de Hacienda, no. 683, 31 July 1812, agi-Lima, leg. 743. Some of this debt dated from
1747: Juan Manuel Vaos and Isidoro del Castillo to Crown, 27 Aug. 1778, agi-Indif. gen., leg.
1622.
44. Abascal to Ministro de Hacienda, no. 523, 8 Mar. 1811, agi-Indif. gen., leg. 1623. See also
Ricos correspondence with Francisco de Liao, a miner of Lauricocha, 7 Feb. 1802, bnp-mss,
Correspondencia. The diputados directores in Madrid had remarked on the difficulty of debt
collection in 1796: Rico, Compendio de las tropelas, 6970, 84. For the difficulty of debt collection
encountered by other powerful merchants, see Jos Matas de Elizalde to Gregorio Xavier
Espinosa de los Monteros, 5 June 1792, and Elizalde to Jos Prez de Armendariz, 10 Jan. 1818,
bnp-mss, Correspondencia; and Dager Alva, Noble y comerciante, 72 and n. 43, 78.
45. Cavallero to Santibez, 31 Mar. 1803, Testimonio general no. 25; Rico and Taranco to
Villar de Fuente, 19 July 1804, Testimonio general no. 33, both in Expediente sobre el conducto,
agi-Lima, leg. 1620; Testimonio del expediente formado sobre el estado en que se halla la Casa
Factora de los Cinco Gremios Mayores de Madrid en Lima . . . hasta 8 de julio de 1812, agi-
Lima, leg. 743.
and to export cacao from Guayaquil and hides from Buenos Aires.
46
He
also intended to use the funds of the Cinco Gremios in banking, accepting
deposits from other merchants and men like Jos Bernardo de Tagle, marqus
de Torre Tagle, who did not engage directly or openly in trade, establishing
bancos de rescate (where bullion was exchanged for coin) in the mining
centers, posting bonds for bureaucrats,
47
and loaning money to his friends
and to the owners of a variety of small enterprises.
48
Rico invested money for
clients who included some of the most powerful men in the viceroyalty,
49
and proposed other ventures such as a whaling company and a plan to revive
46. Rico to Diputados directores, Cinco Gremios Mayores, 8 May 1804; Mazo and Cavallero
to Rico, Garca, and Taranco, 29 Apr. 1801, Testimonio general no. 10; Rico and Taranco to
Diputados directores, 10 Oct. 1801, Testimonio general no. 11, all in Expediente sobre el conducto,
agi-Lima, leg. 1620; Rico and Taranco to Avils, 24 Feb. 1803, agi-Lima, leg. 726; Rico and
Taranco to Diputados directores, 23 June 1804, agi-Lima, leg. 1620; Testimonio del informe que
el cabildo y consulado de la ciudad de Lima dieron al expediente seguido sobre la implantacin
de Casas-Factoras en Arequipa, Cuzco, y dems lugares interiores del Reyno, considerados
perjudicial al comercio del Per, 1792, agnp-Consulado, leg. 151; Testimonio general no. 17,
Expediente sobre el conducto, agi-Lima, leg. 1620. Ricos partner in the slave-trading venture
was the count of Premio Real, and the contract permitted trade to and from neutral ports in
neutral ships. On the Filipinas Companys slave trading, which permitted them to use British
ships, see ndice de las reales rdenes, 2 June 1787, agi-Lima, leg. 639.
47. Parrn Salas, Reformas borbnicas, 336 and n. 147. Outstanding among those who deposited
funds with the Cinco Gremios in Lima was the marqus de Zelada de la Fuente, who deposited
214,000 pesos at 5 percent interest: Testimonio del expediente formado sobre el estado en que se
halla la Casa Factora de los Cinco Gremios Mayores . . . en Lima, 8 July 1812, agi-Lima, leg. 743;
Vicente Morales y Durez to Directors, Cinco Gremios Mayores, 26 Apr. 1803, Testimonio general
no. 24a, Expediente sobre el conducto, agi-Lima, leg. 1620. Gaspar Ricos name appears on
numerous lists of guarantors who posted bonds for bureaucrats; see, for example, the list of
guarantors for Domingo de Las Casas, comptroller for the treasury in Lima, in agi-Lima, leg.
627-B.
48. Examples occur throughout agi-Lima, leg. 1620, but see especially Morales y Durez to
Diputados directores, 30 Mar. 1803, Testimonio general no. 22, Expediente sobre el conducto,
where Rico was said to have loaned 21,814 pesos to the owners of a bread and candle business;
Villar de Fuente to Diputados directores, 9 Aug. 1804, Testimonio general no. 45; and Villar de
Fuente to Avils, 7 Sept. 1804, agi-Lima, leg. 1620; Report of the Diputados directores to Crown,
25 Mar. 1805, agi-Lima, Indif. gen., leg. 1623.
49. Viceroy Avils to Ministro de Hacienda, 23 Sept. 1804, agi-Lima, leg. 1620; Baqujano to
Diputados directores, 26 Apr. 1803, Testimonio general no. 24b, Expediente sobre el conducto,
agi-Lima, leg. 1620; Villar de Fuente to Diputados directores, 8 July 1804, agi-Lima, leg. 1620;
Morales y Durez to Diputados directores, 26 Apr. 1803, Testimonio general no. 24a, Expediente
sobre el conducto, agi-Lima, leg. 1620. Note that the Cinco Gremios was operating as a
privileged joint-stock company in which bureaucrats and landowners held shares: Vicens Vives,
Economic History of Spain, 565. For the terms governing joint ventures with the Cinco Gremios,
see Ordenanza 12: De las compaas, Real cdula aprobando las ordenanzas con que se han de
gobernar los Cinco Gremios Mayores, 19 Sept. 1783, ahn-Hacienda, Libro 8034, 386v391v. For
names of other people who dealt with the Cinco Gremios in Peru, see Testimonio del expediente
formado sobre el estado en que se halla la Casa Factora de los Cinco Gremios . . . en Lima, 8
July 1812, agi-Lima, leg. 743.
production of mercury at Huancavelica.
50
Understandably, Ricos multi-
farious activities led to a complaint that almost no project presents itself
which [the Cinco Gremios] does not ensnare.
51
The limeos and their allies had yet another grievance. By royal order,
jurisdiction over commercial disputes involving the Cinco Gremios had
been removed from the consulado and vested in a tribunal privativo of the
Audiencia, in part because of fears that the consulado would be dilatory in
enforcing debt collection.
52
Rico was accused of subborning the judges of
the Audiencia, especially the oidor decano, Manuel Garca de la Plata, who
was the Cinco Gremios juez privativo: Rico had loaned him 50,000 pesos,
enabling him to buy an hacienda. Rico also managed the investments of
the oidor Fernando Quadrado, whose account with the Cinco Gremios was
important enough to require maintaining a separate book. Moreover, Rico
was engaged to the daughter of Manuel de Herrera, yet another judge of the
Audiencia. In 1805 Ricos cousin, Gaspar Antonio de Osma, was appointed
alcalde del crimen of the Lima Audiencia. According to Avils, Osmas
appointment astonished the city because he was very young (a mere thirty
years old) and had been wandering around Lima for five years with no
known occupation, supported by Rico. Finally, Rico was a close friend of Jos
de Arriz y Uceda, the crowns attorney in the viceregal treasury.
53
Thus it
seemed unlikely that either the government or a competing merchant
could win a case against Rico or the Cinco Gremios.
50. Rico to Sres. de la Junta de govierno de los Cinco Gremios Mayores, 23 May 1804,
Testimonio general no. 29, Expediente sobre el conducto, agi-Lima, leg. 1620; Rico et al. to Real
Tribunal del Consulado, 22 Jan. 1812, cdip-Tomo VII: La Marina, 17801822, ed. Julio J. Elas, 3
vols. (Lima: Comisin Nacional del Sesquicentenario de la Independencia del Per, 1972), 1:453.
51. Morales y Durez to Diputados directores, 30 Mar. 1803, Testimonio gen. no. 22,
Expediente sobre el conducto, agi-Lima, leg. 1620. See also Rico and Taranco to Villar de
Fuente, 19 July 1804, Testimonio gen. no. 33, Expediente sobre el conducto, agi-Lima, leg. 1620.
Similar complaints about the Cinco Gremios operations in Spain had been voiced in the early
1770s: see the Breve respuesta a la pregunta de quales son y en que consisten los perjuicios que a
el pblico y monarcha ocasionan en su giro y gobierno la Cia. de los Cinco Gremios Mayores de
Madrid, y las que de ella se deriban, ahn-Estado, leg. 3182, no. 158.
52. Diputados directores, Cinco Gremios Mayores, to Crown, 2 June 1800, agi-Indif. gen.,
leg. 1623; Real orden, San Ildefonso, 7 Aug. 1800, Testimonio no. 6b, Expediente sobre el
conducto, agi-Lima, leg. 1620. The consulados protest is in a petition to Crown, 4 Feb. 1803,
agi-Lima, leg. 1549. In Spain, disputes involving members of the Cinco Gremios were to be
heard exclusively by the Junta general de comercio y moneda, which amounted to granting the
company a special court: Real cdula de su Magestad de 19 Sept. 1783 aprobando las ordenanzas,
ahn-Madrid, Hacienda, Libro 8034, 338338v.
53. Avils to Ministro de Hacienda, no. 359, 23 Sept. 1804, agi-Lima, leg. 1620; Avils to
Crown, 23 Sept. 1805, agi-Indif. gen., leg. 1623 (Ricos predecessors, Cavallero and Mazo, were
also accused of payoffs to judges: Villar de Fuente to Diputados directores, 9 Aug. 1804, Testimonio
In response to the escalating threat posed by Rico, the limeos, together
with their allies associated with the Real Compaa de Filipinas, mounted
a successful campaign to destroy the Cinco Gremios in Peru. From its murky
beginnings at a gambling party, where Rico bragged that he had bet
money belonging to the Cinco Gremios, the campaign developed into a
highly politicized dispute in which the interests of the Cinco Gremios were
set against those of the Filipinas Company and a number of merchants,
both limeo and metropolitan, who were matriculated in the consulado.
Because Ricos activities had strayed so far from standard Atlantic-trade
precedents, his enemies were able to develop charges that Rico had misused
the funds entrusted to him by the Cinco Gremios.
54
The astute recognition
by his adversaries that, by attacking Rico, they could bring about an end
to what they perceived as unfair competition from the Cinco Gremios
proved effective where appeals to the crown had failed.
As it happened, conflict among the directors of the Cinco Gremios in
Madrid had a part to play in the success of the limeo campaign. Some of
the directors had opposed Ricos appointment to the Lima factora in
1800, and Rico identified their continuing opposition as the first element
in the plot against him.
55
They proved all too ready to believe accusations
general no. 46, Expediente sobre el conducto, agi-Lima, leg. 1620); Avils to Ministro de
Hacienda, no. 359, 23 Sept. 1804, agi-Lima, leg. 1620; Avils to Crown, 23 Sept. 1805, agi-Indif.
gen., leg. 1623; Villar de Fuente to Diputados directores, 9 Aug. 1804, and Avils to Ministro de
Hacienda, 23 Sept. 1804, agi-Lima, leg. 1620; Avils to Samper, 8 July 1806, agi-Cuzco, leg. 29;
Informe de mesa, Aranjuez, 14 May 1807, summarizing Avils letter of 8 July 1806, agi-Cuzco
29; Informe de mesa, Aranjuez, 14 May 1807, summarizing Avils letter of 8 July 1806, agi-
Cuzco, leg. 29; Guillermo Lohmann Villena, Los ministros de la Audiencia de Lima, 17001821
(Sevilla: Escuela de Estudios Hispano-Americanos, 1974) lxxxix, 54, 9192; Archivo General de
Simancas, Catlogo XX, 522; Avils to Godoy, 8 July 1806, agi-Cuzco, leg. 29. Rico married Mara
Josefa de Herrera y Rodado on 1 May 1808: Ricos mother was Mara Josefa Angulo Tricio y
Querejaz; Osmas mother was Mara Valvanera de Tricio Rico y Querejaz. Both Rico and
Osma were born in Nalda, Logroo.
54. Morales y Durez to the Audiencia de Lima, 13 Nov. 1802, Testimonio general no. 21e, and
Ricos account of the gambling party, undated, Testimonio general no. 30, both in Expediente
sobre el conducto, agi-Lima, leg. 1620; Avils to Ministro de Hacienda, no. 359, 23 Sept. 1804,
agi-Lima, leg. 1620; Report of Diputados directores to Crown, Madrid, 25 Mar. 1805, agi-Indif.
gen., leg. 1623; Morales y Durez to Diputados directores, 30 Mar. 1803, agi-Lima, leg. 1620. See
also Villar de Fuente to Diputados directores, 9 Aug. 1804, Testimonio general no. 46, Expediente
sobre el conducto, agi-Lima, leg. 1620. For a foreigners assessment of the limeo passion for
gambling, see John Miller, Memoirs of General Miller, in the Service of the Republic of Peru, 2nd ed.,
2 vols. (London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, & Green, 1829), 1:4025.
55. Rico to Crown, 13 Apr. 1805, agi-Lima, leg. 1620; Exposicin . . . de Rico y Taranco, 13 Jan.
1810, and Consulta del Consejo, Cdiz, 13 Jan. 1812, agi-Indif. gen., leg. 1623. Rico and Tarancos
declaration to the public of Lima, dated 26 June 1804, also asserted that their problems derived
from factional strife among the directors in Madrid, and dated from the time before they arrived
of malfeasance leveled against him, first in an anonymous letter, then in
others signed by the limeos Vicente Morales y Durez and Jos Baqu-
jano y Carrillo, and by Ricos peninsular-born predecessor Ramn Cavallero.
In the early stages of the campaign, Morales y Durez took the lead, pep-
pering the directors in Madrid with letters accusing Rico of perjury and
misconduct. Morales y Durez, who later distinguished himself as Perus
deputy and president of Cortes in Cdiz, was a lawyer then serving as a
professor in the University of San Marcos.
56
At the gambling party (held
in the home of Baqujanos sister to celebrate Joss recent return to Lima
with an appointment to the Audiencia
57
), Rico accused Morales y Durez
of being a compulsive gambler who failed to pay his debts, including a
sum owed to the Cinco Gremios.
58
According to Rico, the issue of debt
collection was the second element in the plot against him, not least because
he demanded that Cavallero liquidate his accounts immediately, which he
was apparently unable to do. Rico accused Baqujano of helping Cavallero
evade his responsibility, and of having formed a gambling company with
in Peru: Testimonio general no. 34, Expediente sobre el conducto, agi-Lima, leg. 1620. Rico
believed that his enemies in Madrid were motivated by the desire to place their own relatives in
Lima: Rico, Compendio de las tropelas, 31. In the Expediente and the later Compendio de las
tropelas, he named the directors Jos Lpez Salcs, Enrique Sta. Mara, Pedro Antonio Ursegua,
and Juan Josef Santibaez as his enemies, and alleged that this faction had secured the patronage
of Miguel Cayetano Soler, Ministro de hacienda. Santibaez was the cousin of one of Ricos
predecessors in Lima, Ramn Cavallero: Juan Estevan de Tricio (Ricos uncle and apoderado) to
Crown, Madrid, 13 Apr. 1805, Expediente sobre el conducto, agi-Lima, leg. 1620. In their report
to the crown of 25 Mar. 1805, agi-Indif. gen., leg. 1623, the Diputados directores discussed eighteen
charges of misconduct against Rico, insisting that opposition to him had nothing to do with
factional strife among them.
56. Morales y Durez testimony, Audiencia de Lima, 13 Nov. 1802, Testimonio general no. 21e,
Expediente sobre el conducto, agi-Lima, leg. 1620; Luis Alayza y Paz Soldn, La constitucin de
Cdiz: El egregio limeo Morales y Durez (Lima: Talleres Grficos de la Editorial Lumen, 1946);
and Rafael M. Labra y Martnez, Los presidentes americanos de las Cortes de Cdiz (Cdiz:
Imprenta Manuel Alvarez, 1912).
57. Morales to Diputados directores, 1 July and 18 Dec. 1802, agi-Lima, leg. 1620; Burkholder,
Politics of a Colonial Career, 92121; Miralla, Breve descripcin de las fiestas. Rico had not been
among the guests invited to remain after the reception to participate in the gambling; he crashed
that party.
58. Rico showed the viceroy evidence to that effect but refused to specify either the amount or
the provenance of the debt: Rico to Junta de gobierno, Cinco Gremios, 23 May 1804; Morales y
Durez to Francisco Javier Moreno y Escandon (a judge of the Lima Audiencia), 23 Nov. 1802,
and the testimony of Gavino Ganza before Moreno, 23 Nov. 1802, all in Expediente sobre el
conducto, agi-Lima, leg. 1620. Ganza did not believe Ricos allegations; on the contrary, he
testified that he was personally acquainted with [Morales y Durez] long-standing reputation
for honor and legality in financial matters.
Morales y Durez, whom he was also protecting.
59
Thus when Rico set sail
for Spain aboard the Aurora in April 1803, Baqujano believed that one of the
principal objects of his voyage was to denounce him at court. He responded
by dispatching information about Ricos conduct to Manuel Entrambasa-
guas, one of the directors of the Cinco Gremios. Although Baqujano was
soon persuaded to admit that his opinion of Rico was ill-founded, and claimed
to have withdrawn his letter of denunciation, his retraction, unlike Cavalleros,
was at best ambiguous.
60
When Rico set sail for Cdiz aboard the Aurora, both Baqujano and
his friend Vicente Morales y Durez were convinced that he was fleeing
prosecution for his part in the gambling affair, which was then before the
Audiencia. But there was much more involved. Just prior to his departure,
Rico had forwarded to Viceroy Avils a copy of a royal order demanding
that opposition to the Cinco Gremios provincial factoras cease. More
ominously, all cases putatively involving comercio libre (to which the Cinco
Gremios appealed whenever threatened by local opposition to their trade
61
)
were henceforth to be referred directly to the crown.
62
Rico was thus seen
59. Rico to Sres. de la Junta de govierno, 23 May 1804, Testimonio general no. 29; Rico and
Taranco to Villar de Fuente, Lima, 17 July 1804, and Rico to Crown por poder ( Juan Estevan de
Tricio), Madrid, 13 Apr. 1805, all in Expediente sobre el conducto, agi-Lima, leg. 1620. See also
Villar de Fuente to Diputados directores, 9 Aug. 1804, Testimonio general no. 46, Expediente
sobre el conducto, agi-Lima, leg. 1620, where he reports that both Cavallero and Mazo, the
former factors, owed the company large sums; and Rico to Crown, 13 Apr. 1805, agi-Lima, leg.
1620, where he alludes to Mazo and Cavalleros . . . interest in obstructing Ricos commission to
liquidate their accounts. On the problems of debt collection, see Rico, Compendio de las tropelas,
6970, 84.
60. Baqujano to Jos Bernardo de Tagle, 13 Apr. 1804; Cavalleros statement and the
correspondence of Rico, Baqujano, and Tagle, all in Testimonio general no. 30, Expediente sobre
el conducto, agi-Lima, leg. 1620. Baqujanos written retraction was dated 13 Apr. 1804 and was
addressed not to Rico but to Tagle; Cavalleros was dated 19 May 1804 and was orally delivered.
Baqujano remained an enemy of Rico until his death in Sevilla in 1817: Baqujano to Tagle, 13
Apr. 1804, Testimonio no. 30, Expediente sobre el conducto, agi-Lima, leg. 1620; Rico to Tagle,
Madrid, 4 Feb. 1817, amoz. Tagle inherited the title of marqus de Torre Tagle in 1801.
61. See, for example, Diputados directores to Crown, Madrid, 2 June 1800, agi-Indif. gen.,
leg. 1623, where they call attention to local authorities efforts to restrict their freedom to trade;
Rico and Taranco to Viceroy, 24 Feb. 1803, agi-Lima, leg. 726; and Ricos allegation that rival
merchants sought to destroy the Cinco Gremios in Peru in order to raise up their greed and
monopolies on its ruins: Rico, Compendio de las tropelas, 41. For an example of Ricos use of free
trade to justify his commercial adventures, see Rico to Diputados directores, 23 May 1804, agi-
Lima, leg. 1620, and Rico to Villar de Fuente, 19 July 1804, Testimonio general no. 33, Expediente
sobre el conducto, agi-Lima, leg. 1620. According to Eugenio Larruga in his 1789 Memorias
polticas y econmicas, this use of the idea of libertad was fundamental to the Cinco Gremios
operations in Spain as well: Capella and Matilla Tascn, Cinco Gremios Mayores, 37071.
62. Rico and Taranco to Avils, 24 Feb. 1803, agi-Lima, leg. 726.
as having gained a free hand to do as he pleased without regard to estab-
lished commercial practice or, indeed, to instructions from his principals
in Madrid. Therefore, according to Morales y Durez, the Lima public was
scandalized and even enraged by Ricos embarcation for the peninsula,
where it was assumed that he would succeed in mobilizing the directors
support for his ventures and win more concessions from the crown.
Morales y Durez attributed the anger at Rico then roiling Lima to two
facts well disseminated in this city and outside of it. The first is the number
of projects that Rico has claimed to be promoting under the aegis of the
directors [of the Cinco Gremios], alarming the public and prompting it
to voice impassioned objections to Ricos pernicious plans. The second
fact was the allegation that he had taken with him on board the Aurora
a very large sum of money belonging to the company . . . which, according
to estimates, is no less than 200,000 pesos. Of that sum, Morales y Durez
alleged that 111,560 pesos were registered in the names of Josef Corts and
Jacinto Agero, two discredited and bankrupt merchants associated with
Rico. Morales y Durez then went on to describe occasions in the past
when Rico and his patron, Fernando del Mazo, had foolishly invested the
companys money in hare-brained schemes. It was all part of a plan,
Morales y Durez insisted, to enrich themselves and their friends at com-
pany expense by trading on their own account with company money, a
practice strictly forbidden by the companys charter.
63
Although Morales y Durez did not state it plainly, the clear implication
of his accusations was that Rico had stolen money from the Cinco Gremios.
And that is how Juan Antonio Martnez de Salazar, the agent for the
Cinco Gremios in Cdiz, understood the situation after reading the letters
from Morales y Durez and Baqujano. On the pretext of projects useful
to the company in general, he wrote to the consulado of Cdiz, Rico has
attempted to abandon that office and return to Spain . . . but the real
motive or purpose of his sudden decision consists in the idea of escaping
63. Morales y Durez to Sres. de la Junta directiva, 26 Apr. 1803, Testimonio general no. 24a,
and Villar de Fuente to Diputados directores, 9 Aug. 1804, Testimonio general no. 46, both in
Expediente sobre el conducto, agi-Lima, leg. 1620; Parrn Salas, Reformas borbnicas, 444 and n.
87. Both Corts and Agero testified that the funds registered in their names belonged to them:
Corts and Agero, 6f Sept. 1804, Testimonio general no. 47, Expediente sobre el conducto, agi-
Lima, leg. 1620. The register of the Aurora is in agi-Lima, leg. 726, and it confirms Morales y
Durez allegation of sums registered ostensibly by Corts and Agero. It also shows that Rico
registered 19,198 pounds of cacao belonging to Gabriel Garca Gmez of Guayaquil, consigned to
the Cinco Gremios in Cdiz, as well as specie and table silver for his own use on the trip. See
also Report of Diputados directores to Crown, 25 Mar. 1805, agi-Indif. gen., leg. 1623.
censure of his operations and of his abuse of large amounts of money
belonging to the Cinco Gremios. Martnez de Salazar then asked that
the funds registered aboard the Aurora be embargoed, along with the ship-
ments of tin and Peruvian bark registered in the name of Agero.
64
But Rico never reached Spain. The Aurora began shipping water, and
was forced to return to Callao, where Rico was once again at the mercy of
his adversaries in Lima.
65
The letters denouncing him, however, found their
way to the directors of the Cinco Gremios who, while claiming to discount
them (a witness who retracts his original assertions, in the eyes of the law
is not to be believed in the first or the last instance), nevertheless sought
and found other evidence supporting the charges.
66
On 28 January 1804,
they petitioned the crown for Ricos removal from the management of the
companys affairs in Lima, naming merchants resident in Lima as inter-
ventors. By 4 February, their petition had been granted, and a royal order
had been dispatched to Avils instructing him to do everything in his
power to see that Rico and his associate, Antonio Ortiz de Taranco, were
made to account for every peso of the companys money.
67
From the point of view of the limeos, two of the interventors named
by the directors of the Cinco Gremios could not have been better chosen.
64. Juan Antonio Martinez de Salazar to the Real Tribunal del Consulado de Cdiz, 12 Jan.
1804, Expediente sobre el conducto, agi-Lima, leg. 1620. Rico was incensed at the speed with
which the such damaging rumors spread, both in Lima and Spain: Rico to Diputados
directores, 8 May 1804, Testimonio general no. 27, Expediente sobre el conducto, agi-Lima, leg.
1620. On the information about the Cinco Gremios Peruvian operations made public by the
interventors, see the Informe de mesa, Madrid, 10 Feb. 1805, agi-Indif. gen., leg. 1623.
65. Taranco to Diputados directores, 23 May 1803, Testimonio general no. 20; Ricos deposi-
tion, Apr. 1804, Testimonio general no. 30; and Rico to Diputados Directores, 8 May 1804,
Testimonio general no. 27, all in Expediente sobre el conducto, agi-Lima, leg. 1620; Report of
the Diputados directores to Crown, 25 Mar. 1805, agi-Indif. gen., leg. 1623.
66. Informe de mesa, Madrid, 7 May 1805, agi-Indif. gen., leg. 1623. Exactly what the evidence
against Rico was is not known, but Parrn Salas, Reformas borbnicas, 44546, is probably correct
in linking it to the Hernndez Barruso affair.
67. Soler to Diputados directores, Aranjuez, 4 Feb. 1804, Testimonio general no. 26, Expe-
diente sobre el conducto, agi-Lima, leg. 1620. Note that Taranco attempted to dissociate himself
from Rico and the intervention even though letters directed to the Diputados directores in Madrid
continued to be issued in both Ricos and Tarancos names. The informe de mesa in Solers
ministry, to which the Diputados directores applied to establish the intervention, declared flatly
that Rico was the sole object of investigation and that he had misused his partners name: Taranco
to Rico, 7 Aug. 1804, Testimonio general no. 41, and Taranco to Junta de gobierno, ca. 8 Aug.
1804, Testimonio general no. 42, both in Expediente sobre el conducto, agi-Lima, leg. 1620; Informe
de mesa, 10 Feb. 1805, agi-Indif. gen., leg. 1623. See also Villar de Fuente to Diputados directores,
9 Aug. 1804, Testimonio general no. 45, agi-Lima, leg. 1620, where the count comments that
working with Taranco alone, he could have audited the books much more quickly and efficiently.
In fact, the directors may have believed that they were naming a single
person: until the death of his wife in 1801, Josef Gonzlez Gutirrez, the
principal agent of the Filipinas Company in Lima,
68
had been both count
of Fuente Gonzlez and count of Villar de Fuente. The latter title then
passed to his limeo son, Jos Manuel Gonzlez de la Fuente who,
because Villar de Fuente had been mentioned first by the directors of the
Cinco Gremios, was taken to be the principal interventor.
69
The third inter-
ventor was Silvestre de Amenabar, a peninsular-born merchant whose family
in Spain was associated with the Cinco Gremios Mayores; he was effec-
tively excluded from participation in the intervention by the two counts.
70
Thus agents of the Filipinas Company found themselves in the enviable
position of being able to decide the fate of the Cinco Gremios in Peru,
and their limeo allies were content to leave them to it. Unlike the factors
sent out by the Cinco Gremios, the Filipinas agents were well integrated
into limeo society. As Vicente Morales y Durez described the contrast
between the two companies:
The Filipinas Company, established here at almost the same time
[as the Cinco Gremios], has followed a different system, and their
results have in fact been different. There have been no scandals,
their business has been conducted differently, and the state of their
accounts reflects it. The variation derives from the different plan
by which their agents were named, choosing them from among
men already experienced in this country, with their fortunes made
and of good reputation.
71
68. Isidro de Abarca y Gutirrez de Cosso, count of San Isidro, had been the principal agent
for the Filipinas company in Lima until his sudden death in April 1802; the count of Fuente
Gonzlez, as second to San Isidro, then took over the factora: Flores, Destino manifiesto, 101,
117 and n. 66.
69. All of the correspondence of the intervention was signed by Villar de Fuente, and the
confusion about the holder of the title may explain his reluctance to permit Rico and Taranco to
see his poder (the official power-of-attorney authorizing him to undertake the intervention):
Diputados directores (Salcs, Sta. Mara, and Ursegua) to Rico and Taranco, Madrid, 8 Feb.
1804, and correspondence exchanged by Rico and Taranco with Villar de Fuente, 29 June and 28
July 1804, Expediente sobre el conducto, agi-Lima, leg. 1620.
70. Moreno Cebrin, Ordenanza de Intendentes, 169 n. 36.
71. Morales y Durez to Junta de gobierno, Cinco Gremios, 26 Apr. 1803, Testimonio
general 24a, Expediente sobre el conducto, agi-Lima, leg. 1620. Of the six men first named to
oversee the Filipinas affairs in Peru, three were peninsular-born merchants married to criolla
women, and three were themselves leading criollo merchants: Flores, Iniciative privada,
15657.
The Filipinas faction moved swiftly, effectively taking over the Cinco
Gremios business in Peru. Villar de Fuente alleged that his power-of-
attorney permitted [Rico and his second, Antonio Ortiz de Taranco] no
exclusive administration whatever of the affairs of the Cinco Gremios.
72
At one point in the proceedings, when Rico and Taranco visited the office
belonging to the counts, they found themselves staring at the mirror image
of the Cinco Gremios which obviously existed miraculously united to the
Filipinas factora, directed by the count of Fuente Gonzlez and his deputy
or heir, the Conde interventor.
73
Ricos suspicions about the third element
in the plot against him were confirmed: limeos and metropolitan merchants
who had opposed the establishment of the Cinco Gremios in Peru begin-
ning in the 1780s had now joined forces to exterminate the company in
Peru.
74
Rico believed that Villar de Fuentes letters to him were dictated
. . . by persons known to us, the same ones who conspired against our
company and caused it such calamity and loss of reputation at the time of
its establishment.
75
In an appeal to the crown dated 5 June 1805, Ricos
uncle and apoderado in Madrid named names: the old count of Villar de
Fuente had led the earlier opposition to the Cinco Gremios, and was merely
continuing his campaign under cover of the intervention entrusted (perhaps by
mistake) to his son.
76
Rico complained bitterly about the conflict of interest
inherent in naming the younger Villar de Fuente, the semi-factor of the
Filipinas Company, as interventor: Who could overcome the conflicts of
interest that leap to the eyes . . . when the Gremios and the Filipinas, with
their clients, are involved in the business of fitting out ships and accumu-
lating cargoes at the same time?
77
72. Villar de Fuente to Rico and Taranco, 21 July 1804, Testimonio general no. 33, Expediente
sobre el conducto, agi-Lima, leg. 1620.
73. Rico, Compendio de las tropelas, 43. The visit took place on 30 June 1804. According to
Taranco, the Filipinas usurpation of the Cinco Gremios business derived from a clause in the
interventors poder requiring all of Ricos and Tarancos decisions to be ratified by the count: This
clause, in my opinion, is very violent, he wrote, and rarely or never included in poderes. Taranco
to Junta de gobierno, ca. 8 Aug. 1804, Testimonio general no. 42, Expediente sobre el conducto,
74. Rico and Taranco to Avils, 24 Feb. 1803, agi-Lima, leg. 726; Rico and Taranco to
Diputados directores, 23 June 1804, Rico to Avils, 8 Oct. 1804, and Rico to Crown, 5 June 1805,
all in Expediente sobre el conducto, agi-Lima, leg. 1620. See also Rico, Compendio de las tropelas,
3233, and Informe de mesa, 2 June 1800, agi-Indif. gen., leg. 1623, which mentions efforts by the
comercio del Per to avenge themselves against the Cinco Gremios because the privileged
company had destroyed their monopoly.
75. Rico and Taranco to Diputados directores, 23 June 1804, agi-Lima, leg. 1620.
76. Rico to Crown por poder ( Juan Estevan de Tricio), Madrid, 5 June 1805, agi-Lima, leg.
1620; Rico, Compendio de las tropelas, 32.
77. Rico to Avils? (intended recipient unclear), 8 Oct. 1804, agi-Lima, leg. 1620.
Ricos objections were ignored by the viceroy. With Avils enthusiastic
cooperation,
78
Villar de Fuente moved against Rico and his partner Taranco,
but not before Rico had taken steps to protect the assets of the Cinco
Gremios. Someone in Madrid had managed to get word to Rico of the
impending intervention before news of it reached the viceroy or Villar de
Fuente.
79
Thus, when the interventor and his associates occupied the office
of the Cinco Gremios, instead of the expected 50,000100,000 pesos of
cash on hand, only 3,047 pesos were found.
80
Moreover, as Villar de Fuente
complained, the ledgers that should have revealed clearly the condition
of the companys business are blank and without the expected entries.
81
Villar de Fuente also found evidence to support Morales y Durez allega-
tion that specie registered in Corts name aboard the Aurora did in fact
belong to the Cinco Gremios: an entry in the book labeled Caxa had been
altered, but the original entry, Corts 51,100 pesos en la Aurora was still
readable. The raspadura was put forward as proof that Rico and Taranco
had been stealing money, and it became the subject of indignant letters to
the directors.
82
78. Avils to Ministro de Hacienda, 26 June 1804, agi-Indif. gen., leg. 1623; Avils to
Diputados directores, 26 June 1804, Testimonio general no. 32, and Avils to Ministro de Hacienda,
no. 359, 23 Sept. 1804, in Expediente sobre el conducto, agi-Lima, leg. 1620; Avils to Crown, 23
Sept. 1805, agi-Indif. gen., leg. 1623; Informe de mesa, Aranjuez, 14 May 1807, summarizing
Avils letter of 8 July 1806, agi-Cuzco, leg. 29. For Ricos assessment of Avils conduct toward
him, see his Compendio de las tropelas, 33, 47, 7879.
79. Villar de Fuente to Diputados directores, 26 June 1804, Testimonio general no. 31, Expe-
diente sobre el conducto, agi-Lima, leg. 1620; Report of Diputados directores to Crown, 25 Mar.
1805, agi-Indif. gen., leg. 1623. Rico had only one known defender among the directors, Manuel
de Moreda, the apoderado of the jewelers: Moreda to Diputados directores, Madrid, 24 Feb. 1805,
agi-Indif. gen., leg. 1623; Parrn Salas, Reformas borbnicas, 445, links Moreda to Hernndez
Barruso. Ricos cousin, Joaqun de Osma, was also employed by the Cinco Gremios in Madrid
and was alleged to have sent Rico copies of Morales y Durez letters to the directors: Villar de
Fuente to Diputados directores, 9 Aug. 1804, Testimonio general no. 28, Expediente sobre el
conducto, agi-Lima, leg. 1620.
80. Villar de Fuente to Diputados directores, 8 July 1804 and 9 Aug. 1804, Testimonios generales
nos. 35 and 45, Expediente sobre el conducto, agi-Lima, leg. 1620; Report of the Diputados
directores to Crown, 25 Mar. 1805, agi-Indif. gen., leg. 1623, where they say that cash on hand
should have exceeded 100,000 pesos, and that Rico was also liable for the 45,532,196 reales velln
that had been advanced to him and were unaccounted for.
81. Villar de Fuente to Avils, 28 July 1804, Testimonio general no. 38, Expediente sobre el
82. Villar de Fuente to Diputados directores, 9 Aug. 1804, and Taranco to Junta de gobierno,
ca. 8 Aug. 1804, Testimonio general no. 43, Expediente sobre el conducto, agi-Lima, leg. 1620;
Rico, Compendio de las tropelas, 60. See also Avils to the Ministro de Hacienda, no. 359, 23 Sept.
1804, agi-Lima, leg. 1620, where he complains of the irregular conduct of . . . D. Gaspar Rico,
and the free hand with which he used the capital [of the Cinco Gremios].
Because of the conflict of interest, Rico was determined from the first
to prevent Villar de Fuente and his commission from auditing the Cinco
Gremios accounts. As his fellow factor put it, We will not be abjectly
subservient to anyone, least of all to a nobleman of such little mercantile
expertise. In a word, Villar de Fuente complained, the intervention is
not accepted.
83
But the directors in Madrid remained adamant in their
determination to proceed. Late in 1806, three newly elected directors deli-
vered yet another ultimatum to Rico, which they apparently believed to be
a reasonable compromise. They offered to forget all the charges against
him provided that the interventor were allowed to complete his audit.
84
Rico would have none of it. You are treating me the way children are
treated, he wrote to the new directors. He refused even to address their
proposal until they wrote to him in a respectful manner appropriate to his
station as a partner (socio), not merely a factor or apoderado, of the Cinco
Gremios.
85
But even as he penned his angry note in Lima, the directors in
Madrid were securing a royal order ratifying the 1806 decision to remove
him entirely from any association with the Cincio Gremios and appoint
Villar de Fuente as their sole agent in Peru. The royal order was dated 18
May 1807, and it was followed by a letter of the same date from Spains
minister of treasury, Miguel Cayetano Soler, to the new viceroy, Fernando
de Abascal, ordering him to enforce the directors rulings.
86
But that was
not the end of the matter. With the death of Villar de Fuentes father in
1804 and the 1806 appointment of two new factors for the Filipinas Com-
pany in Lima,
87
the counts direct ties to the rival company loosened. But
he and the Filipinas faction of the consulado continued to hound Rico.
83. Taranco to Junta de gobierno, ca. 8 Aug. 1804, Testimonio general no. 43, and Villar de
Fuente to Avils, 28 July 1804, Testimonio general no. 38, Expediente sobre el conducto, agi-
Lima, leg. 1620.
84. Diputados directores to Rico, 5 Dec. 1806, bnp-mss, D-192. The new directors were Pedro
Rubio, Manuel Ezguerras, and Vicente Ambrosio de Aguirre; they had replaced Salcs, Santa
Mara, and Ursegua, whom Rico accused of conspiring against him.
85. Rico to Rubio, Ezguerra, and Aguirre, 22 Apr. 1807, bnp-mss, D-192.
86. Informe de mesa, 28 Apr. 1807, agi-Indif. gen., leg. 1623; Soler to Abascal, 18 May 1807,
bnp-mss, D-192.
87. Juan Bromley Seminario, Alcaldes de la Ciudad de Lima en el siglo xviii, Revista His-
trica 25 (196061), 348. Because of increased trade resulting from crown permission to trade
directly to Peru from Asia, the Lima office of the Filipinas company had been raised to the status
of a factora in 1806. The senior man, Juan Bautista de Oyarzabal y Olavide, returned to Spain a
few years later, leaving his nephew, Pedro de Abada, in charge. Directores, Real Compaa de
Filipinas, to Miguel Cayetano Soler, Madrid, 5 Sept. 1806, agi-Filipinas, leg. 991; Diaz-
Trechuelo Spinola, Real Compaa de Filipinas, 180, 22829, 231; Ana Mara de Santiago y Ulloa
to Jos Bernardo de Tagle, 2 Apr. 1814, amoz.
Although Abascal found the whole case confusing, and was moved to
criticize both Avils decisions and Villar de Fuentes conduct of the inter-
vention, he too offered his cooperation with the interventor, as commanded
by the royal order of 18 May 1807. By the middle of 1810, Abascal had
secured the audit and a ruling by the Juzgado de Gremios (the same group
of oidores who were in Ricos debt) that the intervention had been uncalled
for, and reinstating Rico and Taranco in the full exercise of their rights. In
a letter to the minister of treasury, Abascal also deplored the effects of the
intervention on the Cinco Gremios business, writing that Villar de Fuentes
purpose in the whole affair had been to keep the company permanently
paralyzed and inactive.
88
But on 7 June 1811, the Juzgado de Gremios in
Lima was overruled by the Council of the Indies in war-torn Spain, probably
because of a comment by Abascal to the effect that the auditors had been
unable to establish the exact amount of the companys assets nor the dis-
position of 1,259,457 pesos owed to the Cinco Gremios when Rico and
Taranco took over management of the factora.
89
Rico and Taranco were
dismissed, and replaced by three other peninsular merchants.
90
Abascal
assured the minister of the treasury that far from having endangered the
Cinco Gremios with Ricos dismissal, [the directors] have achieved their
goal of protecting their business and safeguarding the last vestiges of the
capital that he had dissipated in his ruinous schemes and excessive extra-
vagances. By then, however, and regardless of decisions taken in Spain,
the interventor and his friends had achieved their goal. As early as 1805
limeo complaints about the scale and diversity of the companys activities
had ceased. The Cinco Gremios business in Peru was effectively brought to
a halt before the Napoleonic war finally destroyed the company in Spain.
91
88. Abascal to the Ministro de Hacienda, no. 489, 23 Feb. 1808, agi-Lima, leg. 736; Abascal to
Rico and Taranco, 11 May 1808; Abascal to Ministro de Hacienda, no. 523, 8 Mar. 1811; and
Informe del Consejo de Indias, 13 Jan. 1812, all in agi-Indif. gen., leg. 1623; Rico, Compendio de las
tropelas, 52; Capella and Matilla Tascn, Cinco Gremios Mayores, 299300; Testimonio del
expediente formado sobre el estado en que se halla la Casa Factora de los Cinco Gremos
Mayores . . . en Lima, 8 July 1812, agi-Lima, leg. 743.
89. Abascal to Ministro de Hacienda, no. 683, 31 July 1812, and Testimonio del expediente
formado sobre el estado en que se halla la Casa Factora, both in agi-Lima, leg. 743.
90. They were Fernando del Mazo (one of Ricos predecessors), Manuel de Urionagoena y
Aramburu, and Juan Salvador Difulao: Informe sobre lo acordado por el Consejo de Indias en 7
de junio, addressed to the Secretara General de Indias, Cdiz, 22 June 1811, agi-Indif. gen., leg. 1623.
On 19 Dec. 1811, the Consejo de Indias ratified their previous decision, suggesting that if Rico
and Villar de Fuente remained unsatisfied, they could resort to the courts: Informe sobre lo acordado
por el Consejo de Indias, 19 Dec. 1811, addressed to Silvestre Collar, agi-Indif. gen., leg. 1623.
91. Abascal to Ministro de Hacienda, no. 683, 31 July 1812, agi-Lima, leg. 743; Capella and
Matilla Tascn, Cinco Gremios Mayores, 31321.
In his Compendio, o extracto de las tropelas y excesos verificados por los
directores de los Cinco Gremios Mayores en Madrid, y por comisin de ellos,
contra D. Gaspar Rico y D. Antonio Taranco, published in Lima in 1811, Rico
minced no words in fixing responsibility for the success of the plot against
him. It was all, he said, a conspiracy organized by the directors of the
Gremios, the count of Villar de Fuente, and his confederates who were able
to convert the simple, limited, and null intervention into a permanent
despoliation, disolving a business corporation by defrauding and deceiving
the partners. Rico added: This is not to say that the directors alone were
to blame. They set [the plot] in motion, but its skillful prosecution was
reserved to the cunning hand they chose for the extermination. The hand
did not belong to Villar de Fuente alone: he had been aptly tutored by
the Ministers of the Congress of Interventors, the limeos, the Filipinas
Company, and the metropolitan merchants who had opposed the estab-
lishment of the Cinco Gremios factoras since the 1780s. And that, insisted
Manuel de Moreda, Ricos only known defender among the directors in
Madrid, was an excellent reason why the intervention should not have been
entrusted to the count of Villar de Fuente, nor to any resident of Lima,
too many of whom, Moreda added, were engaged in or sympathetic to
treasonous trafficking with foreigners.
92
THE USES OF CONTRABAND
Between 1803 and 1812, the attack on the Cinco Gremios and its factor,
Gaspar Rico, clearly served the interests of limeo and metropolitan
merchants as well as the Filipinas Company. But in spite of its legal mono-
poly of cotton-cloth imports and its exclusive privilege to trade with Asia,
the Filipinas Companys business in Peru also declined after the turn of
the century, and its directors in Spain complained about falling profits.
Like the Cinco Gremios and the metropolitan merchants, the Filipinas
Company had to contend with formidable rivals: the contrabanders who
surged into the Pacific in the wake of foreigners bearing royal licenses that
permitted them to trade directly with Spains American colonies.
93
92. Diputados directores to Crown, Madrid, 22 May 1805, agi-Indif. gen., leg. 1623; Informe
de mesa, 24 Feb. 1805, agi-Indif. gen., leg. 1643. Note that Moreda was a close friend and
associate of Ricos uncle and apoderado, Juan Estevan de Tricio.
93. Exposicin de la Junta de gobierno de la Real Compaa de Filipinas a la general de
accionistas, 30 Mar. 1815, agi-Filipinas, leg. 993; Real Compaa de Filipinas ( Juan Manuel de
Gandasegui and Andres de Sierra) to Jos Garca de Len y Pizarro, Madrid, 20 Sept. 1817, agi-
Estado, leg. 86A, no. 44.
With less expensive and high quality foreign goods readily available,
the limeos were able to sabotage the reforms by overt and widespread
noncompliance with the law. In 1806, Javier Mara de Aguirre described
the situation to the consulado of Cdiz, the one body that might bring effec-
tive pressure to bear on the crown to put an end to it:
I have observed with anguish the continuous and considerable
clandestine commerce which has been carried on from the port
of Concepcin [Chile] to the Punta de Santa Elena [Costa Rica],
not only by the ships of Great Britain, but also by the Anglo-
Americans. The consequences of this contraband have destroyed
national commerce, on the one hand causing prices of the supplies
introduced from the peninsula in accord with the established rules
to fall, and on the other causing specie and whatever silver pieces
constituted the capital of a great number of subjects to disappear.
Can there be anything more clear, and which more fully convinces
one of the proximate ruin and desolation of Spanish commerce, if
the cancer is not arrested? I hope that you will proceed to the
remedy by all means imaginable.
94
The flood of contraband in Peru, as elsewhere in the Americas, proved
to be unstoppable in spite of decrees and orders emanating from the
crown and its representatives. Neither amnesty nor the threat of summary
execution deterred contrabanders and their customers. The growth of the
Spanish-American market in general, coupled with the expansion of indus-
try in England and northern Europe and of exports from the United States
(whose merchant marine had grown prodigiously), had resulted in increased
pressure from foreigners to trade with Spains American possessions.
95
The Spanish crown severely underestimated the strength of these trends,
and stubbornly insisted on its sovereign right to exclude foreigners from direct
trade to its colonies, except on its own terms and at its behest. Indirect
94. Aguirre to Prior and Consuls, Real Tribunal del Consulado de Cdiz, 8 Mar. 1809, agi-
Lima, leg. 1549; Juan Bautista Oyarzabal to Crown, 22 Apr. 1814, agi-Filipinas, leg. 993, and the
complaint of the Cdiz merchants in their Informe de la junta de diputados consulares, 26 Aug.
1817, agi-Consulados, leg. 62.
95. Real orden, 23 Mar. 1791, agnp-Hacienda colonial, legs. 1227 and 900. For Abascals
acknowledgments of such orders, which were often couched in the vaguest of terms (proceed
against the Anglo-Americans . . . with all the rigor called for by our laws), see agi-Lima, leg.
650. On the U.S. merchant marine, see Valentn Foronda to Pedro Cevallos, Philadelphia, 31 Dec.
1807, ahn-Estado, leg. 5633
2
.
trade via peninsular agents who re-exported European manufactures was
the ideal to which Spain continued to aspire in its dealings with the colonial
market. Unfortunately for the privileged trading houses and the metro-
politan merchants in Lima, however, there was little disposition, especially
on the part of British and North American merchants, for any but the
most direct trade. As a result, after 1795 foreign shipping in the Pacific
increased enormously; between 1797 and 1809, 226 North American ships
dropped anchor in Chilean ports, compared with the period from 1788 to
1796, when only 26 visited Chile.
96
There was pressure, too, from supporters
of the Spanish princess, Carlota Joaquina, wife of King John VI of Por-
tugal, who had escaped to Brazil when Napoleons army overran his
country. Carlota Joaquina had declared herself the legitimate regent of
Spain during the captivity of her brother, Fernando VII. The Portuguese
were allied with the British, and in September 1808 the princess and
Admiral Sir Sidney Smith dispatched a ship to Callao in an attempt to
force the opening of the port to direct trade.
97
With contrabanders frequenting ports both large and small, limeo
merchants, who had been officially excluded from participation in the
Atlantic trade by the eighteenth-century reformers, could secure supplies
of European imports without dealing with local agents of the peninsular
merchant houses that refused to consign goods directly to them. The Spanish
middlemens profits, which drove up prices, were eliminated. And because
contraband paid neither exit taxes in Spain nor import taxes in Peru, the
limeos could compete in markets outside their own province.
98
An 1813
96. Vicens Vives, Economic History of Spain, 580; Whitaker, United States and the Independence
of Latin America, 12. According to R. F. Nichols, Trade Relations and the Establishment of the
United States Consulates in Spanish America, 17791809, HAHR 13 (1933), 303, U.S. exports to
Spanish America nearly doubled during the war, rising from $5,298,659 in 179798 to $9,070,022
in 18001801. John H. Parry, The Spanish Seaborne Empire (New York: Knopf, 1966), 346, puts the
value of U.S. trade in 1796 as $400,000 and as more than $8 million in 1802. See also D. B.
Goebel, British Trade to the Spanish Colonies, 17861823, American Historical Review 43
(1938): 316.
97. G. S. Graham and R. A. Humphreys, eds., The Navy and South America, 18071823:
Correspondence of the Commanders-in-Chief on the South American Station (London: Navy Records
Society, 1962), 18; Armando Nieto Vlez, Contribucin a la historia del fidelismo en el Per,
18081810, Boletn del Instituto Riva-Agero 4 (195860), 5968; Benjamn Vicua Mackenna, La
revolucin de la independencia del Per, 18091819 (1860; reprint Lima: Garcilaso, 1924), 109, 159.
98. This was not a new phenomenon, however. As Scarlett OPhelan Godoy, Reformas fiscales,
126, has pointed out, In colonial Peru of the eighteenth century, tax evasion was an effective way
to maximize [capital] accumulation and generate an economic surplus. See also Areches com-
plaint that Lima was a land where the only goal is to frustrate collection of the kings dues and
to keep everything confused by their crimes. Areche to Glvez, 20 Dec. 1778, agi-Lima, leg. 1082.
list of twenty-one ships involved in the contraband trade, all of them owned
by Pacific-trade merchants matriculated in the consulado, also reveals that
the limeos were taking advantage of the opportunities afforded them by
foreigners (and the absence of Spanish shipping) to increase their partici-
pation in the coasting trade.
99
The increase in the interprovincial coasting
trade is reflected in the consulados receipts from anchorage fees charged
locally owned ships. In 1796, the fee yielded 11,423 pesos; in 1801, the con-
sulado collected 26,171 pesos.
100
The reformers had hoped that the kings
vasallos de Espaa would make it impossible for limeos to compete in
that branch of seaborne commerce with merchants who had sailed from
peninsular ports.
Gaspar Rico was among those who found the contraband trade intoler-
able, not least because it reduced the revenues available to the viceregal
government. Writing at the end of 1811, he claimed that during the past
twenty years, foreigners have imported goods worth 50 million pesos,
without the treasuries getting so much as a whiff of it. One of the
services Rico proudly (and patriotically) performed for the crown was
the denunciation of the formidable contraband that infests this coast; he
offered to contribute 10,000 pesos toward the formation of an armed force
that would pursue and destroy it.
101
And that was precisely the problem:
neither the crown nor the viceregal government possessed the means to
enforce the law.
But policing contraband became increasingly difficult, in part because
of confusing and sometimes contradictory orders from Spain. After the
Napoleonic invasion in 1808, Viceroy Abascal had to cope with decrees
emanating from successive Spanish governments that undermined his efforts
to enforce peninsular control of the Atlantic trade. On 26 July 1808, the
Junta suprema of Sevilla published an edict issued by the English king
declaring an end to hostilities between Great Britain and Spain, and lifting
the British blockade of Spanish ports not held by the French. Henceforth the
99. Razn de los comisos verificados en la Tenencia Administracin de la Aduanilla del
Callao desde 19 de enero hasta 13 de diciembre de 1813, agi-Lima, leg. 627-B.
100. Estado que manifiesta lo atesorado en Cajas del Real Tribunal del Consulado desde 1
o
de
enero de 1774 hasta 31 de diziembre [sic] de 1802, 18 May 1803, agi-Lima, leg. 737. This was the
entrada de buques del pas. In 1801, when Spain was at war with England, the entrada de
buques de Europa yielded only 1,877 pesos.
101. El Peruano, no. 19 (8 Nov. 1811), cdip-Tomo 23: Peridicos, ed. Carmen Villanueva (Lima:
Comisin Nacional del Sesquicentenario de la Independencia del Per, 1972), 2:173; Rico to
Diputados directores, 23 May 1804, agi-Lima, leg. 1620. Rico often justified his conduct by
calling attention to his patriotism.
two nations were to be allies in the battle against Napoleon, but in return
for help in ousting French armies from the peninsula the British Foreign
Office demanded permission to trade directly with Spanish America.
102
Spain resisted British pressure for official access to American ports, but
nevertheless issued a series of temporary orders and counter-orders. In
December 1809, for example, all Spanish-American ports were closed to
foreign shipping, but in May 1810 the Regency opened them once again;
then, almost immediately, the Regencys decree was declared spurious, as
it probably was.
103
Not surprisingly, viceroys and governors in America were operating
with a significant degree of autonomy where trade was concerned, issuing
edicts that sometimes conflicted with the policies adopted by peninsular
governments, and certainly with the rules for the regulation of trade imposed
by the eighteenth-century reformers. Both Panama and Buenos Aires were,
at various times and for different reasons, officially opened to direct trade
with foreigners, sometimes as a result of pressure from the British govern-
ment and its agents in America. In 1809, Governor Garca Carrasco of
Chile hoped for the arrival of an English ship; he was anxious to grant a
license to sell its cargo so that he could collect taxes sufficient to replenish
the empty treasury.
104
In Panama, direct trade with foreigners was also a
revenue measure. The governor was able to make up deficits by taxes collected
on imports, a strategy he used repeatedly.
105
In 1811, he succeeded in securing
a royal order that permitted him to open ports to foreign ships whenever
the exchequer was suffering from anemia, and to close them when duties
102. Sevilla, 26 July 1808, Coleccin Duque de Hjar, Rare Books and Special Collections,
Princeton University Library; R. A. Humphreys, British Merchants and South American
Independence, Tradition and Revolt in Latin America, and Other Essays (London: Weidenfeld
and Nicolson, 1969), 1078. The British edict was dated 4 July 1808.
103. Goebel, British Trade to the Spanish Colonies, 28889, 312; Baqujano, Dictmen
sobre la revolucin hispanoamericana, cdip-Tomo 1, 3:488; Costeloe, Free Trade Controversy,
210; Humphreys, British Merchants, 108. Abascal was warned about the supposed and
apocryphal real orden and instructed to prevent its implementation: Abascal to Crown, no. 506,
undated ( Jan. 1811?), agi-Lima, leg. 650. A real orden of 19 Nov. 1814 (ahn-Consejos, leg. 43611)
commanded the Consejo de Indias to continue its investigation into the origin and authors of
the order.
104. Barbier, Comercio neutral, 36667; Goebel, British Trade to the Spanish Colonies,
310; Agustn de Eyzaguirre to Ignacio Irrarrazaval, Santiago, 24 June 1809, Eyzaguirre, Archivo
epistolar, 202; Humphreys, British Merchants, 110; Alvarez F., Comercio y comerciantes, 115.
105. Junta de diputados consulares, Cdiz, 26 Aug. 1817, agi-Consulados, leg. 62; Parrn
Salas, Dislocacin del comercio, 155. The governors action was approved con calidad de por
ahora by the Junta Central on 24 Apr. 1809 in spite of protests from Viceroy Abascal and the
consulado of Lima.
collected on imports had replenished the coffers.
106
His edicts turned out
to be an open invitation to contrabanders, who also took advantage of royal
orders permitting direct trade with the Caribbean colonies of foreign
powers.
107
The English islands, especially Jamaica, thus came to dominate
Panamas import trade, supplying textiles that were both cheaper and of
better quality than those otherwise obtainable by Spanish merchants.
From Panama, English cloth was distributed to Pacific ports. Metro-
politan merchants in Lima who traded directly to Spain via Cape Horn
were being displaced by rivals who were acquiring their inventories from
Panama.
108
In 1809 Limas consulado persuaded Viceroy Abascal to issue
an edict temporarily ordering confiscation of all cargoes out of Panama unless
their owners could prove that their provenance was legitimately Spanish,
or that they had been acquired by capturing a contrabander. In any case,
the consulado declared, royal orders permitting Panamanians to trade directly
with foreigners did not permit them to re-export merchandise to Peru,
where the governor of Panama had no jurisdiction.
109
In a declaration that
later became central to Gaspar Ricos indictment of Viceroy Joaqun de la
Pezuela, the consulado also questioned the legitimacy of Panamanian policy
and practice: The difficulties of the Royal Exchequer are no excuse for
disobeying the laws of the realm established by regulations, decrees, and
numerous royal orders demanding their scrupulous observance. Everyone
knows that there are other ways to deal with such emergencies. In August
1811 the consulado of Lima went farther, claiming that all imports via Panama
were contraband.
110
106. Acta, Sesin secreta de las Cortes, 17 Sept. 1811, agi-Indif. gen., leg. 2439; Parrn Salas,
Dislocacin del comercio, 156. The real orden was dated 30 Sept. 1811, and was issued by the
Regency. For the outcome of this case, see Consejo de Indias a Hacienda de Indias, Madrid, 9
Aug. 1818, MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 4, q. 9.
107. Informe del consulado al Virrey sobre que no se permita la introduccin de efectos por la
va de Panam, Buenos Aires, y Chile, 13 Jan. 1810, agnp-Hacienda colonial, leg. 1173. Trade
between Panama and Jamaica had been authorized by a real orden of 4 Apr. 1809: Miguel de
Lardizabal to Seor Presidente del Consejo de Indias, 18 Apr. 1815, ahn-Consejos, leg. 43611.
108. Parrn Salas, Dislocacin del comercio, 154, dates Panamas resurgence as entrept for
the Pacific trade from 1803.
109. Informe del consulado al Virrey, 13 Jan. 1810, agnp-Hacienda colonial, leg. 1173. Abascals
edict was dated 16 Aug. 1809: Consulta del consulado al Virrey, 7 Aug. 1811, agnp-Hacienda
colonial, leg. 1173.
110. Informe del consulado, 13 Jan. 1810, agnp-Hacienda colonial, leg. 1173; Consulta al
Virrey del consulado, reclamando de un auto de la Junta superior de real hacienda sobre los
efectos que se exportan por Panama, Buenos Ayres, y Chile, 7 Aug. 1811, agnp-Hacienda
colonial, leg. 1173.
The problem to the south of Lima was equally grave. According to Limas
consulado, British cottons were being imported clandestinely to Buenos
Aires in the holds of ships ostensibly carrying only Brazilian sugar, a trade
permitted by the royal orders of 4 March 1795 and 10 July 1796 that allowed
trade with colonies of neutral and allied powers.
111
Large quantities of mer-
chandise were also imported to Buenos Aires in the wake of the British
invasion of 1806. On 4 August the British commander declared that the
port of Buenos Aires was henceforth to be open to direct trade with
foreigners: The system of monopoly, restriction, and oppression, he wrote,
has finally ended.
112
Obviously, British imports grew exponentially. To
Spanish observers, watching the rapid disintegration of the colonial trade
regime, America seemed to be overrun by foreigners, and a note of panic
crept into their reports. In fact, the number of foreigners trading to the
Spanish ports of the South Atlantic was unprecedented. Even after the
British occupation ended, a trade suffered but not recognized in law by
the Spanish colonial authorities took place in the Ro de la Plata.
113
By
1808, British merchants were mounting expeditions to the Pacific ports of
Chile and Peru, both still subject to Spain and to the regulations that
prohibited unlicensed direct trade with foreigners.
114
By 1810, rebellions were also having an effect on the supply by legal means
of European imports. One of the earliest actions taken by the revolutionary
Junta de mayo was to confirm the 1809 opening of Buenos Aires to direct
foreign trade, and on 21 February 1811 the newly if temporarily indepen-
dent Chileans declared their ports open to foreigners.
115
On 23 May 1812,
111. Consulado to Manuel Jos Amandarro, 23 May 1806, agnp-Hacienda colonial, leg. 1115;
Instructions of the cabildo of Lima to Jos Silva y Olave, 11 Oct. 1809, agi-Lima, leg. 802;
Francisco Salazar Carrillo de Crdoba to Secretario de Estado y del Despacho Universal de las
Indias, Madrid, 17 Aug. 1814, agi-Lima, leg. 1018-B; Crown to Viceroy of Buenos Aires, 22 Feb.
1806, Documentos para la historia argentino, 7:323; Consulado to Viceroy, 26 July 1798, agnp-
Hacienda colonial, leg. 1087; Francisco Salazar Carrillo de Crdoba to the Secretario de Estado y
del Despacho Universal de las Indias, Madrid, 17 Aug. 1814, agi-Lima, leg. 1018-B.
112. Edict issued by Major General William Carr Beresford, 4 Aug. 1806, Documentos para la
historia argentina, vol. 4: Abastos de la ciudad y campaa de Buenos Aires, 17731809, 33943;
Exposicin de la Junta de gobierno de la Real Cia. de Filipinas a la General de 1818, agi-
Filipinas, leg. 993. The Junta de gobierno also reported that two Filipinas ships had been captured
in the Pacific off South America.
113. Goebel, British Trade, 309, 311; Valentn de Foronda to Pedro de Cevallos, Phila-
delphia, 7 and 27 Sept. 1807, ahn-Estado, leg. 5633
2
; Humphreys, British Merchants, 112; Silva,
Hamburgo y el Ro de la Plata, 203.
114. Humphreys, British Merchants, 113
115. Acta de la Junta consultiva de 6 de noviembre [1809], sobre la permisin provisora de
comercio con los estranjeros, in Documentos para la historia argentina, 7:37985; Goebel, British
Abascal wrote to the crown, remarking on the almost total interruption
of commerce because of the revolutions in the neighboring jurisdic-
tions.
116
He was speaking, of course, of legal commerce; contraband
continued to flourish, with Buenos Aires and Chile serving as entrepts.
Foreign merchants who carried their contraband to Buenos Aires moved
some of it overland to Chile, which became a center for illegal trade in
the Pacific.
Contrabanders in the Pacific often found that customs officials were
willing to permit them in port in exchange for a bribe.
117
Bribes were not
the only problem, however; widespread trade by bureaucrats (often in com-
pany with bona fide merchants) raised questions as to the proper classifi-
cation of their inventories, even where legal provenance could be established.
Bureaucrats engaged in trade whenever and wherever the opportunity
presented itself, and were therefore unlikely to exhibit much enthusiasm
for enforcing the official rules for the regulation of trade. And as usual,
bureaucrats trade proved to be fertile ground for political conflict. Com-
peting networks of merchants and bureaucrats often accused each other of
engaging in trade that, while not necessarily contraband, was contrary both
to the letter and the spirit of the law. Even Viceroy Abascal was rumored
to be involved in trade. When trade with independent Chile was cut off
in 1811, Jos de la Riva Agero, the disappointed criollo office-seeker who
was later a president of newly independent Peru, could plausibly accuse
Abascal and his merchant allies of buying up the limited supplies of Peruvian
wheat at 3 pesos per fanega and reselling it in Lima at 12 pesos. In July
1814, when the expeditionary force was sent from Lima to recapture Chile
for the royalists, Riva Agero accused Abascal of reaping personal profit
from the cargo of sugar and tobacco shipped to Chile along with the
Trade, 312; Jaime Eyzaguirre, El alcance poltico del decreto de libertad de comercio de 1811, La
Logia Lautarina y otros estudios sobre la independencia (Buenos Aires and Santiago: Editorial
Francisco de Aguirre, 1973), 144.
116. Abascal to Primer Secretario de Estado, Lima, 23 May 1812, agi-Estado, leg. 74.
117. Antonio Izquierdo Martinez to Ministro de Hacienda, 6 Dec. 1811, agi-Lima, leg. 772;
Consulado to Viceroy, 1 May 1816, Informes y consultas . . . 9 de enero de 1816 hasta 2 de abril de
1818, agnp-Hacienda colonial, leg. 1227; Abascal to Ministro de Hacienda, 31 Jan. 1814, agi-
Lima, leg. 747. See also the notorious case of Ignacio de Cruzeta, administrator of customs in the
northern port of Paita, in agi-Lima, leg. 626; Informe del consulado de Lima sobre la queja del
comercio de Trujillo, 9 Jan. 1816, agnp-Hacienda colonial, leg. 1227; and Informe del consulado
sobre contrabandos de efectos de Panama, desembarcados in Piura y Paita, 29 Dec. 1818, amre,
leg. 2-17. The crown eventually acquitted Cruzeta on the grounds that the man who denounced
him was an alcoholic.
soldiers and supposedly to be sold to support the troops. He also claimed
that Abascal had shipped sugar to Chile aboard an English ship.
118
In many cases, however, local officials were simply unable to determine
whether a specific shipment was in fact contraband, even when it was in
the possession of bona fide merchants. Many ships carried two sets of
papers, neither of which would necessarily reveal its true nationality, and
even Spanish authorities were conniving to issue false papers to ships carrying
contraband. Some of the illegal merchandise, purchased directly from con-
traband suppliers in Pacific ports or even re-exported from the peninsula,
was falsely represented as Spanish; it was common practice in North
America, Spain, and in other European ports to mark cloth fraudently.
119
Sometimes even honest bureaucrats hands were tied. International treaties
demanded that aid be provided to ships in distress; as North American
whalers and China-trade vessels increasingly rounded stormy Cape Horn,
officials were forced to allow them to anchor in Pacific ports to take on
water or repair their ships.
120
In spite of a royal order demanding pay-
ment in specie for repairs or supplies, foreigners were seldom prepared to
do so. After 1793, they usually asked for permission to sell their cargoes to
raise the necessary funds. On occasion the need to put into port was
falsifiedcaptains were known to empty casks of water or even create
damage to their shipsand merely served as a cover for contraband.
121
118. Riva Agero, Manifestacin histrica y poltica, 4243; Mendiburu, Diccionario, 8:279.
119. Whitaker, United States and the Independence of Latin America, 7; Consulta del consulado
al Virrey, 7 Aug. 1811, agnp-Hacienda, leg. 1173; Circular sobre el comercio libre a Indias y
precauciones contra los fraudes, Madrid, 6 Feb. 1779, ahn-Coleccin de Reales Cdulas,
Consulado, Libro 1490, num. 48 and Libro 1515, num. 96; Remtense muestras de las marcas y
plomos que usa la Compaa de Filipinas, ahn-Coleccin de rdenes generales de rentas, Libro
8050; Jorge Escobedo to Marqus de Sonora, 5 Nov. 1786, agi-Lima, leg. 1546. The Boston
merchant Thomas Handasyd Perkins instructions to Samuel Williams in London are
illuminating: We understand the Spanish Government has prohibited every species of British
manufactures in their colonies. . . . If the goods are already engaged, you will have such marks put
upon the pieces as designate them to be French, and still forward them. Perkins to Williams,
Boston, 27 Mar. 1805, Perkins mss, bound vol. 36, 107, mhs. See also El virrey del Per remite a
V.A. una exposicin en que manifiesta el estado poltico y econmico de las provincias del Per,
30 Sept. 1813 (an informe de mesa), in agi-Lima, leg. 1010; and Hardy to Croker, 2 Apr. 1821, for a
reference to the practice of English merchants taking on cargoes from Gibraltar that were
excellent imitations of Spanish and French cloths, Graham and Humphreys, Navy and South
America, 329.
120. Informe de mesa, 17 Mar. 1814, on Abascals Exposicion en que manifiesta el estado
poltico y econmico de las provincias del Per of 30 Sept. 1813, agi-Lima, leg. 1010; Informe,
Junta de diputados consulares, 26 Aug. 1817, agi-Consulados, leg. 62.
121. Real orden sobre las fragatas inglesas que arrivaren a este puerto del Callao, Aranjuez, 13
Mar. 1793, agnp-Hacienda colonial, leg. 900; Thomas Handasyd Perkins, Instructions to Captain
As the Spanish Junta de diputados consulares complained in 1817, It is
impossible to say enough about the lamentable consequences of those
treaties because they had compromised the security of our dominions and
the interests of national commerce.
122
To confuse matters further, there were instances of foreign ships trading
to the Pacific not only with royal licenses, but with direct royal ownership
of their cargoes, a fact that the crown attempted to hide from everyone but
the viceroy. When those ships were captured as contrabanders, the dis-
position of their cargoes gave rise to bitter quarrels among the merchants
and to litigation regarding their legal status.
123
Changes in regulationssuch
as the royal order of 20 October 1809 permitting the Filipinas Company to
import cottons directly from British ports to Callao even though such trade
was otherwise prohibited, and another royal order of 7 May 1811 renewing
permission for importation of English cottons
124
led to yet more confusion.
Contraband was by no means easy to define or to deal with, and the
difficulties were reflected in proposals for bringing it under control. Some
had a familiar ring to them. Early in 1810, the consulado of Lima sug-
gested that prohibiting all imports from Buenos Aires, Chile, or Panama
would solve the problem; only Callao would be open to trade in foreign
goods, and Lima would be restored to its old status as a submetropolitan
entrept. Other proposals dealt with specific trouble spots, but with the
same end in view. On 12 June 1812, a Junta superior de tribunales in Lima
prohibited all imports of foreign goods via northern ports such as Guaya-
quil and Paita; merchandise purchased in Panama for the Peruvian market
was to be carried directly to Callao, where it would pay a special tax levied
to compensate for the difference in cost of Panamanian merchandise as
compared to goods imported via Cape Horn.
125
The illicit trade out of
James Rowen, Ship Eliza, by way of Cape Horn for the North West Coast, 8 Aug. 1798, Perkins
mss, bound vol. 36, 66; Perkins, Instructions to Captain Harvey, Nov. 1804, Perkins mss, bound
vol. 36, 9596. Abascal was aware of the fact that most claims to emergency anchorage were false:
see his Memoria de gobierno, 1:114.
122. Informe, Junta de diputados consulares, Madrid, 1817, agi-Consulados, leg. 62.
123. Abascal to Ministro de Hacienda, reservada, 25 May 1808, agi-Lima, leg. 736; Soler to
Viceroy of Buenos Aires (a circular reservada), Madrid, 14 Jan. 1801, Documentos para la historia
argentina, 7:18788; Juan Bautista de Grate to Juan de Goyeneche, 21 Mar. 1801, bnp-mss,
Correspondencia. See also Parrn Salas, Reformas borbnicas, 311.
124. El consulado de Cdiz se queja de los permisos concedidos a la Cia. Filipinas, 8 Nov.
1809, agi-Filipinas, leg. 993; Viceroys indexes, Apr. 1810 and Sept. 1811, agi-Lima, leg. 650.
125. Informe del consulado al Virrey sobre que no se permita la introduccin de efectos por la
via de Panama, Buenos Aires, y Chile, 13 Jan. 1810; and Consulta al Virrey del consulado, 7 Aug.
1811, agnp-Hacienda colonial, leg. 1173; Informe del consulado de Lima sobre la queja del
comercio de Trujillo, 9 Jan. 1816, agnp-Hacienda colonial, leg. 1227.
Panama was a particularly sore subject. On 29 March 1815, the consulado
drew up an extensive report on it, but demands for stricter policing and
more severe penalties proved unworkable. The consulado nevertheless resub-
mitted the report in 1817. In its cover letter, which spoke of the serious
problems and irreparable damage done to this commerce, irrevocably
tied to that of Cdiz, the consulado made plain that it was acting in the
interest of the Atlantic traders who sailed to Europe via Cape Horn, the
metropolitan merchants who still insisted that they alone should supply
imported goods to the Peruvian market.
126
By way of contrast, there was relatively little discussion of contraband
out of Chile itself, or the means to control it. So far, the archives have
yielded no documents comparable to those dealing with the Panamanian
problem. Instead, there are general discussions of the need to patrol the
sea off Peru, and, occasionally, small groups of armed merchantmen out of
Callao would cruise about looking for foreign contrabanders. They captured
very few of them. Sometimes, too, contraband was discovered on board ships
engaged in the sugar-wheat exchange, or on one of the ships belonging to
the Filipinas Company,
127
but the relative tolerance of this branch of the
contraband trade differs markedly from the time and effort spent to curb
the trade out of Panama.
With the growth of contraband by whatever route, the legally margin-
alized limeos found it easy to sabotage the reformed rules for the regulation
of trade. Even successful attempts to police contraband sometimes backfired
in their favor. On the rare occasions when true contrabanders were caught
by privateers licensed by the viceroy, their cargoes were sold off to local
merchants, increasing the quantity of foreign merchandise imported to Peru
via direct trade instead of via Spain and Spanish merchants. Juan Bautista de
Grate, one of the most powerful peninsular merchants resident in Lima,
suggested that purchasing inventories from confiscated cargoes was much
better business than bringing cloth from Panama, or from anywhere else.
128
But even in the most stable legal trade regime, the viceregal government
could not have enforced compliance in the face of foreign determination
126. Consulado to Viceroy Pezuela, 4 Feb. 1817, agnp-Hacienda colonial, leg. 1227.
127. Soler to Marqus de Bajamar, Madrid, 22 May 1806 and 12 Oct. 1807, ahn-Consejos,
leg. 43611; Hoja de servicios, Bernardo Carrete de Losada, agi-Lima, leg. 627-B; Razn de los
comisos verificados en la Tenencia Administracin de la Aduanilla del Callao desde 19 de enero
hasta 13 de diciembre de 1813, agi-Lima, leg. 627-B; Abascal to Crown, Apr. 1807, agi-Lima, leg.
650; Flores, Destino manifiesto de un mercader, 92 n. 11.
128. Juan Bautista de Grate to Juan de Goyeneche, 21 Mar. 1801, bnp-mss, Correspondencia.
to open colonial markets. Spain maintained too few warships in the Pacific
to patrol the coast effectively and, for fiscal reasons, had elected to mini-
mize the number and strength of military garrisons in coastal towns.
129
Contrabanders and their customers could trade with almost perfect impunity.
In 1816, the year Joaqun de la Pezuela became viceroy of Peru, the Tacna
agent for a consulado merchant wrote to his principal to apologize for his
failure to sell a consignment of merchandise. As he explained,
About a month ago a bergantine with an English name that sailed
from Buenos Aires appeared in Iquique armed with eighteen
cannons and with a crew of thirty-six men, laden with yerba del
Paraguay, cloth and iron. It dispatched from there letters convoking
various persons of [Tacna], with copies of bills of lading and price
lists, indicating the Morro de Tacna as the place where they could
go to buy. After receiving the letters mentioned, those men flocked
to the place named, and they have made major purchases. . . . The
bergantine is now in Quilca, where they are going to unload most
of their merchandise. They move about everywhere in public with
their goods. They have brought all kinds of cloth, particularly
abundant cottons, and not one of the many who have participated
in such a harmful commerce has been arrested. This harm has
affected every merchant who has come here from Lima and
Arequipa, and all are as much at a standstill as I am, without
being able to sell a single thing. . . . [A]n infinite number [of
contraband customers] has refused to donate money to the trea-
sury in circumstances where it is impossible to pay the troops,
but now they have brought out a great many bags of silver to be
taken off to Buenos Aires, and so long as this torrent of mis-
deeds is not controlled, hanging most of the offenders, you will
strive in vain, making a thousand loans to get rid of such an
enemy, unless you recall that these small ports are completely open
[to foreigners].
130
129. For an account of the Bourbon reforms that led to this state of affairs, see Jacques A.
Barbier, Indies Revenues and Naval Spending: The Cost of Colonialism for the Spanish
Bourbons, 17681805, JbLA 21 (1984): 17188.
130. Anonymous merchants letter written in Tacna, 22 Apr. 1816, and copied into the
consulados book, Informes y consultas expedidas por el Real Tribunal del Consulado desde 9 de
enero de 1816 hasta 2 de abril de 1818, agnp-Hacienda colonial, leg. 1227. See also the consulados
commentary on the situation described by the same merchant, dated 1 May 1816, in ibid.
Revenge on those in Spain and Lima who would deprive local merchants
of the right to engage in the Atlantic trade in foreign manufactures was
secured by many opportunities to ignore the rules for the regulation of trade.
Noncompliance rather than armed revolt or pronunciamiento proved to
be an effective weapon in the limeo campaign to sabotage the Bourbon
commercial reforms and recapture a degree of autonomy from their colo-
nial masters. For Gaspar Rico, such behavior represented nothing less than
economic rebellion. Writing in 1811, he blamed the clandestine trade in
English manufactures for the recession in Peru: the viceregal treasury, agri-
culture, industry, and commerce had all been brought to ruin, he wrote, by
the trade in English goods.
131
In Madrid and Lima, government authorities understood that contraband
threatened not only the rules for the regulation of trade embodied in the
Reglamento de comercio libre of 1778 but also the viability of the system
whereby special permissions to trade with America were granted in exchange
for large contributions to the crown. At issue was the means to reduce the
volume of contraband that competed with legal, taxable imports, and in
both Spain and Peru, the question of means gave rise to political conflict.
Manuel de Godoy, Carlos IVs notorious and powerful favorite, was among
those who argued that the best way to destroy contraband was to open
American ports officially and tax the merchandise imported directly by
foreigners. [C]ontraband is equivalent to the effects of free trade, if it
does not exceed them, he wrote, with the very sad difference that [it] yields
no revenue to the treasury and corrupts the natives. . . . [H]owever one looks
at these matters, the system of monopoly with respect to the Americas,
given the level of civilization and progress its inhabitants have attained,
can no longer be sustained without angering and alienating them.
132
Godoy
was defending his proposal to open ports to the French for the duration
of the war against England, and it was Godoy who was in large part respon-
sible for the policy allowing foreigners (including French merchants) to
trade to America with crown licenses. In 1809, the cabildo of Lima com-
plained that an infinite number [of foreign merchants] have established
themselves all over America, and especially in the district of this viceroyalty,
131. El comerciante patriota (i.e., Gaspar Rico), El Peruano, no. 29 (11 Dec. 1811), cdip-
Tomo 23, 3:27374.
132. Quoted by Jaime Carrera Pujal, Historia de la economa espaol, 5 vols. (Barcelona: Bosch,
194347), 4:547. Napoleon sent a similar proposal to Godoy and the king in March 1808: Conde
de Toreno, Historia del levantamiento, guerra y revolucin de Espaa, 5 vols. (Madrid: Jordan,
183537), 1:18.
since the Favorite seized the reigns of government. Thus, when news of
Godoys fall from power arrived in August 1808, a group of European
merchants in Lima celebrated by destroying his portrait.
133
THE ESCALATION OF POLITICAL CONFLICT
Manuel Godoys fall from power on 18 March 1808 was part of a Euro-
pean crisis provoked by Napoleons determination to destroy British power
and make himself master of the continent. By then, three of his armies had
taken up positions in northern Spain, ostensibly in order to invade Portu-
gal and terminate its alliance with Britain. Godoys attempts to appease
the French had increased the already incandescent hatred of him that had
arisen years before, as Carlos IV and Queen Mara Louisa endowed the
upstart member of the Royal Guards with extravagant titles and increasing
power. Both civilian and military opposition to Godoy coalesced around
the person of the crown prince, Fernando, forcing Carlos IV to remove
Godoy from his civil and military commands. The next day, the king
himself was persuaded by Fernandista agents at court, popular riots, and a
military rebellion to abdicate in Fernandos favorthe famed Motn de
Aranjuez, the first time the army . . . assumed its classic role as the arbiter
of Spanish politics.
134
On 23 March, Marshall Joachim Murat and French
troops occupied Madrid. By the beginning of May, both Carlos IV and
Fernando VII were prisoners of Napoleon in Bayonne. But the people of
Madrid took to the streets once again, and on 2 May some of them were
brutally massacred by Murats troops; the events of that day were depicted
by Francisco Goya in one of the most powerful and moving paintings of
the nineteenth century. Although the Spanish army defeated the French
at Bailn, it had little subsequent success until it began operating under the
orders of Britains Duke of Wellington, whose army had come to the aid
of Spain. Guerrilla warfare was another story. There the Spanish people
confounded Napoleon and his troops, inflicting serious damage on an army
that was the scourge of Europe.
As is often the case in war, governance in Spain was as hotly contested
as any field of battle. On 6 June 1808 Napoleon declared that his brother
Jos Bonaparte would henceforth be king of Spain, ruling with the aid of
133. Carrera Pujal, Historia de la economa espaol, 4:550; Cabildos instructions to Jos Silva y
Olave, 11 Oct. 1809, agi-Lima, leg. 802; Nieto Vlez, Historia del fidelismo, 14.
134. Charles J. Esdaile, The Spanish Army in the Peninsular War (Manchester: Manchester
University Press, 1988), 68.
a puppet government that included, at least initially, former ministers of
state and well-placed bureaucrats.
135
By then, cities and towns throughout
Spain were establishing local Juntas de gobierno in defiance of Napoleon
and the afrancesados who had usurped Fernando VIIs throne. Several of
the juntasnotably the one established in Sevillaclaimed to govern Spain
and her empire in the name of the captive King Fernando VII; it was
followed by a regency that was forced to flee to Cdiz as Napoleons troops
overran the peninsula.
While the kings vasallos de Espaa were busy fighting Napoleons army,
some of them were also reinventing their government. Instead of rule by a
corruptible royal favorite, or even by a capricious king and council, they
proposed to subject themselves to a written constitution and the rule of
law. An elected legislaturethe Cortesdeclared itself sovereign, the source
of the laws that were to govern both the metropolis and the colonies.
Opposition to these arrangements was by no means mild or mute. At first
known as serviles, then as absolutists, members of the opposition fought
to prevent what they perceived as a second usurpation of the kings rights,
his sovereignty. The liberal project to install a limited monarchy and a
constitutional government in Spain was, in their opinion, illegitimate.
The effect of constitutional conflict in Spain on the governance of her
American colonies was profound. In Peru, limeos joined public debate
on legitimacy to their customary noncompliance as weapons in the campaign
to sabotage the Bourbon reforms. Much of the debate focused on commerce,
which served as a surrogate for discussions of the legitimacy of colonial
rule by bureaucrats like Viceroy Abascal, appointed by the discredited
government of Carlos IV and Godoy. As they had in Guiriors and Croixs
time, the debates involved a great many members of Limas economically
active elite, but this time the factions were able to disseminate their argu-
ments more widely, thanks to the Spanish Cortes 1810 decree establishing
freedom of the press. Gaspar Ricos periodical, El Peruano, played a criti-
cal role in the debates, not only on the subject of Abascals rule but also
on trade policy.
136
Commercial policy was closely linked to regime survival for the obvious
reason that the crown depended heavily on income from taxes on American
135. The most accessible account in English of these events is in Gabriel H. Lovett, Napoleon
and the Birth of Modern Spain, 2 vols. (New York: New York University Press, 1965), 1:85132. See
also Toreno, Historia del levantamiento, 1:1428.
136. El Peruano was published in Lima from 6 Sept. 1811 to 9 June 1812: Martnez Riaza,
Prensa doctrinal, 32.
commerce. Threats to their collection were taken seriously.
137
During the
ten years that Fernando de Abascal served as viceroy (180616), the fiscal
problem came to be directly related to the question of direct trade with
foreigners, and as such it became the source of increasing political conflict
between limeo and metropolitan merchants. Escalating military expendi-
tures at a time when revenues from taxes on trade were dropping created a
serious problem for the viceroy, who was engaged in military actions against
independence-minded governing juntas in Buenos Aires, La Paz, Santiago,
and Quito. But unlike his colleagues in other parts of America, Abascal
would not consider opening Callao to foreign merchants who lacked royal
licenses.
138
Instead, with the viceroys support, the metropolitan merchants
continued the old practice of dealing with fiscal problems and limeo grie-
vances by modest modification and manipulation of the practices mandated
by the Reglamento of 1778, not by major changes in its fundamental premises.
Three cases from 1809, 1810, and 1812 illustrate the point.
On 11 October 1809, the cabildo of Lima drew up instructions for Jos
Silva y Olave, Perus deputy to the Junta central then governing Spain in
the absence of Fernando VII, held captive in France by Napoleon. The
instructions called for a number of political and economic reforms, including
an end to state monopolies of commodities such as brandies and mercury.
The true benefit of king and vassals, the cabildo wrote, consists in a
free commerce that promotes honest and honorable work, that multiplies
exchanges and yields prodigious revenues from legitimate taxes, such as
the alcabala and almojarifazgo. But the cabildos appeal for freer trade con-
cerned only trade within the Spanish empire, and that on terms that would
have been acceptable to the eighteenth-century Bourbon reformers. When
it came to external trade, the cabildo opposed change, waxing eloquent in
its opposition to direct commercial contact with foreigners. Prior to Godoys
ascendancy, it claimed, no foreigners could engage in the Atlantic trade
even if they were naturalized citizens; nor could their sons engage in that
137. In 1803, for example, Viceroy Avils was harshly rebuked by the crown for permitting
Domingo Ramrez de Arellano and his fellow shipowners to get away with refusing to pay the
newly increased taxes on the export trade out of Callao: Domingo de Grandallana to Jos
Antonio Caballero, copying for him a real orden sent to the viceroy of Peru, Aranjuez, 13 June
1803, agi-Lima, leg. 1009; Grandallana to Soler, Aranjuez, 22 May 1803, agi-Indif. gen., leg. 1891,
and the expediente in agi-Indif. gen., leg. 1892.
138. Jos Fernando de Abascal y Sousa, Memoria de gobierno, ed. Vicente Rodrguez Casado
and Jos Antonio Calderon Quijano, 3 vols. (Sevilla: Escuela de Estudios Hispano-Americanos,
1944), 1:200201, 41923, and Abascal to Primer Secretario de Estado, 23 May 1812, agi-Lima,
leg. 1014-B.
trade. But Godoys policies had altered previous practice, and with the
increased presence of foreigners, the trade of Spanish merchants had declined.
The foreigners brought with them unethical commercial practices and sub-
versive ideas. Moreover, many of the foreigners were passing themselves
off as Spaniards, having forged their baptismal certificates and other
qualifying documents: The hidden enemy does immense damage. The
cabildo demanded that all foreigners be removed from America, even if
Godoy had granted them special licenses to trade or appointments to office;
Frenchmen, especially, should be exiled from both Spain and America, no
matter how long they had been resident there.
139
There was nothing new
here with which to confront the changed circumstances of Napoleonic
Spain or revolutionary America.
Although an 1810 petition by the cabildo of Lima addressed the fiscal
problem with a proposal for direct trade with foreigners, it did so in the
same spirit as it had demonstrated in the case of Silva y Olaves instruc-
tions. The petition seeking permission to auction off six licenses to trade
from Callao . . . to Canton or the Coast of Coromandel and Malavar was
similarly dismissive of limeo grievances.
140
Only nine of the twenty-two
regidores signed the petition, and three of them were among the most
powerful metropolitan merchants of Lima. They were careful to argue their
case in terms that were in keeping with crown policy to preserve the trade
of the kings vasallos de Espaa, who had benefitted from the provisions of
the Reglamento of 1778. Direct trade with Asia, limited to six expeditions,
would do no damage either to peninsular commerce or to the Filipinas
Company, they claimed, because neither would be able to supply the vice-
regal market during and immediately following the peninsular war. Costs
to consumers would be reduced, making it possible for legal imports to
compete with contraband. By no means least important was the argument
that the treasury would gain more than four million pesos in revenue in
the six years during which the licenses would be valid. Significantly, bids
would be accepted only from those merchants of the best reputation who,
139. Cabildo to Jos Silva y Olave, 11 Oct. 1809, agi-Lima, leg. 802; Lista de los franceses que
se remitan a Espaa bajo partida de registro, 23 June 1810, agi-Lima, leg. 1016; Nieto Vlez,
Historia del fidelismo, 9496, 100102.
140. Acta, Cabildo de Lima, 23 Nov. 1810, ahml-Cabildo, Libro 43. The council was to
auction off one license annually, use the proceeds to pay its debts, and thus be in a better position
to contribute to the war effort. Each of the six expeditions was to carry 500,000 pesos in specie
and all the territorial products that were judged to be salable in those places. They were to pay
only those duties collected on exports from the peninsula, plus the derechos de crculo owed by
peninsular merchants trading from foreign ports to America.
by their conduct and patriotism, have achieved the most respected positions
in the opinion of the public and who have been victims of the disasters
suffered by the maritime trade of this capital during the last two wars with
Great Britainthat is, the metropolitan merchants whose Atlantic trade
had been interrupted by war.
As the cabildos petition demonstrated, metropolitan merchants were
loathe to tamper with the system whereby foreigners were officially excluded
from the colonial trade. Instead, they supported viceregal decrees exploiting
the well-established practice of granting privileges and issuing special permis-
sions to Atlantic-trade merchants. Gaspar Rico was a prominent supporter
of this position. In 1812, he was a member of a commission appointed by
Abascal to study the viceregal economy and come up with suggestions for
making Peru more prosperous, thereby increasing revenue from taxes on
economic activity. Part of the commissions report was summarized in 1815
by Dr. Hiplito Unanue, the protomdico of Peru and friend of Abascal
who had gone to Spain as Arequipas delegate to Cortes. The report called
for an end to foreign exploitation of the whale fisheries off the coast of
Peru. According to the calculations of expert merchants of Lima, Unnue
wrote, the English, Europeans, and Americans export annually products
valued at nine million pesos fuertes derived from the whale fishery, which is
double that produced by the gold and silver mines of Peru.
141
But behind
that summary lay two short declarations by two groups of merchants who
were members of the commission, in one of which Gaspar Rico and men
associated with the Cinco Gremios figured, and the other comprising the
factor of the Filipinas Company, Pedro de Abada, and his associates.
142
Both groups agreed with Abascal that foreign exploitation of a rich Peru-
vian resource was a scandal, but they disagreed on the means by which the
foreigners could be displaced. Rico and his friends suggested that the con-
sulado should establish a privileged whaling company that would become,
perhaps, with time, a new fount of wealth for this country, and the foundation
of a navy capable of protecting its commerce and navigation.
143
Abada
141. Hiplito Unanue to Excelentsimo Seor [i.e., the Peruvian-born duke of San Carlos,
advisor to Fernando VII], Madrid, 15 Oct. 1814, cdip-Tomo 7, 1:450. In July 1797, Viceroy Ambro-
sio OHiggins had urged Manuel de Godoy to include a clause in the peace treaty with England
by which British whalers would be forbidden to fish off Peru: Vargas Ugarte, Historia . . . siglo
xviii, 2:5758.
142. cdip-Tomo 7, 1:45355.
143. Informe de Joaqun Mara Ferrer, Gaspar Rico, Francisco Inda, Martn [Prez de]
Cortiguera, and Martn Guisarola to Consulado, 22 Jan. 1812, cdip-Tomo 7, 1:453.
and his friends, by contrast, drew attention to an existing royal order per-
mitting anyone to engage in commercial fishing, but likened it to removing
the shackles from only one leg and demanding that a man run with the
other leg in irons. More was needed, and Abadas group proposed that,
instead of a privileged company, obstacles to investment by anyone willing
to risk his capital be removed and replaced by incentives. No official
permission should be required, and tax relief should be offered while the
fishery was being developed. The secret, they wrote, does not lie in
issuing many orders, but in freeing people to act.
144
The canny Abascal
forged a compromise that satisfied both parties: he invested in the whaling
company being formed by local entrepreneurs without express royal per-
mission, and he also sought crown approval for the project, which failed
before Madrids favorable ruling was issued on 15 July 1815.
145
Projects like abolition of internal monopolies and granting special per-
missions to trade to Asia or establishing a state-sponsored whale fishery
might have generated more revenue in the long run, but Abascal needed
cash immediately. His efforts to find enough money to cover the viceregal
governments current expenses were sabotaged, however, by the Spanish
Cortes. In 1811, Cortes abolished Indian tribute. Suddenly, more than
1,200,000 pesos annuallyabout one-third of total revenueswere no longer
available.
146
Abascal was furious: As a result of the extinction of tribute,
this government is left without the means to defray the mountain of
expense required by the extraordinary circumstances of the day, he wrote
to the crown. Revenues from tribute could not be replaced by taxes on
economic activity in the viceroyalty, he declared, because of the almost
144. [E]l secreto no est en mandar mucho, sino en dejar hacer. cdip-Tomo 7, 1:45455.
There is no evidence that Abada had read Adam Smiths Wealth of Nations; it is more likely that
he was familiar with the writings of Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos, who had read Smith: Herr,
Eighteenth-Century Revolution, 37678.
145. Abascal to Ministro de Marina, 8 Oct. 1812, agi-Lima, leg. 743; Informe de mesa, 17
Mar. 1814, summarizing Abascals Exposicion en que manifiesta el estado poltico y econmico
de las provincias del Per of 30 Sept. 1813, agi-Lima, leg. 1010; Real orden, Madrid, 15 July 1815,
cdip-Tomo 7, 1:46768. A typographical error mistakes the year 1815 for 1819.
146. Abascal to Ministro de Hacienda, 4? Sept. 1811, agi-Lima, leg. 741; Abascal to Ministro
de Hacienda, 25 Feb. 1813, cdip-Tomo 22, 1:278, gives the annual value of Indian tribute as
1,272,548 pesos. For the amounts collected annually between 1800 and 1811, see Fisher, Government
and Society, appendix 4. The decree of Cortes in Spain abolishing tribute was dated 13 Mar. 1811; it
reiterated an earlier decree abolishing tribute, issued by the first Consejo de Regencia on 26 May
1810: Eyzaguirre to Abascal, 29 Oct. 1812, agi-Lima, leg. 744; El Consejo de Indias en
cumplimiento de las reales rdenes de 17 de agosto y 16 de noviembre . . . consultase lo que
creyera justo en quanto al pago u exencin de tributos, 22 Dec. 1814, agi-Indif. gen., leg. 803.
total interruption of commerce, the revolutions in neighboring jurisdictions,
the slowdown in working the mines, textile factories, and other enterprises
of the inhabitants of this kingdom, many of whom are serving under
arms. . . . All this and much more that could be cited, he added, should
have been kept in mind before discussing matters as serious as tribute, in
ignorance of the difficulties that would result from the absence of the
most abundant and perhaps the only revenue presently available to this
royal treasury.
147
Thus, with abolition of Indian tribute, the scramble for
revenuecharacteristic of the last years of the colonial regimebegan in
earnest, creating yet more political conflict in its wake.
Opposition to increased taxes or to the imposition of new levies on
commerce was hardly new to Peru, but abolition of tribute provoked a
discussion that quickly led to open dissent from the viceroys fiscal policies.
Dissent manifested itself not only in articles in the newly free press, but
also in debates in the cabildo. A fundamental issue was at stake when the
cabildo denied that local authorities had the power to impose or modify
taxes; only the autoridad soberana possessed that power, and it had not
been delegated either to the viceroy or to the cabildo. Nevertheless, given
the circumstances in war-torn Spain, the cabildo, declaring itself to be the
Father and Protector of the people,
148
accepted the responsibility to issue
an opinion on a subject formerly reserved to the king. It did so by adopting
the report of its sndico procurador, Ignacio de Orue. Inevitably, Orue pointed
out, Lima alone would be called upon to supply the funds essential to
making up the deficit, leaving us in worse condition than the Indians or
the poverty-stricken residents of other provinces. This was an unacceptable
reward for Limas fidelity to Spain. As a practical matter, too, Orue doubted
that taxes could be raised even on luxury goods; they were already heavily
taxed, and therefore often supplied by the contraband trade. Increasing
taxes, he insisted, would deepen the recession, thereby further reducing
revenue. Moreover, the cost of collecting new taxes, and the endemic fraud
associated with tax collection in general, would prevent any growth in
revenue. And because Abascal did not have the authority to impose new
147. Abascal to Primer Secretario de Estado, 23 May 1812, agi-Estado, leg. 74. On 1 Mar. 1815,
after Fernando VII was restored to the throne, Indian tribute was reestablished, but Abascal
warned that he would probably have to use force to collect it: Informe de mesa, 15 Sept. 1817, agi-
Lima, leg. 613; Abascal to Secretario de Estado y del Despacho Universal de Indias, 23 June 1815,
agi-Lima, leg. 751.
148. Acta, Cabildo de Lima, 29 Oct. 1811, ahml-Cabildo, Libro 42. This declaration comes
perilously close to espousing the idea of local sovereignty that underlay the formation of juntas de
gobierno in both Spain and America during the Napoleonic captivity of the king.
taxes, Orue declared, it was impossible to consider tribute, contributions,
pechos, or duties in this realm as a way to alleviate the fiscal crisis.
149
Where,
then, was Abascal to find the money to contribute to the war effort in
Spain, pay the troops in Peru, or meet the other expenses of the viceregal
government, except by contributions, or by raising existing taxes and creating
new ones? But, in the face of Orues and the cabildos opposition, how could
he invest his revenue-raising edicts with enough legitimacy to ensure com-
pliance on the part of citizens whose purses were to be raided?
Thanks in part to Gaspar Rico and other journalists of the day, Abascal
has been portrayed in Peruvian history as a despot, adamantly opposed to
the liberal government of French-occupied Spain. By his own admission,
he exceeded the limits of his official powers, and Vicente Morales y Durez,
Perus delegate to Cortes, was among those who called for his replacement
by a man more willing to obey the decrees of the new constitutional govern-
ment.
150
There is no doubt that two measures of the liberal Cortesthe
1810 declaration of freedom of the press
151
and the abolition of Indian
tribute in 1811were particularly galling to Abascal, and he made no effort
to hide his displeasure with them. In 1816, two years after Fernando VII
had been restored to the throne, he declared his more general opposition in
language that echoed that of the kings royal order of 4 May 1814 abolishing
the Constitution of 1812 and declaring all the acts of Cortes null and void.
152
Nevertheless, Abascal insisted that, while Spain was ruled by Cortes and
Constitution, he had observed all its laws to the letter.
153
When it came to
governing Peru in the absence of the king, however, he found that he did
not need to step far away from the practice that had long sustained Spains
149. Ignacio de Orue to Abascal, 26 Oct. 1811, ahml-Cabildo, Libro 42. Orues report was
copied into the minutes of the cabildos meeting of 29 Oct. 1811. There was a serious effort to
collect a voluntary contribution from the Indians to alleviate the fiscal crisis: Miguel de
Eyzaguirre to Abascal, 29 Oct. 1812, agi-Lima, leg. 744.
150. Abascal, Memoria de gobierno, 1:198; Marie-Laure Rieu-Millan, Rasgos distintivos de la
representacin peruana en las Cortes de Cdiz y Madrid, 18101814, Revista de Indias 48 (1988):
51011; Ruben Vargas Ugarte, Histria del Per: Emancipacin (Buenos Aires: Imprenta Lpez,
1958), 121.
151. O. Carlos Stoetzer, El pensamiento poltico en la Amrica espaola durante el perido de la
emancipacin, 17891825, 2 vols. (Madrid: Instituto de Estudios Polticos, 1966), 2:195. Freedom of
the press was incorporated into Title 9 of the Constitution of 1812.
152. Abascal, Memoria de gobierno, 1:43948; Mara del Carmen Pintos Vieites, La poltica de
Fernando VII entre 1814 y 1820 (Pamplona: Studium Generale, 1958), 1027. Abascal received a
copy of the real orden on 6 Oct. 1814. Freedom of the press came under particularly harsh
condemnation after Fernando VIIs restoration: see Consejo de Indias to Ministerio Universal de
Indias, 11 Aug. 1814, agi-Indif. gen., leg. 803.
153. Abascal, Memoria de gobierno, 1:43948.
monarchythe practice of legislating with the advice of a council. Some
of his policies reflected attempts at consensus-building with a body of
admittedly hand-picked advisors most of whom, of course, were reluctant
to oppose the viceroy; those who did were rebuked. Thus, to legitimize
the imposition of new taxes, Abascal created a solemn junta of all the
tribunals, chiefs of bodies and offices, and all the most important people
of this capital, which in turn appointed a ways-and-means committee
charged with finding resources to make up the deficit to be expected from
abolition of tribute.
154
The Junta de arbitrios (ways-and-means committee)
proposed several measures that pleased both the viceroy and the metropoli-
tan merchants: increasing the price of tobacco and the taxes on goods
imported via Guayaquil, which had recently been returned to the viceroyalty
of Peru. The commission also proposed closing minor ports, requiring all
imports from Acapulco, Mexico, and Panama to enter Peru via Callao;
imposing a 6 percent tax on candle wax and indigo; and permitting direct
trade in Peruvian products exported in Spanish ships to allied and neutral
ports, with the obligation to touch Cdiz or another peninsular port to
validate the registers that would be presented in Callao. Finally, the commis-
sion issued yet another call to the authorities to control contraband.
155
Up to this point, the Junta de arbitrios was keeping close to precedents
for revenue collection and international trade. Although the proposal for
direct trade to any foreign port in local products went farther than previous
proposals, it still called for trade in Spanish ships by metropolitan merchants,
not their limeo rivals. Metropolitan merchants in Lima would also benefit
from restrictions on trade via ports like Guayaquil and from measures to
compensate for the higher costs associated with importation by way of
Cape Horn. And the junta did not support direct trade with foreigners
anchored in Peruvian ports.
Thanks to the edict establishing freedom of the press, however, the delib-
erations of Abascals juntas were not kept confidential, and the arguments
in favor of alternate policies found their way into the public domain.
Three menGaspar Rico, Ignacio de Orue, and Miguel de Eyzaguirre
154. Abascal to Ministro de Hacienda, Sept. 1811, agi-Lima, leg. 741. This junta was
convened prior to Cortes edict abolishing tribute and in response to pressure from steps taken by
revolutionaries in Buenos Aires and Santa Fe.
155. Informe de mesa, 23 May 1812, agi-Lima, leg. 1014-A; Expediente de arbitrios
propuestos y ledos en junta general de tribunales para reponer al erario y subvenir a sus cargos
por falta de tributo de los Indios, 6 Dec. 1811, bnp-mss, D-251 (the document is damaged by fire
and water, but most of it is legible).
raised their voices in opposition to various aspects of the policies proposed
by Abascal and his Junta de tribunales. Orue and Eyzaguirres objections
served the interests of limeos, while Ricos counter-proposal derived from
his adamant refusal to respect the authority of one of Godoys creatures,
none other than Abascal himself.
Always willing to challenge a viceroyespecially one who had been
appointed during Godoys ascendancyRico downplayed the severity of
the fiscal crisis and defended the decision of Cortes to abolish Indian
tribute. In articles published in El Peruano, Rico argued that revenues
adequate to meet the governments needs could be found even in the
absence of tribute, and without changing the rules for the regulation of
trade. In the first place, he wrote, government accounts were a mess; if
disorder, incompetence, and corruption in the offices of the viceregal
treasury were eliminated, the resources at the governments disposal would
be revealed to be greater than the viceroy thought. Furthermore, if the
capricious and contradictory tax regime imposed by Carlos IV and Godoy
were reformed, returning it to the system developed by the virtuous sovereign
Carlos III in consultation with local authorities, economic activity in Peru
would once again increase and yield more revenue. Under Carlos IV, he
wrote, taxes and ordinary duties became robbery. Although he admitted
that current revenues were inadequate, he insisted that the high level of
military expenditure was a temporary phenomenon, and should not serve
as an excuse for resorting to loans or donations from foreign countries, too
often repaid with proceeds from licenses to trade directly to America.
156
In
the immediate emergency, however, the Filipinas Company should loan
the government a substantial amount of money, given that, according to
Rico, the Lima factora had about a million pesos cash on hand.
157
(Ricos
information was remembered: in 1815 the Filipinas Company was ordered
to supply 40,000 pesos of the 100,000-peso loan Abascal demanded from
the consulado.)
158
In addition, Rico declared, one bold measure would
yield immediate cash and solve the revenue problem permanently, if the
government could muster the courage and the power to impose it: estab-
156. El Invisible (i.e., Gaspar Rico), in El Peruano, no. 11 (11 Oct. 1811), cdip-Tomo 23,
2:8587, 89.
157. El Peruano, no. 11 (11 Oct. 1811) and no. 27 (6 Dec. 1811), cdip-Tomo 23, 2:91, 257. See also
Orue to Viceroy, as copied into the minutes of the cabildo of Lima (Acta, 19 Jan. 1811, ahml-
Cabildo, Libro 42), where he laments the radical decline in commerce, stating that the Filipinas
company is the only one trading.
158. Acta, Junta de comercio, 25 Feb. 1815, and El Contador general de Indias informe, 18 Nov.
1818, agi-Filipinas, leg. 994.
lishing on a trial basis the single tax on persons, and not on consumer
goods. A capitation tax was neither new nor impossible to collect in Peru,
he claimed; if it were established at the rate of a single peso per month,
it would yield six million, an amount . . . never before seen in this king-
dom.
159
Moreover, it would spread the tax burden across the entire popu-
lation, instead of making commerce and the merchants engaged in it solely
responsible for the support of government.
160
Ricos proposal was not seriously considered by Abascals Junta de tribu-
nales, possibly because it bore too close a resemblance to the outlawed
Indian tribute. The cabildo found it especially offensive. The very idea of
increasing any taxes on the non-Indian population would lead to a
situation where Indians would be exempt in order to convert Spaniards
into tribute-payers, or with taxes and fees imposed on them, [Spaniards]
would become oppressed in order that the Indians could be free.
161
Ignacio de Orue, whose brother Domingo was a shipowner engaged in
the trade from Callao to Guayaquil and Acapulco,
162
attacked the metro-
politan merchants interest head-on. He denied that peninsular commerce
was being destroyed by Perus trade with Panama and the ports to the
north of Callao; the decline of the Atlantic trade was due to the political
situation in Spain. No one was forced to buy Panama goods; the fact that
they were of better quality and less expensive was the result of neglect of
local artisans, whose skills should have been developed by merchants. Orue
also had a recipe for doing away with contraband: there was no need to
prohibit trade in minor ports because simply firing corrupt bureaucrats
and replacing them with honest ones would take care of the problem. He
insisted that no changes could be made in taxes in Guayaquil, where limeo
merchants were acquiring imports out of Panama, without a lengthy hearing
on the subject. Orue was adamantly opposed to raising the already exhor-
bitant taxes on Peruvian trade,
163
even if they were intended to be temporary;
159. El Peruano, no. 11 (11 Oct. 1811), cdip-Tomo 23, 2:91. Later, Rico suggested that a tax of
one real per month be collected by cabildos throughout the viceroyalty: El Peruano, no. 33 (24
Dec. 1811), cdip-Tomo 23, 2:325.
160. El Peruano, no. 27 (6 Dec. 1811), and no. 34 (27 Dec. 1811), cdip-Tomo 23, 2:261, 33334.
On Ricos quarrel with Abascal over Indian tribute, see Martnez Riaza, Prensa doctrinal, 24143.
161. Acta, Cabildo de Lima, 29 Oct. 1811, ahml-Cabildo, Libro 42. The belief that Indians
enjoyed privileges and protections superior to those granted to Spaniards also surfaces in a letter
from Pablo Porturas and Joaqun Bonet to Abascal, 11 Oct. 1811, agi-Lima, leg. 744.
162. Duplicados de registros, Feb.Mar. 1803, agi-Lima, leg. 726; Rico, Compendio de las tropelas, 34.
163. Abascal agreed that taxes were too high; see the Informe de mesa, 17 Mar. 1814, agi-
Lima, leg. 1010, summarizing Abascals Exposicin en que manifiesta el estado poltico y
econmico de las provincias del Per dated 30 Sept. 1813.
promoting exports of Peruvian products would yield more revenue. Free
navigation from Peru to any friendly port might increase the value of exports
by as much as 1,300,000 pesos, he asserted. Finallyand most radically
Orue stated flatly that the Cortes newly declared equality between Spain
and America extinguished the old rules for the regulation of trade by which
only the kings vasallos de Espaa were permitted to engage in direct trade
with foreigners.
164
The Chilean lawyer-priest Miguel de Eyzaguirre, fiscal del crimen of the
Audiencia and protector of Indians, agreed with Orue on every point save
one: Eyzaguirre advocated opening Peruvian ports to foreign merchant-
men, as governors of neighboring jurisdictions had done. Peru alone, he
pointed out, had forbidden direct trade, which had been approved by the
crown in the present emergency: No one can claim that Peruvians, seeing
themselves less privileged than their neighbors, or needing to spend more
than before on consumer goods, will bear this suffering willingly.
165
Abascal found such propositions dangerous in the extreme. If he acceded
to them, It would be tantamount to decreeing the separation of these
Dominions from the Mother Country, he declared, since, once direct trade
with foreigners was established on the wide basis which they demand, the
fate of European Spain would matter little to them.
166
Eyzaguirre espe-
cially came under attack. In a letter to the minister of grace and justice,
Abascal questioned his loyalty: His discourses are ruled by an opinion
stubbornly opposed to everything that promises to alleviate [the fiscal crisis],
and one discerns certain expressions in favor of having relations and doing
business with the rebel provinces. This and other rulings by Eyzaguirre
led the viceroy to declare that the continued presence of this employee on
any American Audiencia is not convenient, but it was not until January
1815, after Fernando VII had been restored to the throne, that Abascal was
able to obtain a royal order exiling Eyzaguirre from Peru.
167
With direct trade with foreigners ruled out, Abascal had few options
open to him to deal with the fiscal problem, and none of them was
satisfactory. After elaborate consultation with his Junta de tribunales,
Abascal increased the price of tobacco, established new taxes, and raised
164. Acta, Cabildo de Lima, 26 Oct. 1811, ahml-Cabildo, Libro 42.
165. Eyzaguirre to Abascal, 9 May 1812, agi-Lima, leg. 793.
166. Quoted by Fisher, Government and Society, 154. See also Abascal to Primer Secretario de
Estado, 23 May 1812, agi-Estado, leg. 74.
167. Abascal, no. 297, to Ministro de Gracia y Justicia, 13 Oct. 1812, agi-Lima, leg. 977; Real
orden, 16 Jan. 1815, agi-Lima, leg. 604.
taxes already being collected. He also demanded and got a voluntary
contribution from the merchants to support the army fighting in Alto Per,
to which Gaspar Rico contributed a mere 384 pesos. (At this time, Rico
was supporting establishment of a militia unit in Pisco and contributing
heavily to the formation of Limas Concordia militia regiment.
168
) Abascals
one point of compromise was to open an expediente on taxes collected in
Guayaquil on trade via Panama, as Orue insisted was necessary.
169
But, as
Orues criticism demonstrated, an increasingly vocal segment of limeo
opinion was emerging, one believing that the entire colonial compact,
including the rules for the regulation of trade, needed to be reformed.
Far more archival work needs to be done before we understand fully
the character, composition, and importance of this group, itself riven by
disagreement, and its relationship with like-minded groups in Spain. It is
clear, however, that the matter of direct trade with foreigners was one of
its central concerns. The starting point for its argument was the 1810 decla-
ration by the Cortes of Cdiz that the American colonies were an integral
part of the monarchy, and that Americans rights were equal to those of
peninsular Spaniards.
170
Manuel Lorenzo de Vidaurre, whose Plan del Per
was composed at the behest of Spains minister of grace and justice, dedicated
an entire chapter to arguments against the various forms of commercial
monopoly that deprived Americans of their natural right to trade on an
equal footing with the kings vasallos de Espaa. By excluding Americans
from the most lucrative branches of commerce and preventing them from
trading with foreigners, the crown was complicit in a grave injustice. This
is the monopoly of monopolies and the greatest injury and offense that
can be done to Americans.
Are we American Spaniards slaves of European Spaniards? Are
they to grow fat with our sustenance? If we are equally vassals of
168. Razn de los individuos del comercio de Lima que han subscripto para mantener soldados
en el Ejrcito del Desaguadero a razn de 16 pesos mensuales cada soldado, agi-Lima, leg. 1551. In
all, 205 merchants pledged 79,385 pesosfar short of the sum previously collected in Indian tribute.
For Ricos other contributions to the war effort, see El Peruano Extraordinario, 26 Feb. 1812, cdip-
Tomo 23, 3:6382, and his Relacin de mritos y servicios, 23 Mar. 1824, agi-Lima, leg. 762; Acta,
Cabildo de Lima, 12 May 1812, ahml-Cabildo, Libro 42; Martnez Riaza, Prensa doctrinal, 86.
169. Informe de mesa, 23 May 1812, agi-Lima, leg. 1014-A.
170. Francisco Salazar Carrillo de Crdoba to Secretario de Estado y del Despacho Universal
de las Indias, Madrid, 17 Aug. 1814, agi-Lima, leg. 1018-B; Labra y Martnez, Presidentes
americanos, 85. The declaration, which had earlier been put forward by the Junta Central and the
Regency, was ratified by Cortes on 16 Oct. 1810. See also Timothy E. Anna, Spain and the
Breakdown of the Imperial Ethos: The Problem of Equality, HAHR 62, no. 2 (1982): 25472.
the King of Spain, why should they be permitted to do what is
prohibited to us? . . . The European Spaniard sells American
products to foreigners at a large profit, compared to the price at
which they were acquired from the Americans. And why dont
the Americans reap such profit for themselves? . . . Americans
only want to engage in the same trade as Spain.
171
The Cortes decree declaring Americans equal to peninsular Spaniards
was followed by an edict of March 1811 permitting them to plant and
cultivate whatever nature and art permits in those climates.
172
On 8 June
1813, Cortes amplified the decree, declaring that all Spanish or foreign
residents may freely establish factories of whatever kind is convenient to
them, without the necessity of procuring permissions or licences . . . and
they can also engage freely in any industry or useful occupation, without
the need for examinations, titles, or incorporation into guilds.
173
The Peru-
vian delegates in Cdiz had high hopes that a new era of prosperity would
follow from this nullification of one of the principal tenets of the reformers
colonial policy: The ability to use [our resources] freely is a natural con-
sequence of the right to take advantage of whatever contributes to securing
our lives and prosperity. Usurped completely by the former despotic govern-
ment, it has recently been restored to us by the present just, magnanimous,
and enlightened one.
174
But Cortes stopped short of permitting union and equality to eradicate
peninsular privilege in the matter of the Atlantic trade. A proposal that
had been presented to Cortes by the American delegates on 16 December
1810, which would have allowed the merchants of Spanish America to
trade directly with foreign ports on the same footing as their peninsular
counterparts, was referred to a committee and later discussed in secret
sessions.
175
Atlantic-trade merchants on both sides of the ocean found it
171. Vidaurre, Plan del Per (1810), in cdip-Tomo 1, 5:11222. The periodical press also
inveighed regularly against monopoly and the exclusion of criollos from the Atlantic trade.
172. Mendiburu, Diccionario, 5:14850; Consulado to Jos Canga Argelles, 13 May 1812, agi-
Lima, leg. 1539.
173. Abascal, no. 94 to Secretario de Estado y del Despacho de la Gobernacin de Ultramar,
11 Feb. 1814, agi-Lima, leg. 649.
174. Juan de Berindoaga, Prospectus, El Peruano Liberal, Oct. 1813.
175. Mendiburu, Diccionario, 5:150, quoting from the letter by Perus delegates to Cortes to
the Cabildo de Lima, dated 23 Mar. 1811; Minutes of Cortes, 16 Jan. to 11 Oct. 1811, agi-Indif.
gen., leg. 2439; John Preston Moore, The Cabildo in Peru under the Bourbons: A Study in the Decline
and Resurrection of Local Government in the Audiencia of Lima, 17001824 (Durham: Duke
University Press, 1966), 20810.
dangerous in the extreme, in part because it became entwined with a British
proposal to permit their merchants to trade directly with Spanish American
ports in exchange for mediating the quarrel between Spain and her rebellious
colonies.
176
The consulado of Cdiz hastened to set forth its objections to
colonial contacts with foreigners in the strongest possible terms: Without
any doubt, Spains future, her entire existence, depends on the resolution of
this article, because if as a consequence of its passage we lose the Americas,
and if those who live there are abandoned to the mercy of foreigners and
left to suffer under their laws, Spaniards of both worlds can renounce
forever all hope of independence and liberty. They warned that Cortes
was not authorized to concur in the destruction of our entire nation.
177
The two metropolitan merchants then serving as officers of the consulado
of Lima found the arguments set forth in the Informe of the Cdiz mer-
chants much to their liking, and had it reprinted in the Real Casa de Nios
Expsitos. By giving the Informe wide circulation in Peru, they were posi-
tioning themselves and their allies squarely in the camp of those who equated
opening the Atlantic trade to those who were not the kings vasallos de
Espaa with the destruction of Spain and the end of Spanish rule in America.
As the Peruvian jurist Jos de Baqujano later wrote, the Consulado of
Cdiz [was] the absolute dictator of the resolutions of the Regency and
Cortes, thanks to their arrogant power acquired by means of a paltry
loan of twelve or fifteen million pesos, which deprived the Motherland of
an annual revenue of thirty-five million that would have been collected had
American merchants been treated as equal to their peninsular counterparts.
178
The authors of the 1811 Informe of the consulado of Cdiz to which
Baqujano referredthe same one that had been reprinted in Limawere
anxious to define the meaning of equality in a manner that would preserve
their privilege to engage in the Atlantic trade to the exclusion of Ameri-
cans: The equality of rights conceded to the Americans does not imply that
they are to enjoy, or can enjoy, all the privileges of peninsular Spaniards,
just as it does not subject them to suffer the privations, calamities, and
injuries to which the latter find themselves exclusively exposed. The effects
176. Costeloe, Free Trade Controversy, 212; Jaime Delgado, La Pacificacin de America en
1818, Revista de Indias, Ao 10, no. 39 (1950), 11.
177. Consulado de Cdiz, Informe dirigido a S.M. [i.e. Cortes] por el consulado y comercio de
Cdiz . . . sobre los perjuicios que se originaran de la concesin del comercio libre de los extrangeros con
nuestras Amricas (Cdiz, 24 July 1811; reprinted Lima: Real Casa de Nios Expsitos, 1812), 7, 13.
178. Baqujano, Dictmen . . . sobre la revolucin hispanoamericana, 48788. The sponsor
and publisher of Baqujanos Dictmen was the Peruvian-born duke of San Carlos, one of
Fernando VIIs closest advisors.
of the war against Napoleon were borne only by peninsular Spain, they
wrote, but even within Spain itself certain provinces enjoyed privileges and
exemptions that were not available to others. Therefore, they argued,
equality is not absolute.
179
Gaspar Rico took that proposition for granted,
refusing even to acknowledge that Americans were at a competitive dis-
advantage in commerce: Where is there an ordinance forbidding those
born in America to engage in the commercial activities permitted to the
resident European? he asked. In El Peruano, he claimed that because
peninsular Spaniards who migrated to Peru did not have an equal oppor-
tunity to become landowners, and were therefore compelled to earn their
living from commerce, a much riskier enterprise, they were somehow
made equal to limeo merchants forbidden to engage in the Atlantic
trade. Europeans, he wrote, have been the ones sacrificed in America.
They had suffered disproportionately from bad government that had des-
troyed commerce, and they were the ones whose capital had been reduced
to nothing. The merchants [not the landowners] have been the victims of
the disorders.
180
The limeo reaction to this line of argument was mixed and, thanks to
Cortes declaration of freedom of the press in 1810, publicly aired. The
limeos argued that, at the very least, equality implied some form of
distributive justice: in El Peruano Liberal, Juan de Berindoaga denounced
the monopoly and excessive pretensions which have contended against
the liberty that ought to be granted to the commerce of America. He
insisted that limeos had not been granted their fair share of commercial
privilege: [O]ur ports cannot enjoy free commerce with the European
ports of foreign nations, because then the commerce of Spain, with which
we form a single whole, would be ruined. But . . . from the point of Cape
Horn to the Polar Circle of the Arctic, the two coasts of the great [Pacific]
ocean ought to be open to us; that is to say, the west coast of America and
the east [coast] of Asia.
181
If metropolitan merchants were to be allowed
exclusive rights to the Atlantic trade, then their American counterparts,
the limeo merchants, should have a comparable right to the trade of the
179. Consulado de Cdiz, Informe dirigido a S.M., 1415.
180. El Peruano, no. 16 (29 Oct. 1811), cdip-Tomo 23, 2:14748. See also the arguments of the
merchants of Cdiz in the Informe de la junta de diputados consulares, 26 Aug. 1817, agi-
Consulados, leg. 62, where they insisted that equality existed because, while Americans could not
receive European goods except by way of peninsular merchants, Spaniards could not acquire
American products from foreigners.
181. El Peruano Liberal, 10 Oct. 1813, 3233.
other ocean, a trade in which they also felt themselves to be at a disad-
vantage, thanks to the Bourbon reforms. In 1814, a former prior of the
consulado, Jos Antonio de Errea, a powerful peninsular merchant who
was also Pedro de Abadas father-in-law, tried unsuccessfully to persuade
the consulado to support a petition to the crown calling for permission to
trade Perus agricultural products directly to foreign markets.
182
Others, like Orue, were more radical in their opinion. Several of the
periodicals published in Lima following promulgation of the Constitution
of 1812 reflected the idea that colonialism had ended, and that Americans
were now free, independent, and happy, as the pseudonymous Filpato
put it in El Verdadero Peruano.
183
If Americans were equal to peninsulars,
they, too, could trade directly to foreign ports in their own ships, and even
receive foreign ships in their ports, just as Spain did; otherwise, as Baqujano
wrote in 1814, the rights of Americans are not equal, but deformed.
184
After 1812, the periodical press in Lima accepted virtually without question
the idea that the newly promulgated Constitution had removed all distinc-
tions between Americans and peninsular Spaniards; Fernando Lpez Aldana,
in El Satlite del Peruano, went so far as to declare that those who denied
the absolute equality of residents of both hemispheres were subversives.
185
Gaspar Rico, as we have seen, attempted to make inequality disappear by
redefining it. But beginning in 1812, Rico was temporarily unable to contest
the issue in print, or to split hairs on the exact meaning of union and
equality. Viceroy Abascal had ordered El Peruano to cease publication and
had exiled Rico to Spain.
RIDDING PERU OF RICO
Since his return to Peru in 1801, Gaspar Rico had been at the center of
political conflict derived from commercial rivalry, and with the advent of
freedom of the press in 1810 his grievances found a public outlet in El
Peruano. Although the periodical was said to be published by a society
called the Tertulia del Campo, whose members never identified them-
selves,
186
Rico was almost solely responsible for its contents. He wrote all
182. Errea to Prior and Consules, Real Tribunal del Consulado, 2 Apr. 1814, agnp-Con-
sulado, leg. 4.
183. As quoted by Martnez Riaza, Prensa doctrinal, 280.
184. Baqujano, Dictmen . . . sobre la revolucin hispanoamericano, 488.
185. Martnez Riaza, Prensa doctrinal, 17375.
186. Ibid., 32.
but one of the editorials that appeared before February 1812 and all of
those appearing afterward, most of the essays (which he published under
a series of pseudonyms), and many of the communications from pseudo-
nymous readers. His constant theme was the reform of government
undertaken by the Spanish liberals, who wrote and promulgated the Con-
stitution of 1812. An enthusiastic supporter of the liberal political program,
he announced himself as el tribuno del pueblo and, to dramatize its meaning,
was seen to parade around the city decked out in an array of firearmsa
dangerous turn of affairs, given Ricos well-deserved reputation for a fiery
temper.
187
In El Peruano, Rico regularly attacked the absolutist regime,
blaming those he called the creatures of Godoy for the despotism that
had ruined commerce and caused the Americans to rebel. [E]verything
emanating from the sovereignty of Godoy and his creatures was so rotten,
he wrote, that we are still polluted by its effectsmay God make it disappear
from the face of the earth for the relief of those who wish to live and die
in a state of grace!
188
It was language like this that helped to persuade Abascal that Rico was
dangerous and had to be removed from Lima: [T]he greatest risk run by
those who reside in this hemisphere, he wrote, is that of falling into anarchy,
and in order to avoid it, disputes about the legitimacy of the governments
that have followed one on another ought not to be permitted. Abascal
pointed out that Ricos writings in El Peruano were having a serious effect
on commerce; out of fear that Rico might oust the viceroy, some penin-
sular merchants have sold their businesses here at a loss, and have sailed
for [Spain]; others are preparing to do likewise, and almost all of them
have decided to escape with their fortunes in the same way.
189
Although Abascal characterized Ricos ideas as revolutionary, Rico was
far from being a precursor of independence who later betrayed the cause,
as he has been pictured.
190
On the contrary, he was an ardent royalist whose
187. Informe de mesa summarizing an undated letter from Abascal, Cdiz, 31 July 1813, agi-
Lima, leg. 1016. Ricos hot temper had led to several fights, one of which resulted in his impri-
sonment by the alcalde ordinario, none other than Jos Gonzlez Gutirrez, father of the inter-
ventor count of Villar de Fuente: Informe de Juan de Dios Moreno, 16 Dec. 1802, Testimonio
general no. 21, Expediente sobre el conducto, agi-Lima, leg. 1620. See also Morales y Durez to
Directors, Cinco Gremios Mayores, 18 Dec. 1802, Testimonio general no. 21a, and Baqujano to
Diputados Directores, 26 Apr. 1803, Testimonio general no. 24b, both in Expediente sobre el
188. El Peruano, no. 19 (8 Nov. 1811) and no. 24 (26 Nov. 1811), cdip-Tomo 23, 2:180.
189. Abascal to the Consejo de Regencia, 31 July 1813, agi-Lima, leg. 1016.
190. See, for example, Martnez Riaza, Prensa doctrinal, 87 n. 61.
political writings in El Peruano reflected, sometimes openly and directly,
his mercantile interests. Rico was unlikely to regret the departure of rival
merchants from Peru, especially those who had supported intervention in
the affairs of the Cinco Gremios. His claim that the resources to defend
Spanish rule could be found in Peru was in support of his interest in pre-
venting foreigners from trading directly to the Pacific ports. His attacks
on Carlos IV, Queen Mara Louisa, and especially Godoy
191
had a great
deal to do with his admiration for the commercial reforms instituted by
Carlos III, in which the Cinco Gremios had an important role to play. In
his editorial in El Peruano of 17 April 1812, he celebrated news that Cortes
had abolished the trade monopoly of the Filipinas Company, permitting
Spaniards free trade with the Philippine Islands in national ships. These
orders are the greatest that could be wished for, he wrote. The magni-
ficent Spanish Constitution was to be crowned by measures to control
the insolent pride of the powerful and support the fruitful labor of honor-
able citizens. When he attacked the factor of the Filipinas Company,
Pedro de Abada, in print, slandering him as a French agent whose real
surname was Abadi, the bitter confrontation between Rico and the limeo
merchants allied with the Filipinas Company is clearly visible; if the charge
were proven, Abada might have been destroyed along with the Filipinas
Companys business in Peru, as Rico and the Cinco Gremios had been a
few years earlier.
192
(In fact, Pedro de Abada had been born in Valencia;
his brother, Francisco Xavier Abada, was a general in the Spanish army
191. The most vitriolic attack was an extract from lvaro Flrez Estradas Exmen imparcial
de las disensiones de la Amrica con la Espaa (Cdiz, 1812), published in El Peruano, no. 10 (8 Oct.
1811), cdip-Tomo 23, 2:7980.
192. Rico (Espaol notorio, Castellano viejo) to Abascal, 11 Apr. 1812, agi-Lima, leg. 1016.
For the hostile attitude of Ricos group of Atlantic-trade merchants towards Abada and his
allies, see also Mendiburu, Diccionario, 1:55. Suspicion of the Filipinas Company and its agents
had surfaced in Spain soon after the Napoleonic invasion: In December 1809, Abascal had
acknowledged a letter from the minister of the treasury informing him that a new governing
board had been established for the Filipinas Company, and ordering him to make it known that
all communication from Martn Antonio Huisi, a director of the company, should be ignored
because he resides in Madrid among frenchmen: Abascal to Ministro de Hacienda, no. 367, 23
Dec. 1809, agi-Filipinas, leg. 993. The printed announcement of the names of new directors of
the Filipinas Company, dated 8 Apr. 1815, declared that Huizi and the companys comptroller,
Francisco Dufo, had been exiled as afrancesados, and that Lizaur had resigned: Archivo
Histrico, Banco de Espaa, Secretara 559. In 1809 another director, Bernardo Lizaur, who lived
in Cdiz, was accused of directing the correspondence of the gobierno intruso with our American
colonies. He was quickly exonerated: Conde de Cartaojal to Martn de Garay, Valdepeas, 28
Feb. 1809; Garay to Governor of Cdiz [Cartaojal], 2 and 7 Mar. 1809; Lizaur to governor of
Cdiz, 4 Apr. 1809; Governor of Cdiz to Garay, 5 Apr. 1809, ahn-Estado, leg. 62.
fighting Napoleon and, in 1816, inspector-general of American troops.)
193
While venting his anger at the Filipinas Company, Rico created a firestorm
of political conflict in which seventy-six of Abadas friends and fellow-
militia officers (thirty-three of whom were matriculated in the consulado)
demanded that the viceroy close down El Peruano and punish its principal
contributor.
194
Rico alleged that Abascals action against El Peruano was
an example of the viceroys opposition to constitutional government and
its decree authorizing freedom of the press. But as Abascals eloquent defense
of his position made clear, and the continuing publication of nine other
more or less liberal periodicals demonstrated, closing down El Peruano had
more to do with Ricos attacks on his commercial rivals and rule by Godoys
creatures than it did with a decree of Cortes.
195
For his part, Abascal was
convinced that El Peruano existed for the sole purpose of providing Rico
with a vehicle for taking revenge on the viceroys, magistrates, and rival
merchants who had caused him grief during the intervention into the
affairs of the Cinco Gremios Mayores.
196
By mid-1812, Abascal had had enough of Ricos seditious mischief. In a
letter to the Spanish Regency, he explained why he had decided to exile
Rico to Spain with the admonition that in no circumstances, nor for any
reason whatever, should he return to this capital, nor to any other part of
America.
193. Abascal to the Regency, 8 Apr. 1812, agi-Lima, leg. 1016; Gaceta del Gobierno de Lima,
18161818, 3 vols. (Madrid: Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores, 1971), 1:184, 23233; Wills of Pedro
de Abada, 21 Oct. 1807 and 11 Aug. 1820, agnp-Notarios, Escribano Ayllon Salazar, 1807; Lovett,
Napoleon and the Birth of Modern Spain, 2:58586. On two occasions, Franciscos conduct got him
in trouble: In 1808, he was investigated for treason because he had expressed doubts about Spains
ability to defeat Napoleon. In 1816, he was arrested because of a letter written to him by his
patron, Miguel de Lardizbal, that was highly critical of the king; Francisco forwarded a copy to
his brother Pedro in Peru, and it was intercepted and published by the Argentine insurgents.
Understandably, the directors of the Filipinas Company feared that the scandal might lead to
confiscation of his brother Pedros assets. See Josef Garca Palomo to Presidente, Suprema Junta
Central, Malaga, 3 Dec. 1808, ahn-Estado, leg. 45; and Directors, Real Compaa de Filipinas, to
Manuel Lpez Araujo, 20 Aug. 1816, agi-Filipinas, leg. 993; Michael P. Costeloe, Response to
Revolution: Imperial Spain and the Spanish American Revolutions, 18101840 (Cambridge: Cam-
bridge University Press, 1986), 1516, 68, 241 n. 54.
194. El Peruano, vol. 2, no. 14 (18 Feb. 1812), cdip-Tomo 23, 3:140, 16162; Carmen Villanueva,
Prlogo, cdip-Tomo 23, 2:xv; Abadas friends to Viceroy, 1 Mar. 1812, agi-Lima, leg. 1016. The
documentation on the case of El Peruano is in agi-Estado, Serie Cuba, Ao 1812, and in agi-
Lima, leg. 1016.
195. Abascal to the Regency, 8 Apr. 1812, agi-Lima, leg. 1016. Martnez Riaza, Prensa
doctrinal, 3241, discusses the periodicals published in Lima during the Napoleonic period.
196. Abascal, Memoria de gobierno, 1:43233.
Don Gaspar Rico . . . was as far from possessing the knowledge
necessary to enlighten the public on any matter, as he was prone
to embrace every novelty and to insult those who opposed his
unruly passions; and lacking the depth necessary to succeed at his
caprice of passing for an enlightened man, he associated himself
with people who are angry with the government, and because of
their calamitous condition aspire to upset order so as to improve
their unfortunate luck. . . . Since September 1811, when this
periodical [i.e., El Peruano] began publication, the fatal effects of
his inflammatory articles have been manifest: the authorities have
been falling into disrepute; persons supporting the government
have been insulted; the complaints of the malcontents have been
repeated; and the tolerance with which I viewed such abuse of
the law . . . was ridiculed.
197
Abascals indictment of Rico calls to mind Avils complaint that, by his
bold and unrestrained talk, Rico declared plainly his lack of respect for
authority.
198
Abascal, who had initially criticized Avils handling of Rico,
had learned that his predecessors assessment of Ricos attitudes and acti-
vities was correct.
When Abada and his friends denounced Ricos articles in El Peruano
as subversive of the fundamental laws of the Monarchy, seditious, revolu-
tionary, and disrespectful of the legitimate authorities, Abascal was finally
provoked to act. He presented the case to the Junta de censura, as prescribed
by the law establishing freedom of the press, and claimed that he might have
limited himself to informing the Regency of Ricos intemperate writings
had it not been for the discovery of an impending revolt in Hunuco and
rumors of a forthcoming attempt to alter the order of this Capital.
199
The Hunuco revolt began as a protest by Indians and mestizos against
the economic abuses of subdelegates who owed their appointments to those
whom Rico called creatures of Godoy. It quickly developed into an attempt
to establish a local governing junta that, while loyal to the king, would
197. Abascal to Consejo de Regencia, 31 July 1812, agi-Lima, leg. 1016; Register of the
Spanish warship Venganza, Havana, 3 Dec. 1812, agi-Lima, leg. 1016. For the viceroys defense of
his conduct during the controversy over freedom of the press, see Abascal, Memoria de gobierno,
1:43138.
198. Informe de mesa, Aranjuez, 14 May 1807, summarizing Avils letter of 8 July 1806, agi-
Cuzco, leg. 29.
199. Abascal to Consejo de Regencia, 31 July 1812, agi-Lima, leg. 1016. The case against Rico
can be followed in detail in the letters and reports preserved in this legajo.
displace the previously constituted authorities, who were alleged to have
abandoned the town at the Indians approach.
200
Both aspects of the revolt
were entirely in keeping with Ricos opinions, freely expressed in El Peruano.
Moreover, Abascal knew that it would be all but impossible to prosecute
Rico in any court in Peru, thanks to his connections bought with large ero-
gations of the funds he had managed for the Cinco Gremios.
201
Exiling Rico
appeared to Abascal to be a prudent step: [A]lthough I am uncertain
whether Rico was the author [of the Hunuco revolt], I have good reason to
assume that he has contributed to it with his alarming pronouncements.
202
By the time the Regency issued its March 1813 ruling ordering Abascal
to lift the embargo on El Peruano, Rico was long gone from Peru; after
publishing a retraction of his calumny against Abada, he had sailed for the
peninsula in June 1812.
203
With Ricos departure political conflict derived
from commercial policy diminished but did not disappear. The periodical
press in Lima continued to print articles arguing for and against direct
trade with foreigners, notably one by Dr. Hiplito Unanue in which he
advocated trade between Peru and the United States.
204
Pedro de Abada
also suggested that direct trade between Callao and the new republic to
the north was essential: there was no market in Spain or England for Perus
principal exportstin, copper, cacao, and Peruvian barkand only the United
200. The mestizos were protesting orders to burn tobacco fields, planted in response to
Cortes declaration of 1810 permitting Americans to cultivate any crop they wished; the Indians
were, as usual, protesting the continued repartimientos imposed by the subdelegates. Fisher,
Bourbon Peru, 11314; Vargas Ugarte, Historia . . . Emancipacin, 3138.
201. Secretara de la Regencia, Minuta de informe a las Cortes, 26 Feb. 1813, agi-Lima, leg. 1016.
202. Abascal to Consejo de Regencia, 31 July 1812, agi-Lima, leg. 1016. Abascals good
reason is to be found in the confession of Fray Ignacio de Villavisencio, accused of writing
subversive lampoons posted in Hunuco, who testified that he had been inspired by the liberty
of articles published in El Peruano: cdip-Tomo 3: Conspiraciones y rebeliones en el siglo xix (Lima:
Comisin Nacional del Sesquicentenario de la Independencia del Per, 1972) vol. 2: La
revolucin de Hunuco, Pantahuas y Huamales de 1812, 4023.
203. Regency to Viceroy of Peru, Cdiz, 1 Mar. 1813, and Diego de la Pea Santander, Juez de
Primera Instancia, to the Regency, Cdiz, 2 June 1813, agi-Lima, leg. 1016. The retraction was
published in El Peruano on 8 May 1812, cdip-Tomo 23, 3:380; in it Rico alleged that he had new
information from reliable sources recently arrived in Lima. On 26 June 1812, before Rico set sail
for Spain, he appointed his cousin Toms Rico as his apoderado, charging him especially to collect
600,000 pesos that are owed me from the assets that belong to or might belong to the Company
of the Cinco Gremios Mayores of Madrid. agnp-Notarios, Escribano Mendoza, 18101812, 412.
The exact date of Ricos arrival in Cdiz is not known, but on 31 Jan. 1813 he published a
denunciation of Abascals conduct toward him in the periodical El Redactor: Martnez Riaza,
Prensa doctrinal, 107.
204. Martnez Riaza, Prensa doctrinal, 72; Harry Bernstein, Origins of Inter-American Interest,
17001812 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1945), 84.
States promised to serve as an outlet for these commodities.
205
But when
Fernando VII was restored to the throne in 1814, he issued orders for the
renewed enforcement of the laws prohibiting direct trade with foreigners.
The old system of licenses and special privileges was officially reinstated,
one of which directly benefited the Filipinas Company: a royal order of 5
August 1814 extended its wartime privilege to trade directly to Callao
from Asia.
206
Other Peruvians urged the king to dispense with the peninsular mono-
poly of transoceanic trade to America. The American delegates to Cortes
who arrived after Fernandos restoration were asked to present written
summaries of their constituents petitions. The Peruvian delegates consistently
cited restrictions on colonial trade as the single most significant grie-
vance.
207
But the arguments in favor of a return to the policies embodied
in the Reglamento de comercio libre of 1778 carried the day with a crown
hard-pressed for quick cash. These measures exacerbated the quarrel in
Lima between those who demanded the legalization of direct commercial
contact with North America and Europe and those who insisted that the
old regulations governing both internal and external trade, and especially
the Atlantic trade, were essential to Spains recovery from the devastation
wrought by six years of war.
208
As Gaspar Rico expressed it, The Americas
can be the major source or at least an important part of the salvation of
Europe.
209
For a growing number of limeos, however, the salvation of
Spain was not to be purchased by further impoverishing Peru.
205. Martnez Riaza, Prensa doctrinal, 248.
206. Real Compaa de Filipinas to Cristbal de Gngora, 1 Aug. 1814, and A los virreyes del
Per y Buenos Aires y al gobernador de Filipinas, 5 Aug. 1814, agi-Indif. gen., leg. 2440;
Exposicin de la junta de gobierno de la Real Compaa de Filipinas a la general de accionistas,
30 Mar. 1815, agi-Filipinas, leg. 993. agi-Lima 649 and 650 contain acknowledgments of a series
of reales rdenes exhorting the viceroy of Peru to enforce the trade laws.
207. Mariano de Rivero to Miguel de Lardizabal, 28 July 1814, agi-Lima, leg. 1020; Francisco
Salazar Carrillo to Ministro de las Indias, Madrid, 17 Aug. 1814, agi-Lima, leg. 1018-B; Informe
que de orden del Rey, han dado los seores diputados de la provincia de Lima, el Sr. Marqus de
Torre Tagle y el Sr. D. D. Francisco Valdivieso y Pradas, Madrid, 1815, amoz; El ex-diputado de
la provincia de Arequipa D. Mariano Rivero informe sobre sus solicitudes relativos a gracias, 15
Sept. 1817, agi-Lima, leg. 799; additional brief summaries in agi-Lima, leg. 613; and Mendiburu,
Diccionario, 5:150. The circular calling for information from the delegates was dated 24 May 1814:
Delgado, Pacificacin de America, 14. See also Rieu-Millan, Rasgos distintivos, 506.
208. Informe del Consulado [de Cdiz] al Ministerio de Hacienda, 22 Aug. 1817, agi-
Consulados, leg. 81; Pintos Vieites, Poltica de Fernando VII, 315.
209. El Peruano, no. 9 (4 Oct. 1811), cdip-Tomo 23, 2:71. The idea that American resources
were essential to Spains recovery remained an important part of loyalist thought in Peru even
after the declaration of independence: see Marqus de Valleumbroso to Crown, 16 Oct. 1822,
agi-Indif. gen., leg. 313.
In 1816, four years after Gaspar Rico had been banished from Peru, the
elderly and ailing widower Fernando de Abascal was chased out of the
viceregal palace by Angela Zeballos y Olarra. Doa Angela was the for-
midable wife of the newly appointed interim viceroy, Field Marshal Joaqun
de la Pezuela, and she was determined to ready the palace for a splendid
reception to celebrate her husbands entrada solemne. Her scandalous behavior
shocked Lima society.
Pezuela himself arrived in Lima on 7 July 1816, after a sixty-seven-day
march from Cotagaita, where he was serving as commanding general of
the Army of Alto Per. He was escorted on his journey by a heroic corps
of richly uniformed light cavalry, worthy of comparison in gallantry with
the best European troops. On the outskirts of the city, the new viceroy
paused at Hacienda Maravilla, where the baston (staff of command), the
antique symbol of viceregal authority, was presented to him not by his
predecessor, as was customary, but by the naval commander Joaqun de
Molina, the highest-ranking officer then in Lima. Abascal was indisposed
and evidently angry at his premature eviction from the palace. (He took
refuge in the house of a friend.)
1
During his remaining time in Lima,
relations between the two men remained frigid. As Pezuela recorded in
his diary, The baston was the only thing [Abascal] delivered to me of the
authority he had exercised for eleven years, for neither on that day nor
during the months that elapsed until his embarkation [for Spain] did he
1. Juan Martn de Larraaga, Testimony on the overthrow of Pezuela, 5 Aug. 1867, bn-m,
Coleccin Fernndez Duro, leg. 1066, MS 20054
25
; Gaceta del Gobierno . . . 18161818, 1:429; Palma,
Tradiciones peruanas, 917.
F O U R
PREVENTINGINDEPENDENCE
give me a single political or military document, nor did he advise me
verbally about any developments having to do with the many matters . . .
that were pending when he transferred command to me.
2
Pezuelas entrada solemne took place a few weeks later, on 17 August.
3
It
was no trivial affair. The processions, ceremonies, and Church high masses
publicly invested the viceroy with the legitimacy and authority of office
and obliged the people to obey him as the kings representative. Once again,
however, Doa Angela found occasion to give offense: she suggested that
the cabildo should not be stingy with the weight of the golden keys to the
city, traditionally presented to a new viceroy at his entrada solemne. Pezuelas
rule was not off to a propitious start.
The new viceroys political capital was meager in spite of his distinguished
record on the battlefields of Alto Per. At Vilcapuquio, Ayohuma, and
Viluma he had defeated rebel armies dispatched by the independent govern-
ment of Buenos Aires, and had been promoted to field marshal in recog-
nition of his success.
4
But he was faced with an elite that was increasingly
wary of viceregal power, and indeed had taken many opportunities to subvert it
by noncompliance. Even loyal royalists were unwilling to offer unquestioning
obedience to the viceroy or, especially, to the rules for the regulation of
trade set down by the crown, which he was obliged to enforce. From the
beginning, Pezuela was confronted by a fractious and divided population,
and by factions of merchants determined to further their interests at their
rivals expense.
Gaspar Rico played a prominent role in the development of internecine
quarrels among the royalists. Although many had been glad to see him sail
for Spain in 1812,
5
their relief was short-lived. Early in 1818, Rico returned
to Lima. During the five years he spent in Spain, he had been acquitted of
the charges brought against him by Abascal, gained crown approval for a
project to establish a lottery in all of Spanish South America,
6
and retained
2. Pezuela, Memoria de gobierno, 1718.
3. Ibid., 8687.
4. Hoja de servicios, Joaqun de la Pezuela, ihcm, Expedientes personales.
5. Including members of his wifes family who, according to Abascal, approached me
privately on various occasions, bathed in tears, begging me to exile as soon as possible a person
whom they feared would dishonor them by his criminal conduct: Abascal to the Regency, 31 July
1813, agi-Lima, leg. 1016.
6. Dictmen de Diego de la Pea y Santander, juez de primera instancia, Cdiz, 2 June 1818,
agi-Lima, leg. 1016. Ricos scheme to raise money for the royal coffers by means of a lottery was
approved by the crown in May 1817 (Rico to Marqus de Torre Tagle, Madrid, 23 May 1817,
amoz) and announced in Lima on 17 Nov. 1818; Real orden, Madrid, 3 July 1817, and Pezuela to
Crown, June 1818, both in agi-Lima, leg. 649; Juan Valentn Caadas to Miguel de Eyzaguirre, 8
his appointment as an honorary finance minister. Soon after his return to
Lima, he began to take part in the conflicts over commercial policy and
practice that his earlier activities had done so much to provoke.
7
Thereafter,
commercial conflict played an important role in the ultimately unsuccessful
effort to prevent Peruvian independence.
COMMERCE AND COLONIALISM
When Joaqun de la Pezuela succeeded Abascal as viceroy, Spain was at
peace, and the king had declared that the old rules for the regulation of
trade were once more in effect. Peru, however, was enjoying only a precarious
and intermittent peace following the defeat of Mateo Pumacahuas rebellion
in Cuzco. To the north, Quito and Guayaquil were in royalist hands. More
important, Chile had been restored to Spain with the defeat of the patria
vieja in 1814. But the former viceroyalty of Ro de la Plata remained defiantly
independent,
8
and it was from that corner of the colonial world that Perus
uneasy peace was disrupted by armed conflict. From 1811 until 1817, the
royalist army, comprised almost entirely of Peruvians (including its officer
corps), was frequently engaged in battling invaders from Buenos Aires and
putting down small-scale rebellions in the interior of the viceroyalty. The
kaleidoscopic nature of such warfare was frustrating in the extreme, espe-
cially to elites in Lima, accustomed to viceregal hegemony and, in the wake
of Tpac Amarus uprising, seriously unnerved by disorder. They blamed
the problem on disloyal Buenos Aires and demanded that the crown act
decisively to put down rebellion. In March 1815, Pedro de Abada, the
factor of the Filipinas Company, had been provoked to suggest that if a
Spanish expeditionary force did not soon move against Buenos Aires, what-
ever is done later will be useless, and like all of us with white faces, Spain
preventing independence 171
Dec. 1819, in Eyzaguirre, ed., Archivo epistolar, 33637; Manifiesto de D. Gaspar Rico, 17 Nov. 1818,
bnp-ms D-486. The lottery project became the focus of highly politicized anger in Lima; letters
and memoranda describing it are in agi-Lima, leg. 603. Jos Joaqun de Larriva made merciless
fun of Ricos lottery in his La Angulada and El Nuevo Depositario, in Manuel de Odriozola,
Coleccin de documentos literarios del Per, 11 vols. (Lima: Aurelio Alfaro, 186377), 2:61116.
7. The exact date of Ricos arrival in Lima is not known, but he sailed from Cdiz early in
September 1817: Rico to Torre Tagle, Cdiz, 22 Aug. 1817, amoz; Rico to Jos de La Serna,
Cuzco, 1 Apr. 1824, agi-Lima, leg. 762. Rico had petitioned unsuccessfully for permission to
return to Peru in 1813: Gracia y justicia to Juez de 1
a
Instancia de [Cdiz] D. Diego de la Pea, 10
Sept. 1813, agi-Lima, leg. 1016.
8. Argentina formally declared its independence on 9 July 1816, only two days after Pezuela
took office as viceroy of Peru, but the autonomist movement of 25 May 1810 is usually taken to be
the beginning of the nations existence.
can take leave of this continent.
9
Pezuela agreed with him: The salvation
of these royal dominions, he wrote to Spains ambassador in Rio de
Janeiro, does not depend on the efforts that are made in this viceroyalty.
. . . Redemption must come via Ro de la Plata itself.
10
Until Buenos
Aires was reduced to obedience, rebellion would continue to plague Spains
possessions in South America.
Meanwhile, royalist Peru constituted the gravest threat to Argentine
independence. Defeated by Pezuela in their attempt to liberate Peru from
the interior, the Argentines turned their attention to Chile and the Pacific.
In January 1817, the Army of the Andes, commanded by Jos de San Martn,
crossed into Chile, and on 12 February defeated the royalists at Chacabuco.
Once again, Chile declared its independence, and this time the fledgling
nation had adequate resources at its command to fight off the royalists.
The insurgents were able to support Admiral William Browns raids on
Spanish shipping and, more important, Lord Cochranes successful attempt
to wrest control of the sea from Spain.
11
Like Abascal before him, Pezuela
dispatched an army to recover Chile for the king, and on 19 March 1818
the royalists defeated the rebel army at Cancha Rayada. But only a few days
later, on 5 April 1818, San Martns army turned the tables, defeating the
royalists at the battle of Mayp and sealing Chiles independence from Spain.
The military repercussions of the loss of Chile are obvious. As one of
the peninsular officers in the royalist army remarked, it was an event of
immense importance, fatal for Spanish arms.
12
Lima itself, not some remote
province in the Andes, was in danger of being attacked. As an American
observer reported, If General San Martn goes rapidly against Lima, the
9. Abada to Directors, Real Cia. de Filipinas, 29 Mar. 1815, agi-Filipinas, leg. 993.
10. Pezuela to Conde de Casa Flores, 26 Aug. 1818, in Comisin Nacional del Centenario,
Documentos del Archivo de San Martn, 12 vols. (Buenos Aires: Imprenta de Coni Hermanos
191011), 5:2078. See also Acta, Junta particular de guerra, 1 Dec. 1818, MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 4, q. 4,
which speaks of the absolute necessity [of ] an expedition capable of recovering the territory of
the Viceroyalty of Buenos Aires held by the insurgents; for as long as this does not happen, the
War of the Americas will last a very long time and will consume whatever aid comes from
[Spain] in small portions.
11. Duke of San Carlos to Pezuela, London, 14 Jan. and 7 Feb. 1818, sim-Estado, leg. 8223;
Jos Toribio Medina, La expedicin de corso del comodoro Guillermo Brown en aguas del
Pacfico, Octubre de 1815Junio de 1816, Estudios histricos, biogrficos, crticos y bibliogrficos sobre
la independencia de Chile, comp. Guillermo Feli Cruz, 4 vols. (Santiago: Fondo Histrico y
Bibliogrfico Jos Toribio Medina, 1964), 4:15137; Vargas Ugarte, Historia . . . Emancipacin,
14852, 15561, 17279, 20913.
12. Andrs Garca Camba, Memorias . . . para la historia de las armas espaoles en el Per,
1809182 , 2 vols. (Madrid: Editorial-Amrica, 1916), 1:359.
Kingdom of Peru will fall without much difficulties.
13
Pezuela was well
aware of the danger, and drew up detailed plans for confronting it. But it
was not until after San Martns invasion on 9 September 1820 that the vice-
roy had at his disposal an army capable of doing battle with the Ejrcito
Libertador on the coast of Peru.
14
Less obvious, and less discussed, are the political and economic reper-
cussions of the loss of Chile. They were significant. Jernimo de Valds, one
of the principal conspirators in the plot to overthrow Pezuela in January
1821, later claimed that the consternation that these losses caused in Lima
was extraordinary, and the circumstance that the immediate author of
them was [the viceroys] son-in-law gave rise to a public outcry against
General Pezuela, and without doubt the act of his separation would have
taken place earlier, had the emotion not been contained by fear that the
Army of Alto Per, which General La Serna had brought to a brilliant
condition, would not support that act.
15
The loss cost Pezuela a great deal
of support among the merchants. According to the consulado, when San
Martn took Santiago, the merchants immediate losses amounted to almost
a million pesos. The consulado noted that, thanks in part to the scarcity of
specie, merchants remaining assets consisted almost entirely of paper and
notations in their account books, most in the form of uncollectible debt.
16
The viceroy was aware of the high stakes involved in the loss of Chile,
especially for the merchants. In 1817, when he was trying to persuade the
consulado to contribute money to support the expedition to recover Chile,
he urged them to consider the magnitude of these assets. Involved is
nothing less than the restitution of the single territory left for your com-
merce, the only means of recovering to a certain degree from your past
13. W. G. D. Worthington, special agent of the United States to Peru, Chile, and Buenos
Aires, to President Adams, 1 July 1818, Diplomatic Correspondence of the United States Concerning
the Independence of the Latin American Nations, ed. William R. Manning, 3 vols. (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1925), 3:1719.
14. Acta, Junta general de tribunales, 4 May 1818, MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 4, q. 1; Pezuela to Casa
Flores, 26 Aug. 1818, Archivo de San Martn, 5:20710; Pezuela, Memoria de gobierno, 158, 248,
26364, 777; Pezuela to Mariano Ricafort, 18 Feb. 1820, MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 4, q. 8; Plan de
defensa de Lima y Plaza del Callao, 7 Aug. 1818, MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 9 (a copy is in Sig. 4, q. 3);
Pezuela to Comandante del apostadero del Callao, 20 Oct. 1818, MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 4, q. 3.
15. Refutacin que hace el Mariscal de Campo D. Jernimo de Valds del Manifiesto que el Teniente
General D. Joaqun de la Pezuela imprimi en 1821 a su regreso del Per, in Conde de Torata,
Documentos para la historia de la guerra separatista del Per (Madrid: Imprenta de la Viuda de M.
Minuesa de los Ros, 1895), 2:22.
16. Acta, Junta de comercio, 11 Apr. 1817, agnp-Consulado, leg. 24.
losses, and the only channel through which you maintain a profitable circu-
lation of this countrys agricultural and industrial products.
17
In a letter
to the minister of war, Pezuela remarked on still more consequences of
Chilean independence:
Since Chile fell into the hands of the rebels, the people [of Lima]
suffer from the high cost of bread; [without Chilean tallow] the
poor and the working class have no way to illuminate their labor;
[landowners] profits are eaten up uselessly for the support of their
slaves, and the products of their lands are stored in their ware-
houses; the governments income has experienced a severe decline
that has reduced its power to act, and finally every class demands
that the country where they satisfied all their needs and carried
on their business be restored to them.
18
With Chiles independence, Perus principal trading partner became a
foreign power, recognized or not. The limeo merchants who traded in sugar
and wheat, as well as the metropolitan merchants who imported manufac-
tures by way of Cape Horn, stopping in Chilean ports on their way to
Callao, were in violation of Spains reinstated rules for the regulation of
colonial trade, as the consulado clearly recognized: on 28 January 1817,
after the defeat of the royalists at Chacabuco, the consulado demanded
that Pezuela enforce the 1812 edict prohibiting trade in goods that had
passed through Chile or Buenos Aires.
19
Moreover, with the reopening of
Chilean ports to merchant ships from the United States and especially
Great Britain, the kings vasallos de Espaa could hardly be found amidst
the crowd.
20
Although the colonial commercial system had long since been
overtaken by the realities of the new international economy, the loss of
Chile represented the final collapse of the possibility that colonialism and
commerce could coexist in Peru without radical change in the imperial
rules for the regulation of trade.
17. Pezuela to the Consulado, 15 Sept. 1817, agnp-Consulado, leg. 12.
18. Pezuela to Ministro de la Guerra, 19 Sept. 1817, as quoted in Vicua Mackenna, Revolucin
de la independencia, 17576 n. 6. See also Instruccin que el Virrey de Lima da al Sr. Brig. D.
Mariano Osorio, nombrado general en gefe del Exrcito Expedicionario de Chile, 4 Dec. 1817,
MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 4, q. 1; and Pezuela, Memoria de gobierno, 158. Tallow, used to make candles,
was one of Chiles principal exports to Peru.
19. Regalado C. and Salinas B., Apuntes sobre la actitud del consulado, 278.
20. Humphreys, British Merchants and South American Independence, 122; D. B. Goebel,
British-American Rivalry in the Chilean Trade, 18171820, Journal of Economic History 2 (1942): 194.
Change, however, was not to be had from Spain. During the first six
years of Fernando VIIs restoration to the throne (181420), the so-called
free-trade controversy roiled politics in the mother country to the point
where no realistic or stable policy regarding colonial trade could be estab-
lished.
21
A promising plan to establish ports of deposit for the American
trade in England, for example, was undermined by news that the crown
had changed its mind. The plan would have permitted Spanish merchants
to fill their ships with the goods of all nations free of taxes in Spain,
while foreign merchants would be able to sell their goods indirectly in
Spanish America without running the risks of a long voyage and the
problems to be confronted in [colonial] ports. But, as the Spanish ambas-
sador in London wrote to the crown, the mere idea of instability in measures
as important as the present one contributes very greatly to increasing the
suspicion with which, unfortunately, our system of government is viewed,
and is also one of the principal weapons made use of by the enemies of
His Majesty.
22
But the plan would have kept control of the Atlantic trade
in the hands of peninsular Spaniards, to the mounting anger of American
merchants and consumers. Clearly, the crown failed completely to understand
the intensity of colonial grievance on the matter of direct trade with foreigners.
An account by Vasili Mickhailovicht Golovnin, commander of the Russian
warship Kamtchatka, of his visit to Lima during the last days of 1817 and
early 1818, is valuable for what it reveals about that issue and about the
attitude of merchants associated with the Filipinas Company.
23
On its way
to the Pacific, the Kamtchatka had spent seventeen days in Rio de Janeiro
during November 1817. While there, the Spanish ambassador had approached
Golovnin with a request to carry an urgent and confidential letter to Pezuela,
21. The best account of the confusion remains Costeloes Free Trade Controversy. See also
Marqus de Casa Irujo to Ministro de Hacienda, 12 Feb. 1819, agi-Lima, leg. 1550; Flrez
Estrada, Examen imparcial, chap. 4, 5278; Informe de la Junta de diputados consulares, 26 Aug.
1817, agi-Consulados, leg. 62. As the king appointed, then dismissed, one cabinet member after
another, even members of the same government quarreled over policy and practice: Pintos
Vieites, Poltica de Fernando VII, 130; and Josep Fontana, La crisis del antiguo rgimen, 18081833,
2nd ed. (Barcelona: Editorial Crtica, 1983), 26.
22. Spanish ambassador to Pizarro, 12 June 1818, sim-Estado, leg. 8179. See also Duke of San
Carlos to Viceroys of Mexico, Peru, Capitanes generales de Nueva Granada y Cuba, y General
Morillo, 21 Mar. 1818, sim-Estado, leg. 8223.
23. Golovnin published an account of his voyage in St. Petersburg in 1822, entitled in Spanish
Viaje alrededor del mundo en la corbeta Kamtchatka en 1817, 1818, y 1819. Excerpts pertaining to
Peru are reprinted in Spanish in cdip-Tomo 27: Relaciones de viajeros, ed. Estuardo Nuez, 3 vols.
(Lima: Comisin Nacional del Sesquicentenario de la Independencia del Per, 1971), 1:14873. All
references are to the cdip version.
and the viceroys gratitude for this service prompted him to receive Golov-
nin as an honored guest.
24
Much of Golovnins time in Peru was spent in the company of Pedro de
Abada, who was one of only two persons with whom the Russian could
communicate directly.
25
It was Abada who greeted the Russian captain
when his ship anchored in Callao, Abada who escorted him to his several
dinners with the viceroy, and, inevitably, Abada and his associates who set
about purchasing the supplies needed for the remainder of the Russian
voyage to Alaska. On three occasions, Golovnin dined with Abada and
his business partners in the large and well-appointed house leased by the
Filipinas Company, where their factors and employees lived and kept a
common table. Golovnin felt confident that he was among friends who
could be trusted: he knew that Abada had been decorated by the Russian
Emperor for his previous services to the ships of the Russian-American
Trading Company.
In his diary of the voyage, Golovnin wrote an account of conditions in
Peru that certainly reflects his intimate conversations with Abada and the
associates of the Filipinas Company: Peruvian commerce could be very
important if it were open to the Europeans or if the Spaniards were as
active as the English. But it is now very much reduced. It is known that
the Spanish government applies to its non-European possessions a rigid
colonial system, and does not permit any foreign ship to enter its ports to
do business. All commerce must be undertaken by Spanish subjects and in
Spanish ships. The depth of grievance against Spain on this point was
reported by Golovnin in terms that surely would have shocked Pezuela:
The inhabitants of Peru praise their country highly and the
Spaniards who live there do the same. They say that the only
inconveniences are the earthquakes and the policy of the Spanish
government toward its colonies; and they add that the second
inconvenience is much greater than the first. . . . All the world
knows that the inhabitants of America are entirely correct in com-
plaining of the policy of their Cabinet; they resent the oppression
24. Conde de Casa Flores to Pezuela, 30 Nov. 1817, Archivo de San Martn, 5:18081; Pezuela,
Memoria de gobierno, 23344.
25. The second is identified only as el Intendente: Golovnin, Viaje, 154. There is no evidence
that Golovnin conversed with anyone other than Abada and those associated with the Filipinas
Company in Lima, the intendente, and, via an interpreter (probably Abada), with Pezuela
himself.
very deeply, and speak openly of it, and . . . are willing to proclaim
their independence at any moment. The hatred and contempt for
the government is extreme. They say that, sooner or later, Peru
will have to become independent from Spain.
26
Clearly, an important group of merchants had come to the conclusion that,
if reform were not forthcoming on the issue of the rules for the regulation
of trade, continued Spanish hegemony in Peru was intolerable. Fernando
VII and his ministers, however, were incapable of directing change in
ways that would have preserved Spanish hegemony in the New World.
GOVERNANCE IN A TIME OF CHANGE
By 1816, when Pezuela became viceroy of Peru, Spain and her empire were
under intense pressure for change brought about not only by the Napo-
leonic invasion but also by the realities of colonial politics and economics.
The precise nature and form of the relationship between Spain and her
American possessions was in dispute, making it difficult to administer the
colonies. Complicating the problem of governance was the crowns sensi-
tivity on the issue of sovereignty. In Spanish political thought, the essence
of sovereignty was the power to make law, and that power belonged only
to the king. During the Napoleonic period (180814), while the king was
held captive in Bayonne, the Spanish Cortes had declared itself sovereign,
proceeding to make and amend law; when he was restored to the throne,
Fernando VII lost no time in declaring the Cortes and all its works illegi-
timate on the grounds that the kings sovereignty had been usurped.
27
Thus
the metropolitan merchants in Lima insisted that official reform in the rules
for the regulation of the colonial trade had to emanate from the crown;
colonial viceroys and their local advisory bodies were legally prohibited
from making or amending such laws.
But the viceroys were by no means helplessly obedient to ill-conceived
or unenforceable laws and regulations issued by a sovereign far removed
from the territories they administered. Long before Pezuelas time, the
apparently rigid system that concentrated legislative power in the hands of
26. Golovnin, Viaje, 168, 170.
27. Causa formada a los diputados de Cortes . . . que comprende hasta 28 cargos sobre haber
atentado contra la soberana del Seor D. Fernando 7
o
y contra los derechos y regalas del trono,
1814, Tomo 12, Papeles reservados de S.R.M., apn-m; Toreno, Historia del levantamiento, 3:400,
4057, 5:54849, and Fernando VIIs decree of 4 May 1814 in vol. 5, appendix 5665.
the king had been as effectively undermined as the Reglamento de comercio
libre of 1778. Although the viceroys routinely sent memos to the crown
pledging obedience to crown decrees, they also made use of three strategies
to circumvent inconvenient laws, all of them subsumed under an idea
expressed as obedezco pero no cumplo (I obey but do not enforce). The first
strategy arose from the vigorous tradition of Spanish arbitrismo, the custom
of drawing up lengthy reports to the crown on economic and political
problems, and offering advice for their solution.
28
Abascal was a master of
the form, though on a practical rather than theoretical basis. During the
liberal regime of 181014, Abascal repeatedly criticized laws emanating from
the Cortes, explaining the unfortunate effects that would follow from their
strict enforcement in Peru, and calling on the crown to repeal or modify
them in accord with his suggestions. Pezuela, too, recorded his objections
to royal orders, as, for example, when he called the crowns attention to
the serious difficulties standing in the way of proper obedience to the
royal order of 27 June 1816 setting forth the manner in which the permis-
sion conceded to Samuel Smith and his associates of Baltimore is to be
understood.
29
This strategy was in keeping with the custom of seeking
opinions from members of councils or Audiencias, and caused few problems
at court. The second, more controversial, strategy resembled a pocket veto.
The viceroy simply ignored the existence of a troublesome law or regulation
unless forced to acknowledge it. Given the difficulties of communication
between Spain and her colonies, especially in time of war, viceroys could
on occasion argue plausibly that they had received no official notification
of a new law or regulation, even though it had been reported repeatedly
and in detail in private correspondence. Thus Pezuela, in 1820, delayed the
ceremonies in which residents of Peru swore allegiance to the restored
Constitution of 1812 for several months after the first news of the liberal
revolution arrived in Lima.
30
The third strategy caused more controversy,
28. For names and titles of arbitristas works, see Evaristo Correa Calderon, Registro de
arbitristas, economistas y reformadores espaoles (15001936): Catlogo de impresos y manuscritos
(Madrid: Fundacin Universitaria Espaola, 1981).
29. Viceroys indexes, May 1817, agi-Lima, leg. 649. On the capture of the Warren, one of
Smiths ships, by the Chileans, see La junta superior de real hacienda del Virreinato del Per
expone, 26 July 1817, agi-Lima, leg. 774.
30. Rumors of the constitutionalist revolt in the army about to embark for America reached
Lima in May 1820, but Pezuela had been told that the mutiny had been put down: see Pezuela,
Memoria de gobierno, 71617; Gaceta del Gobierno de Lima, no. 35 (3 June 1820) in MenP, Pezuela,
Sig. 4, q. 9, 10611, and Embajador de smc a los virreys de Mxico, Lima, y Nueva Granada . . . ,
London, 4 Feb. 1820, sim-Estado, leg. 8223. On 5 July 1820, a private letter and a handwritten
both in Spain and her colonies. In these cases, the viceroys took action
contrary to law or conflicting with colonial regulations. The governor of
Panama, as we have seen, resorted to this strategy, opening ports to direct
trade with foreigners when government coffers were empty. In the free-trade
controversy of 181820, Pezuela did the same. In both cases, and others
like them, viceroys and governors followed their action with reports to the
crown justifying their rulings and asking for crown approval.
Both obedezco pero no cumplo and concentration of legislative power in
the person of the king created a situation where viceroys often acted con-
trary to the letter or the spirit of the laws, leading to complaints, lawsuits,
and appeals to the crown by those whose interests were compromised. The
rule of law, always and everywhere difficult to impose and maintain, suffered
as a result. Not only was it hard to determine what the law required in a
given case at a specific time; crown and viceroys could and did allow excep-
tions to laws and regulations, even creating situations where specific interest
groups were exempted from laws that applied to the rest of the popula-
tion. Such was the case, for example, in the matter of the special tribunal
created to rule on disputes involving the Cinco Gremios when Gaspar Rico
was its apoderado in Lima, or the fuero militar, which militia captain Rico
invoked during the dispute over gambling debts in 1802.
31
Equality before
the law was absent (except, sometimes, as an ideal) because every interest
group and many individuals were convinced that they could obtain a special
law, regulation, or exemption, provided they were persistent enough in
copy of a newspaper published in Havana on 15 Apr. 1820 arrived in Lima with information about
the change in government in Spain, but the dispatches from the governor of Panama, which
arrived in the same packet via Paita, did not mention the coup. Confusing and contradictory
information was later forwarded to Lima in other private letters and in a letter from the duke of
San Carlos in London. Pezuela therefore doubted the truth of the news, mentioning the real
orden of 17 December 1819, in which he was warned that false orders and dispatches had been
issued by the rebels in Spain (i.e., the liberals), and that such orders were likely to make their
way to America. (A copy of that real orden is in MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 11.) On 12 July, with the
arrival of correspondence from the Spanish ambassador in Rio de Janeiro, Pezuela was convinced
that the Constitution was again in force, but he remained cautious. As he declared in his
Memoria de gobierno, 731, while determined to await official notice before swearing allegiance to
the Constitution, he nevertheless informed the public of the news immediately, publishing it in
the Gaceta Extraordinaria de Lima the next day, 13 July 1820: MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 21, q. 9. Official
notification of the change in government arrived on 4 September 1820, and Pezuela also
published that news immediately: see his Memoria de gobierno, 754. Nevertheless, as soon as
rumors of the revolution in Spain arrived in Peru, his liberal enemies began accusing him of
failing to obey the orders from the crown: Memoria de gobierno, 73435.
31. Informe de Juan de Dios Moreno, 16 Dec. 1802, Testimonio general no. 21d, Expediente
sobre el conducto, agi-Lima, leg. 1620.
their appeals to the crown. And they knew that the king was less than
reluctant to grant special privileges in return for promises that the crowns
perpetual insolvency would be alleviated, if only marginally or temporarily,
by a special contribution.
The result of failure to establish a reasonably stable regime of the rule
of law was that government was weak and laws were not enforced. Gaspar
Rico believed that Godoy and all his creatures, including Peruvian viceroys,
acted capriciously and therefore unjustly and illegally, especially when they
failed to enforce royal decrees. In November 1811, Cortes of Cdiz issued a
decree declaring that any royal official who failed to put a law or decree
into effect within three days of receiving it would be punished by imme-
diate dismissal from his post. Rico printed the decree in his periodical, El
Peruano, commenting:
These decisive orders carry all the force necessary to make govern-
ment authorities abandon those magic clauses, justified circum-
stances, and consult the king, meanwhile suspending observance,
that bury many good men covered in desperation and misery. We
refrain from enumerating the cases of infraction experienced in
our own bitter days, in order to take with us to the other world
the satisfaction of seeing punishment meted out to everyone who
believed that effective laws or orders that would limit their pride
could not possibly exist.
32
But the viceroys were not alone to blame. The crown itself sabotaged
their ability to enforce the law by withdrawing fiscal or political resources
from them. Abascal was left without revenue from tribute at a time when
his efforts to enforce the most fundamental law, that of South Americas
colonial status, required him to pay for armies to put down rebellions.
Pezuela, on 7 July 1816, took office not as a fully credentialed viceroy, but
as viceroy ad interim. It was not until the end of March 1817 that the crown
appointed him viceroy en propiedad and president of the Audiencia of Lima.
33
32. El Peruano, no. 31 (11 Nov. 1811), cdip-Tomo 23, 3:31415.
33. Ttulo de virrey interino de Lima, Hoja de servicios: Joaqun de la Pezuela, ihcm,
Expedientes personales; Simancas, Catlogo XX, 423, 518. Pezuela learned that his interim
appointment had been made permanent from a copy of the Gaceta de Madrid carried to Lima
aboard the frigate Tagle, which anchored in Callao on 22 Aug. 1817: Memoria de gobierno, 161.
Pezuelas interim appointment carried with it only half-pay: A los Sres. de la Junta Superior de
Real Hacienda de Lima, 19 Aug. 1817, agi-Lima, leg. 650.
Meanwhile, rumors circulated that he was to be replaced in the very near
future; Jos de Baqujano, in Sevilla, heard that General Jos Enrique
ODonnell, count of Abisbal, was on his way to Lima.
34
And on 7 Septem-
ber 1816, less than a month after Pezuelas entrada solemne, General Jos de
la Serna disembarked at Arica to the south of Lima. He was to replace
Pezuela as commander of the Army of Alto Per, and he claimed to have
arrived in Peru with orders and instructions that permitted him to operate
independently of Pezuela.
35
There is no evidence that Pezuela ever saw a copy of La Sernas orders,
and the orders have not been located in the archives; therefore it is impos-
sible to know whether La Serna was named general en jefe, a rank that
bestowed political as well as military jurisdiction, although it seems probable
that he was.
36
La Serna used the title in his correspondence with the vice-
roy,
37
and his successor in command of the army of Alto Per claimed that
rank. Like Pablo Morillo in Venezuela, Juan Ramrez in Peru had been
named general en jefe, a title that, he insisted, carried with it complete
authority to exercise the prerogatives of captains-general of provinces,
presidents of their tribunals, authority over revenues, and in sum all the
military and political authority without which experience has shown that
one cannot fulfill the duty of commander-in-chief.
38
The question at issue was whether a general en jefe serving in a colony
was subordinate to a viceroy. Pezuela, of course, insisted that he was, and
he put the question to the crown. On 12 June 1819, almost three years after
La Serna disembarked in Arica, he had his answer in the form of a royal order
declaring that La Serna was mistaken in his assumptions about his relation-
ship to the viceroy. La Serna was not an independent commander-in-chief
invested with the ample powers that the general ordinance and later orders
grant to this post in the peninsula. On the contrary, the commander-
in-chief of the Army of Alto Per as well as every other body of troops
34. Baqujano to Miguel de Njera, Sevilla, 22 Aug. 1816, cdip-Tomo 1, 3:536.
35. Mendiburu, Diccionario, 8:40911; Pezuela, Memoria de gobierno, 89; Stevenson, Historical
and Descriptive Narrative, 3:131; Toms de Iriarte, Memorias: La independencia y la anarqua
(Buenos Aires: Ediciones Argentinas, 1944), 123.
36. Roberto L. Blanco Valds, Rey, Cortes y fuerza armada en los orgenes de la Espaa liberal,
18081823 (Valencia: Instituci Valenciana dEstudis i Investigaci; Madrid: Siglo Veintiuno
Editores, 1988), 74.
37. La Serna to Pezuela, Potos, 1 Nov. 1817, MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 8.
38. Ramrez to Pezuela, Tupiza, 4 Mar. 1820, MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 4, q. 9. Esdaile, Spanish Army
in the Peninsular War, 179, discusses the resentment of Spanish generals at being deprived of their
civilian jurisdiction. See also Stephen K. Stoan, Pablo Morillo and Venezuela, 18151820
(Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1974), 6668.
operating in the district of this viceroyalty is Your Excellency, and General La
Serna who commands the former is only a comandante general subordinate
to the viceroy.
39
As he explained to Juan Ramrez, La Sernas successor as
commander of the Army of Alto Per, the king had decided that the special
character of the war in Peru demanded that the armys operations should
be coordinated from the center, from which both the expertise and resources
necessary for success could and should be dispensed. Otherwise, viceroys
would find themselves subject to generals, an impossible situation.
40
Pezuela
had no quarrel with calling a general comandante en jefe of an army, pro-
vided that the crown made it clear that, in America, the title did not imply
freedom to operate independently of the viceroy or disobey his orders.
41
But when La Serna arrived in Peru in 1816, he assumed that because his
authority was directly derived from the king it was therefore equal to that
of the viceroy. In this respect, he seems to have been operating in accord
with the pre-Napoleonic understanding of the armys role as the kings
personal force.
42
Thus he was unwilling to do anything that might suggest
that Pezuelas authority was superior to his own, while prudently claiming
only that his royal orders required him to march directly to the headquar-
ters of the Army of Alto Per.
43
There would have been plenty of time for
him to travel to Lima and back while the funds to pay for his march to
the interior were collectedindeed, the ship that brought him from Spain
proceeded on to Callao
44
but he refused to do so. Instead, after a round
of parties, he marched inland to Santiago de Cotagaita, where he assumed
command of the Army of Alto Per on 12 November 1816. According to
Andrs Garca Camba, the new commander-in-chief was received with
special honors in all the towns along the way, and in all of them he left
behind the most pleasant memories of his affability, his sincerity, his digni-
fied and handsome appearance, and the humanitarian sentiments and justice
39. Ministro de la Guerra Egua to Pezuela, Madrid, 12 June 1819, MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 4, q. 9,
and Sig. 11. The real orden provoked strong protests from La Sernas successor as commander of
the Army of Alto Per: Juan Ramrez to Pezuela, Tupiza, 4 Mar. and 4 July 1820, MenP, Pezuela,
Sig. 4, q. 9.
40. Pezuela to Juan Ramrez, 13 Apr. 1820, MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 4, q. 9.
41. Pezuela to Ministro de la Guerra, 10 June 1820, MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 4, q. 9.
42. Gunther E. Rothenberg, The Art of Warfare in the Age of Napoleon (Bloomington: Indiana
University Press, 1980), chap. 1: Armies and Warfare during the Last Years of the Ancien
Rgime.
43. Iriarte, Memorias, 2021; Mariano Torrente, Historia de la revolucin hispano-americano, 3
vols. (Madrid, 182930; reprinted in part as Historia de la revolucin de la independencia del Per
(Lima, 1971), cdip-Tomo 26, 4:131.
that his lips expressed, and that are so well received in remote provinces
and regions from high officials representing the supreme government.
45
La Serna was allowing himself to be seen as the representative not of
the viceregal government at Lima, but of the crown itself, and his march
through the Andes to his headquarters resembled nothing so much as a
viceregal entrada solemne.
46
La Sernas arrival in Peru thus provoked a crisis
in viceregal governance comparable to the conflict between the visitador,
Josef Antonio de Areche, and Viceroy Manuel de Guirior in the 1780s,
which also saw the great Indian rebellion led by Tpac Amaru. In both
cases, the viceroy was confronted by a rival whose authority and jurisdic-
tion competed with his own, at a time when pacification of the viceroyalty
was of paramount importance.
THE PROBLEM OF PACIFICATION
By February 1817, when the royalists were defeated at Chacabuco in Chile,
Perus southern flank was occupied by polities that had declared themselves
independent of Spain. Mindful of Abascals successful military campaigns
to reduce earlier juntas and autonomist movements to obedience, heads of
government in both Argentina and Chile were convinced that, in order
to maintain their independence, they would have to destroy the viceregal
government at Lima. It made sense to them to attack the royalist strong-
hold militarily, since it had been the military that had put down internal
uprisings and rebellions since Tpac Amarus massive revolt in 1780.
47
And they believed that Peru and especially Lima was occupied territory,
prevented by royalist troops from joining the independence movement. If,
on the other hand, an insurgent army invaded the viceroyalty, local patriots,
whose numbers would have been increased by San Martns propaganda,
could be expected to rise up and declare Perus independence, as the people
45. Andrs Garca Camba, Memorias . . . para la historia de las armas espaoles en el Per,
18091825, 2 vols. (Madrid: Editorial-Amrica, 1916), 1:29798; Iriarte, Memorias, 24, 53. Pezuela
was informed of the change of command on 23 December 1816: Pezuela, Memoria de gobierno, 100.
46. Iriarte, Memorias, 55, records his belief that Pezuela thought La Serna had been named
viceroy of Buenos Aires, empowered to attach still more of Perus territory to the new viceroyalty
and strip Peru of its entire military force. No evidence for this has been found in Pezuelas papers.
47. Leon Campbell, The Military and Society in Colonial Peru, 17501810 (Philadelphia:
American Philosophical Society, 1978), 32, discusses the changed mission of the army following
the Tpac Amaru revolt; before then, the army had been charged with defending the viceroyalty
from external attack, not with maintaining order in the interior. See also Juan Marchena
Fernndez, Ejrcito y milicias en el mundo colonial americano (Madrid: Editorial mapfre, 1992),
13840.
of Spain had done when they had been made subject to Napoleon and his
troops.
48
And this was the strategy they pursued, first by attacking Alto
Per (where they were defeated by Pezuela), later by capturing Chile, and
finally by invading Peru from the sea.
Pezuela was perfectly well aware of this aspect of Argentine strategy and
its implications for his campaign to prevent the independence of Peru. A
veteran of the siege of Gibraltar in 1782, where he was wounded, and of the
battles against the French in Guipzcoa and Navarra in 1793,
49
successful
in his American commands, he believed himself fully competent to direct
royalist military campaigns in Peru. He also thought of himself as a good
negotiator, willing to use his political skills in the campaign to keep the
viceroyalty loyal to Spain.
The royalists in Peru, like bureaucrats in Spain, were divided on the
issue of whether negotiation and compromise were necessary ingredients
in pacification. Hard-liners who insisted on a purely military solution could
be found on both sides of the Atlantic.
50
In Peru, Pezuelas understanding
of what it would take to pacify the viceroyalty was broader than Abascals
had beenor than La Serna proved willing to countenance. In a letter to the
crown dated 23 May 1812, Abascal had stated flatly that neither reasoning
with them nor as many concessions as the Sovereign might deign to grant
[the rebels] will persuade them to return to reason, but force alone, and
this should arrive from [Spain] as soon as possible in an amount propor-
tional to the need and circumstances. Abascal rejected political measures
because he feared that the court would think him a traitorous accomplice
of Godoy and the afrancesados: Rather than compromising my honor
I prefer to make war; war is my only means of salvation.
51
But Pezuelas
experience in Alto Per had convinced him that military action alone was
insufficient to secure the territory for Spain. In his Memoria militar of
181315, he recorded his opinion that the royalists were masters only of the
48. Instrucciones reservadssimas que deben reglar la conducta de don Jos Fernndez Paredes
y don Jos Garca en el desempeo de su comisin, 1 Jan. 1819, Archivo de San Martn, 7:16263,
166. See also Toms Guido to Supremo Director de las Provincias Unidas del Ro de La Plata,
Buenos Aires, 20 May 1816, cdip-Tomo 8: La expedicin libertadora, 3 vols., ed Gustavo Pons
Muzzo (Lima: Comisin Nacional del Sesquicentenario de la Independencia del Per, n.d.), 1:78;
Vargas Ugarte, Historia . . . Emancipacin, 17071.
49. Pezuela, Hoja de servicios; Riva Agero, Per histrico y artstico, 163.
50. Anna, Spain and the Loss of America, 14147. An important part of Annas book discusses
the quarrel between moderates and what he calls the military party.
51. Vargas Ugarte, Historia . . . Emancipacin, 123, citing a letter by Abascal to the crown dated
23 May 1812 in agi-Estado, leg. 74; Maritegui, Anotaciones, 89.
territory on which the army stood. To pacify Alto Per, political action was
also required; while harshly punishing the leaders of rebellion, he believed
that persuasion and amnesty were important to win over those whose loyalty
to the crown had lapsed.
52
By contrast, the peninsular officers and men who were posted to Peru
beginning in 1815 were hard-liners whose opinion was closer to Abascals
than to Pezuelas. Fresh from participating in the defeat of Napoleon in
Spain (La Serna was a hero of the siege of Zaragoza),
53
the officers were
confident that they could reorganize the army on European models and
swiftly put an end to insurrection by persons whom they considered vastly
inferior in race and civilization.
54
They had little respect for Pezuelas mili-
tary skill. Jos de La Serna, Jernimo de Valds, Andrs Garca Camba, and
Jos de Canterac were especially critical of the viceroys strategy, and soon
after arriving in Peru they began contesting, then ignoring Pezuelas orders.
55
As Garca Camba wrote in his memoir, La Serna did not willingly lend
himself to be merely the executor of orders that did not always meet with
his approval.
56
The royalist Army of Alto Per, painstakingly built by
Pezuela, composed almost entirely of Americans, and consistently victorious
52. Joaqun de la Pezuela, Memoria militar del General Pezuela, ed. Flix Denegri Luna (Lima:
Publicaciones del Instituto Histrico del Per, 1955), 25, 48, 51, 86.
53. Diccionario de historia de Espaa, 2nd ed., 3 vols. (Madrid: Ediciones de la Revista de
Occidente, 1968), 3:646. La Serna was benemrito de la Patria en grado heroico . . . condecorado
en la Cruz de Mrito de Zaragoza y Medalla de Constancia and Caballero de la Real y Militar
Orden de San Hermenegildo: La Serna to Crown, Cochabamba, 17 Sept. 1819, ihcm, Caja 5590.
54. Torrente, Historia de la revolucin, cdip-Tomo 26, 4:123; Vargas Ugarte, Historia . . .
Emancipacin, 137, 14445; Exposicin que hace un peruano al Virrey La Serna acerca del ver-
dadero estado poltico de la Amrica en la presente poca, cdip-Tomo 13: Obra gubernativa y
epistolaria de San Martn, ed. Jos de la Puente Candamo, 2 vols. (Lima: Comisin Nacional del
Sesquicentenario de la Independencia del Per, 1974), 2:189. For Pezuelas negative opinion of La
Sernas reforms of the Army of Alto Per, see his Memoria de gobierno, 2045; Pezuela to Sr.
Secretario de Estado y del Despacho de la Guerra, 22 Dec. 1817, MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 4, q. 2, and
Pezuela to Juan Ramrez, 1 Oct. 1819, MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 4, q. 7. La Serna and his officers were
admirers of Napoleons army and its tactics: Iriarte, Memorias, 44; Jos Cepeda Gmez, El
ejrcito destinado a Ultramar y la sublevacin de 1820 en Andaluca, Anuario de Historia Moderno
y Contempornea (Granada) 23 (197576), 280.
55. La Serna to Virrey del Per, Tupiza, 5 July 1818, MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 8, part 2, 3738; La
Serna to Virrey del Per, Oruro, 16 June 1819, MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 4, q. 6; Pezuela to Secretario
del Estado y del Despacho de la Guerra, 7 July 1819, and Pezuela to Sres. Ministros Generales de
Exrcito y Real Hacienda, 31 Aug. 1820, both in MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 4, q. 6; Pezuela, Memoria de
gobierno, 306, 424, 783, 78485, 799800, 805. See also Garca Cambas Exposicin on the
condition of the royalist army, forwarded to Pezuela on 17 August 1820 and printed in Archivo de
San Martn, 7:17581, discussed by Garca Camba in his Memorias, 1:44446.
56. Garca Camba, Memorias, 1:423. See also the discussions of military strategy in the letters
exchanged by La Serna and Pezuela in MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 8.
on the field of battle while Pezuela commanded it,
57
was dismissed by La
Serna, its new commander, as nothing more than a band of armed peasants.
58
The hard-line Spanish officers, led by La Serna, Canterac, Valds, and
Antonio de Seoane, found allies among the civilian population, especially in
Lima. Among them were merchants engaged in the Atlantic trade, including
the twenty-two apoderados of the consulado of Cdiz, the merchants who
imported European goods via Panama, and those who, like Gaspar Rico,
had been associated with the Cinco Gremios Mayores.
59
These merchants,
with few exceptions, consistently opposed all efforts to modify even tempo-
rarily the recently reinstated rules governing the colonial trade. Change
was, in their view, illegal; its advocates were, if not disloyal, then at least
playing into the hands of the rebels. They demanded instead that Spain
deal with the insurgents by overwhelming military force alone, force that
did not depend almost exclusively on cadres of American officers and men.
On 5 February 1819 (nineteen months prior to San Martins invasion), for
example, the officers of the consulado called on the viceregal government to
secure an army as well as warships from Spain, insisting that the colossus
of revolution cannot be destroyed without a large expedition that comes
57. See Pezuela, Memoria Militar, and the comment by Torrente, Historia de la revolucin,
cdip-Tomo 26, 4:97: The glory acquired by General Pezuela in this brilliant campaign is
inscribed in indelible characters, and 105: the number of his triumphs having been the same as
the number of his military actions; Pezuela, Manifiesto, 290, where he contrasts his war record
with that of the army while it was commanded by La Serna; and Pezuelas Memoria de gobierno,
135, where he records the first time that a treaty of surrender was signed by a royalist com-
mander with the rebels of Buenos Aires. For details of Pezuelas victories in Alto Per, see
Fernando Daz Venteo, Las campaas militares del Virrey Abascal (Sevilla: Escuela de Estudios
Hispano-Americanos, 1948), 293368.
58. Manuel Nemesio Vargas, Historia del Per independiente, 12 vols. (Lima: Imprenta de la
Escuela de Ingenieros, 1903), 1:89. For a similar attitude, see Iriarte, Memorias, 53. For La Sernas
attempt to reorganize the army according to European standards, see Correspondencia de D. Jos
de La Serna, MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 8; Torrente, Historia de la revolucin, cdip-Tomo 26, 4:11314.
For the viceroys defense of his Peruvian army, see Pezuela to Sr. Secretario de Estado y del
Eespacho de la Guerra, 22 Dec. 1817, MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 4, q. 2; his Memoria militar, 2425; and
M. N. Vargas, Historia, 9091. Iriarte, Memorias, 60, admits that La Sernas reorganization
resulted in massive desertions.
59. The metropolitan merchants in Lima were echoing the consulado of Cdiz: Informe del
consulado [de Cdiz] al Ministerio de Hacienda, 22 Aug. 1817, agi-Consulados, leg. 81. On the
hard-line bias of the consulado of Cdiz, see Costeloe, Response to Revolution, 13, 5657, 61, 128.
See also Apoderados del Comercio de Cdiz to Sres. Prior y Consules, consulado de Lima, 25
June 1816, Informes y consultas expedidas por el Real Tribunal del Consulado desde 9 de enero de
1816 hasta 2 de abril de 1818, agnp-Hacienda colonial, leg. 1227. For names of merchants
interested in the Panama trade, see the petition of a group of merchants, 9 Apr. 1817, agnp-
Consulado, leg. 4; Informe del consulado, 23 Apr. 1817, and Consulado to Crown, 3 May 1817,
here from the peninsula.
60
Between 1818 and 1821, the consulados official
pronouncements and its correspondence with the viceroy were uniformly
intransigent on the matter of change, especially where direct trade with
foreigners was concerned.
But there was a second powerful faction of consulado merchants who
favored a moderate and more pragmatic approach to the pacification of
Peru, men who, for the most part, were primarily interested in the Pacific
trade. Among them were the factors, investors, and associates of the Fili-
pinas Company, who traded directly to Lima from England and from British
possessions in Asia, sometimes in neutral ships.
61
Prominent, too, among
the moderates were the merchants who traded to ports on the Pacific coast
of South and Central America; Jos de Baqujano y Carrillo, whose family
was one of the most powerful Pacific traders, counted himself one of them.
62
Because many of those merchants traded Peruvian sugar, molasses, and
brandies for Chilean wheat and tallow, they had close ties with landowners,
who in turn dominated Limas cabildo.
63
This faction of the consulado
supported not only direct trade with foreigners (anathema to the Atlantic-
trade merchants) but also negotiations with San Martn after he invaded
Peru in September 1820.
64
The Pacific-trade merchants and the landowners had long been promi-
nent at the viceregal court, and it was this group, together with the officers
of the Peruvian army with whom he had fought in Alto Per, that clustered
60. Acta, Junta general de tribunales, 6 Feb. 1819, agi-Lima, leg. 1550.
61. Informe de mesa on the petition of the Junta de gobierno de la Compaa de Filipinas, 28
June 1817, agi-Filipinas, leg. 994. For a summary of the companys business in Lima, including its
direct trade between Callao and Asia, see Exposicin de la Junta de Gobierno de la Real Cia. de
Filipinas, 10 July 1818, agi-Filipinas, leg. 993. In 1809, during the Napoleonic invasion of Spain, a
director of the Filipinas Company proposed moving the companys headquarters to London:
Informe de mesa, 8 Nov. 1809, agi-Filipinas, leg. 993. The Filipinas Company traded Peruvian
sugar to Asia, and was therefore involved with local producers: Exposicin de la junta de
gobierno de la Real Compaa de Filipinas a la general de 1813, agi-Filipinas, leg. 993.
62. Baqujano y Carrillo, Dictmen . . . sobre la revolucin hispanoamericana, cdip-Tomo 1,
3:490, 500.
63. Metropolitan merchants replaced the traditional hacendados and limeo merchants on the
cabildo in 1813 and 1814, when its members were elected under the provisions of the Constitution
of 1812. For lists of the members of the cabildo constitucional, see agi-Lima, legs. 627, 799.
Martnez Riaza, Prensa doctrinal, 248, quotes a passage from El Peruano Liberal, the cabildos
periodical, of 10 Oct. 1813, opposing direct trade from Peru to foreign ports.
64. El Exmo. Ayuntamiento de Lima acompaa y recomienda una representacin de 72
ciudadanos en que piden se abran negociaciones de paz con el General San Martn, 16 Dec. 1820,
MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 4, q. 10. According to articles published in El Correo Mercantil, Poltico y
Literario, there were royalists in Peru who advocated pacification by negotiation as late as mid-
1822: see Martnez Riaza, Prensa doctrinal, 4950.
around Pezuela. He developed close ties to the criollo residents of Peru
and a profound love for the country in which the greatest moments of my
life have been lived.
65
Revolution seemed to the viceroy to be an alien
import, carried to the viceroyalty from Buenos Aires and Chile, propagated
among Perus ignorant classes by the prevarications of rebel propaganda,
and encouraged by foreign powers (including Spains perfidious allies).
66
As an officer in the Spanish army, he saw no reason not to employ as much
military force as possible against rebel armies and guerrillas. But he was
unwilling to engage in total war; instead, he attempted to develop policies
that would increase the breadth and depth of loyalty to the crown, and
prevent those whose loyalty was weak from joining the rebels.
67
Pezuela was convinced that the art of persuasion could yield positive
results in his effort to prevent Perus independence.
68
He believed, too,
that his strategy had the kings approval. On 20 March 1818, Vasili Golov-
nin, the captain of the Russian warship Kamtchatka and Abadas friend,
delivered a letter from the count of Casa Flores, Spains ambassador in
Rio de Janeiro, announcing that the king had adopted a policy of negotia-
tion and reform to bring about the pacification of America. Pezuela may
also have received a royal order dated 22 April 1818 calling on him to use
political means rather than force in the pacification process, but this royal
order was later alleged to be false.
69
Thanks to his experience in Alto Per,
Pezuela believed that public opinion was easily swayed, and that political
means were therefore useful weapons.
70
Thus, until he was deposed in January
1821, he was determined to wage a war of opinion against insurgents at the
same time that he met them on the field of battle. Both forms of warfare were
necessary, he believed, if Peru were to remain a part of the Spanish empire.
71
65. Pezuela to San Martn, 27 Sept. 1820, MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 5.
66. Pezuela, Memoria militar, 80, 83; Pezuela to Ministro de la Guerra, 13 June 1818, MenP,
Pezuela, Sig. 4, q. 1; Pezuela to Antonio Vacaro, 16 Feb. 1818, MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 4, q. 2; and
Pezuelas rebuke of Jeremy Robinson, in Eugenio Pereira Salas, Jeremas Robinson, agente
norteamericano en Chile, 18181825, Revista Chilena de Historia y Geografa, no. 1 (1937): 219.
67. Pezuela to Secretario de la Guerra, 29 July 1817, MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 4, q. 1.
68. As was Vicente Morales y Durez, Perus leading delegate to Cortes in 181112: Rieu-Millan,
Rasgos distintivos, 509.
69. Conde de Casa Flores to Pezuela, Rio de Janeiro, 30 Nov. 1817, Archivo de San Martn,
5:18081; Ministerio de la guerra, reservado, al Virrey del Per, Madrid, 22 Apr. 1818, and Casa
Irujo to San Carlos, Madrid, 2 June 1819, both in sim-Estado, leg. 8179.
70. Pezuela, Memoria militar, 80, 83.
71. Pezuela to Secretario de la Guerra, 29 July 1817, MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 4, q. 1; Pezuela to La
Serna, 25 Nov. 1818, MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 4, q. 4, and Pezuelas reference to una guerra de opinion
como esta in his letter to La Serna, 28 June 1819, MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 4, q. 6.
Pezuelas willingness to use persuasion, propaganda, and even compro-
mise as part of his pacification effort earned him powerful enemies, who
were convinced that he was not sufficiently aggressive. In September 1820
to the dismay of the peninsular army officers and the merchant hard-liners
the royalists failed to attack San Martns invading army at Pisco, when it
was most vulnerable. La Serna and his officers, devotees of the Napoleonic
doctrine of lightening strikes with overwhelming force against enemy armies,
mistakenly claimed that the viceroy could have destroyed the invading army,
had his troops not been dispersed throughout the viceroyalty instead of
concentrated in Puno, high in the Andes where, they alleged, they could
be deployed anywhere on the southern coast at a moments notice.
72
The
officers criticized Pezuela harshly for allowing the main rebel force to
reembark on 25 October virtually unmolested for Ancon, a seaside town to
the north of Lima, from which it moved inland to Huaura where the new
headquarters was established.
In fact, however, the viceroys hands were tied. On 7 September 1820 no
royalist army of adequate size was in position to attack the invaders as
they were landing on Peruvian soil at Pisco. A later attack would probably
have failed: San Martns army could be moved by ship almost at will and
on very short notice, while the royalists were subjected to long and exhausting
marches through the deserts of coastal Peru.
73
Moreover, Pezuelas efforts
to organize the defense of the viceregal capital had been thwarted by the
consulados reluctance to provide him with funds and by La Sernas refusal
to move contingents of the Army of Alto Per into position to defend the
southern coast.
74
If the viceroy dispatched the only immediately available
72. La Serna to Pezuela, Tupiza, 6 June 1818, MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 8; Valds, Refutacin . . . del
Manifiesto, in Torata, Documentos para la historia, 2:22, 5460, 116, 118; Valds, Exposicin que dirige
al Rey Don Fernando VII el Mariscal de Campo Don Jernimo de Valds sobre las causas que motivaron
la prdida del Per, in Torata, Documentos para la historia, 1:56, 5758; Garca Camba, Memorias,
1:390; Pezuela to Ministro de la Guerra, 11 Sept. 1820, MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 4, q. 10; Pezuela to La
Serna, 1 Nov. 1818, MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 8. See also Rothenberg, Art of Warfare, 130, 147. Puno is
about 450 miles from Pisco as the crow flies; clearly, it would have taken weeks to move an army
stationed there to the site of San Martns landing, by which time he would have been long gone.
Valds also claimed, absurdly, that Pezuela had at his immediate disposal some 23,000 men.
73. Pezuela to Ramrez, 29 Oct. 1820, MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 4, q. 10; Pezuela to Secretario de
Estado y del Despacho de la Guerra, 7 July 1819, MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 4, q. 6; M. N. Vargas,
Historia, 1:12930; Mendiburu, Diccionario, 8:471; Jos Rodrguez Ballesteros, Historia de la
revolucin y guerra de la independencia del Per desde 1818 hasta 1826 y efemrides posteriores, ed.
Guillermo Feli Cruz, 3 vols. (Santiago: Imprenta Cultura, 194649), 1:58889.
74. Pezuela, Memoria de gobierno, 284, 28889, 306, 37172, 553; Acta, Junta general de
tribunales, 4 May 1818, MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 4, q. 1. The correspondence between Pezuela and La
Serna on this point is in MenP, Sig. 8. See also Torrente, Historia de la revolucin, cdip-Tomo 26,
Fig. 5 Le Provincie di Quito, Lima e Plata. Venice: Antonio Zatta e Figli, 1794. Courtesy
Historic Maps Division, Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University
Library (photo: John Blazejewski).
Image Not Available
military forcesLimas garrison, or the recently organized Army of Lima
San Martn could have moved his army by sea to attack and occupy Lima
before the royalist defenders would be able to return from the south.
75
But the viceroy had an additional reason for his conduct: he was in the
midst of organizing an aggressive campaign of another sort, a campaign for
reconciliation based on recognition of the newly reinstated Constitution
of 1812, which included an armistice, amnesty, and a diplomatic mission to
Chile, all in accord with the terms of two public royal orders and a secret
one issued on 11 April 1820.
76
Pezuela declared himself willing to obey the
royal order because the kings paternal aspirations are entirely consonant
with my own, and I am firmly convinced that conciliation, though it might
involve giving up something of our first position, is preferable to the
results of even the most successful war. The conference with San Martn
at Miraflores, which soon followed, proved fruitless, however, because San
Martn refused to negotiate except on the basis of Perus independence
from Spain, and Pezuela, of course, could not agree to that.
77
Pezuela was also busy with an attempt to neutralize a propaganda blitz
by San Martn, who granted the inestimable boon of free trade to the
4:13031; Vargas Ugarte, Historia . . . Emancipacin, 14546, 191; Acta, Junta general, 14 July 1820,
MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 4, q. 10; La Serna to Pezuela, 30 Sept. 1820, MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 4, q. 10;
Estado general de fuerza, 15 July 1820, and Razn que demuestra la fuerza del Ejrcito de
Reserva, 14 Aug. 1820, both in cdip-Tomo 6: Asuntos militares, 3 vols. (Lima: Comisin Nacional
del Sesquicentenario de la Independencia del Per, 1971), vol. 2: El Ejrcito Libertador del Per, ed.
Flix Denegri Luna, 9495; Mariano Felipe Paz Soldn, Historia del Per independiente: Primer
perodo, 18191822 (Lima, 1868; reprint Buenos Aires: Instituto Nacional Sanmartiniano, 1962), 72.
See also Pezuela to La Serna, 13 Mar. 1820, MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 4, q. 8, ordering him to scout out an
appropriate position a few miles to the south of Lima to defend the city from an invasion at Pisco.
75. There may have been an additional factor in the royalists failure to attack: an epidemic
that had the royalist commander . . . confined to his bed by fever at Chincha. The epidemic
quickly spread to the invaders, and caused the evacuation of Pisco: Miller, Memoirs, 1:3078.
Pezuela may have been happy to have the invaders in Pisco instead of sailing north to attack
Lima: Pezuela to Ramrez, 29 Oct. 1820, and Pezuela to Ministro de la Guerra, 12 Nov. 1820,
MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 4, q. 10.
76. Reales rdenes, 11 Mar. and 17 Apr. 1820, MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 11; Antonio Porcel to Viceroy
of Peru, Madrid, 11 Apr. 1820; Pezuela to Ministro de Ultramar, 11 Sept. 1820; Pezuela to Antonio
Mara Bazo, comandante y subdelegado de Caete, 11 Sept. 1820; Pezuela to San Martn, 1 Oct.
1820; Pezuela to Ramrez, 5 Oct. 1820; all in MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 5.
77. Pezuela to Ramrez, 5 Oct. 1820, MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 5; Pezuela to Sr. Secretario de Estado
y del Despacho de Ultramar, 19 Oct. 1820, MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 4, q. 10; Pezuela to Casa Flores, 30
Nov. 1820, quoted in Bartolom Mitre, Historia de San Martn y de la emancipacin sudamericana,
vol. 3 of Obras completas de Bartolom Mitre (Buenos Aires: Guillermo Kraft, 1939), 272. See also
Manifiesto de las sesiones tenidas en el pueblo de Miraflores para las transaciones intentadas con el
General San Martn y documentos presentados por parte de los comisionados en ellas. Se publican de
orden de este gobierno (Lima: Casa de Nios Expsitos, 1820).
provinces of Peru under the immediate protection of the liberating army.
78
When he landed in Pisco, San Martn came equipped with broadsides
addressed to various sectors of Peruvian society, and he lost no time in
seeing to their distribution. Pezuela immediately dispatched copies to pro-
vincial governors and town councils together with his own broadside warning
them against allowing San Martn to gain the upper hand in public opinion.
79
But Pezuelas conduct was characterized as both weak and treasonous by
the hard-line peninsular officers and their civilian allies, not all of whom
were ignorant of the royal order calling for negotiations with the rebels:
the kings appeal to his American subjects to lay down their arms and
negotiate an end to conflict had been published in the Gaceta de Gobierno
just two days before San Martns army disembarked in Pisco.
80
In September 1820, therefore, Pezuela believed that he had no choice
but to rely heavily on the art of persuasion, even though he continued to
issue orderstardily obeyed, if at allto move royalist forces into position
to attack the invaders.
81
By December, after San Martn had evaded every
attempt to engage him in battle, the viceroys frustration with the situa-
tion is clear. In a letter to the Peruvian-born duke of San Carlos, then serving
as Spanish ambassador to London, Pezuela demonstrated an astute under-
standing of San Martns strategy, which made the war of opinion doubly
important. San Martn, he wrote,
has not attempted a general engagement, nor have I been able to
provoke him to battle, because his plan, well-known from the
beginning, has been to subvert the provinces of the interior, gain
support and resources of every kind in the countryside, and devastate
the territory around Lima, besieging the city until it succumbs for
lack of supplies, or to fall upon it when discouragement among
78. Quoted by John T. S. Melzer, Bastion of Commerce in the City of Kings: The Consulado de
Comercio de Lima, 15931887 (Lima: Editorial concytec, 1991), 80 n. 133. See also Hardy to
Croker, 22 Dec. 1820, Graham and Humphreys, Navy and South America, 322. On San Martns
use of propaganda, see Vargas Ugarte, Historia . . . Emancipacin, 170.
79. Pezuela, Memoria de gobierno, 75354. Six different broadsides had been composed and
printed; they were addressed to criollo and peninsular soldiers in the royalist army, to the
inhabitants of Peru, to European Spaniards resident in Peru, to the Peruvian nobility, and to
women. See also Pezuela to Duke of San Carlos, 12 July 1820, sim-Estado, leg. 8223, where he
reports that he had issued a broadside refuting Riva Ageros Manifestacin histrica y poltica,
then being distributed in Peru by Lord Cochrane.
80. El Rey a los habitantes de Ultramar, Gaceta del Gobierno de Lima, 18161821, no. 54 (7 Sept.
1820), 44956, MenP, Sig. 21.
81. Pezuela, Memoria de gobierno, 306, and Pezuelas comment on La Sernas disobedience, 783.
some and the treachery of others have reduced the number of
defenders of the just cause.
82
Although he attempted to use military force when and where appro-
priate, Pezuela believed that his moderation was what most distinguished
him from La Serna and his coterie of peninsular officers new to Peru. He
recorded the fact that he was little pleased with the arrogance of the
troops that have come to this America from the peninsula, and he was
distressed by the persistent allegations of excessive use of force by the royalist
Army of Alto Per, where most of the peninsular officers and troops were
then serving.
83
In fact, La Sernas attempts to establish an autonomous
military regime in Alto Per was an important cause of the quarrel between
the two generals that led eventually to Pezuelas overthrow.
84
Although
viceroys, governors, and captains-general exercised both civil and military
jurisdiction over the territories they governed, generals of armies operating
in those territories had traditionally been excluded from civil government.
Most important, they had no power to tax the population or to requisition
supplies; civil authoritiesand viceroys as commanding generalswere
responsible for those functions.
85
But Napoleons armies were usually expected
to live off the land, seizing whatever they needed instead of purchasing it,
and confiscating large sums of money; the peninsular officers who fought
him in Spain attempted to adopt this modus operandi in Peru.
86
Soon
after La Serna took command of the Army of Alto Per, the viceroy dis-
covered that harsh new war taxes were being levied on the civilian popu-
lation by a general who believed that in all countries in rebellion against
82. Pezuela to Exmo. Sor. Embajador de S.M.C. en la Corte de Londres, 10 Dec. 1820, sim-
Estado, leg. 8298; Vicua Mackenna, Revolucin de la independencia, 17576 n. 6. On San Martns
policy of using persuasion rather than military force, see Instrucciones reservadssimas que deben
reglar la conducta de don Jos Fernndez Paredes y don Jos Garca en el desempeo de su
comisin, 1 Jan. 1819, Archivo de San Martn, 7:16263.
83. Pezuela, Memoria de gobierno, 188, 490. For a case that particularly disturbed Pezuela, see
Representacin del cura de Sicasica, D. Flores, quejndose sobre la conducta del Teniente
Coronel Seoane (who had treated him roughly and also sacked his church), 17 Nov. 1819, MenP,
Pezuela, Sig. 4, q. 7.
84. La Sernas attitude reflected the struggles between generals and civilian authorities during
Spains war against Napoleon: Cepeda Gmez, El ejrcito destinado a Ultramar, 272; Blanco
Valds, Rey, Cortes y fuerza armada, 7079, 25970, 294; Pintos Vieites, Poltica de Fernando VII,
1923. And compare the Mexican experience, where the royalist army overwhelmed local political
authority: Christon L. Archer, La militarizacin de la poltica mexicana: El papel del ejrcito,
18151821, in Keuthe and Marchena, Soldados del Rey, 25577.
85. Pezuela to Ricafort, 2 Nov. 1820, MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 4, q. 10.
86. Rothenberg, Art of Warfare, 23, 12930, 139; Julio Albi, Banderas olvidadas: El ejrcito realista
en Amrica (Madrid: Ediciones Cultura Hispnica, 1990), 38586.
their king . . . a unified command is indispensable, and . . . properly falls
to the commanding general of the army, who had the right and duty to
assume political power as well. If the commanding general is left with
nothing but military jurisdiction, La Serna wrote in response to Pezuelas
rebuke, America will be lost. He felt perfectly justified in adopting an
imperious tone toward the provincial governors because forbearance and
moderation led only to loss of respect for authority. He saw no reason to
refrain from threatening the governors with criminal proceedings if they
failed to supply him not only with the funds he demanded on the date
stipulated but also with large new contingents of recruits for the army.
And he advocated the use of force where necessary to extract those
resources from the civilian population.
87
Pezuela, who had to placate the
governors whose outraged protests had reached the viceregal palace, criticized
La Sernas extraordinarily harsh measures. I am convinced, he wrote, that
terrible threats are not the best means of mobilizing the support of persons
of honor and delicacy.
88
After his overthrow, Pezuela wrote of La Serna
and his officers that without doubt they wanted to extract with bayonets
the last remnants of private property; but . . . this method, always repug-
nant to my heart, would not have achieved what I accomplished with
exhortation and moderate pressures.
89
But La Serna refused to acknowledge that, unlike the rich countryside
that had supported Napoleons army in Italy, the mountainous Peruvian
hinterland was poor and sparsely occupied, or that civilian authorities
might have found it impossible to obey his orders.
90
He resented the fact
that they complained to the viceroy. They always look for excuses, he
wrote to Pezuela, and they paint a picture, if they want to or if it is con-
venient, of the miserable condition of the population, in order to escape
such contributions . . . and finally it is a novelty for me that a subordinate
authority dares to complain of the orders given him just because they are
87. La Serna to Pezuela, Tupiza, 19 Dec. 1817, 19 Feb. 1818, and 20 Sept. 1818, MenP, Pezuela,
Sig. 8; Maritegui, Anotaciones, 5657. See also the account by R.M. of the character of La
Sernas government in Lima immediately following Pezuelas overthrow, in cdip-Tomo 26,
2:48586. For a list of the money and supplies demanded by La Serna of the provincial
intendants, see La Serna to Pezuela, Potos, 8 Oct. 1817, MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 4, q. 8.
88. La Serna, Circular a los intendentes de las provincias, 10 Sept. 1816, MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 4,
q. 1; Pezuela to La Serna, 9 Nov. 1817, MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 8. The complaints of provincial
authorities (variously identified as gobernadores, intendentes, presidentes, and cabildos) of Potos,
Puno, Cuzco, Arequipa, and Huamanga are in MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 8.
89. Pezuela, Manifiesto, 286.
90. See the correspondence exchanged by the count of Casa Real de Moneda, governor of
Potos, and La Serna, during November 1817, in MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 8.
issued in more or less strong terms.
91
On this point, the viceroy and the
general disagreed throughout the remaining years of Pezuelas tenure as
viceroy. La Serna persisted in his effort to impose military rule wherever
he found himself. As late as 14 December 1820, the Junta de generales that
had been established at La Sernas insistence attempted to name a Tribunal
militar de vigilancia to oversee public tranquility in Lima. Pezuela refused
to allow it because this is one of the powers of the cabildo. Instead, he
called the two alcaldes (mayors) to the palace and suggested that they bring
the matter of public order to the attention of the cabildo so that the civilian
authorities themselves could take measures to increase the citys security.
92
Pezuelas attitude toward La Sernas hard-line policy was consistent with
the opinions he expressed in his correspondence with other men. Typical
was the letter to the crown written soon after San Martins invasion, in
which he insisted that, although I am well prepared to repel [the rebels]
aggression, before doing so I will court them with the olive branch, for its
triumphs will always be for me much more glorious than the laurels of
military victories, forever stained with our brothers blood.
93
Later, in his
Manifiesto, Pezuela described the war in Peru as one in which persuasion
accomplishes more than force.
94
Therefore he had been willing to enter into
negotiations with San Martn as called for by the royal order of 11 April
1820, to promote criollos, both military and civilian, to positions of power
and responsibility, and to tread carefully when it came to imposing new
taxes and other burdens in support of the war effort.
95
But because he had
not adopted a system of oppression and bloodshed, he complained, his
enemies accused him of lack of energy and too much tolerance toward
criollos of doubtful loyalty to the crown.
96
91. La Serna to Pezuela, Tupiza, 19 Feb. 1818, MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 8. La Serna went so far as to sue
Juan Bautista Lavalle, the intendant of Arequipa, for criticizing him and his orders: Expediente
formado con motivo de haberse dado por ofendido el Sr. General en Gefe del Exrcito del Alto
Per D. Jos de La Serna, y querer exigir la correspondiente satisfaccin de S.M. por algunas
expresiones que emple el Sr. Gobernador Intendente de Arequipa, 1818, MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 8.
93. Pezuela to Secretario de Estado y del Despacho de la Gobernacin de Ultramar, 11 Sept.
1820, agi-Indif. gen., leg. 313. This letter was written in code only a few minutes before the
viceroy learned that San Martns army had landed in Pisco: Pezuela to Ultramar, 19 Oct. 1820,
95. Pezuela to Ramrez, 5 Oct. 1820, and Pezuela to Secretario de Estado y de la Gobernacin
de Ultramar, 19 Oct. 1820, both in agi-Indif. gen., leg. 313; Real orden, 11 Apr. 1820, cdip-Tomo 6:
Asuntos militares, 3:26; Pezuela to Secretario de Estado y del Despacho de Hacienda, 9 July 1819,
96. Pezuela, Manifiesto, 291; Officers pronunciamiento, cdip-Tomo 26, 3:353; Valds, Refutacin
. . . del Manifiesto, in Torata, Documentos para la historia, 2:20.
The dispute between hard-liners and moderates over the means of paci-
fying Peru was complicated by an equally bitter dispute between liberals
and absolutists that, beginning in October 1817, San Martn attempted
to exploit.
97
Since the debates of 1810 in the Spanish Cortes, liberals and
absolutists on both sides of the Atlantic had quarreled over the Constitu-
tions substance and especially its application to colonial governance. The
debates centered on the question of whether Spains American possessions
were colonies or an integral part of the monarchy.
98
Liberals themselves
were divided, with some supporting the integrationist point of view and
others believing in a strict colonial policy by which the American terri-
tories would be narrowly dependent on Spain.
99
Even Gaspar Rico, an
advocate of the integrationist point of view in 181012 and in 1821, became
convinced that America should not be ruled by the Constitution of 1812.
In this, his position was consistent with the one adopted by liberal merchants
matriculated in the consulado of Cdiz, who opposed equality between
Spain and her American possessions.
100
Many of the royalist hard-liners, including La Serna, Valds, Seoane,
Canterac, and Garca Camba, were devoted to the party that had written and
promulgated the Constitution of 1812.
101
Somenotably La Serna, Valds,
97. Instrucciones reservadssimas que observar cautelosamente el sargento mayor don
Domingo Torres en la misin a Lima, 27 Oct. 1817, Archivo de San Martn, 7:15; Instrucciones
reservadssimas que deben reglar la conducta de don Jos Fernndez Paredes y don Jos Garca en
el desempeo de su comisin, 1 Jan. 1819, Archivo de San Martn, 7:163; Enrique de Ganda, San
Martn, su pensamiento poltico (Buenos Aires: Ediciones Pleamar, 1964), 80. Although both
liberals and absolutists are referred to in the nineteenth-century literature as parties, they had
few of the institutional attributes of political parties as we understand them today. Instead, they
resembled more closely what we would call factions.
98. Anna, Spain and the Breakdown of the Imperial Ethos, 25472. For a defense of the
integrationist point of view by an absolutist, see Luis de Ons to Jos Pizarro, no. 8, Washington,
14 Jan. 1818, and no. 116, Washington, July 1818, in ahn-Estado, leg. 5643. Ons and Pezuela
corresponded frequently during the free-trade controversy in Peru.
99. Alberto Derozier, ed., Escritos polticos espaoles, 17891854 (Madrid: Turner, 1975?), 43. See
also the discussion of the issue in Anna, Spain and the Loss of America, 61, 62, 72, 73, 7679, and
113, where Anna points out that the Spanish liberals were no less imperialists than the absolutists
who made up the Old Regime. On the divisions between moderate and radical liberals in Spain,
see Vicente Llorens Castillo, Liberales y romnticos: Una emigracin en Inglaterra, 18231834
(Mxico: Colegio de Mxico, 1954), 7475.
100. Informe del Consulado [de Cdiz] al Ministerio de Hacienda, 22 Aug. 1817, agi-
Consulados, leg. 81; Anna, Loss of America, 81, 82; Martnez Riaza, Prensa doctrinal, 30, 17475,
27881. See also the royalist periodical El Depositario, published by Rico from 22 February 1821 to
1 May 1825, and especially Ricos discussion of independent Perus constitution in La Depositaria
(Ricos burlesque name for several issues of El Depositario), no. 78, Cuzco, 28 Jan. 1823.
101. Iriarte, Memorias, 8, 9; Pezuela, Memoria de gobierno, 764; Vicua Mackenna, Revolucin
de la independencia, 63, 10910. Note the link between the radical liberals of 182023,
characterized as military men and men of action, and the Masons: Llorens Castillo, Liberales y
and Seoanewere also Freemasons. During the war against Napoleon in
Spain, a great many members of the Spanish officer corps, especially those
like La Serna who were taken prisoner by the French, joined Masonic lodges.
In 1817, the vicar of the Army of Alto Per reported them to the Inquisi-
tion at Lima, which opened an investigation and proposed taking action
against them.
102
But the shocking fact that so many of the key officers of
the army in Peru were Masons meant that the Inquisition could not be left
to deal with the matter on its own. Pezuela, who believed that the Masons
were a criminal association, moved swiftly to protect the officers, insisting
that he would take whatever steps were necessary to prevent the lodges
growth.
103
The viceroys authority to remove the matter from the Inquisi-
tions jurisdiction was clear to him: I am the representative [of the king]
invested with the fullness of his power in this part of the Monarchy, he
wrote. My administration has its mysteries just as the Holy Office does,
and therefore the Inquisition could not act without consulting the viceroy,
or without his approval. Reasons of state trumped religion at a time when
the colonial regime was fighting armed insurgents.
The liberal Masons sent to Peru were essential to the defense of the
viceroyalty, but the crown had yet another reason for ordering them to the
other side of the world. At the end of the war, Fernando VII had to
romnticos, 7475. See also M. N. Vargas, Historia, 1:89, where he describes the officers of the
army: The Americans . . . were absolutists, and the pure Spaniards, liberals. In his Las guerras
de los absolutistas y liberales in Amrica, Revista de Indias 14 (1954): 408, 41820, Ganda states
flatly that Viceroy La Serna was the chief representative of Spanish constitutionalism, and
suggests that he may have considered the possibility of establishing a liberal empire in Peru,
independent of Spain. See also Alberto Wagner de Reyna, Ocho aos de La Serna en el Per,
Quinto Centenario 8 (1985): 5657; MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 15: Cuaderno sobre Olaeta, where the
army led by La Serna and Valds is called el ejrcito liberal. At least two regiments of Spanish
troops, the Burgos and the Lancers, were believed to be composed of liberals: Informe que el
teniente coronel Jos Bernldez Polledo (prisionero en Lima) entreg al mayor Domingo Torres
durante su residencia en dicha ciudad, desempeando su comisin para el canje de prisioneros,
18 Dec. 1817, Archivo de San Martn, 7:1720. One scholar questions whether La Serna and the
other peninsular officers were liberals, but his arguments are not convincing: see Brian R.
Hamnett, Revolucin y contrarrevolucin en Mxico y en el Per (Mexico: Fondo de Cultura
Econmica, 1978), 32732.
102. Testimonio del expediente seguido por resultas del parte del vicario del exrcito del Alto
Per a este tribunal acerca de los oficiales de dicho exrcito comprehendidos en la logia de
francomasones, 24 Mar. 1817 to 2 May 1818, ahn-Inquisicin, leg. 1654, cuaderno 1; Cepeda
Gmez, El ejrcito destinado a Ultramar, 27374; Iriarte, Memorias, 9; Valds, Refutacin . . . del
Manifiesto, in Torata, Documentos para la historia, 2:110: La Serna fell prisoner precisely in the
second siege of Zaragoza. La Serna spent four years in a French prisoner-of-war camp:
Diccionario de Historia de Espaa, 2, 2:646.
103. Pezuela to Seor inquisidor decano Dr. Don Pedro Zalduegui, 16 Feb. 1818, ahn-
Inquisicin, leg. 1654, cuaderno 1.
contend with a surplus of officers, men who had earned their promotions
in battles against Napoleon and who no longer had common soldiers to com-
mand. He could neither employ them nor pay them; hence, as the colonial
insurrections gained momentum, many of them were assigned to fight
in America, where colonial exchequers were expected to support them.
104
There were more than a few such military liberals among the men who
went to Peru after 1814. As the anonymous author of the Exposition by a
Peruvian to Viceroy La Serna put it, Have we not seen among the new
officers who have come here many Constitutionalists, who . . . formed secret
societies to mourn the loss of the Constitution?
105
At least two regiments
of Spanish troops were said to be liberals.
106
With the possible exception
of Manuel de Abreu, the naval officer sent to Peru in 1820 by the liberal
Spanish government to negotiate an end to hostilities, La Sernas contem-
poraries in Peruand in Buenos Airesbelieved that he and his closest
associates were liberals.
107
Abreu, who spent time with San Martn in
Huaura before presenting his credentials to the viceroy, came to admire the
insurgents more than he did La Serna, who by then had ousted Pezuela from
office.
108
San Martn and his men assured me, he wrote in November 1821,
that in Lima I would become convinced that the military authorities, in
violation of the laws, had overthrown the regime simply because of a faction
that did not like [the Constitution] and did not have Constitutional ideas,
109
that is, they were unwilling to consider the Constitutional regimes proposal
104. Clearly, Spain was exporting its financial problems to America. Cepeda Gmez, El
ejrcito destinado a Ultramar, 27780. The officers ambition was difficult to fulfill: Blanco
Valds, Rey, Cortes y fuerza armada, 67, where he points out that, following the Napoleonic war,
there were some 11,000 to 12,000 officers in the Spanish army who could not continue their
military careers. At the end of the eighteenth century, there were 435 generals; their number had
grown to 835 by 1814.
105. Exposicin que hace un peruano al Virrey La Serna, cdip-Tomo 13, 2:196; Iriarte,
Memorias, 34, 89; M. N. Vargas, Historia, 1:89; Wagner de Reyna, Ocho aos de La Serna, 5657.
106. Informe que el teniente coronel Jos Bernldez Polledo . . . entreg al mayor Domingo
Torres, 18 Dec. 1817, Archivo de San Martn, 7:17, 20; Garca Camba, Memorias, 1:369.
107. See, for example, notes in Pezuelas hand dated 22 Feb. 1821, in MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 15;
Iriarte, Memorias, 9; Ganda, San Martn, 91.
108. Miller, Memoirs, 1:300301. Compare the tone of the letters exchanged between La Serna
and Abreu, and San Martn and Abreu, in agi-Lima, leg. 800. Abreu arrived at San Martns
headquarters on 25 Mar. 1821. Garca Camba, Memorias, 1:512; Paz Soldn, Historia . . . 18191822,
16263. La Serna, for his part, disliked Abreu, who criticized the new viceroy for relying too heavily
on a military solution to Perus rebellion: La Serna to Abreu, 2 Nov. 1821, agi-Lima, leg. 800.
109. Abreu to Secretario de Estado y de la Gobernacin de Ultramar, 6 Nov. 1821, agi-Lima,
leg. 800; Miller, Memoirs, 1:300301. Abreu arrived in Huaura on 25 Mar. 1821 and left for Lima
on the 29th: Mariano de Veda y Mitre, La vida de Monteagudo (Buenos Aires: G. Kraft, [1950]),
3638.
for what seemed to them a dishonorable armistice agreement. San Martn
was also telling Abreu that La Serna, who insisted that only a military
regime was appropriate in rebellious provinces, was not going to respect
governance by a cabildo or provincial council elected by local residents, as
called for by the Constitution, nor tolerate meddling by a naval officer.
110
The irony of La Sernas position was noticed by the author of the
Exposition by a Peruvian to Viceroy La Serna, who wrote that while
the Spaniards, at a cost of thousands of sacrifices and lives, establish in the
peninsula a charter that has cost so much blood and is cherished as the
shield of their liberty, in America, ah! in America for these same Spaniards
it is the most execrable of offspring.
111
This was not an unusual position
to hold. As Luis Alayza y Paz Soldn expressed the opinion of some of La
Sernas contemporaries, It is said that Spanish liberalism had limits: the
frontiers of Spain.
112
Thus reluctance to apply the Constitution of 1812
in Peru does not imply that La Serna and his coterie were not themselves
liberals. In fact, as long as he remained in Peru, La Sernas closest asso-
ciates, including Gaspar Rico, were avowed liberals, and in 1821 he chose
the short-lived liberal periodical El Triunfo de la Nacin as the vehicle in
which to publish his reasons for usurping Pezuelas office.
113
Once the liberal
government in Spain had been overthrown in December 1823, however,
La Serna attempted to persuade the restored absolutists that he had not
been contaminated by liberalism. On 11 March 1824, he decreed formally
that the Constitution of 1812 was no longer in force in Peru, and in a letter
to the minister of grace and justice, dated 15 March 1824, he asserted that
he had abolished the Constitutional system in every location that fell
under his control during the campaign of 1823
114
as would be expected
of a man who believed that rebellious provinces should be ruled by mili-
tary force alone.
110. Conde de Torata, Consideraciones sobre la Historia de la Expedicin Libertadora del Per de
D. Gonzlo Bulnes, in Torata, Documentos para la historia, 3:34253; La Serna to Abreu, no. 33,
Huancayo, 2 Nov. 1821, agi-Lima, leg. 800.
111. Exposicin que hace un peruano al Virrey La Serna, cdip-Tomo 13, 2:196.
112. Alayza Paz Soldn, Constitucin de Cdiz, 27. See also the opinion that Spanish
liberalism had betrayed Americans, expressed in El Correo Mercantil, Poltico y Literario, a
periodical published in independent Lima after Dec. 1821, as discussed by Martnez Riaza, Prensa
doctrinal, 49; and Maritegui (who worked for Peruvian independence), Anotaciones, 65: For
America, the absolutists are a lesser evil than the liberals.
113. Martnez Riaza, Prensa doctrinal, 42. El Triunfo de la Nacin was published from 13
February to 29 June 1821.
114. Anna, Fall of the Royal Government, 228.
With the overthrow of the Spanish liberal regime in December 1823, it
became particularly important for formerly liberal army officers to disavow
their earlier political convictions. Some of them may have had a sincere
change of heart: the liberal Cortes of 182023 had carried forward the
program of its predecessor to establish civilian command over the military.
It was clear, too, that a career would not advance if liberal sympathies could
be proven: after the end of the second liberal regime in 1823, Pezuela himself,
never a liberal, was briefly denied appointment and a ttulo de Castilla
because of a sons involvement with the liberal cause in 1815. (Curiously,
Pezuelas brother Ignacio was able to serve both as secretary to the Cortes
in Cdiz and, after the restoration, as Fernando VIIs minister of grace
and justice.) And there was good reason for La Serna to fear being caught
up in the vigorous persecution of liberal army officers being meted out by
Fernando VII.
115
It is therefore highly unlikely that Valds or Garca Camba,
who wrote memoirs after 1823, would mention, let alone emphasize, ties to
the liberals. On the contrary, Valds, who wrote a report to the crown in
July 1827 in which he blamed the royalist loss of Peru on the treachery of
the absolutist General Pedro Antonio de Olaeta, took pains to distance
himself from his liberal past, as did La Serna, who in 1824 insisted that he
had only with the greatest reluctance allowed the Constitution to be
applied in the territories he commanded.
116
Nevertheless, his reputation and
that of his fellow-officers as liberals was not entirely erased, and may have
been a factor in the chilly reception given them by the court when they
returned to Spain after their defeat at Ayacucho.
117
115. Hamnett, Revolucin y contrarrevolucin, 332; Marqus de Torre Tagle to Ignacio de la
Pezuela, Madrid, 22 Sept. 1816 and 20 Feb. 1817, amoz; Martn de Garay to Secretario del
Despacho de Gracia y Justicia, Palacio, 9 June 1817, agi-Lima, leg. 603; Pedro Pegenaute,
Represin poltica en el reinado de Fernando VII: Las comisiones militares, 18241825 (Pamplona:
Universidad de Navarra, 1974), esp. 37, 83, and 85 where the author reports that in 182425, the
comisiones militares brought charges against 1,094 men.
116. Garca Camba, Memorias; Valds, Refutacin . . . del Manifiesto, in Torata, Documentos
para la historia, 2:12627; and the edict issued by La Serna in Cuzco, 11 Mar. 1824, cdip-Tomo 22:
Documentacin oficial espaola, vol. 3: Gobierno virreinal del Cuzco, 26669, 34970. Note, too, that
Valds son, Mariano Torata, Count of Torata, who collected and edited documents on Perus
independence that were published in 189496, took pains to deny that his father had been a
Mason, or anything of the kind: see his Prlogo to Valds Exposicin, in Torata, Documentos
para la historia, 1:7 and 13, the continuation of note 2 that begins on p. 10.
117. Torata, Prlogo, Valds, Exposicin, in Torata, Documentos para la historia, 1:8, where he
reports that Valds and the other officers who had served in Peru were banished from the court;
Torata, however, did not suggest that these men were liberals, hinting only that their bad
treatment derived from the crowns anger at their unsuccessful efforts to preserve Spains rule
in Peru.
Joaqun de la Pezuela, by contrast, was an absolutist, a stern Aragonese
artillery officer who believed firmly in authority, hierarchy, and the virtue
of obedienceand he owed his appointment to the absolutist government of
181420 in Madrid.
118
Unlike Abascal, Pezuela apparently left no written
record of well-reasoned opposition to any of the articles of the Constitu-
tion of 1812 and the changes they wrought in colonial governance.
119
He
nevertheless made plain his attitude toward liberal politicians, as, for example,
on 2 May 1820, when news arrived in Lima of the liberal-led mutiny in the
army about to embark from Cdiz to put down rebellion in Argentina. He
believed not only that the army had been subverted by agents of Chile
and Buenos Aires, but also that the liberal revolutionaries were inspired
merely by their desire to occupy lucrative positions at court.
120
He knew
about the failed revolt of General Renovales in Barcelona and the April
1817 conspiracy of the liberal generals, Luis de Lacy and Francisco Milans
del Bosch, to overthrow the government in Madrid. He had been warned
that at least one faction of liberalsthose who had been exiled to London
after 1814were preparing an expedition to attack Spanish possessions in
America.
121
In his Memoria de gobierno, he recorded an instance of a failed
rebellion in the royalist army stationed in Arequipa that appeared to him
to link liberals with insurgents.
122
It is little wonder, then, that he hated
the constitucionales, even though they were of his own persuasion, royalists
who sought to prevent Perus independence from Spain.
123
Thus, in September 1820, Pezuela was evidently pleased that the popula-
tion of Lima demonstrated no support for the reinstated Constitution. When
he read aloud the royal order reestablishing the Constitution in Limas main
plaza, not a single cheer was heard until the judge Osma threw a handful
118. The real orden appointing Pezuela interim viceroy of Peru was dated 13 Oct. 1815: Hoja de
servicios, Joaqun de la Pezuela, ihcm, Expedientes personales.
119. Contrast Abascals correspondence, 181014, in agi-Lima, leg. 1016.
120. Pezuela, Memoria de gobierno, 716, 718; Rodrguez Casado and Lohmann Villena,
Prlogo, Pezuela, Memoria de gobierno, xviii.
121. San Carlos to Pezuela, London, 7 Feb. 1818, Archivo de San Martn, 5:17374; Pezuela,
Memoria de gobierno, 14950, 161. The Spanish ambassador in London had informed him that the
ships being readied to sail for America under the command of General Renovales, Admiral
Brown, and Lord Cochrane were carrying a force composed of Spanish officers exiled because
they were liberals: San Carlos to Viceroy of Peru, London, 14 Jan. and 7 Feb. 1818, sim-Estado,
leg. 8223. Esdaile, Spanish Army, 19798, remarks the spread of liberalism in the officers corps
prior to the 1820 pronunciamiento. See also Llorens Castillo, Liberales y romnticos, 10; Cepeda
Gmez, El ejrcito destinado a Ultramar.
123. Denegri Luna, Prlogo to Pezuelas Memoria militar, 10. On Pezuelas absolutism, see
Torrente, Historia de la revolucin, cdip-Tomo 26, 4:153.
of silver to a crowd of Negroes and Zambos who were following the
procession.
124
But once the Constitution had been reinstated, Pezuela was
faced with an impossible dilemma: obedience to the law deprived him of the
authority he believed he needed in order to prevent independence, while
failing to obey it deprived him of legitimacy as viceroy, a point that Gaspar
Rico was quick to seize upon.
The foundation of Ricos devotion to liberalism was the rule of law and
a limited monarchy, which he contrasted with a despotism equated with
the capricious use of political power by king, ministers, and bureaucrats.
As he had written in El Peruano in 1812, In a well-constituted state, man
recognizes nothing superior to the law, and because it is the expression of
his own will, it conforms then to the general law of association and he obeys
nothing other than his own rule. If, in Ricos opinion, those in authority
failed to obey the law, then their rule became tyranny.
125
Ricos faith in the possibility of putting things to rights by restoring
obedience to law (as he interpreted it) characterized his thought from his
first arrival in Peru in 1793 until the end of the second Constitutional regime
in 1823. Writing in 1821, for example, he acknowledged that the spirit of
sedition and independence rules the territory we tread, but declared that
it arises . . . from the sense of having been oppressed, and from the lack
of hope that oppression will cease.
126
For Rico, oppression was limited to
the purely political behavior of those in authority. He had no sense of the
economic oppression that was so large a part of the colonials grievances,
and even denied the validity of the perennial complaints that criollos were
not promoted in sufficient numbers to the best posts in the bureaucracy.
127
124. Pezuela, Memoria de gobierno, 75859. Nevertheless, the Gaceta del Gobierno de Lima, 23
Sept. 1820, reported that the proclamation was greeted enthusiastically; in the copy of the Gaceta
preserved in MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 21, q. 9, there is a marginal note in Pezuelas hand: Nadie hizo
tales manifestas. See also an eyewitness account by R.M. in cdip-Tomo 26, 2:47677, which
confirms the absence of enthusiasm. The revolt that inaugurated the second Constitutional
period (182023) was led by Rafael Riego, an officer in the Ejrcito de la Isla that had been
ordered to sail for America: Cepeda Gmez, El ejrcito destinado a Ultramar, 209301.
125. El Peruano, 24 Apr. 1812, cdip-Tomo 23, 3:3034. Martnez Riaza, Prensa doctrinal, 144,
characterizes this passage as a particularly illuminating description of the liberal concept of law.
See also the issues of El Peruano for 3 Dec. 1811, 5 and 9 June 1812.
126. Martnez Riaza, Prensa doctrinal, 313, citing El Depositario 8 (Lima, 7 Mar. 1821).
127. Rico to San Martn, 6 June 1821, agi-Lima, leg. 800; Martnez Riaza, Prensa doctrinal,
88, 17374; Francisco Salazar Carrillo de Crdoba to Secretario de Estado y del Despacho
Universal de Indias, Madrid, 17 Aug. 1814, agi-Lima, leg. 1018-B; Informes de ex-diputados a
Cortes, Madrid, 17 Nov. 1814, agi-Lima, leg. 613; Manuel Lorenzo de Vidaurre, Memoria sobre
la pacificacin de la Amrica meridional, cdip-Tomo 1, 5:277; El Depositario 64 (Cuzco, 10 Apr.
1822). See also Ricos earlier defense of Manuel Villalta, who had published complaints about
In both El Peruano and the early issues of El Depositario, the royalist
newspapers he contributed to or published in 181112 and from 1821 to 1824,
Rico proclaimed the virtues of the liberal Constitution and insisted that,
once its provisions were put into effect, the grievances of Americans would
evaporate into thin air.
128
Only capricious absolutist viceroys who refused
to obey the lawand obstinate revolutionaries in the service of foreign
merchantsstood in the way of pacification.
RELATIONS WITH FOREIGNERS IN PERU
Throughout the revolutionary period from 1808 to 1824, a second element
of Ricos thought and activity remained constant: his opposition to all
direct commercial contact between foreigners, especially the British, and the
residents of Spains possessions in South America. For much of Ricos adult
life, Spain had been at war with England, and Rico could see nothing but
disaster resulting from any colonial contact with the enemy. In El Peruano
Extraordinario of 11 December 1811, he had asserted that direct colonial
trade with foreigners would make Spanish America dependent on the
them instead of on Spain.
129
His opinion agreed with the official posi-
tion of the consulado, which in October 1818 declared that it is impossi-
ble to permit free trade without the entire Spanish edifice falling to
absolute ruin, and, in 1819, insisted that with free trade, the ties of these
dominions with the Metropolis are broken. . . . If it is allowed, the
Americas disappear.
130
Like many of his contemporaries, Rico believed that there was a clear
link between the increase in illegal direct trade and the progress of rebellion
in America. In El Depositario, he blamed the revolutions for independence
not on Spains refusal to redress American grievances, but on the English,
the greedy, bloodthirsty English, who, far from acting out of political
Spanish appointment policies that discriminated against Americans, in El Peruano, no. 14 (22
Oct. 1811), cdip-Tomo 23, 2:12129, where Rico discusses not the merits of Villaltas case, but the
action of the Junta de censura in condemning publication of his complaints.
128. Martnez Riaza, Prensa doctrinal, 43. See also Martnez Riazas discussion (40) of a little-
known periodical, El Espaol Libre, published in Cdiz ca. Mar. 1813January 1814 (when Rico
was in Cdiz) and republished in Lima; its themes and rhetoric are remarkably similar to those
that preoccupied Rico throughout his career as a publicist in Peru.
129. El Peruano Extraordinario 29 (11 Dec. 1811), cdip-Tomo 23, 2:27879.
130. Acta del Consulado de Lima, 14 Oct. 1818, agnp-Consulado, leg. 24; Testimony of the
consulados representatives before the Junta general de tribunales, 5 Feb. 1819, agi-Lima, leg.
1550.
idealism, simply wanted to make a profit on their commercial ventures.
131
In 1820, when the Constitution of 1812 was again in force, when all Spanish
territories are Constitutionally free, he wrote, San Martn and his com-
rades continue the revolution and expand it, either to enslave the people
of Peru or to increase commerce with foreigners.
132
But if they succeeded,
they would impose a new and less agreeable dependence on Peru. In a play
on the Spanish words for cloth (trapos) and troops (tropas), he declaimed:
Either the English will sack us with cloth, or San Martn will sack us
with troops.
133
It is at this point that the logic of Ricos belief in a mili-
tary solution to the problem of pacification becomes most evident: with the
political problem solved by Constitutional rule, there could be no honor-
able reason to continue the revolution and therefore the rebels would have
to be subdued by force; negotiation and compromise were inappropriate.
I am convinced, he wrote shortly after Pezuelas overthrow, that prompt
and successful military action is the only means of putting down the
rebellion. Pezuela, in his opinion, had been criminally unwilling to attack
San Martn for reasons that Ricoand the peninsular officers who over-
threw the viceroybelieved to be either insubstantial or corrupt.
134
Gaspar Ricos position on the best means of pacifying Spains rebellious
American colonies differed radically from that of his old rival and enemy,
Pedro de Abada. After Ricos return to Lima in 1818, conflict between the
two men escalated from the personal to the political, and became focused
on the question of direct trade with foreigners. Unlike Rico, Abada and
131. El Depositario 31 (24 May 1821), quoted by Martnez Riaza, Prensa doctrinal, 314;
Martnez Riazas discussion of this issue, 17980, and compare the Representacin hecha a S.M.
. . . por el Real Consulado y Diputacin de Comercio de esta Plaza [Cdiz], 23 Dec. 1817, agi-
Consulados, leg. 81; and Informe de la junta de diputados consulares, 22 Aug. 1817, agi-
Consulados, leg. 62, where the merchants of Cdiz asserted that there was a close relationship
between revolution and direct trade with foreigners, and where they stated flatly that the
revolution of America is the work of the heinous policy of a few foreign governments and of
private adventurers, and not of the countrys natives. See also the assertion that the foreigners
who were supposedly helping the revolutionaries were in reality interested only in enriching
themselves at the expense of the new nations: La Comisin de Reemplazos representa a la Regencia
del Reino, el estado de insurreccin en que se hallan algunas provincias de Ultramar . . . (Cdiz:
Imprenta de la Junta de Provincia, en la Casa de Misericordia, 1814), 1921.
132. Rico printed some of his representations to the crown in El Depositario, no. 8 (7 Mar.
1821) and no. 22 (13 Apr. 1821): Martnez Riaza, Prensa doctrinal, 313, 314.
133. Pueblo ilustrado, hombres justos, la alternativa que nos presentan es demasiado visible e
insolente: o nos saquean los ingleses con los trapos, o nos saquea San Martn con sus tropas.
Quoted by Martnez Riaza, Prensa doctrinal, 313, from El Depositario no. 17 (Mar. 1821), in turn
quoted from an article that appeared in El Censor Econmico, no. 4.
134. Martnez Riaza, Prensa doctrinal, 313 citing El Depositario 8 (7 Mar. 1821); Depositario 64
(10 Apr. 1822); Valds, Refutacin . . . del Manifiesto, in Torata, Documentos para la historia, 2:5560.
other agents of the Filipinas Company got along well with foreigners,
especially the English and North Americans.
135
As the British traveler Basil
Hall phrased it, Abada was the friend of all strangers, to whom his hos-
pitable doors were always open.
136
Abada had lived in the United States
prior to going to Peru in 1806, and he made at least one trip to London
during Pezuelas tenure as viceroy. Abada as well as several of his colleagues
in the Company in Lima spoke English fluently.
137
Abadas friendliness toward foreigners gave rise to charges that the Fili-
pinas Company was involved in promoting direct trade with them, as indeed
it was. Shortly before Ricos return to Peru, the Filipinas Company was
accused of continuing to import Asian and British goods directly to Peru
when . . . it is only permitted in time of war. In the companys defense,
the directors in Madrid pointed out that permission to trade in Asian
goods in time of peace had been granted by a royal order dated 5 August
1814.
138
Furthermore, they claimed, the company had introduced a very
135. For example, Directors, Real Compaa de Filipinas to Martn de Garay, copying for
him a letter from their agent in Burdeos in which the French naval officer, Camille de Roquefeuil,
praised Abadas friendliness, Madrid, 8 Aug. 1817, agi-Filipinas, leg. 993. See also Roquefeuils
Le tour du monde en 37 mois (Bordeaux, 1952; chap. 3 reprinted as Lima y Callao en 1817 in cdip-
Tomo 27), 1:12425; V. M. Golovnin, Lima y Callao en 1818, ibid., 15152, 15859, 161.
136. Basil Hall, Extracts from a Journal Written on the Coasts of Chili, Peru, and Mexico in the
Years 1820, 1821, and 1822, 2 vols., 2nd ed. (Edinburgh: Archibald Constable, 1824), 75.
137. The Citizen don Pedro Abada, a resident of Pasco, with the most profound respect,
expresses to the Sovereign Congress, Lima, 22 June 1831, U.S. National Archives, Diplomatic
Section E261: Miscellaneous claims against Peru, 182251, Envelope 1, folder 8: Claim of Schooner
Macedonia, Don Pedro Abada, Claimant; Pezuela, Memoria de gobierno, 123. Abada sailed from
Callao aboard a British frigate on 12 Mar. 1817, carrying Pezuelas dispatch to the minister of war
and a letter to the duke of San Carlos on the loss of Chile. It is not known when he returned to
Lima, but he next appeared in Pezuelas diary on 4 May 1818: Pezuela, Memoria de gobierno, 123,
263. On Filipinas associates fluent in English, see Hall, Extracts from a Journal, 73; Mendiburu,
Diccionario, 1:5455; Declaration by John Stacy, captain of the Bostonian merchantman Ellen and
Mary, translated by the Filipinas agent, Flix DOlhaverriague y Blanco, 26 May 1819, MenP,
138. Mendiburu, Diccionario,1:55, and the complaint of the consulado of Cdiz about the
Filipinas Companys direct trade to Peru: Consulado de Cdiz to Josef Canga Argelles, 1 Mar.
1811, agi-Indif. gen., leg. 2462; Consulado de Lima to Crown, 3 May 1817, agnp-Hacienda
colonial, leg. 1227; Informe de mesa, Madrid, no date (1820?), agi-Indif. gen., leg. 313; Real Com-
paa de Filipinas to Cristbal de Gngora, Madrid, 1 Aug. 1814, and A los virreyes del Per y
Buenos Aires y al gobernador de Filipinas, 5 Aug. 1814, both in agi-Indif. gen., leg. 2440. The
license was amplified a few years later: Real Compaa de Filipinas to Manuel Lpez Araujo,
Madrid, 14 Dec. 1816, and Real orden, 20 Dec. 1816, agi-Indif. gen., leg. 2440, by which the license
granted on 12 July 1803 to import goods in peacetime was confirmed and the value increased to 1
million pesos annually in two ships; the cmplase is in Pezuela to Ministro de Hacienda, no. 161,
18 Sept. 1817, agi-Filipinas, leg. 993. For information on other cases of alleged contrabanding by
the Filipinas Company, see Abascal to Crown, Apr. 1807, agi-Lima, leg. 650; and the reports on
activities of the Filipinas Company in agi-Lima, legs. 602, 604, 1020.
small quantity of textiles compared with the consumption of those people
and with the value of textiles from Granada and Valencia, which the Cinco
Gremios were distributing.
139
On 7 March 1818 the crown issued a confiden-
tial royal order permitting the company to organize one annual expedition
to Peru in a foreign ship flying a foreign flag; but because the royal order
was reservado, the companys cargo could appear to be contraband.
140
Thus
the finance ministry in Spain believed that the company was misrepresenting
the extent of its direct foreign trade with Peru, and that the damage caused
to the commerce of America and the peninsula, and to the treasury, by the
expeditions of the company demands a prompt and effective remedy.
141
Whether or not the imports of the Filipinas Company could properly
be classified as contraband, no remedy to the problem of direct trade with
foreigners could be put in place in the Pacific. Even though there were
three Spanish frigates and three corvettes still on station in Callao,
142
foreign
merchantmen were able to sell their goods all but unimpeded by the royal
navy. On 6 November 1817, on the same day that Pezuela received the
report of a junta appointed to suggest means of controlling contraband,
an English ship loaded with contraband anchored at Callao; it had been
captured by the Spanish warship Venganza off Valparaso, Chile, on 24
October, and Pezuela ordered its captain imprisoned and tried as a smug-
gler.
143
But instances of effective policing became increasingly infrequent
as the Chilean fleet, commanded by Lord Cochrane, a renegade British
naval officer, established control of the seas off Peru.
144
On 20 April 1819,
139. But at the end of 1817, the inventory of the Lima factora was the largest of any of the
companys overseas offices, with goods valued at 7,855,136 reales velln: Extracto del balance
general de la Real Compaa de Filipinas, Madrid, 31 Dec. 1817, agi-Filipinas, leg. 993.
140. Informe de mesa, 21 Feb. 1818, agi-Filipinas, leg. 994; Ministro de Hacienda to Pezuela,
7 Mar. 1818, agi-Filipinas, leg. 994; Viceroys indexes, Apr. 1820, agi-Lima, leg. 649; Exposicin
de la Junta de gobierno de la Real Compaa de Filipinas a la General, 10 July 1818, agi-
141. El Consulado de Lima . . . , 3 May 1817, and attachments, agi-Indif. gen., leg. 313.
142. Bowles to Croker, 28 Nov. 1817, Graham and Humphreys, Navy and South America,
21213: The whole naval force of His Catholic Majesty in these seas consists of the Venganza and
the Esmeralda, of 36 guns each, and three corvettes of 16 or 18 guns. The Venganza is in so bad a
state that she must return to Europe immediately. Bowles omits mention of the Prueba, the
third Spanish warship in the Pacific.
143. MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 4, q. 1; Pezuela, Memoria de gobierno, 17980. The ship in question
was the Mary Ann, and her case led to protests by Commodore William Bowles, the British
commander of the South American Station. Graham and Humphreys, Navy and South America,
21112, 216, 217; Pezuela, Memoria de gobierno, 17980; B. A. Jacobs, The Mary Ann: An Illicit
Adventure, HAHR 37, no. 2 (1957): 200212.
144. Pezuela to Secretara de Hacienda, 3 Nov. 1818, agi-Lima, leg. 759.
the Chileans declared the coast from Guayaquil to Atacama blockaded
and, as Edward Billingsley comments, Nothing illustrates the shift of sea
power in the Southeast Pacific from royalist to patriot hands so clearly as
the failure of the Spanish fleet to leave the security of their anchorage under
the guns of Callao to challenge the blockading ships.
145
By 1820, with insur-
gents preying on Spanish shipping virtually at will, Pezuelas frustration at
the incompetence of the Spanish navy stationed at Callao was manifest.
Notes in Pezuelas hand in the margin of his copy of the Gaceta del Gobierno
de Lima include the sarcastic comment that a 48-gun frigate, very swift-
sailing and fully manned [i.e., the Prueba] allowed a heavy corvette of 28
guns [the Andes] to escape.
146
To make matters worse, the Pruebas captain,
disobeying Pezuelas orders, put in to Guayaquil, inciting Lord Cochranes
lust to capture it; the viceroy had to order the warships Esmeralda and
Venganza to go after it and force its captain to return to Callao.
147
Pezuelas frustration was compounded by the high cost of maintaining the
few warships at his disposal; between July 1816, when he became viceroy,
and April 1820, the considerable sum of 1,701,032 pesos had been spent,
to no apparent avail, and over the winter of 1820 an additional 72,000
pesos had been allocated to make the Prueba, Venganza, and Esmeralda sea-
worthy.
148
On 20 August 1820, Pezuela had to threaten to decommission
the three warships unless they put out to sea to observe and harass the
Chilean fleet believed to be transporting San Martns army. Two of them
finally set sail on 10 September, the day after San Martn invaded Peru,
and returned to port on the 25th, having done nothing more than recon-
145. Edward B. Billingsley, In Defense of Neutral Rights: The United States Navy and the Wars of
Independence in Chile and Peru (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1967), 93.
146. Gaceta del Gobierno de Lima, 29 July 1820, MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 21, 37375. The Prueba was
the only one of three warships to survive the voyage from Cdiz in 1819; the Alejandro I returned
to port because it was unseaworthy, and the San Telmo was lost during a storm off Antarctica:
Laurio H. Destefani, La Real Armada espaola y la guerra naval de la emancipacin hispano-
americana, Cuarto Congreso Internacional de Historia de Amrica, 8 vols. (Buenos Aires, 1966),
4:398.
147. Pezuela to La Serna, Confidencial, 10 Feb. 1820, MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 4, q. 7; Pezuela to
Ministro de la Guerra, 12 Feb. and 25 Mar. 1820, MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 4, q. 8. This was not the first
time that the captain of the Prueba disobeyed Pezuelas orders; in October 1819, he put in to Paita,
allegedly to escape the enemy fleet, repair damage, and resupply his crew with food and water:
Meliton Prez de Camila to Pezuela, 10 Oct. 1819, MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 4, q. 6.
148. Gastos de marina desde el mes de julio de 1816 . . . hasta hoy 17 de abril 1820, 17 May
1820, MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 4, q. 9. In his Memoria de gobierno, 750, Pezuela claimed to have spent
more than 2 million pesos on the Callao naval forces in the four years of my command. See
also the earlier Razn de las cantidades entregadas a la Marina desde 15 de julio de 1816 hasta la
fecha con distincin de aos y fechas, 11 Dec. 1818, MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 4, q. 4, giving the total as
795,454 pesos 4 reales.
noiter Pisco.
149
As Pezuela noted bitterly, amateurs were more effective
than the royal navy: Merchantmen possessing the wherewithal to defend
themselves have set an example for the warships, which in four years have
done nothing useful, he wrote, except for capturing the brig Mayp; all
the rest has been loss at sea.
150
Pezuela knew that the attack on Spanish shipping in the Pacific was an
integral part of rebel strategy to gain Perus independence from Spain, and
that without competently manned warships from Spain, he would be
unable to defend Peru or recapture Chile.
151
But the most important
effort to reinforce the Spanish fleet in the Pacific ended in failure. On 21
May 1818, six weeks after the disastrous defeat of the royalist army at
Mayp in Chile, eight ships carrying some 2,000 men (including one of
Pezuelas sons) and escorted by the warship Mara Isabel sailed from
Cdiz. The expedition ended in disaster; the ships had been poorly provi-
sioned, and the Mara Isabel itself, one of eleven warships purchased from
Russia, had been judged unseaworthy when it arrived in Cdiz.
152
A mutiny
aboard one of the troopships, the Trinidad, forced that ship to put in to
Buenos Aires. From its crew, the rebels learned where the remaining ships
were to congregate in the Pacific after the perilous journey through the
149. Pezuela, Memoria de gobierno, 74950, 75455, 770; San Martn to Sr. Ministro de Estado
en el Departamento de la Guerra, Pisco, 13 Oct. 1820, cdip-Tomo 6, 2:147. As early as February
1820, Pezuela had given orders for the three warships to harass the insurgent fleet when it set sail
from Chile: Pezuela to Sr. Comandante de Marina, 29 Feb. 1820, Document no. 38, Pezuela,
Manifiesto, 43123. According to Garca Camba, Memorias, 448, the warships could not sail for
want of an adequate crew, but Pezuela insisted that the ships were fully manned and the mens
pay up to date. The insurgents were aware of the royalists problem securing crews: see Bernardo
OHiggins to San Martn, Concepcin, 21 Aug. 1817, cdip-Tomo 8, 1:212.
150. Pezuela, Memoria de gobierno, 764; San Carlos a los principales gefes de S.M. en
Amrica, London, 12 Nov. 1817, sim-Estado, leg. 8223. The Mayp, a Chilean privateer, was
captured off Callao in 1818 by a royalist force comprised of a frigate and a bergantine: Destefani,
Real Armada, 402.
151. Pezuela to Secretario de Estado y del Despacho de la Guerra, 10 Feb. 1819, MenP,
Pezuela, Sig. 4, q. 5; Pezuela, Memoria de gobierno, 122, 298. San Carlos proposed that the
crown purchase ships no longer needed by the British East India Company, and refit them for
service in the Pacific, warning that privateering expeditions were being prepared in Great
Britain to prey on Spanish shipping in the Pacific: San Carlos a los principales gefes de S.M.
en Amrica, London, 12 Nov. 1817, and San Carlos to Pezuela, London, 7 Feb. 1818, sim-
Estado, leg. 8223.
152. D. Jos Ignacio de Colmenares, Capitn de Navo, retirado de la Real Armada, defensor
del Teniente de la misma clase D. Dionisio Capaz, Lima, 29 Aug. 1820, in Torata, Consideraciones
sobre la expedicin libertadora, in Torata, Documentos para la historia, vol. 3, appendix no. 5, 368, 393;
Russell H. Bartley, Imperial Russia and the Struggle for Latin American Independence, 18081828
(Austin: Institute of Latin American Studies, University of Texas, 1978), 124.
Straits of Magellan, enabling the Chilean fleet to intercept them.
153
One
of the nine ships, its crew and soldiers decimated by illness and death,
anchored in Callao Bay on 27 October 1818,
154
but in what was to become
a cause clbre, the Mara Isabel was captured by the Chileans. This catas-
trophe forced me to alter all my plans, Pezuela wrote in his Memoria de
gobierno, for if [the warship] had joined our maritime forces in Callao, we
would have dominated the Southern Sea; . . . commerce would have
escaped from its paralysis and it would have been less difficult to sustain the
war effort. With the loss of the Mara Isabel, control of the sea passed to
the insurgents, making the invasion of Peru itself an imminent danger.
155
According to Pezuela, the desperately needed warship could have avoided
capture, had it not been for the consulados obstinate objection to direct
trade with foreigners. On 4 October 1818, Eliphalet Smith, captain of the
American merchantman Macedonian, brought Pezuela the news that one of
the troopships had put into Buenos Aires, and that the Chilean squadron
was about to set sail to intercept the Mara Isabel and the remaining
transports. Smith offered to sell his ship to the royalists, once its cargo
had been unloaded in Callao.
156
Pezuela reported that the Macedonian was
153. Junta de guerra, 1 Dec. 1818, cdip-Tomo 6, 1:19091. On 11 November 1818 Pezuela
learned that the Chilean fleet had left port on 9 October to intercept the expedition: Memoria de
gobierno, 380. According to a copy of the Gazeta Ministerial Extraordinaria de Chile, 10 Nov. 1818,
found in Pezuelas file on the loss of Chile, the rebel fleet had hoisted the royalist flag and
exchanged the correct signals with the remains of the convoy: MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 9.
154. Pezuela, Memoria de gobierno, 372, 383; Pezuelas file on the loss of Chile, note of 27 Oct.
1818, MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 9, where he records the arrival of the transport ship Especulacin with
200 moribund men; Pezuela to General Mariano Ricafort, 11 Dec. 1818, MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 4, q.
4, where he says of the expedition that more than 500 men of the 2,000 were thrown overboard
dead during the voyage and when the survivors were captured they were nothing but skeletons.
Pezuelas future son-in-law, Rafael Cevallos Escalera, was on board this ship. Two more of the
troopships, the Atocha and the Santa Mara, anchored in Callao on 7 November 1818 along with
the merchantmen Xaviera and San Fernando (the latter belonging to the Filipinas Company),
which had sailed with the ill-fated convoy: Gaceta del Gobierno de Lima, no. 68 (27 Oct. 1818) and
no. 71 (7 Nov. 1818), 561, 585; Pezuela to La Serna, 26 Nov. 1818, MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 4, q. 4.
155. Pezuela, Memoria de gobierno, 384, entry for 28 November 1818, when Pezuela learned of
the Mara Isabel s capture from the Gaceta de Chile, brought to Callao aboard the English
merchantman Catalina. For an account of the ships capture, including the tricks used by the
insurgent fleet, see Mitre, Historia de San Martn, vol. 3 of Obras completas, 2429; Acta, Junta
particular de guerra, 1 Dec. 1818, cdip-Tomo 6, 1:19094, and MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 4, q. 4.
156. Pezuela, Memoria de gobierno, 36263. Smith and the Macedonian sailed from Boston on 5
February 1818 with a cargo valued at more than U.S.$116,000: Depositions of Thomas Amory,
Benjamin Humphrey, Henry Farnum, and Thomas H. Perkins before Thomas A. Dexter, Notary
Public and Justice of the Peace for the County of Suffolk, in the case of the Brig Macedonian and
cargo, 16 July 1847, U.S. National Archives, State Department: U.S. Claims Against Chile, Record
Group no. 76.
a ship famed for her rare speed and armed with twenty cannon . . . for
the successful pursuit of the many pirates that infest these seas. Once it
had been purchased, he intended to use it to warn the Mara Isabel not to
put into rebel-held Valparaso. The consulado hard-liners were adamantly
opposed to the scheme, however, demanding instead that the Macedonian
be required to leave port immediately, fully laden. It is not possible, they
reiterated, to allow foreign commerce without the collapse of the entire
Spanish edifice.
157
But Pezuela, not the consulado, was rebuked by the crown
for failing to warn the Mara Isabel of the danger posed by the Chileans.
158
For the remainder of Pezuelas tenure as viceroy, Spain proved unable to
respond to his appeals for warships capable of destroying the rebel fleet
and thereafter enforcing the commercial laws to which Gaspar Rico was
devoted. Instead, the viceroy was exhorted to control the excessive contra-
band that takes place on those coasts by whatever means his zeal suggests
to him.
159
By mid-1818, Pezuela was convinced that permitting direct trade
with foreigners in Peru was not only the best way to reduce contraband but
also essential to the military campaign against the rebels: there was simply
157. Acta, Consulado de Lima, 14 Oct. 1818, agnp-Consulado, leg. 24; Declaration of Eli-
phalet Smith, Lima, Oct. 1818, used as evidence in the trial of Dionisio Capaz, captain of the
Mara Isabel, Archivo del Museo Naval, Madrid, MS 1546, fol. 28 (Smiths Macedonian is not to
be confused with the U.S. Navys warship of the same name); Pezuela to Ministro de Hacienda, 3
Nov. 1818, cdip-Tomo 22, 2:32; Mendiburu, Diccionario, 8:41617; Pezuela, Memoria de gobierno,
301, 36263, 37273, 380, 383; Regalado and Salinas, Apuntes sobre la actitud del consulado, 284.
On the Mara Isabel affair from Pezuelas perspective, see Pezuela to General Mariano Ricafort, 11
Dec. 1818, and the minutes of the Junta particular de guerra, 1 Dec. 1818, MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 4, q.
4; Pezuela to San Carlos, 14 Jan. 1819, sim-Estado, leg. 8223; drafts of a reply to La Sernas
Exposicin . . . contra Olaeta, MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 15, 1013, 15155; Pezuela, Memoria de
gobierno, 362. Another account is in cdip-Tomo 7, 2:15570. Official accounts of the disastrous
expedition are in MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 9. For the Chilean Admiral Manuel Blanco Encaladas
report on the capture of the Mara Isabel, see the Gaceta Ministerial Extraordinaria de Chile, 10 Nov.
1818, MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 9. See also Billingsley, In Defense of Neutral Rights, 7778, 15354. Valds,
Exposicin, in Torata, Documentos para la historia, 1:32022, copying the arguments of Dionisio
Capazs defense lawyer, asserts that Pezuela was both directly and indirectly responsible for the
loss of the Mara Isabel because he ordered Osorio to evacuate Talcahuano and failed to dispatch
the royalist pailebot Aranzazu on a mission to warn the fleet not to put in to Chilean ports. This
point of view is also presented by Garca Camba, Memorias, 1:37078. Pezuelas Memoria de gobierno,
34546, 349, 352, 353, 356, 360, 364, 367, 370, explains the evacuation of Talcahuano as necessary to
avoid capture of the royalists remaining warships as well as men and munitions, and to increase the
royalists ability to defend Lima; the Aranzazu, moreover, was at sea during the critical weeks of
early October, when Pezuelas proposal to purchase the Macedonian was rejected by the consulado.
158. Garca Camba, Memorias, 1:378.
159. Orden en limpio sin firmar . . . para el Virrey del Per, 10 Nov. 1819, agi-Lima, leg. 1550;
a signed copy is in agi-Indif. gen., leg. 313. For the period from 1814 to 1820, see also the
acknowledgments of a series of reales rdenes commanding the viceroy to enforce the trade laws,
in agi-Lima, legs. 649, 650.
no other way to pay for pacification except by taxes collected on merchan-
dise carried to Callao by foreigners.
THE FINANCIAL CRISIS
When Pezuela succeeded Abascal as viceroy in 1816, he discovered the dimen-
sions of a financial crisis of which he was unaware while in command of
the Army of Alto Per. As he wrote to his former commander in Spain,
when he turned over command, he left the army in a handsome condition
and position, with new uniforms, more than well-instructed and disciplined
. . . paid for all of that month of my departure and with 80,000 pesos in
the treasury for the following one. His arrival in Lima came as a rude
awakening. The treasury was more than 11 million pesos in debt.
160
There
is not a single peso in this treasury; the garrison of the capital is owed six
months wages and expenses, the letras ejecutivas that must be paid amount
to millions; the Extremadura regiment began an uprising because it was
not paid; and we are exposed to a catastrophe by the extremity of need.
161
Revenues were inadequate: in 1816, only about 1,800,000 pesos were collected,
but 2,683,825 pesos were required to cover expenditures. Of this, only 999,783
pesos were for the usual bureaucratic salaries and pensions, most of the rest
being dedicated to military expenses. And the cost of defense continued
to rise as peninsular troops were dispatched to Peru.
162
Over the ensuing
several years, Pezuela himself loaned more than 20,000 pesos to the govern-
ment, without interest, in the hope that it would serve as a good example.
To publicize yet more dramatically the desperate need for funds, he ordered
the silver dinner service used in the viceregal palace melted down, thus
160. Pezuela, Memoria de gobierno, 1974; Pezuela, Manifiesto, 283.
161. Pezuela to Martn Garca de Loigorri, 12 July 1816, seg, Expediente P-1951; Pezuela to
the Ministros del Ejrcito y Real Hacienda, 31 Aug. 1820, ihcm, Expedientes Personales: Joaqun
de la Pezuela; Anna, Fall of the Royal Government, 10932, 13942; 14951; Stevenson, Twenty
Years Residence, 3:12730. Pezuelas description of the state of the treasury when he became viceroy
angered his predecessor, Fernando de Abascal, and clearly contributed to Abascals opposition to
Pezuelas proposal for direct trade with foreigners: see Informe del Marqus de la Concordia
sobre el proyecto de comercio libre entre el Puerto del Callao de Lima y la Inglaterra, 29 June
1819, agi-Lima, leg. 1550.
162. Pezuela, Memoria de gobierno, 4, 7980; Fernando Zambrano and Pablo Porturas y
Landzuri to Pezuela, 18 July 1816, cdip-Tomo 26, 3:367; John Jay TePaske, The Costs of
Empire: Spending Patterns and Priorities in Colonial Peru, 15811820, CLAHR 2, no. 1 (1993):
133, esp. fig. 4, 16; Mendiburu, Diccionario, 8:40911.
becoming the first viceroy who has served his table with clay.
163
Such
gestures were inadequate, however, and efforts to reduce expenses, promote
mining production, raise taxes on a variety of goods, and collect debts owed
to the treasury could not pay the costs of the war. Pezuela knew that, in fact,
there was only one source of revenue that could be depended upon to provide
enough money for defense, and provide it quickly: the import-export trade.
From the beginning of his vice-regency, Pezuela believed that foreigners,
especially the British and North Americans, favored independence as the
best means of opening the markets of Spanish America to their commerce,
and that, with taxes on direct foreign trade in Chile, the rebels were financing
their war against the royalists. By contrast, the viceregal governments resources
were steadily diminished: when Chile became independent, Lima was
deprived of some 500,000 pesos of income annually from duties on imports
of wheat and tallow and exports of sugar and molasses, a loss that the vice-
regal exchequer could not afford.
Pezuela worked hard to avoid opening Perus ports to direct trade with
foreigners. For almost two years ( July 1816 to May 1818), he alternately
courted, cajoled, and bullied the consulado into supplying him with money
in the form of forced loans at 6 percent interest, guaranteed by future collec-
tion of customs duties. Unfortunately, while the consulado and its merchants
promised much, they provided little. At the end of September 1816, scarcely
ten weeks after becoming viceroy, Pezuela opened negotiations with the
consulado for a loan of 500,000 pesos, to be repaid at the end of four years.
As Pezuela wrote in his Memoria de gobierno, The result did not corre-
spond to the intentions of the viceroy or the consulado, for not even a
quarter of the 500,000 pesos was collected.
164
On 27 July 1818 the consulado
had pledged 117,000 pesos per month to help defend Peru against the
invasion expected from newly independent Chile, and by the beginning of
October should have provided 234,000 pesos. Only 40,000 pesos were
collected. Nevertheless, in its correspondence with the court in Madrid,
163. Pezuela to Ministros de la Guerra y Hacienda, 31 Aug. 1820, ihcm, Expedientes Per-
sonales; Pezuela to Ministro de Real Hacienda, 17 Aug. 1819, and Razn de la plata labrada del
uso del Exmo. Sr. Virrey, que yo Dn. Francisco Varela, Mayordomo de S.E., entreg de su orden
en las Caxas Reales, 16 Aug. 1819, both in MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 4, q. 6. See also the account of the
commander of the Russian warship Kamtchatka, who visited Peru in February 1818, in cdip-
Tomo 27, 1:155: The table service was not appropriate to a viceroy: some plates of ordinary china,
knives and forks of silver.
164. Pezuela, Memoria de gobierno, 88, 90, 184, 196.
the consulado took credit for having supplied the entire amount of both
loans, and an additional 150,000 pesos also pledged on 27 July 1818.
165
The cost of the war effort escalated steadily from February 1817, when a
royalist army was defeated at Chacabuco in Chile, through March of 1820,
when Pezuela was convinced by his diplomatic informants and his spies
that the rebel governments of Buenos Aires and Santiago were in such
disarray that an invasion of Peru was beyond their capacity to sustain.
166
In October 1817, the viceroy estimated that 500,000 pesos would be required
to reconquer Chile; by the end of December, soon after the expedition set
sail from Callao, 1,297,296 pesos had been spent.
167
In order to help pay
for the expedition, he resorted to an unusual scheme, but one that had
been used earlier by Viceroy Abascal. In 1814, Abascal had provided the
expedition to reconquer Chile with 50,000 pesos in cash, and also with a
considerable quantity of sugar and tobacco, that the profit from these articles
might serve to meet the expenses of the army.
168
Abascals efforts to procure
an adequate supply of high-quality tobacco for this operation were criticized
by his enemies, including Gaspar Rico.
169
Nevertheless, Pezuela decided
to follow in Abascals footsteps. With some wonder, the British naval com-
mander in the Pacific reported to the Admiralty that it is scarcely credible
but nevertheless literally true, that although the Spanish troops are to land
in a country entirely hostile and where they have not a single magazine, the
transports, instead of provisions, are taking in sugar and tobacco, because
those articles are extremely dear in Chile and it is supposed a great profit
will be made upon them.
170
But Pezuela had no alternative; there was no
165. Acta, Junta de comercio, Consulado de Lima, 27 July 1818 and Acta, Junta extraordinaria
de tribunales, 28 July 1818, both in agi-Lima, leg. 759; Pezuela to Consulado, 1 Oct. 1818, Regalado
and Salinas, Actitud del consulado, 284; Consulado to Crown, 8 July 1819, agi-Lima, leg. 1550.
166. Pezuela, Memoria de gobierno, 10823, 293, 327; Razn del estado en que se halla el
Virreynato pedida por el Embajador a el Brasil, de que se remiti copia al de Londres, Estados
Unidos y Guerra, 18 Nov. 1818, MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 4, q. 4; Pezuela to Secretario de la Guerra, 7
July 1819, MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 4, q. 6; Pezuela to Ramrez, 28 Mar. 1820, MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 4, q. 8.
167. Pezuela, Memoria de gobierno, 169, 195.
168. Mendiburu, Diccionario, 8:279.
169. Rico to Abascal, 17 Sept. and 18 Nov. 1812, agi-Lima, leg. 1016. On the controversial
tobacco contract, see Antonio Izquierdo Martnez to Ministro de Hacienda, 9 May 1812, and
Pedro Trujillo to Ministro de Hacienda, 31 Aug. 1813, both in agi-Lima, leg. 772.
170. Bowles to Croker, 28 Nov. 1817, Graham and Humphreys, Navy and South America, 212.
On the sugar contract, see Pezuela to Consulado, 23 Oct. 1817, agnp-Consulado, leg. 24. For a
proposal to ship indigo to Chile with the troops, see Consulado to Viceroy, 6 Nov. 1817, agnp-
Hacienda colonial, leg. 1227. For the peninsular officers criticism of Pezuela on this point, see
Valds, Refutacin . . . del Manifiesto, in Torata, Documentos para la historia, 2:101.
money to pay the troops (some of whom rebelled at the prospect of
embarking without their prest) and also buy the weapons and ammunition
needed for the battles ahead. In fact, the cargo had been shipped under
the terms of a contract celebrated with ten merchants, who had advanced
money to pay for the expedition and who had promised to supply the
troops while they were in Chile.
171
And the commander of the expedition
was instructed to fill the holds of the merchantmen that carried the troops
to Chile with wheat or other local products for the return to Callao; these
goods were the property of the Lima treasury, to be sold in order to recover
some of the incalculable expenses that the government had incurred. As a
result of these measures, however, rumors began to circulate that under the
auspices of the expeditionary army, Pezuela and his son-in-law, Mariano
Osorio, commander of the royalist army, would reap personal profits from
commerce in Perus traditional exports to Chile.
172
With the defeat at Mayp on 5 April 1818, all but a remnant of the
royalists men and equipment fell into rebel hands. As W.G.D. Worthing-
ton, special agent of the United States, reported to John Quincy Adams,
The Vice King, Pezuala [sic], by the expedition that he sent to [Chile]
. . . has ruined his country. He is now without officers or soldiers.
173
Valds agreed, later asserting that Seor Pezuela gambled Perus future on
the Chilean campaign of 1818and lost because of a series of mistakes
both military and political.
174
Thereafter it became increasingly difficult to
raise loans from the merchants, who resented the disproportionate contri-
butions exacted from them. They were willing to agree only to increases in
taxes that, even taken together, could not yield the 500,000 pesos or more
that had been collected annually in duties on the Chilean trade.
175
On 25 May
171. Pezuela to Consulado, 15 Sept. 1817, agnp-Consulado, leg. 12; Pezuela to Ministro de la
Guerra, 16 Dec. 1817, and Egua to Pezuela, 12 June 1818, MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 4, q. 2; Informe que
el teniente coronel Jos Bernldez Polledo . . . entreg al mayor Domingo Torres, 18 Dec. 1817,
Archivo de San Martn, 7:22. Pezuela pointed out that the peninsular troops had sailed from Spain
with inadequate provisions and without receiving their pay.
172. Instruccin que el Virrey de Lima da al Sr. Brig. D. Mariano Osorio, nombrado general
en gefe del Exrcito Expedicionario de Chile, 4 Dec. 1817, MenP, Pezuela, sig. 4, q. 1; Agustn de
Olavarrieta to Ministro de Hacienda, 17 Feb. 1818, agi-Lima, leg. 774.
173. Worthington to Adams, 1 July 1818, in Manning, Diplomatic Correspondence, 3:1719.
174. Valds, Refutacin . . . del Manifiesto, in Torata, Documentos para la historia, 2:100105, 117.
Valds either did not know or was unwilling to admit that the disaster in Chile owed something
to the fact that Pablo Morillo had detained the Burgos regiment, intended for Peru, in
Venezuela; Pezuela had counted on them to increase the expeditionary army to about 6,000 men:
Pezuela, Memoria de gobierno, 176, 187.
1819, after the consulado declared itself unable to continue subsidizing two
armed ships, the Sebastiana and the Pezuela, the viceroy imposed additional
taxes on wine and brandies, a measure that was expected to yield some
40,836 pesos annually, far short of what was needed even if its collection
were rigorously enforced.
176
When Pezuela attempted to increase revenues from taxes on legal trade
in foreign merchandise, he met with the same refusal on the part of the
consulado as would greet his proposal in July 1818 to permit direct trade with
the British for two years. Whenever the war at sea permitted, he encouraged
merchants matriculated in the consulado to reactivate the trade that had
been interrupted by the rebels. He proposed several ways by which this
could be accomplished. In September 1819, Pezuela informed the merchants
that he was willing to grant any exceptional privilege whatever for com-
mercial speculations to Spanish and Peruvian merchants, including direct
trade to foreign ports.
177
This proposal was identical to one that had been put
forth on 28 May 1818, and had prompted one of the wealthiest merchants
in Peru, Juan Pedro Zelayeta, to organize a stock company for an expedi-
tion to Rio de Janeiro or London in neutral ships. Zelayetas project had
been flatly rejected by the consulado, which reiterated the old arguments
that the Laws of the Indies forbade colonial direct trade with foreigners as
well as trade in neutral ships.
178
In 1819, too, the viceroys offer of special
permissions was rejected by the consulado, but not by Jos de Arismendi,
Abadas partner, who worked out an elaborate scheme whereby he was
granted permission to import 250,000 pesos worth of European goods to
Lima in exchange for a donation to the war effort and an agreement to
supply armaments and naval stores to the royalists.
179
Late in September
1819, when Cochrane temporarily lifted the blockade of Peruvian ports,
Pezuela wrote to the consulado encouraging the shipowners to resume
trading in foodstuffs, trade that had been carried on by foreign ships because
they were not subject to attack by the Chilean fleet. On the same day, he
exhorted the merchants to register their funds aboard the warship Esmeralda,
176. See the correspondence on this matter, 25 Feb. 1819 to 25 May 1819, in MenP, Pezuela,
Sig. 4, q. 6. The yield was calculated on the basis of an average years sales of 37,595 botijas of
brandy and 6,491 botijas of wine, the first to be taxed at the rate of 1 peso per botija, the second at
4 reales.
178. Acta, Junta general de comercio, 6 June 1818, agi-Lima, leg. 1550.
179. Pezuela, Memoria de gobierno, 51718. Documentation on this plan is in agi-Lima, leg.
649. For the Junta de arbitrios defense of the plan in the face of the consulados opposition, see
Informe expedido . . . por la Junta permanente de arbitrios, 12 Jan. 1820, agnp-Consulado, leg. 12.
about to sail for Cdiz. In both cases, the taxes to be collected would serve
to alleviate the financial crisis.
180
This appeal to normal commercial practice
also fell on deaf ears. Clearly, the metropolitan merchants distrusted Pezuelas
information about the activities of the rebel fleet, and were not in any case
willing to risk what remained of their capital. Refusing to engage in trade
themselves, they nevertheless attempted to prevent anyone else from
trading in their stead.
On 10 February 1819, in the face of official opposition from the consulado
to the viceroys attempts to encourage legal trade, Pezuela was compelled
to adopt a policy that he believed would have serious negative effects on
the war of opinion: demanding a forced loan of a million pesos at 6
percent interest from the 150 wealthiest residents of Lima, with quotas of
10,000 and 5,000 pesos to be determined by a secret commission.
181
One
of San Martns spies in Lima recounted the dramatic circumstances sur-
rounding the proposal, which was put forward during the negotiations on
the amount of a subsidy to be supplied by the consulado: At this point
the Santo Arzobispo spoke up, beginning a rambling speech that lasted an
hour and a half in order to prove that the porteos and chilenos were heretics
and that consequently this was a war of religion and for religion. The
archbishop then proposed his plan for extracting a million pesos in three
days. An unexpected cannon shot would not have startled those present
more than did that proposal. The archbishop left immediately after finishing
his harangue, saying that he would sell his coaches and mules in order to
contribute ten thousand pesos and that he did not doubt that the viceroy
would contribute the same amount. The reaction to the archbishops pro-
posal was stunned silence: Not a soul opened his mouth in that junta,
and a few, muttering in their handkerchiefs, said that San Martn could not
do more [damage] if he came here.
The proposal effectively destroyed Pezuelas chances of acquiring funds
to fight the war without resorting to direct trade with foreigners. According
to the spy, As soon as it heard the archbishops proposal, the consulado
withdrew its offer of monthly subsidies on the assumption that as wealthy
men they would be included among those required to loan 5,000 to 10,000
pesos to the beleaguered viceregal government, as indeed they were:
400,000 pesos of the forced loan were to come from the merchants.
182
180. Two letters, Pezuela to Consulado, both dated 24 Sept. 1819, MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 4, q. 6.
182. Dispatch to San Martn from a spy in Lima, undated but ca. 10 Feb. 1819, Archivo de San
Martn, 7:11214; Representacin de las corporaciones sobre la contribucin de un milln de pesos,
But the merchants were by no means the only source of opposition to
the forced loan. Pezuelas worst fears about its effect on the war of opinion
were realized. A storm of protest blew up, and issued in an angry memorial
addressed to the cabildo.
183
The protestors stated flatly that such a large
sum of money simply could not be collected: To give, it is necessary to
possess, they wrote. There are no 150 men who have five or ten thousand
pesos profit from their ventures to assist the State. The quotas, set by a
secret committee on the basis of rumor, would be hotly contested and, if
appeals were permitted, we will have 150 lawsuits instead of a million
pesos. Moreover, the economic effects would be devastating, not only
further decapitalizing Lima but also revealing the penury into which many
honorable men had fallen, thereby destroying their credit and making their
recovery impossible. The archbishop was severely criticized for offering only
10,000 pesos from his abnormally high income, reputed to be at least
50,000 pesos annually. Who among us enjoys an equal income? they asked.
What distressed the protestors above all, however, was the violence of
the exaction. Payment of this forced loan was more vigorously enforced
than were previously mandated loans. In August and September 1817, when
Pezuela was preparing the expedition to reconquer Chile, he had reluctantly
suggested that the consulado use force if necessary to collect quotas from
delinquent merchants, but there is no evidence that it was actually employed.
184
In this case, however, the threat was carried out. The occupation by armed
force of the houses of don Martn Osambela and Juan Ruiz Dvila for not
having paid their quota in the royal consulado has greatly increased previous
17 Feb. 1819, Archivo de San Martn, 7:128; Report of Philadelphia (one of San Martns spies) to
Joaqun de Echeverra, 12 Feb. 1819, Archivo de San Martn, 7:120; Acta de la Junta general de
tribunales para solicitar y elegir arbitrios, 15 July 1819, MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 4, q. 6; Razn general
de los seores . . . entre quienes la comisin secreta encargada por el Exmo Sr. Virrey a conse-
quencia del acuerdo de la Junta general de tribunales del 16 del ltimo febrero, ha distribuido la
mayor parte del milln de pesos . . . para el auxilio de las actuales urgencias del erario, 5 Mar. 1819,
agnp-Consulado, leg. 33. In the 1819 forced loan from the consulado, 329 merchants were
assigned quotas: Razn de los seores del comercio de Lima entre quienes la comisin secreta . . .
ha distribuido los 400,000 pesos del emprstito forzoso, 5 Mar. 1819, agnp-Consulado, leg. 34. A
printed version of the list yields 327 names: Distribucin que practica el Real Tribunal del
Consulado de cuatro ciento mil pesos . . . para el emprstito forzoso de milln de pesos, 31 Mar.
1819, MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 4, q. 5.
183. Representacin de las corporaciones sobre la contribucin de un milln de pesos, 17 Feb.
1819, Archivo de San Martn, 7:12329.
184. Nota de los Sres. que no han satisfecho hasta el da las cuotas que le seal el Real
Tribunal del Consulado, 22 Aug. 1817, bnp-mss, D-6327; Pezuela to Consulado, 27 and 29 Oct.
1817, and 22 Nov. 1817, agnp-Consulado, leg. 12; Order of the Consulado, 29 Oct. 1817, agnp-
Consulado, leg. 12; Acta, Junta de comercio, 29 Oct. 1817, agnp-Consulado, leg. 24.
consternation, the protestors declared. According to Natural Law,
military exaction is admissible only in the case of conquered towns, as a
guarantee against plundering and to preserve the country. Will the most
loyal capital city on the globe witness the ancient houses of the conquis-
tadors of this rich empire occupied by armed force?
185
Although there is
no record that anyone other than the two merchants was subjected to armed
force, there was a serious effort to exact payment from everyone identified
as able to contribute. As one of San Martns spies reported, the deluded
metropolitan merchants are now disillusioned, never having imagined that
they would be subjected to the evils and extortions that their government
inflicts on Americans.
186
Not even the Inquisition was allowed to hide
behind its privileged position, which it set forth in an outraged rebuke to
the agents sent to collect its quota. In a strongly worded letter, Pezuela
insisted that no privileges could exempt its members from contributing to
the defense of the kings rights.
187
But in spite of active diligence on the part of the agents, by August
1819, only a small part of the loan had been collected.
188
Once again, the
viceroy was left without adequate resources to prosecute the war effort.
More seriously, his authority had been challenged successfully by a group
of constituents who, while claiming that their fortunes were exhausted,
were clandestinely dispatching millions of pesos to Europe on board foreign
ships anchored in Callao Bay.
189
It is not surprising, then, that by the
middle of 1818 Pezuela had felt compelled to turn to those same foreigners
to supply him with the resources needed to defend the viceroyalty.
185. Representacin de las corporaciones, 17 Feb. 1819, Archivo de San Martn, 7:128. See also
Acta de la Junta general de tribunales, 15 July 1819, MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 4, q. 6, where Pezuela said
that the use of force was extremely repugnant to him, and would not be used if funds to feed
the soldiers could be collected promptly; and Pezuela to Sres. Ministros Generales de Ejrcito y
Real Hacienda, 31 Aug. 1820, MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 4, q. 6, where he makes note of the use of force
by the consulado and the collection agents.
186. Spys report, 13 Oct. 1818, Archivo de San Martn, 7:90.
187. Pedro de Saldaequi, Josef Ruiz Sobrino, and Cristobal de Ortegon to Manuel Genaro de
Villota and Francisco Xavier de Echage, 2 Apr. 1819, and Pezuela to the Santo Tribunal de la
Inquisicin, 21 Apr. 1819, both in MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 4, q. 6.
188. Pezuela to Sres. Ministros Generales de Ejrcito y Real Hacienda, 31 Aug. 1819, MenP,
189. For an idea of the value of specie being taken out of Peru illegally, see Searle to Hardy, 8
Nov. 1820, Graham and Humphreys, Navy and South America, 322: I have about a million and a
half of dollars on board for England; and Billingsley, In Defense of Neutral Rights, 99, where he
reports that the commander of the U.S. warship Macedonian took on board close to $2,000,000
during the two-year cruise.
Free trade is the fount of all wealth, and since prosperity and the
perfection of the arts arise from it, it is evident that without free trade and
industry America will always be poor in spite of its mines.
Jos de la Riva Agero, 1818
Dominions so far distant [from the metropolis] could not be retained for
long, if they were open to other nations. . . . Their trading houses become
citadels, and businessmen become conquerors. . . . This truly is to conquer
the land of gold without much risk, and without war.
Manuel Lorenzo de Vidaurre, 1818
Very little attention has been paid to the role of the free-trade controversy
in the collapse of Spanish rule in Peru, and yet it had a profound effect on
Viceroy Joaqun de la Pezuelas authority and legitimacy. No fewer than four
sets of political conflict converged on the issue of whether or not direct
trade with foreigners was permissible at a time of acute emergency. The
first had to do with grievances that arose late in the eighteenth century,
when imperial reformers set out to break the power of the merchants of
Lima with a series of laws and edicts designed to destroy Limas position
as entrept for Spains colonial trade to South America. The second conflict
revolved around the bitter competition between two privileged trading com-
panies, the Real Compaa de Filipinas and the Cinco Gremios Mayores de
Madrid, each with its coterie of clients and dependents and both repre-
sented by strong-willed men, Pedro de Abada and Gaspar Rico. The third
involved the conflict between liberal hard-liners and moderate absolutists,
with their irreconcilable visions of how Spain and her colonies should be
F I V E
THE FREE-TRADE DISPUTE

02.Marks Chap 5End 8/22/07 10:58 AM Page 219
governed and, most germane to Peru, how rebellion could or should be dealt
with. Inextricably entwined with all three was conflict over who should
pay for government, and how, and what they had a right to expect from
government in return for their support. As it progressed from July 1818
until Pezuelas overthrow at the end of January 1821, the free-trade dispute
exposed the inability of colonial government to mediate conflict, negotiate
compromises, and impose enforceable rules in the form of laws and regu-
lations governing the economic life of the viceroyalty at a time of crisis.
CONTEXT AND VENUE
Viceroy Pezuela was by no means an enthusiastic convert to the idea that
direct trade with foreigners was essential to the preservation of Spains
hegemony in Peru. As he explained in his Manifiesto of 1821, There are
few who are more resentful of foreigners than I am, because for a long time
I have known that, by their support for the independence movements and
the copious resources of every kind with which, contrary to the law of
neutrality, they have continually supplied [to the rebels], they have encour-
aged this destructive struggle, and that without their cooperation, the rights
of the Monarchy would have triumphed long since.
1
But after the loss of
Chile and of the warship Mara Isabel, he had few options. As he declared
after his overthrow, The law of necessity, dictating at that time a prudent
tolerance of foreigners, obliges one to make use of their flags immunity
[from capture by the Chileans] as a means of remedying those evils. And
he had been warned to avoid giving offense to Britain especially, and also
to the United States, both of which had dispatched warships to the Pacific
to defend the commercial interests of their nationals. His own feelings of
distrust of foreigners had to be put aside, but only because the king wishes,
and because it is convenient.
2
Thus he placed himself and his govern-
ment squarely in the camp of those merchants who had been sabotaging the
reforms embodied in the 1778 Reglamento de comercio libre since the 1780s.
The free-trade debates (defined in 1818 as direct trade with foreigners
at Callao) took place in two viceregal advisory bodies, the Junta de tribunales
1. Pezuela, Manifiesto, 318. For earlier statements to this effect, see Pezuela, Memoria de
gobierno, 184, 273, 304, 380; Pezuela to Casa Flores, 31 Mar. 1818, Archivo de San Martn, 5:18687;
Pezuela to Secretara de Estado, 12 June 1818, cdip-Tomo 22, 2:19; Pezuela to Consulado, 24 Sept.
1819, MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 4, q. 6; Bowles to Croker, 28 Nov. 1817, Graham and Humphreys, Navy
and South America, 216.
2. Pezuela, Manifiesto, 318; Pezuela, Memoria de gobierno, 304.
and its subcommittee, the Junta de arbitrios. The first, Tribunales, was an
advisory commission composed of senior bureaucrats, and included as well
the archbishop of Lima and the officers of the consulado. As the free-trade
dispute developed, Pezuela expanded the list of those invited to its sessions,
adding, for example, representatives of the landowners and Gaspar Rico,
an honorary minister of finance. The second junta, Arbitrios, was a ways-
and-means committee. It came into being on 1 October 1817 in response to
the royalist defeat at Chacabuco in Chile earlier in the year and in accord
with the royal order of 20 June 1817 in which the crown authorized the con-
vocation of such juntas. This junta was reformed and its powers expanded
on 4 May 1818, when it was given the name Junta extraordinaria permanente
de arbitrios.
3
Its members were appointed by Pezuela, and like Tribunales,
it was changed and expanded as the free-trade debate progressed.
The composition of the several Juntas de arbitrios is worthy of notice.
There were only six members of the first junta, and all but one of them
had close ties to the Filipinas Company, to the owners of ships trading to
Chile, or to the landowners.
4
Jos de Irigoyen, born in Arequipa and then
serving as a judge on the Audiencia of Charcas, had married into a land-
owning family; around the turn of the century he had been employed in the
Commissary of War and Navy in Callao, where the shipowners influence
was paramount. Eduardo Jos de Arrescurrenaga was married to the
countess of Torre Antigua de Orue, whose family was one of Perus prin-
cipal shipping and landowning families. Ignacio Mier, the archdeacon of
Lima, was consistently sympathetic to the landowners cause and to direct
trade with foreigners, perhaps because so much of the Churchs income
was dependent upon the profitability of agriculture. The Spanish-born
Antonio lvarez del Villar had been one of the wealthiest Atlantic-trade
merchants in Peru but was now bankrupt; Pezuela took pity on him,
appointing him to various minor bureaucratic posts and admitting him as
one of his advisors. Jos de Arismendi was Pedro de Abadas closest business
associate; in January 1818 he had proposed a scheme for trading directly
with foreigners in exchange for a 200,000 peso advance on customs duties
to the viceregal government. The limeo count of Villar de Fuente was
the free-trade dispute 221
3. Acta, 16 Jan. 1818, agnp-Consulado, leg. 24; Pezuela, Memoria de gobierno, 21517;
Hermenegildo de la Puente to Pezuela, 17 Aug. 1818, Testimonio del expediente de la Junta
extraordinaria de tribunales, agi-Lima, leg. 759; Acta de la Junta general de tribunales, 4 May
1818, MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 4, q. 1. Hacendados were represented by Jos Basurco and Dr. Hiplito
Unanue.
well known for his success as intervenor in the affairs of the Cinco Gremios
Mayores in Peru when Gaspar Rico had been the Gremios representative
in Lima; in May 1820 Villar de Fuente was named one of two Filipinas
agents in Lima to succeed Pedro de Abada. The only member of this junta
who, by the end of 1817, did not openly favor direct trade with foreigners
was lvarez del Villar, until December 1819 a close personal friend of
Gaspar Rico.
5
After the royalist defeat at Mayp, Chile, in April 1818, when Pezuela
believed that an invasion of a defenseless Lima was imminent,
6
he named
a new Junta permanente de arbitrios with expanded membership, whose
duty it was to present to the Junta de tribunales suggestions for acquiring
funds to rebuild the army.
7
Several members of this junta were also closely
allied with landowning interests in Peru. In addition to Irigoyen, Mier,
lvarez del Villar, and Arismendi, who had served on the first junta of 1817,
Pezuela named Juan Mara Glvez, intendant of Lima, who had married
Josefa de la Riva Agero, daughter of a Peruvian landowning family, the
marqueses of Montealegre de Aulestia; Manuel Pardo, regent of the Audien-
cia of Cuzco, who married into the Aliaga y Borda family, one of the oldest
landholding families in Peru; Jos Manuel Blanco Azcona, a peninsular-
born merchant and the procurador general of Limas town council whose
wife inherited one of the richest haciendas in the Pisco valley; and Jos
Cavero y Tagle, rector of the University of San Marcos, whose extended
family owned numerous haciendas in the intendancies of Lima and Trujillo.
In addition to significantly increasing the weight of landholding interests
on the junta and therefore in the debates on direct trade, Pezuela appointed
two merchants, Pedro de Abada and Francisco Izcue, both of whom were
5. Relacin de mritos y servicios, Jos de Irigoyen, 1815, agi-Lima, leg. 613; Real decreto
nombrando S.M. Fiscal del Crimen de la Real Audiencia de Lima a D. Jos de Irigoyen, agi-
Lima, leg. 627-A; Dictmen de la Cmara de Indias, 9 July 1817, agi-Lima, leg. 603; Juan
Bromley Seminario, Los alcaldes de Lima de 1801 a 1821, Revista Histrica 29 (1966): 124;
Miguel de Eyzaguirre to Crown, 13 Apr. 1813, agi-Lima, leg. 799; Pezuela, Memoria de gobierno,
748; Paz Soldn, Historia . . . 18191822, 155 n. 1; Testimonios de los mritos y servicios de Antonio
lvarez de Villar, 1819, agi-Lima, leg. 761; Pezuela to Ministro de Hacienda, no. 269, 16 June
1818, agi-Lima, leg. 1550; Pezuela to Ministro de Hacienda, 9 July 1819, agi-Lima, leg. 628;
Consulado to Viceroy, 31 Jan. and 17 Feb. 1818, agnp-Hacienda colonial, leg. 1227; Consulado to
Jos Bernardo de Tagle, 18 Mar. 1822, cdip-Tomo 21, 1:22426; Fisher, Silver Mines, 11415; Daz-
Trechuelo Spinola, Real Compaa de Filipinas, 180; Juan Valentn Caadas to Miguel de
Eyzaguirre, 8 Dec. 1819, Eyzaguirre, Archivo epistolar, 33637.
6. Pezuela, Memoria de gobierno, 284, 288, 297, 377, 397; Acta, Junta general de tribunales, 4
May 1818, MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 4, q. 1.
7. Pezuela, Memoria de gobierno, 263; Acta, Junta general de tribunales, 4 May 1818, MenP,
associated with the Filipinas Company, and Bartolom Mara Salamanca,
the former intendant of Arequipa who had been dismissed from office in
part because of charges that he had been involved in trading with foreigners.
8
By inviting members of the Junta de arbitrios to attend sessions of the Junta
de tribunales, Pezuela was able to offset the power of the consulados officers
and their ally, Gaspar Rico. On the several occasions when votes were taken
in the Junta de tribunales on whether to permit direct trade with foreigners,
only Rico and the three officers of the consulado voted against the measure.
Theirs was an unrealistic position. After the rebel victory at Chacabuco
in February 1817, foreign merchants, especially Englishmen, flocked to Chile,
which had declared its ports open to direct trade. A British merchant,
Samuel Haigh, reported that the markets . . . were quite glutted with
every description of goods and wares, much of which found its way to
Peru as contraband. Pezuela was unable to bring it under control. Never-
theless, during all of 1817 and the first months of 1818, he continued to
enforce the colonial legislation on trade to the best of his ability (always
excepting foreigners who carried rifles and sabres to Callao), confident
that the problem would be solved by the reconquest of Chile. There was
no sign of an imminent change in official policy, and on those occasions
when contrabanders were captured by the royalists their punishment was
swift: ships and merchandise were seized by the government of the country
and converted to warlike purposes. In November 1817, the English Com-
mander William Bowles reported that the disposition of the present viceroy
is so adverse to foreigners, and the chicanery and corruption of the prize
courts so notorious, that I imagine every case of detention may be consi-
dered as a total loss.
9
But nine months later Bowles was able to write I have just received letters
from Captain Shirreff, commander of the British warship Andromache
(Andrmaca in Spanish) cruising off Peru and Chile, reporting his return
8. Lohmann Villena, Americanos en las rdenes nobiliarias, 2:17273, 415. Doa Josefas father
was superintendent of the Casa de moneda of Lima: Fisher, Government and Society, 21011, 242;
Partida sacramental, 14 June 1806, Catedral de Lima, Sagrario, Libro 11 de matrimonios,
17871846, fol. 271v; Carta dotal, 5 Aug. 1806, agnp-Notarios, Ayllon Salazar, 1806, fol. 587v;
Cuentos del cupo de los 150,000 pesos de contribucin para auxilio del estado y socorro de su
ejrcito, Aug. 1821, cdip-Tomo 21, 1:400; Expediente del cabildo secular de Arequipa sobre que se
nombre otro governador y que el actual D. Bartolom Mara de Salamanca sea estrechamente
residenciado, 14 Jan. 1811, agi-Lima, leg. 627.
9. Goebel, British-American Rivalry, 19496; Humphreys, British Merchants and South
American Independence, 122, quoting Samuel Haigh, Sketches of Buenos Aires, Chile, and Peru
(London, 1831), 253; Bowles to Croker, 28 Nov. 1817, Graham and Humphreys, Navy and South
America, 215.
from Lima to Valparaiso on the 27th of August [1818], and announcing
the very important intelligence of the Viceroy of Peru having it in con-
templation to open the port of Callao to the British trade for two years.
William Henry Shirreff had written that, upon entering Callao Bay
earlier that year, he had found the viceroy extremely civil, and that he had
altered his tone toward the English.
10
The loss of Chile was the immediate cause of Pezuelas change of policy,
and the entries in his Memoria de gobierno between the end of April and the
middle of July 1818 record his increasing dependence on foreign shipping,
especially North American, not only for supplies of wheat, but for other
services.
11
Although he still found ample reasons to distrust foreigners,
especially the British, his growing admiration for Commodore James Biddle
of the United States warship Ontario mitigated his fear that foreigners
would always act contrary to Spains interests.
12
On 30 April 1818 he drew
up what amounted to a contract with Biddle by which U.S. merchantmen
would be permitted to leave blockaded Chilean ports and enter Peruvian
ports without being treated as contrabanders. If they carried supplies of
wheat to Callao, so much the better. The scarcity of bread in Lima would
be alleviated and the viceregal treasury would benefit from collection of
duties on the cargoesand the Filipinas Company and its allies, who were
busy organizing shipments of Chilean wheat, would reap a profit.
13
By
August 1819, Pezuela was openly granting special licenses to foreign ships to
participate in the coasting trade. In October 1820, the American consular
agent Jeremy Robinson informed the Secretary of State that Pezuela had
declared Callao open to all neutral vessels except such as carried the products
of Chile, and some 300 North American and British merchantmen and
10. Bowles to Croker, 10 Oct. 1818, Graham and Humphreys, Navy and South America, 248.
Pezuela later characterized Shirreff as Someone I like little, because he is an impertinent
demanding person, persistently addicted to the insurgents to the point where, although this is
well known, he tries to cover it up with sophistries: Pezuela, Memoria de gobierno, 589.
11. For a summary of the services rendered by U.S. merchantmen, see Billingsley, In Defense of
Neutral Rights, 105. The details of ship arrivals can be followed in the Gaceta del Gobierno . . .
18161818, and in Pezuela, Memoria de gobierno.
12. See, for example, Pezuelas Memoria de gobierno, 273, 280, 304, 380; and compare the harsh
tone of Pezuela to Biddle, 27 Apr. 1818, MenP, Sig. 4, q. 3, with his praise for Biddle in Pezuela to
Sr. Ministro de la Guerra, 11 Nov. 1818, in MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 4, q. 4.
13. Pezuela, Memoria de gobierno, 25960; Pezuela to Consulado, 29 Aug. 1818, agnp-
Consulado, leg. 12. See also the arguments put forward on this point by the Junta de arbitrios in
their Observaciones sobre el reglamento de libre comercio, 28 July 1818, Testimonio del
expediente de la Junta extraordinaria de tribunales, agi-Lima, leg. 759; Pereira Salas, Jeremas
Robinson, 21920.
whalers were in the Pacific off Spanish America.
14
Direct trade with foreigners
was increasing and unstoppable. Nevertheless, in the Junta de tribunales
there was adamant and continuing opposition to all forms of direct trade
with foreign merchants in Peru, whether officially declared or perceived as
toleration of contraband, by Gaspar Rico and the officers of the consulado.
THE GENESIS OF THE FREE-TRADE PROPOSAL
By the time the free-trade debate began in earnest, the viceroys anger at
the merchants refusal to honor their pledges of money to support the war
effort was evident, as was his impatience with the ineffective Junta de
arbitrios whose members had been charged with devising the means to
pay and equip the army. On 3 July 1818 Pezuela informed them that their
failure to provide urgently needed funds had forced him to postpone the
increase in troop strength planned for June. If they could not come upon
any ordinary revenues nor agree upon extraordinary ones, he declared,
they must make it categorically clear. In the latter case, he intended to
convene a Junta general de tribunales and, after informing its members
that Arbitrios had made no progress whatever at the end of two months,
to request from the larger group a decision concerning the energetic
measures required by our situation.
15
Eighteen days passed, with no discernible progress. Finally, on 24 July
1818, Pezuela addressed the Junta general de tribunales, informing its
members that Arbitrios had devised a plan to support the war effort, and
that on its recommendation he was proposing free trade with the English
for a period of two years as a revenue measure. There seemed to be no
alternative: The junta, in spite of its hard work, found no ordinary means
by which adequate funds could be raised; with legal commerce at a stand-
still, there was nothing left to tax, and direct levies whether personal or
governmental, are believed by the junta to present problems as dangerous
as they are insuperable.
16
The members of Arbitrios had come to the meeting of Tribunales
bringing with them a memorandum explaining why free trade was essential
14. Pezuela, Memoria de gobierno, 5045, 52021; Goebel, British Trade to the Spanish
Colonies, 319.
16. Acta, Junta extraordinaria de tribunales, 24 July 1818, MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 4, q. 1;
Testimonio del expediente de la Junta extraordinaria de tribunales, 22 July15 Oct. 1818, agi-
Lima, leg. 759; Pezuela, Memoria de gobierno, 29596. The Junta de arbitrios presented its report
proposing direct trade to Pezuela on 22 July 1818.
and a plan for its administration consisting of twenty-two articles.
17
Direct
trade was limited to ships that had sailed from British or Irish ports, flying
the British flag. Only Callao in Peru was open to them, although they
were permitted to put in to Brazilian or Chilean ports (but not rebel-held
Buenos Aires) as necessary to repair damage or in order to recover pro-
perty. Their merchandise had to be consigned to a merchant matriculated
in the consulado of Lima who did not trade at retail. This favored the
Filipinas Company and their allies while excluding other powerful Atlantic-
trade merchants, first because the Filipinas Company did not engage in
retail trade, and second because Abada and his associates are the only
ones mentioned in the sources of this period as being able to speak
English fluently. Englishmen were prohibited from establishing merchant
houses anywhere in the viceroyalty. Any British ship caught trading at a
Peruvian port other than Callao would be treated as a contrabander, and
ships of any nation found to be trading arms to a rebel port would be
pursued and captured by ships of the Spanish navy. Finally, the reglamento
governing temporary direct trade called for stiff tariffs on English imports
and taxes on exports of local products and specie.
18
The British were jubilant, and not averse to taking credit for Pezuelas
change of heart. Shirreff s letter to Bowles reported that he himself had
suggested that the viceroy permit a free trade with England, to which,
after some consideration he consented, but unwilling or afraid to take the
whole responsibility upon himself, he proposed to the Real Tribunal del
Consulado . . . to open the port of Callao for two years. Shirreff s next
sentences suggest, however, that others played the more critical role in
persuading the viceroy to adopt a different policy toward direct trade with
foreigners. This measure, he wrote, was strongly supported by D. Pedro
Abada, D. Flix [dOlhaverriague y] Blanco, and all the Philippines Com-
pany, and only opposed by one Junta, called Gremio de Comercio [i.e.,
the consulado], who offered to raise any sum of money the government
might want rather than admit English vessels. $750,000 were therefore
17. Observaciones sobre el reglamento de libre comercio, 28 July 1818, Testimonio del expe-
diente de la Junta extraordinaria de tribunales, 22 July15 Oct. 1818, agi-Lima, leg. 759. See also
the article on the new tax law of Spain, published in Aug. 1818 in the Gaceta del gobierno . . .
18161818, 3:452, where the author noted that every society found change difficult, and every
attempt at reform was tenaciously opposed. The article was originally published in the Mercurio
Espaol of Madrid in Sept. 1817.
18. Proyecto de comercio libre, 24 July 1818, agi-Lima, leg. 759. The proyecto was translated
and published in British newspapers on 13 Apr. 1819: Marqus de Casa Irujo to Ministro de
Hacienda, 10 May 1819, agi-Lima, leg. 1550.
demanded of them before the 1st of November, the payment of which was
accordingly guaranteed in three installments. Nevertheless, British hopes
remained high; according to Shirreff, Abada declares that it is impossible
they can fulfill their contract, in which case the viceroy has promised me,
verbally, however, to give freedom of the port for the above period.
19
Shirreff s commander, William Bowles, added that Captain Shirreff had
been requested by the Philippine Company, at the head of which is D. Pedro
Abada (brother of the general and late secretary of state) to return to
Lima the latter end of October, by which time they flatter themselves the
Gremio de Comercio will have failed in their contract and that Captain
Shirreff s presence will ensure the opening [of ] the port.
20
Later, Manuel Abreu, the agent of Spains liberal government sent to
Peru in 1821 to negotiate an armistice with San Martn, wrote in his Poli-
tical Diary that I possess certain information that Abada proposed trade
with the English to Viceroy Pezuela as the best and only means of pre-
venting the expedition of San Martn . . . but because of the decided
opposition of the consulado, Pezuela did not dare declare it, though it appears
that he was inclined to do so. Abreu also reported that San Martn and his
deputies have told me they could not have contemplated that expedition
which landed at Pisco in September 1820, if the project had been approved.
21
ARGUMENTS PRO AND CON
The consulados official reaction to the proposal for direct trade with the
British, presented to the Junta de tribunales on 24 July 1818, was swift and
angry.
22
The prior and consuls demanded that the junta be adjourned
19. Shirreff to Bowles, as recorded in Bowles to Croker, 10 Oct. 1818, Graham and Humph-
reys, Navy and South America, 24849 (emphasis in the original). The report of Philadelphia,
one of San Martns spies, to Joaqun de Echeverra, 12 Feb. 1819, Archivo de San Martn, 7:11920,
describes the efforts of Abada and dOlhaverriague y Blanco to persuade the consulado that
direct trade with the British was essential. See also Hall, Extracts from a Journal, 2:7374.
According to Mendiburu, Diccionario, 8:41819, Flix dOlhaverriague y Blanco was a Spaniard
closely related to foreign merchants and seamen, and able to speak various languages. There are
several spellings of his patronymicOlabarriague, Delaberiaga, for exampleand sometimes
he appears simply as Flix Blanco. The commander of the French frigate Bordelais reported that
dOlhaverriague y Blanco arrived in Peru in mid-April 1817 aboard the San Antonio: cdip-Tomo
27, 1:129.
20. Bowles to Croker, 10 Oct. 1818, Graham and Humphreys, Navy and South America, 249.
21. Diario poltico of Manuel de Abreu, 1821, agi-Lima, leg. 800.
22. The arguments pro and con can be followed in detail in the minutes of their meetings. See
the Testimonio del expediente de la Junta extraordinaria de tribunales, 22 July15 Oct. 1818, agi-
Lima, leg. 759. See also the summary of arguments against direct trade by the Cdiz consulado in
immediately, and that the consulado be given three days in which to meet
and discuss the emergency.
23
Within a few hours, they convened a Junta
de comercio at which they agreed that opening Callao to the British must
be prevented at all costs; 77 of the 329 merchants matriculated in the
consulado signed the minutes. They also agreed to dispatch two of their
number to Spain, under the protection of the former viceroy Abascal, to
confer with the consulado of Cdiz and persuade the crown that direct
trade with the British must not be permitted.
24
Merchants opposed to direct trade were by no means intimidated by
the viceroys support for it: The Real Consulado, in the name of the
entire nation, demands that Your Excellency reject the proposal. The
minutes of the consulados meeting set forth their objections in some detail.
It is well known, they wrote, that in every age free trade has been the
shot that foreigners have aimed at the Spanish nation in order to destroy
it. Once permitted to trade directly to Spains American colonies, even
temporarily, foreigners would refuse to withdraw, and this was far more
dangerous to the states survival than any attack from Chile. Moreover, it
is a political axiom that states are constituted in accord with the wealth
and resources of their vassals, they asserted. Lima is composed of merchants
who are going to be impoverished. Ruining the merchants, therefore, would
destroy the state.
25
By August 1818, the consulados agents were on their way to Madrid to
present the case against Pezuelas trade policy. As their principal argument,
the consulado forwarded to the crown the oficio that had been presented
to the Junta extraordinaria de tribunales on 28 July 1818. Arguing, as usual,
that direct trade would destroy the viceregal economy, the oficio recalled
the damage done by permissions granted to the French of Saint-Malo at
the beginning of the eighteenth century, and especially the contraband
that followed in the wake of British slave-trading operations. The latter
point raises the suspicion that Gaspar Rico had a hand in drafting the oficio:
Informe de la Junta de diputados consulares, 26 Aug. 1817, agi-Consulados, leg. 62; and Indice de
los expedientes de comercio con los extrangeros promovidos por los gefes de las provincias de
Ultramar, undated but apparently from 1821, agi-Indif. gen., leg. 2439.
23. Acta, Junta extraordinaria de tribunales, 24 July 1818, MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 4, q. 1.
24. Acta, Junta extraordinaria de tribunales, 24 July 1818, MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 4, q. 1; Oficio del
prior y cnsules, Real Consulado de Lima, 24 July 1818, agnp-Consulado, leg. 24.
25. Testimonio de la acta, Junta de comercio, 24 de julio de 1818, nmero 1, and Oficio del
consulado al Virrey, 28 July 1818, Testimonio del expediente de la Junta extraordinaria de
tribunales, agi-Lima, leg. 759.
opposition to the British trade that carried slaves to Buenos Aires was one
of his principal campaigns during his earlier residence in Spanish America.
26
The minutes of the two sessions of the consulado convey only an oblique
sense of the merchants anger at the possibility that the viceroy might open
Callao to direct trade with foreigners. The anger was, apparently, deep and
freely expressed, and by no means limited to metropolitan merchants matri-
culated in the consulado. On the contrary, a highly respected voice was
raised in defense of the laws prohibiting foreigners to trade directly to Peru,
that of Manuel Lorenzo de Vidaurre, who in 1817 had so eloquently defended
limeos right to trade on an equal footing with the kings vasallos de Espaa.
27
In his Comercio libre de Amrica, written soon after the free-trade propo-
sal was put forward, he minced no words: Only sovereigns can regulate
commerce. Viceroys could not change commercial laws. More ominously,
Vidaurre cited the Laws of the Indies as to the consequences of usurping
the kings prerogative:
Law 7, title 27, book 9 . . . orders that no traffic with foreigners is
permitted, not even for ransom, under pain of death, confiscation
of assets, and loss of office by the governor who acts to the
contrary. The law cannot be evaded on the general pretext of
extraordinary circumstances. His Majesty knows very well what
they are, and has deemed it more convenient to reject the direct
aid that England could provide rather than grant it direct trade
for any period of time. This extreme opposition, not presumed but
manifest, to free trade, makes anyone who proposes it a traitor to
the state, and one will never believe that our Excelentssimo Seor
Virrey, who is the most loyal of subjects, will accede to it.
28
26. On his way to Peru in 1801, Rico had strongly recommended that the Cinco Gremios
Mayores establish . . . without the slightest hesitation an enterprise for importing slaves into
South America, and with the investment of 100,000 to 120,000 pesos, we can look forward with
pleasure to the departure of the English, Portuguese, and Anglo-Americans from this territory,
which appears more their colony than our possession. Rico, Garca, and Taranco to Diputados
directores, Cinco Gremios Mayores, Buenos Aires, 31 May 1801, agi-Lima, leg. 1620. Within a
year of his arrival in Lima, Rico had entered the slave trade, having signed a contract with the
count of Premio Real to import 2,000 slaves into Peru; the details of the contract, based on a
trading privilege granted to Premio Real by the crown in 1798, were completed on 18 Oct. 1802:
see Testimonio general no. 17, Expediente sobre el conducto, agi-Lima, leg. 1620; Rico, Proyecto
relativo al comercio, suerte y servidumbre de los esclavos, inclinado a su transicin oportuna a libres
(Cdiz, 1813).
27. Vidaurre, Plan del Per, cdip-Tomo 1, 5:11222.
28. Vidaurre, Comercio libre de Amrica, cdip-Tomo 1, 5:325.
But opinion was by no means unanimously opposed to free trade. San
Martns spy reported that the defenders of the proposition had been
present and heard from during the Juntas de comercio of July 1818. Two of
themFlix dOlhaverriague y Blanco and Jos de Arismendiargued very
heatedly in favor of free trade, but everyone else was opposed to it.
29
How many joined them in open support of free trade we do not know,
because no signed document expressing their opinion has been found. But
the war of words that followed the proposal to open Callao to direct trade
allows us to follow the development of conflict on this issue.
A few days after the meeting of Tribunales, the Junta de arbitrios defended
its proposal in their sharply worded Observations on the Regulation of
Free Trade, insisting that the metropolitan merchants who wished to
reserve the Atlantic trade to themselves even in the face of extreme emer-
gency were pursuing an irrational dream, blinded by the spirit of faction
and unable to change their ways when circumstances demanded it. Sticking
to the well-beaten path of custom, that tyrant of mortals understanding
and actions, was arrogant in the extreme, they insisted. But because the
truths that are always revealed on the road to reason must conflict with the
worship of routine and custom, the plan [for free trade] has been rejected
by the Junta de comercio . . . with no more thought than if Peru existed
only for merchants, and did not count among its inhabitants sugar growers
. . . or the poor who can no longer survive the high price of food, or others
whose fate should be of interest to the government. Immediately opening
Callao to foreign merchants was essential to the survival of Spanish rule
in Peru. Are we by chance ignorant of the fact that the greatest catas-
trophes arise on occasion from failing to take energetic action in a timely
manner? they asked.
30
For the merchants of the Junta de arbitrios, the
law of necessity had overtaken strict interpretations of the Laws of the
Indies, but even as they advocated drastic change in the rules for the
regulation of trade in Peru, both precedent and obedience to the kings
commands were invoked.
There was ample precedenteven official supportfor the proposal to
open Limas port to direct trade with the British.
31
To begin with, Pezuela
was under orders from the crown to treat all subjects of His Britannic
29. Report by an unidentified spy, 25 July 1818, Archivo de San Martn, 7:5760.
30. Observaciones sobre el reglamento de libre comercio, 28 July 1818, Testimonio del
expediente de la Junta extraordinaria de tribunales, agi-Lima, leg. 759.
31. For examples, see the Indice de los expedientes de comercio con los extrangeros
promovidos por los gefes de las Provincias de Ultramar, [1821], agi-Indif. gen., leg. 2439.
Majesty with the greatest courtesy. Moreover, some of the merchandise
which one faction of the consulado characterized as contraband was in fact
carried to Peruvian ports in foreign ships sailing under contracts drawn up
by Spanish diplomats in London, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Rio de
Janeiro.
32
One of the most contentious of many such contracts involved a
royal permission granted on 13 June 1815 to a Baltimore merchant house,
Smith-Buchanan, to trade to Lima. As Spains ambassador to the United
States informed Pezuela at the end of his letter of 26 November 1816,
It remains to me to make clear to you that General Smith, head
of this house, is one of the most influential members of the Con-
gress of this Republic, that having him well-disposed could be of
the greatest utility to the crown, that his house is among the most
solid and respectable of Baltimore, and that you can make use of
him with complete confidence in whatever commission occurs to
you . . . in the full certainty that whatever kind or class it may be,
he has promised me that he will always be disposed to serve you
even in the most delicate matters such as arms, munitions, tobacco,
ships, or whatever else offers itself.
33
32. El Virrey de Lima al General de las tropas de S.M.C., 26 July 1818, MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 4,
q. 1; Pezuela to Ministro de Hacienda, 3 Nov. 1818, agi-Lima, leg. 759. One of these contracts is
mentioned in Pezuela, Memoria de gobierno, 373; others are in San Carlos to Viceroy of Peru,
London, 20 Oct. 1818, sim-Estado, leg. 8223, and San Carlos to Casa Irujo, London, 5 May 1819,
sim-Estado, leg. 8179.
33. Luis de Ons to Virrey del Per, Philadelphia, 26 Nov. 1816, agi-Lima, leg. 1550. See also
Francisco de Sarmiento to Pezuela, Baltimore, 30 Nov. 1816, as quoted in Alejandro Reyes Flores,
La legacin espaola en Estados Unidos y su correspondencia con Lima, 18151819, Quinto
Congreso Internacional de Historia de Amrica, 6 vols. (Lima: Comisin Nacional del
Sesquicentenario de la Independencia del Per, 1972), 2:350: Sarmiento, Spanish consul in
Baltimore, informed Pezuela that Samuel Smith was a person of the greatest influence and
public stature in these States, both as a general and as a senator [sic], and it is of the greatest
importance to His Majesty that [Smith] be pleased and dependent on us, because his influence
with the Anglo-American government can be very useful to Spain. Smith, in fact, repaid the
favor. In the 1818 debate in the U.S. House of Representatives on Henry Clays proposal to
recognize the independence of Buenos Aires, General Smith distinguished himself in our favor:
Ons to Pizarro, no. 57, 6 Apr. 1818, ahn-Estado, leg. 5643
1
. See also Invoice of goods shipped by
S. Smith & Buchanan, Hollins & McBlair, & Lemuel Tailor on board the Ship Sidney, Joshua
Mezick, master, bound for Lima, Baltimore, 30 Nov. 1816, agi-Lima, leg. 1550; Consulado to
Crown, 3 May 1817, agnp-Hacienda colonial, leg. 1227. The Sidney contract was in compensation
for the loss of the companys ship Warren, captured off Chile at the turn of the century: Pezuela
to Ministro de Hacienda, 2 Mar. 1817, agi-Lima, leg. 1550. The expediente on the Warren is in
agi-Lima, leg. 1550; and see La junta superior de real hacienda del virreinato del Per
expone . . . , 26 July 1817, agi-Lima, leg. 774.
When Smith-Buchanans ship Sidney anchored in Callao on 9 March
1817, it carried the royal order permitting the firms tradeand goods valued
at US$141,902. Also on board were dispatches from the Spanish ambassa-
dor to the United States, Luis de Ons, informing Pezuela that nine armed
ships were preparing to sail from Baltimore for the Pacific to destroy the
kings forces and annihilate [Spanish] commerce.
34
Not only did the viceroy
permit the Sidney to sell its cargo; he began using Smith-Buchanan to
supply the royalists with arms purchased in the United States and carried
directly to Callao in the firms ships, along with merchandise to be sold at
a profit sufficient to cover the freight charges. It comes as no surprise that
Smith-Buchanan cargoes were consigned to the factor of the Filipinas
Company, Pedro de Abada, and that the officers of the consulado objected
to this form of direct trade.
35
In spite of the threat posed by the metropolitan merchants rage, how-
ever, for a time free trade with the English continued to be debated openly
in Lima. The two parties that soon emerged framed arguments around three
subsidiary issues, all of them related to the possibility that the viceroy
would permit direct trade with foreigners in order to advance the pacifica-
tion of Peru: the importance of continuing to trade with independent
Chile; the question of whether the viceregal fiscal crisis was such that Perus
defense was imperiled; and the extent of the viceroys power to act contrary
to the Laws of the Indies in an emergency.
THE QUESTION OF CHILE
As long as the debates in the two juntas concerned only the recovery of
Chile from the rebels, conflict between Pezuela and the consulado posed
34. Luis de Ons to Virrey del Per, Philadelphia, 27 Nov. 1816, agi-Lima, leg. 1550: So great
is the brazen activity that has taken over that port to arm ships, brought there from all the ports
of the Union, for the flag of Buenos Aires that no one can find a worker to repair merchantmen.
See also Pezuela, Memoria de gobierno, 12122; Francisco Suero et al. to Viceroy, 9 Apr. 1817, agnp-
Consulado, leg. 4; Informe del consulado, 23 Apr. 1817, agnp-Hacienda colonial, leg. 1227; Invoice
of goods shipped . . . on board the Ship Sidney, Baltimore, 30 Nov. 1816, agi-Lima, leg. 1550;
Reyes Flores, Legacin espaola, 34950.
35. Pezuela, Memoria de gobierno, 15859, 266; Consulado to Crown, 3 May 1817, agnp-Hacienda
colonial, leg. 1227. The consulado later demanded that the Filipinas Company pay the fees owed
it on the Sidneys transactions (Consulado to Ministro de Hacienda, 23 Sept. 1817, agi-Filipinas,
leg. 994), and that Pezuela justify his conduct in permitting the Sidney and another Smith-
Buchanan ship, the Governor Shelby, to sell their cargoes (Pezuela to Ministro de Hacienda, 3
Nov. 1818, agi-Lima, leg. 759). For more on Smith-Buchanan and their trade to Peru and Chile,
see Miguel de Lardizbal to Viceroy Abascal, Madrid, 13 June 1815, agi-Lima, leg. 1550; La Junta
Superior de Real Hacienda del virreinato del Per expone . . . , 26 July 1817, agi-Lima, leg. 774;
Whitaker, United States and the Independence of Latin America, 22, 38 n. 47, 90.
no threat to the viceroys continuance in office. Although La Serna criti-
cized Pezuelas efforts to reconquer Chile as wasteful and unnecessary,
36
his was an isolated voice. There was substantial agreement with a policy
intended to restore Peruvian dominance of the interprovincial trade and at
the same time drive foreign shipping out of the Pacific. Limas dependence
on Chilean wheat and the landowners dependence on the Chilean market
for sugar were obvious, as was the need to prepare a costly expeditionary
force which, it was assumed, would quickly restore Spanish rule. Although
Pezuelas attempts to collect forced loans to pay for the Chilean expedi-
tion had already created conflict with the consulado, the viceroy did not
hesitate to anger them further by using neutral shipping to obtain arms
for the reconquest. He had done so in the case of the French ship Borde-
lais, which had been permitted to sell imported merchandise and export
Peruvian products (with Abadas help) by a viceroy grateful for the war
matriel supplied to the royalists.
37
In answer to the consulados protest,
Pezuela wrote:
The privilege granted to the captain of the French frigate Bordelais
is an exceptional case in which the government is authorized to
make use of the high powers granted it by the King without
reference to those regulations employed in ordinary cases to main-
tain full enjoyment of special privileges. It will observe the same
conduct whenever a similar occasion arises, and if the Great Turk
. . . were to present himself here with rifles, in order to obtain
them, I would grant him not only the same privilege but also
make other sacrifices in his honor even if they compromised my
own person and purse. I owe it all to my support and love of the
public interest, whose benefit is involved in the acquisition of this
36. La Serna to Pezuela, Potos, 1 Nov. 1817, MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 8. For Pezuelas stinging reply,
dated 10 Dec. 1817, see Archivo de San Martn, 5:35. See also Pezuelas exposition of the
importance of reconquering Chile, 4 Dec. 1817, in Pezuela, Memoria de gobierno, 196; and his letter
to the Ministro de la Guerra, 19 Sept. 1817, quoted by Vicua Mackenna, Revolucin de la
independencia, 17576 n. 6. For La Sernas opinion, see Valds, Refutacin . . . del Manifiesto, in
Torata, Documentos para la historia, 2:117: In 1817, 1820, and 1823, General La Serna stated his
opinion that possession of Chile was very useful; but he always insisted that Peru could be
defended without it. Experience proved him right.
37. The captain of the Bordelais had supplied 150 new rifles to the royalists at Valparaiso on 7
Feb. 1817: Viva El Rey, Gaceta del Gobierno de Chile, Tomo 3, no. 10 (11 Feb. 1817), in Biblioteca
Nacional, Coleccin de antiguos peridicos chilenos, 20 vols. (Santiago: Imprenta Cultura, 1954),
2:346. It was in payment for them that the captain demanded permission to trade at Callao: see
the extract from De Roquefeuils Le tour du monde en 37 mois, cdip-Tomo 26, 1:12426.
type of arms, to the point where their present scarcity is an
extremely powerful obstacle to the conclusion of the struggle in
which we are engaged. I believe that if you had considered these
circumstances, you also would have abstained from presenting me
with a memorial little in keeping with them.
38
Even after this rebuke of the consulado, in which Pezuela stated clearly
his reasons for permitting a foreigner to trade at Callao and defended his
authority to do so, he felt it necessary to record his decision in another
case in his diary.
39
It was becoming steadily more difficult for the viceroy
to defend those licenses: a royal decree of 30 May 1817 forbade granting
commercial privileges under any pretext, whether for the peninsula or for
the Americas.
40
The Spanish ministry of the treasury, consistently suppor-
tive of the Lima consulados protests against direct trade, obtained a royal
order on 13 October 1817 calling on Pezuela to justify every case where he
had granted permission for a foreign ship to trade at Callao. In his reply,
Pezuela discussed, besides the French ship Bordelais, two Russian ships,
the Portuguese Brillante Magdalena, and the U.S. merchantmen Sidney,
Beaver, Canton, Governor Shelby, and the Two Catherines, all of which carried
essential supplies to Callao. I am persuaded, he wrote, that the examples
cited will not merit His Majestys disapproval, because they are imme-
diately concerned with the defense of these dominions. Pezuela then
appealed to the good of your Royal Service as the supreme law to justify
his action contrary to the statutes that reserve to your sovereign will this
type of permissions.
41
In Pezuelas opinion, in order to prevent Peruvian
independence, the law of necessity trumped regulations that placed limits
on the viceroys authority. The consulados officers and the metropolitan
merchants disagreed.
After the decisive royalist defeat at Mayp in April 1818, conflict
escalated on the issue of commercial relations with an independent Chile
overrun by foreigners. Debate centered on the problem of supplying Lima
38. Pezuela to Consulado, 22 May 1817, agnp-Consulado, leg. 12. The consulados protest on
the privilege granted to the Bordelais was dated the day before, 21 May.
39. Pezuela, Memoria de gobierno, 158. The entry is dated 4 Aug. 1817.
40. Informe del Consulado de Cdiz al Ministerio de Hacienda, 22 Aug. 1817, agi-Consulados,
leg. 81.
41. Pezuela to Secretario de Estado y del Despacho de Hacienda, 3 Nov. 1818, agi-Lima, leg.
759. See also Pezuela to Ministro de Hacienda, 16 Dec. 1817, agi-Lima, leg. 1019, where he
justified permitting Russian ship captains to sell their cargoes because they had supplied him
with rifles and other military matriel.
with wheat and the related problem of how to enable sugar producers to
export their surpluses to the only external market in which they could
compete. The issue surfaced soon after the royalist defeat at Chacabuco in
February 1817. Pezuela reacted with what he assumed would be a temporary
order. Believing that alternate supplies of wheat could be secured for the
immediate future, he forbade its importation whether in Spanish or neutral
ships. But the cabildos efforts to increase production in the valleys near
Lima met with little success,
42
and landowners complaints about their inability
to export their products increased. As the months passed, Pezuelas anxiety
on both points rose, as did the exasperation of the consulados official
representatives, who rejected every proposal put forward to alleviate the
subsistence problem or redress the landowners grievances. In spite of the
questionable legality of the continuing trade in Chilean wheat, however,
much of the reduced supply of grain reaching Lima was carried in foreign
ships, which were forbidden to load sugar and molasses for export to
Chile.
43
At the Junta de tribunales that met on 19 January 1819, Pezuela
presented a petition from the supercargo of the American merchantman
Canton for permission to participate in the coasting trade in wheat and
sugar, and in the same meeting, one from the limeo faction of the Junta
de navieros, the shipowners guild, which called for trade in grain along the
coast of Peru in neutral ships.
44
On 6 February 1819, Dr. Hiplito Unanue,
representing the landowners, declared that the threat of a general famine
in Lima was serious, and that it derived from the entire paralysis of national
commerce, and from the unjust refusal [of the consulado] to permit the
assistance of neutrals which by their nature can circulate freely by sea,
while the departure of Spanish ships serves only to make them the prize
of the swarm of corsairs and pirates which insurrection has produced. If
Lima were to remain in royalist hands, he insisted, then its citizens could
not be deprived of the most essential staple of their diets.
45
But the consu-
lados opposition to foreigners trade even in essential foodstuffs was adamant.
42. Hermenegildo de la Puente to Pezuela, 17 Aug. 1818, MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 4, q. 1; M. N.
Vargas, Historia, 1:39; Anna, Fall of the Royal Government, 910, 13839.
43. Oficio del consulado, 22 Aug. 1818, Testimonio del expediente de la Junta extraordinaria de
tribunales, agi-Lima, leg. 759. For the viceroys defense of his right to grant export licenses to
foreign shipmasters, see Pezuela to Consulado, 29 Aug. 1818, agnp-Consulado, leg. 12.
44. Regalado and Salinas, Actitud del consulado, 28485. The shipowners petition was dated
6 Jan. 1819; presumably they planned to serve as factors for the trade in neutral ships.
45. Acta de la Junta extraordinaria de tribunales, 6 Feb. 1819, agi-Lima, leg. 760. Similar
arguments were put forth at the next session: Testimonio de la acta de la Junta de tribunales, 10
Feb. 1819, agi-Lima, leg. 760. See also Consulado to Crown, 13 Feb. 1819, agi-Lima, leg. 1550.
A group of Atlantic-trade shipowners summarized the consulados oft-
repeated reasons for opposition in their memorandum objecting to the
petition of the Cantons supercargo. They declared the petition to be the
most contrary to the Nations interests, to our maritime trade, our continued
political existence, the development of our industry, and the fundamental
power of the State; it is opposed to the letter of our laws and to their spirit,
and to the measures that comprise a solid foundation for the pacification
of these dominions; it would destroy our entire merchant marine . . . ;
foreigners would become the masters of all our trade; and what is even
more painful and terrible, contraband would increase.
46
Opposition was equally strong to the hacendados petitions to export
their deteriorating surpluses of sugar and molasses in neutral ships. On 6
February 1819, Unanue argued that the landowners were bearing a dispro-
portionate share of the burden of war because they were unable to sell their
perishable products for lack of transport, but the consulados representa-
tives to the Junta de tribunales ignored him. An appeal by the landowners
of Trujillo for permission to charter a foreign ship which by exporting
some of their products could put them to market and thereby restore the
cultivation of their land was rejected out of hand. Even when trade with
Chile was not contemplated, the metropolitan merchants stood firm. An
attempt by landowners to place their sugar in Spain by shipping it in a
neutral vessel was also blocked by the consulado, and this in spite of a
strongly worded letter from Pezuela pointing out that the landowners
interest in the matter of free trade was of no less importance . . . than
that of the class you represent.
47
Nor was support for Pezuelas policy on trade in foodstuffs forthcoming
from Spain, where the Council of the Indies was considering his proposal
for temporary direct trade with the British. The metropolitan merchants
position on trade with independent Chile was supported by a powerful
voice, that of the former viceroy, Fernando de Abascal, then living in
retirement in Spain, who had offered his services to the consulado just
before his departure from Peru. In his Informe on Pezuelas proposal to
permit direct trade with foreigners, dated 29 June 1819, he wrote:
46. Acta, Junta de navieros, 9 Jan. 1819, agi-Lima, leg. 1550. The price of wheat carried to
Callao by neutrals rose precipitously after 1817: Anna, Fall of the Royal Government, 145.
47. Acta, Junta de tribunales, 19 Jan. 1819, agi-Lima, leg. 760; Informe del consulado sobre la soli-
citud de D. Francisco Heurteley, Capitan de la fragata inglesa nombrada Will . . . contraido al Superior
permiso de admitir a flete las partidas de azucar que se le presenten para conducirlas de cuenta y
riesgo de individuos de este comercio con destino a los puertos de Vigo y Santander en Espaa,
agnp-Hacienda colonial, leg. 1227; Pezuela to Consulado, 29 Aug. 1818, agnp-Consulado, leg. 12.
The petition of the landowners and farmers . . . ought not to
influence in any way the affair under consideration, for they culti-
vate no exportable product other than sugar and molasses, whose
surplus from the consumption of the country supplies the Kingdom
of Chile, and they cannot be shipped to any other place because of
their high price. If for the present [the landowners] are prevented
from exporting, our enemies also suffer from their inability to sell
their grains, wines, tallow, and meat, and they must adjust while
the war lasts.
48
Like other hard-liners in Spain and Peru, Abascal saw no reason to grant
concessions to inhabitants of an American province, even a royalist city
under siege, if those concessions were contrary to the interests of the
metropolitan merchants and the rules for regulating colonial trade.
49
The
more moderate Pezuela, by contrast, was willing to defend the interests of
local groups, especially the landowners, against the powerful merchants
who, he believed, were willing to sacrifice Spains continued rule in Peru
for the sake of their legally established monopoly of the Atlantic trade.
THE QUESTION OF RESOURCES
Pezuela was proud of the fact that, in spite of all the difficulties, he had
managed to recruit, equip, and transport a large army to reconquer Chile
without significant aid from Spain and without the hard-line tactics he
deplored. Now, with the consulado bereft of income and burdened by
debt, and the inhabitants . . . weary of taxes and anxious to hoard their
money because of the poor credit record of the treasury,
50
he proposed to
raise the money needed for the military effort not by further increasing
taxes on Perus citizens, nor by additional forced loans, but by taxes on
direct foreign trade. This course of action, he believed, was more in keeping
with his moderate stance. As he later wrote, my greatest glory consists in
having reaped a prodigious harvest from parched land, without laying
48. Informe del marqus de la Concordia sobre el proyecto de comercio libre entre el Puerto
del Callao de Lima, y la Inglaterra, propuesta por el actual virrey del Per D. Joaqun de la
Pezuela, Madrid, 29 June 1819, agi-Lima, leg. 1550.
49. As he was preparing to leave Lima in 1816, Abascal wrote to the consulado offering to
represent its interests before the throne of the most beloved of monarchs. The consulado had
Abascals letter and its response printed and distributed in Lima: Consulta dirigida al Excelen-
tssimo Seor Marqus de la Concordia (Lima: Berdardino Ruiz, 1816), agi-Lima, leg. 1551.
waste to it by violence nor sterilizing it forever, pulling up by the roots the
seeds of its vitality.
51
The viceroys proposal for direct trade with the British met with support
from the bureaucrats, churchmen, and others who attended the Junta general
de tribunales on 24 July 1818. Indeed, the majority was of the opinion that
the proposal should be approved. As we have seen, the consulado was
adamantly opposed and in the Junta general de comercio convened that
evening the merchants voted to provide 100,000 pesos monthly for five
months beginning the end of August.
52
Once again, Pezuela was angered
by the inadequacy of the consulados pledge: it was temporary aid in the
face of a long-term problem; it fell short of the amount needed by 57,000
pesos per month; and it compared poorly with the proceeds to be expected
from taxes on direct trade with foreigners. By what means, he asked sarcas-
tically, was the additional money to be supplied? There were no answers to this
question, and the consulados officers limited their own response to an offer
to inform the merchants of the remaining gap in the viceregal budget.
53
Frustrated by the consulados intransigence, Pezuela decided to take the
case for direct trade with foreigners to the crown. He began by collecting
the documents necessary to prove that his efforts to defend the viceroyalty
had been obstructed by the consulado. On 3 November, he forwarded to
the treasury minister in Madrid an expediente concerning the selection of
free commerce as the means to supply the necessities of the royal treasury,
together with a letter explaining his policy.
54
He followed it with another
carefully worded letter of 30 November 1818, recapitulating his earlier
letter but adding that he had reason to believe that distorted information
about his stewardship of the funds collected for Perus defense had been
forwarded to Madrid by people whose personal interests had obscured
their sense of patriotic duty.
55
After describing the desperate condition of the royal treasury in Peru,
caused by the increased and absolutely necessary expenses arising from the
52. Testimonio de la acta, Junta de comercio, 24 July 1818, no. 1, Testimonio del expediente de
la Junta extraordinaria de tribunales, agi-Lima, leg. 759.
53. Pezuela, Memoria de gobierno, 29596; Regalado and Salinas, Actitud del consulado, 282,
291 n. 53; Testimonio de la acta, Junta de comercio, 24 July 1818, no. 1, Testimonio del expediente
de la Junta extraordinaria de tribunales, agi-Lima, leg. 759.
54. Testimonio del expediente de las juntas extraordinarias de tribunales, sobre la eleccin de
arbitrios de comercio libre para socorro de las necessidades de la real hacienda, 3 Nov. 1818, agi-
Lima, leg. 1551; Pezuela to Secretario de Estado y del Despacho de Hacienda, 3 Nov. 1818, agi-
Lima, leg. 759.
55. Pezuela to Secretara de Hacienda, 30 Nov. 1818, agi-Lima, leg. 759, in cdip-Tomo 22, 2:4650.
American revolutions, Pezuela argued that the colonial rebellion was respon-
sible for the decline in revenues, especially since legal commerce had been
all but destroyed by the war.
56
Nevertheless, he insisted that much had
been accomplished in spite of limited resources. Now those resources were
absolutely exhausted. An already difficult situation had become an
emergency, Pezuela wrote, because of the victory of San Martns forces in
Chile. To defend Lima from imminent invasion, he had demanded that
the Junta de arbitrios raise 266,000 pesos for the navy, plus 117,000 pesos
per month to pay for troops to garrison the capitalan extension of a
five-month commitment by the consulado, which was soon to expire. It was
for the first of these two purposes that taxes on cargoes bound for Cdiz
and payable there had been borrowed,
57
but the junta found no solution
for the second until, on 22 July 1818, its members presented Pezuela with
their plan for direct trade with the English for a period of two years.
At that time, the British frigate of war Andromache was anchored in
Callao Bay, and Pezuela proposed to use the good offices of her captain to
circulate his decree encouraging foreign merchantmen to trade with royalist
Peru. Pezuela was especially anxious that the numerous ships then anchored
in rebel-held Valparaiso be lured to a royalist port in order to deprive the
Chileans of revenue, thereby decreasing their capacity to invade Peru. He
knew that foreign merchantmen were providing the rebels with critically
needed resources in addition to money: well-armed ships, rifles and ammu-
nition, and skilled seamen.
58
All of those resources were desperately needed
by the royalists; thus, in Pezuelas opinion, direct trade with foreigners
would doubly benefit the kings cause.
Pezuela then argued that other portions of Spains American empire,
notably Cuba, in circumstances less difficult than those facing Peru, had
56. For a clear demonstration of the decline of Spanish commerce in the Pacific, see Anna,
Fall of the Royal Government, 14244, esp. table 9: Ships Landing in Callao in 1819.
57. Pezuela had informed the Ministro de Hacienda of this decision in his letter no. 269, 16
June 1818, and his decision was approved by the crown: Al Virrey del Per, Madrid, 31 Oct. 1818,
58. Like the royalists, the rebels depended on taxes on commerce for a major share of revenue:
see cdip-Tomo 22, vol. 2, lminas 810, 1316, 23; Timothy E. Anna, Economic Causes of San
Martins Failure in Lima, HAHR 54, no. 4 (1974): 41 n. 41. Rebel agents in London and the Atlantic
ports of the United States had been notoriously successful in purchasing both armaments and
ships, and the rebel commander of Chiles fleet raided merchantmen for able-bodied seamen,
leaving many such ships unable to sail for want of deckhands: Luis de Ons to Jos Pizarro, no.
19, 3 Feb. 1817, and no. 113, 4 July 1817, ahn-Estado, leg. 5642; Bowles to Croker, 28 Nov. 1817,
Graham and Humphreys, Navy and South America, 212; Billingsley, In Defense of Neutral Rights,
22, 35, 9495; Whitaker, United States and the Independence of Latin America, 6769, 134 and n. 49.
elected to authorize temporary direct trade. The consequences had proven
acceptable even though fewer safeguards against excess exports of specie
and foreign domination of trade had been written into the agreements.
Moreover, in the case of Peru, direct trade was the only means by which
necessary supplies of food and clothing could be made available to the
citizens of the viceroyalty, because Spanish commerce was at a standstill.
59
In spite of the critical problems of defense and subsistence, Pezuela
assured the crown that he had respected the protests of the consulado,
delaying implementation of the plan to permit trade with the British. In
return, the consulado had promised to supply the funds necessary for the
defense of Lima. Perhaps to avoid escalating conflict with the merchants,
Pezuela then said that the consulado had been keeping its promises. But no
record of payments on the forced loans between 1 October and 30 Novem-
ber 1818 has been found, and his strongly worded letter to the merchants
of 1 October 1818 demanding that they bring their pledged payments up to
date flatly contradicted this conciliatory declaration.
60
In his letter to the
crown, however, Pezuela argued that the consulado would be unable to
keep its promises in the critical months ahead, as much because of the
decline in sales and reduction of trade to the interior of this impoverished
country . . . as because I observe that opinions are divided concerning the
plan for free trade, and I have even come to believe that the opposing
party has been composed of only four wealthy traders with Panama and
Jamaica who associated themselves with some of their clients or dependents
to prevent it, out of fear of bankruptcy if the rich cargoes which they had
on hand . . . had to compete with foreign imports. At the end of the
letter, Pezuela hastened to assure the crown that he had carefully observed
the laws, but that necessity had forced him to grant certain rare conces-
sions for the sake of the defense of the viceroyalty.
Two previously unmentioned issues surface in this letter. The first is an
indirect allusion to criticism of Pezuelas stewardship of the large sums that
had been collected from the merchants to pay for the war effort. Pezuela
was acutely conscious of such criticism, and often referred to his economies
and the care with which he had spent the money entrusted to him, as well
as to his own contributions of cash to the war effort.
61
This became an
59. Eyzaguirre, Archivo epistolar, 2023; Acta de la Junta consultiva de 6 de noviembre [1809] sobre
la permissin provisoria de comercio con los extrangeros, Documentos para la historia argentina, 7:37987.
60. Pezuela to Consulado, 1 Oct. 1818, cited in Regalado and Salinas, Actitud del consulado, 284.
61. See, for example, Pezuela to Sres. Ministros generales de ejrcito y real hacienda, 31 Aug.
1820, MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 4, q. 6.
important issue in Pezuelas overthrow: in their ultimatum demanding
that he resign as viceroy, the officers of the army referred both to his
improvidence and to his foolish attempt to save money by such measures
as reducing the size of Limas garrison.
62
Second is a very direct allusion to a group of metropolitan merchants
whose pattern of tradeimportation of foreign goods obtained in Jamaica
and embarked for Peru via Panamaplaced them in direct competition
with the Filipinas faction of the consulado and the merchants involved in
the trade to Chile.
63
Pezuela does not name the four merchants, but they
were probably the men who voted against direct trade in the Juntas de
tribunales: the prior, Miguel Fernando Ruiz, consuls Faustino del Campo
and Antonio Jos de Sarraoa, and Gaspar Rico. The four may have been
supported by the ten men who petitioned the viceroy on 9 April 1817 for
permission to land their Panamanian cargoes in Paita, a port known for
tolerance of contraband, and carry them overland to the capital, on the
pretext that rebel ships might be in the Pacific.
64
Six of the ten are on
record as opposing proposals for direct trade with foreigners at Callao.
65
At the end of December 1818, Pezuela remained confident that the crown
would accept his arguments for the necessity of direct trade: the Spanish
ambassador in Rio de Janeiro had informed him that Spain and England
had signed a commercial treaty.
66
His continuing confidence is attested to
by the fact that, according to P. C. Tupper in Lima, in March 1819 the
62. Officers pronunciamiento, 29 Jan. 1821, cdip-Tomo 26, 3:35556. For Pezuelas reasons for
dismissing troops, see his Memoria de gobierno, 7045.
63. Acta, Junta de tribunales, 16 Jan. 1818, agnp-Consulado, leg. 24; Observaciones sobre el
reglamento de libre comercio, 28 July 1818, Testimonio del expediente de la Junta extraordinaria
de tribunales, agi-Lima, leg. 759.
64. Merchants to Viceroy, 9 Apr. 1817, agnp-Consulado, leg. 4; and in response to their
petition, Informe del consulado, 23 Apr. 1817, agnp-Hacienda colonial, leg. 1227; Consulado to
Crown, 3 May 1817, agnp-Hacienda colonial, leg. 1227; and the Informe de mesa, Madrid, 5 Oct.
1820, agi-Indif. gen., leg. 313. In its 1818 proposal for granting free trade to the British, the Junta
de arbitrios acknowledged that a large shipment of goods out of Panama, most or all of it . . . de
ilicito comercio, was about to arrive in Callao: Testimonio del expediente de la Junta extra-
ordinaria de tribunales, 22 July15 Oct. 1818, agi-Lima, leg. 759.
65. Acta de la junta general del comercio, 14 Oct. 1818, agnp-Consulado, leg. 24; Oficio sobre
comercio libre, 1821, agnp-Consulado, leg. 4. Only one of the sixJuan Pedro Zelayetaseems
to have had an interest in direct trade; he had been willing to answer Pezuelas call to organize
commercial ventures in neutral ships sailing directly to foreign ports: Acta, Junta general de
comercio, 6 June 1818, agi-Lima, leg. 1550. Zelayeta had also defended Abada against Rico in 1812:
66. Hall, Extracts from a Journal, 75; Pezuela, Memoria de gobierno, 391. A copy of the ambassa-
dors letter fell into rebel hands: Casa Flores to Pezuela, 9 Oct. 1818, Archivo de San Martn,
5:21314.
viceroy issued an order opening the port of Callao to British trade for
a period of two years. Tupper, a British merchant, informed the prime
minister that, by the terms of the agreement, Englishmen might settle in
the port and trade there, but only through the agency of a Spanish consignee
could they dispose of their goods.
67
(Again, the English-speaking Abada
and his associates could be expected to garner the lions share of these con-
signments.) But apart from the draft of the proposal presented to the
Junta de tribunales on 24 July 1818, no viceregal order officially opening
the port has been found, either in Pezuelas Memoria de gobierno or in his
papers; it is likely, therefore, that Tuppers information was another example
of Pezuelas policy of spreading information informally by means of verbal
assurances to individual foreigners that they and their compatriots would
be welcome in Callao. It was a strategy well suited to the period when the
viceroy was awaiting a ruling from the crown that, he believed, would
support his position on direct trade: it allowed him to increase urgently
needed resources for the prosecution of the war while following the time-
honored precedents and procedures for consultation with Madrid.
THE QUESTION OF THE VICEROYS POWERS
In keeping with the tradition of obedezco pero no cumplo, Pezuela had insti-
tuted a practice that, although contrary to a strict interpretation of the Laws
of the Indies, was permissible ad interim, while the crown deliberated its
merits. But the game had to be played in accord with a set of rules that
included pursuit of alternatives and consultation with those politically and
economically active sectors whose interests were involved.
As 1819 began, therefore, Pezuela invited a new group of men to an
enlarged Junta extraordinaria de tribunales, convened on 19 January, to
discuss yet again the means by which money was to be raised to assure
our civil and political survival. For the first time, Gaspar Rico was invited
to participate officially in the debate.
68
The financial emergency was acute.
As usual, the treasury was empty, and the only revenue forthcoming was the
35,000 to 40,000 pesos that the ministers of the viceregal treasury expected
to collect in customs duties during February, a sum considerably less than
the 266,137 pesos needed for the month. As Abada had expected, the
67. Goebel, British Trade, 319, citing P. C. Tupper to Castlereagh, 20 Mar. 1819.
68. Testimonio del acta de la Junta extraordinaria de tribunales de 19 de enero de 1819, agi-
Lima, leg. 760.
Fig. 6 Mariano Carrillo, El Ex
mo
. Sr. Don Joaqun de la Pezuela y Sanchez Muos de
Velasco . . . , Viceroy of Peru, 18161821. The Portrait was painted in 1818. Courtesy
Museo Nacional de Arqueologia, Antropologa e Historia del Per (photo: Daniel
Giannoni).
Image Not Available
consulado was in arrears by 163,215 pesos in payments on its pledge of
117,000 pesos monthly for five months. To raise money, Arbitrios had
proposed to tax the bureaucrats and the bakers, but only 85,000 pesos
annually could be raised in this manner. Thus it seemed obvious to Pezuela
and the Junta de arbitrios that the only source of funds sufficient to meet
the emergency was a tax collected on foreign merchandise legally imported
to Peru in foreign ships.
The Junta de arbitrios, on which both Abada and Arismendi were
now serving, agreed. In their formal report of 29 January 1819 to Tribunales,
however, they also proposed a more modest expedient analogous to Pezuelas
growing practice of admitting foreign ships on a case-by-case basis. Arbitrios
proposed that the [six] foreign ships which at this time are detained in
the port of Callao be permitted to unload and sell their merchandise in
spite of the law which prohibits it, for the necessity of preserving this
territory for the King, and for its inhabitants their persons and fortunes, is
the supreme law; and the taxes they would produce would contribute to
remedy in part the present afflictions.
69
Ignacio Mier, archdeacon of Lima, was chosen to present this proposal
on behalf of Arbitrios, of which he was a member. He argued that the
presence in Callao of various foreign ships and the adamant refusal of the
consulado to permit them to unload only occasions the steady growth of
contraband which the government is powerless to prevent in spite of its
vigilance, and much less able to enter into violent measures against these
same ships to expel them from this place because of the international
consequences of belligerent action.
70
While their captains were ostensibly
repairing damage to their ships, the goods being carried by the aforemen-
tioned ships are being introduced clandestinely little by little without paying
duty, and would eventually all be sold without any benefit whatever to
the State.
According to the minutes of the meeting, Rico and the three officers of
the consulado actively opposed the idea, insisting that it was inadmissible
regardless of the principle which prompts it. In keeping with Pezuelas
practice of putting the consulado on record as responsible for obstructing
his efforts to save Peru, the viceroy ended the debate by calling for a
rigorous vote, the result of which was that of all the gentlemen who
70. Pezuelaand apparently Mierknew by this time that Spain and the United States were
dangerously close to declaring war: Pezuela, Memoria de gobierno, 269; Anna, Spain and the Loss of
America, 152.
composed this junta, only four were of the opinion that importation of the
goods on board the foreign ships could not and ought not to be permitted
for any reason, and on the contrary the supercargoes should be obliged to
leave port immediately. Pezuela then issued an order calling for sale of
the cargoes, on the understanding that refusal of the permission would
have no other result than to cause the improvident loss of public revenues
in the midst of the certainty that none of the ships . . . will depart with so
much as a remnant of its cargo.
71
The Junta de tribunales was careful to specify that permission to sell
foreign cargoes was limited to the six ships then anchored in Callao Bay,
and that it was not to serve as a precedent for merchantmen arriving at a
later date. In order to prevent accusations that Pezuela or his allies would
profit from the sale of the merchandise, Gaspar Rico was commissioned
to take an inventory of the cargoes, and told to warn the ships officers
that any attempt to conceal goods would be severely punished. Another
Spanish-born merchant, Pablo Hurtado, was to assist Arbitrios in the task
of determining the duties to be paid. By November 1819, the six ships had
produced 318,970 pesos in duties.
72
The officers of the consulado, with one of their own faction charged
with implementation of the plan they opposed, then suggested that revenue
collections could be significantly increased if the government would provide
armed ships to convoy Spanish merchantmen involved both in the coasting
trade and in importation of foreign goods via Panama. If that proved impos-
sible, then a warship should be dispatched to Cdiz with the greatest
possible speed, and before the insurgents of Chile have news of it. The
ship would carry specie registered by the merchants of Lima, on which
export taxes would be paid, for the purchase of goods to be imported at a
later date. Although Tribunales agreed to this proposal, it proved equally
impossible to implement.
Significantly, it was at this point, when an incident involving officially
sponsored direct trade was on record, that Gaspar Rico emerged most clearly
as the public spokesman for the opposing faction of the consulado.
73
Hence-
forth, he played a role unmatched even by the officers of the consulado in
71. Acta de la junta, 19 Jan. 1819, agi-Lima, leg. 760. See also the report of one of San
Martns spies, undated but ca. 10 Feb. 1819, Archivo de San Martn, 7:115.
72. Razon de los valores y derechos que han producido las mercaderas desembarcadas en
virtud del Superior Decreto de 8 Febrero ltimo, 29 Nov. 1819, agnp-Consulado, leg. 106.
73. Fifty-two men, including Gaspar Rico, can be clearly identified as members of this
faction: they signed their names to the Acta, Junta extraordinaria de comercio, 8 Feb. 1819, agi-
Lima, leg. 1550, in which the merchants declared their adamant opposition to direct trade.
the effort to prevent an official end to Spains policy of excluding foreign
merchants from direct trade to Peru. When, at the end of the Junta de
tribunales of 19 January 1819, members of Arbitrios reiterated the sugges-
tion that free trade be permitted as absolutely necessary for two years,
according to the rules and regulations proposed in July 1818, the officers
of the consulado again objected. The junta then suggested that Riconot
the prior and consulsshould meet with the merchants to discuss the
means for securing 266,137 pesos per month to support the army.
74
Ricos
position as the leader of the opposition to direct trade was confirmed.
Reconvened on 6 February 1819, Tribunales heard an extended exposition
from the consulado in which they recapitulated the legal and political
reasons for prohibiting all commerce with foreigners, which would destroy
national trade and which must precisely lead to the ruin of Religion, of
America, and of the Mother Country herself. Alluding sarcastically to
Abadas fluency in English, they denounced the Filipinas Companys
interest in the profits to be had from direct trade.
75
But on this occasion,
as before, the advocates of direct trade were well prepared to present their
point of view. The cabildo of Lima pointed out that a royal order of 18
June 1800, though prohibiting expressly commerce in neutral ships, stipu-
lated that those articles which are indispensable for subsistence are speci-
fically excepted during war. The landowners again appealed for reduced
restrictions on trade with foreigners, repeating their argument that they
would be ruined if their perishable products could not be transported to
market. Their next two points were key elements in the quarrel between
Pezuela and those who eventually removed him from office. First, the
landowners asserted that in the current emergency, ordinary laws must be
set aside because the salvation of the State is the only law which ought to
be consulted, and . . . it must be achieved regardless of the cost. Second,
they argued that the viceroy was authorized to do whatever was necessary
to . . . maintain the union of these dominions with His Majesty. The
minutes make it clear that, by this time, tempers were flaring; in such an
atmosphere, neither compromise nor decision was likely. In order to avoid
direct and bitter confrontation between the two parties to the dispute, Pezuela
agreed to a resolution calling for yet another meeting of the merchants in
74. Acta de la junta, 19 Jan. 1819, agi-Lima, leg. 760.
75. Acta de la Junta extraordinaria de tribunales, 6 Feb. 1819, agi-Lima, leg. 760; Testimonio
. . . sobre el proyecto de comercio libre con la Nacin Anglicana, 5 Feb. 1819, agi-Lima, leg. 1550.
See also Papel en oposicin del proyecto de comercio libre con los Ingleses, 4 Feb. 1819, drawn up
at the behest of the prior and one consul, in bnp-Astete Concha, ms Z-689.
which prompt payment of their overdue pledges was to be demanded, and
a three-month extension of their subsidy of 117,000 pesos would be requested.
Nevertheless, if means were not found to pay for Perus defense, Pezuela
retained the option of resorting to direct trade.
76
The Junta extraordinaria de comercio that followed on 8 February was
significant for its uncompromising attitude toward Pezuelas proposal and
for its declaration of the limits of viceregal authority. The merchants were
informed by the consulados prior that if they would contribute 117,000
pesos during each of the next three months, and also bring the five pre-
viously agreed-upon contributions up to date, then free trade could be
avoided. Otherwise, it was certain to be declared. The assembled merchants
took the question very seriously, considering this matter to be the most
grave and complicated that could possibly arise in the intricate course of
events in Peru. They agreed to provide the funds demanded by Pezuela,
but only if eight conditions were met. The first demanded that Pezuela
never again consider free trade, since this was a matter on which only the
king himself could rule; the Junta de arbitrios should not raise the issue
again. Any merchantman appearing at Callao should be forced to depart
immediately, and if on any pretext whatever a ship is permitted to unload
its cargo the merchants contributions will cease. In order to avoid contra-
band, all foreigners should be forced to register with the authorities, as
well as every box and suitcase in which they can hide the money they put
aboard their ships clandestinely. No warehouses could be established by
merchants to receive foreign goods, and the merchants themselves must
be forbidden to accept consignments. The consignees of the goods from
the six ships that had been granted permission to unload in Callao must
be made responsible for inventorying them and paying all taxes due on the
export of profits. Any foreigner permitted to set foot on land can do so
only for a limited time, and must remain in the town of Bellavista, next
to Callao. The viceroy was to be asked to supply an armed convoy for
merchantmen that would carry wheat produced in the valleys around
Arequipa from Arica to Callao, thus avoiding trade in neutral ships with
independent and therefore foreign Chile. Finally, no ships other than the
six then present were to be granted permission to sell their goods.
Like Pezuela, the merchants believed that the crown supported their
position. They claimed to have reliable information to the effect that His
76. Acta, Junta extraordinaria de tribunales, 6 Feb. 1819, agi-Lima, leg. 760; Pezuela, Memoria
de gobierno, 399.
Majesty had expressly ordered all foreign flags excluded from American
ports, and insisted that the sovereign had valiantly resisted English attempts
to trade directly to Spanish America. Moreover, in their view, direct trade
would not provide the 3,192,000 pesos required annually to prosecute the
war, nor could such a sum be found either in Lima or in all of Peru.
Instead, they declared, Pezuela should return to the policies that had been
successful in the 1780s, when metropolitan merchants took advantage of
the Reglamento de comercio libre to flood the Peruvian market with imports.
At that time, Five men-of-war and one frigate were stationed in these seas,
armies were created to pacify these dominions, aide was sent to Panama,
Chiloe, and Valdivia, everyone was paid and there was a surplus of 7,000,000
that was remitted to the Peninsula. The sources of such a happy result
were the trade to the interior and the coasting trade. Let us do likewise
and everything will flourish.
Fifty-two men, including Gaspar Rico but not Pedro de Abada or his
friends, signed the minutes of this Junta de comercio. Once again, Pezuela
was put on notice that he had no authority to open Callao to direct trade
with foreigners and must not permit them to unload their cargoes any-
where in Peru if he expected the merchants to support the war effort.
77
It is a measure of the seriousness of the crisis that the Junta extraor-
dinaria de tribunales was convened again on 10 February 1819. In fact, the
financial situation had worsened. The treasury still lacked 88,202 pesos
required to pay the garrison of Lima for February. Pezuela had received an
urgent appeal from the royalist commander in Chile for 125,000 pesos to
reward the Araucanian Indians for their loyalty, and the viceroy pointed
out that this would be money well spent, since the rebels would be unlikely
to mount an expedition against Peru so long as their security in Chile was
threatened.
78
It was at this meeting that the forced loan of 1 million pesos
to be collected from the 150 wealthiest residents of Lima was approved,
and here too that conflict between Gaspar Rico and the viceroy escalated
markedly. In a speech well calculated to anger Pezuela, a copy of which he
forwarded to the crown, Rico attempted to prove that there was no need
for extraordinary measures to raise a large sum of money for the govern-
ments use.
79
In an argument that all but duplicated his 1811 confrontation
with Abascal over Indian tribute and that formed part of the officers
77. Acta, Junta extraordinaria de comercio, 8 Feb. 1819, agi-Lima, leg. 1550.
78. Testimonio del acta de la Junta extraordinaria de tribunales, 10 Feb. 1819, agi-Lima, leg. 760.
79. Rico, Convocado a Junta de tribunales para auxiliar a la Real Hacienda buscando
arbitrios, he encontrado . . . , 10 Feb. 1819, agi-Lima, leg. 1551. A copy of Ricos speech and his
ultimatum deposing Pezuela, Rico alleged that the viceroy had at his disposal
no less than 3,383,000 pesos, more than enough to purchase victory over
the rebels without resorting to taxes on direct trade with foreigners. Of
this, 1,220,00 pesos were said to be immediately available; he included in
this sum the forced loan of a million pesos, approved only minutes before
and never fully collected. He classified an additional 1,260,000 pesos as
less certain of prompt collection, since it consisted of taxes on worked silver
(similar to those proposed by the visitador Areche in the 1780s), on two
commercial expeditions to Asia that had not yet been organized, and the
sale of some government-owned property. By economies in the offices of
the consulado, the mining tribunal, and the cabildo, another 3,000 pesos
could be raised. More remote was the possibility of realizing 900,000 pesos
from the successful capture of contraband traders and clandestine exporters
of specie. Nevertheless, on this basis Rico asserted that it was unnecessary
to resort to direct trade to support the war effort, and that further loans
from the merchants would not be required. Rico then presumed to exhort
the viceroy to do his duty by upholding the law:
Viewed from the exalted position occupied by His Excellency the
Viceroy of this Kingdom, there is no opportunity for glory equal
to that of limiting contacts with foreigners, and terrorizing the
smugglers who are destroying us with an audacious cunning insulting
to everyone. With our own money they sell us, they buy us, they
oppress us, they have us half-enslaved, and they approach their
goal of enslaving us completely; we see them removing from our
houses our coin, our bars of gold and silver, and the last remnants
of the savings of our fathers, represented by worked silver, by spoons,
by stirrups and adornments for bridles. . . . In a word, while
trampling underfoot the most sacred and fundamental laws, they
take on board their ships our food and our public peace and con-
tentment, and still neither they nor we are satisfied; still we quarrel
among ourselves for the opportunity to facilitate our prompt exter-
mination: in our sessions a project for free commerce with the
foreigners has been proposed and has been eagerly discussed as a
means of redeeming or diminishing our urgent necessities.
80
letter dated 23 Mar. 1819 setting forth the circumstances in which the speech was delivered are in
80. Acta, Junta extraordinaria de tribunales, 10 Feb. 1819, agi-Lima, leg. 760.
In Ricos eyes, such a proposal was both dangerous and ridiculous. Free
trade, he said, is really a word with no meaning, because it has never
existed and cannot exist among the various civilized nations. What did
exist, he said, was a system of treaties and limited privileges, all of which
he insisted operated to the disadvantage of Spain and Spanish commerce,
because those [treaties] that favor us are neither respected nor enforced.
By way of contrast, neither the English nor the French tolerated impor-
tation of goods that in any way threatened their growing industrial power.
Rico recounted an instance when, during a trip in Europe, he was not
permitted to take a deck of cards made in Barcelona into France for the
private entertainment of his family. If other European powers could enforce
such laws, surely Spain could do so, too; indeed, in Ricos opinion, to do
otherwise was tantamount to destroying Spains independence as well as
her prosperity.
As for the immediate need for funds, Rico reminded the junta and the
viceroy that the money which could save us instantly is to be found on
board two English warships named Andrmaca and Blocson,
81
neither of
which had followed the proper procedures for the legal export of specie,
on which taxes should have been collected. Rico declared that their captains
should be granted safe-conducts to disembark the specie. He also suggested
that their cargoes should be imported subject to the existing schedule of
taxes, and that they should take payment for them not in specie but in
exportable merchandise. And, he added, I ask that this junta reaffirm
and observe the resolution that Free trade and our absolute ruin are iden-
tical matters, united and inseparable. Instead of discussing free trade, he
suggested, the junta should dedicate its sessions to considering the means
whereby the value of Spanish and Peruvian commerce could be increased.
As a result of Ricos speech and the demand that followed it, the con-
frontation that Pezuela had attempted to avoid was at hand. Rico and the
consulados officers presented the viceroy with an ultimatum he could not
accept. In exchange for bringing payments on the promised subsidy up to
date and extending it for three months, the merchants demanded that
free trade with foreigners would never be mentioned again . . . nor would
[foreigners] be permitted on whatever pretext or for any motive to disem-
bark any of the merchandise that they carry.
82
81. The Andrmaca was called the Andromache in English; the correct English name of the
second ship was Blossom. For an attempt by Pezuela to prevent contraband export of specie, see his
Memoria de gobierno, 705.
82. Acta, Junta extraordinaria de tribunales, 10 Feb. 1819, agi-Lima, leg. 760.
This was more than Pezuela could bear. According to the minutes of
the meeting, the viceroys temper flared. With considerable heat, he informed
the merchants that it was his responsibility, and his alone, to take what-
ever decisions were necessary to preserve Spains rule in Peru, and that he
was invested with the power to do so regardless of opposition. Placing
absolute conditions and restrictions on such decisions, besides being offensive
to his authority, was in a certain manner to obstruct and restrict his ability
to apply the remedies upon which the inviolable security of the viceroyalty
might depend; and where nothing less than her existence under the just
sovereignty of the king was concerned, nothing could be omitted nor
prohibited to his viceregal authority at such a distance from Madrid.
Pezuela then reminded the merchants that the convocation of this junta
had not been for the purpose of choosing the measures required for the
salvation of the State . . . but rather to consult prudently . . . the diverse
corporations which form the aforesaid junta before the moment arrived
for taking the decisions demanded by the extremity of necessity, so that
those very corporations, convinced of it, might provide the means and
opportune resources which . . . would redeem the government from the
unavoidable and painful obligation to use its unilateral power. Whatever
hard decisions were finally necessary would be taken by Pezuela on the
advice only of the members of the junta. Although he welcomed it and
had attempted to procure it, their consent was superfluous.
Continuing what can only be called his diatribe, Pezuela reminded Rico
and the consulado that the merchants had neither supplied the funds neces-
sary at that moment nor left secure the very existence of this government
for its later operations, for once the three months remaining for the payment
of the subsidy were concluded, the difficulties were likely to remain, and
where could that very government turn, bound from this moment forward
by improper conditions? Should the government feel obliged to observe
the restrictions proposed by the consulado, the end of Spanish rule in Peru
was inevitable.
According to the official minutes of the meeting, Gaspar Rico and the
representatives of the consulado, evidently angered by Pezuelas stinging
rebuke, were reduced to paying him compliments. One of San Martns spies,
however, apparently well connected to Limas loquacious elite, included
additional evidence of political conflict in his report. During the meeting
of the Junta de tribunales, the Vizcayan prior of the consulado, Manuel
Gorbea y Badillo, attacked Pedro de Abada verbally. He stood up with
great arrogance, the spy records, to ask who had brought these ships
with such cargoes to Callao, implying that Abada and the Filipinas faction
of merchants were responsible for the presence of foreigners in Limas port:
And when he repeated the question for a second time, the viceroy
jumped up, and with the greatest force and firmness answered that
shrewdness had brought them; and that if the same circumstances
and the same motives persist, foreigners will continue to arrive,
whether because of a public and legal declaration or because of
tolerance and dissimulation like that which has been practiced
with so many who have arrived during the past year, and which
without paying half a peso in duties have unloaded all their goods
and embarked as much capital as they pleased, and finally whatever
they could not sell clandestinely they were selling openly.
83
Pezuela was thus directly accusing merchants of trading illegally with
the English while failing to pay the taxes due on imports. That fact seemed
obvious to some: as a group of peninsular ship owners had recently remarked,
Our oceans and the port of Callao are full of foreign flags. It is a rare day
when one of their ships does not anchor. More than twenty are there
today. Without a known and considerable expectation of profit, they cannot
come so frequently.
84
Someone, clearly, was trading with them, and the
viceroy was determined to tax that trade in spite of the opposition of those
who continued to insist that no contact with foreigners was permissible
(and, it may be assumed, those whose competitive position was improved
by tax evasion).
Given the situation, the spy went on to speculate on whether Pezuela
would open Callao to direct trade with foreigners: Some people think
not, basing their opinion on his fear of the merchants in Lima, and, more
so, in Cdiz. A second factor came into play at about this timeFebruary
1819in the form of a rumor well calculated both to answer Pezuelas
charges that merchants were involved in contraband and to discredit the
viceroy and his arguments for direct trade. The viceroy, it was said, received
83. Report of San Martns spy, no date but ca. 10 Feb. 1819, Archivo de San Martn, 7:115.
Gorbea, who arrived in Peru in 1787 along with many other metropolitan merchants, was an
apoderado of the consulado of Cdiz; he returned to Spain in 1822. Representacin del Real
Consulado . . . , 22 Aug. 1787, agi-Lima, leg. 1548; Apoderados del Comercio de Cdiz to Sres.
Priores y Consules, Consulado de Lima, 25 June 1816, Informes y consultas expedidas por el Real
Tribunal del Consulado desde 9 de enero de 1816 hasta 2 de abril de 1818, agnp-Hacienda
colonial, leg. 1227; Espejo, Nobiliario, 440; Flores Galindo, Aristocracia y plebe, 257.
84. Acta, Junta de navieros, 9 Jan. 1819, agi-Lima, leg. 1550.
a percentage on the flourishing illicit trade with the English, and it was
inferred that those commissions would increase should such commerce be
legalized even temporarily.
85
As a result of this confrontation, however, oppo-
sition to direct trade was pursued still more vigorously in Madrid, where
according to Michael Costeloe the hard-liners had recently won the day,
and where, Timothy Anna says, the hard-line militarists were determining
American policy.
86
The consulado lost no time in presenting its case to the crown. Three
days after the members of the Junta extraordinaria de tribunales adjourned
their meeting with Pezuelas diatribe ringing in their ears, the leaders of
the consulado dispatched an urgent letter to Spain demanding that the
crown establish a law that prohibits absolutely all authorities regardless of
circumstances from granting permission for direct trade with foreigners
in the colonies. Claiming that the consulado had contributed generously
to the war effort on the express understanding that the proposal for direct
trade with the British would not be discussed again, scarcely had the five
months of the aforesaid contribution been completed, when once again the
junta proposed the fatal and poisonous expedient of free trade. This tribunal
and all the merchants were justly alarmed at the mere mention of the name,
and trembled lest it be adopted . . . for if the English get the permission
they demand, it is unlikely that they will abandon a practice which must
enrich them in direct proportion to which it impoverishes Spaniards.
87
The consulado also made certain that the ministry of the treasury
recognized its right to a voice in a matter of policy that so closely affected
the interests of its metropolitan members. In a second letter to the crown,
they insisted that it was the merchants who had provided the lions share
of the funds for the defense of Peru. In the single year from August 1818
until July 1819, the consulado claimed to have contributed 1,279,856 pesos,
including forced loans and the expense of maintaining armed ships off the
coast. Moreover, since January 1815 the consulado claimed that the mer-
chants had contributed the astonishing sum of 7,924,913 to the government.
88
85. Philadelphia to Joaqun de Echeverra, 12 Feb. 1819, Archivo de San Martn, 7:120, 122.
86. Costeloe, Free Trade Controversy, 230; Anna, Spain and the Breakdown of the Imperial
Ethos, 26869. In August 1818, Jos Garca Len y Pizarro, who favored British mediation
coupled with trade concessions, was replaced as secretary of state by the marqus de Casa Irujo,
who believed that foreign trade . . . was the vehicle of revolution: Costeloe, Response to
Revolution, 46.
87. Consulado de Lima al Rey, 13 Feb. 1819, agi-Lima, leg. 1550.
88. Consulado to Crown, 8 July 1819, agi-Lima, leg. 1550. There is no evidence that this sum
was either pledged or collected.
The letter declared that such sacrifices had come close to ruining the
merchants of Lima; foreign merchandise imported freely into Peru and sold
at prices with which Spaniards could not compete would complete their
ruin, thus depriving the government of its principal source of revenue.
The consulados information and logic carried great weight with the
ministry of the treasury. On 25 December 1819, it informed the ministry of
war that the consulado of Lima is making up the monthly deficit des-
cribed by [Pezuela], with the laudable purpose of preventing free commerce
from taking effect, and there have been various royal orders issued to the
viceroy that in no way, nor under any pretext can such permissions be given
by him. Only the sovereign could grant special commercial privileges.
89
Although the consulados letters of 13 February and 8 July 1819 were
signed by its three elected officers, it was Gaspar Rico who was most
active in presenting the case against direct trade with foreigners to the crown.
Indeed, the language of the earlier letter suggests that it was composed by
Rico: it bears the stamp of his customary hyperbole. In addition, he
himself forwarded to Madrid a copy of the speech that, together with the
consulados ultimatum, had so aroused Pezuelas ire. On 23 March 1819, he
added an essay, several accounts of the consulados alleged contributions,
and a discussion of the behavior of foreign merchants in the Pacific to the
growing file on direct trade. In his usual conspiratorial tone, Rico hinted
that, in sending these documents for the consideration of the king, he was
acting from a sense of patriotism that, in the present circumstances in Peru,
required singular courage. The documents do not say all, he intoned,
nor could they; nor do I dare to insinuate anything other than the fact
that the thanks given me here in the name of the king cannot preserve me
in the future from the unjust anger which my very Spanish conduct has
inspired in the governor of this realm.
90
There was no doubt in Ricos
mind that Pezuela was an enemy of all truly patriotic Spaniards.
There is no evidence that Pezuelas allies in Peru were equally active in
presenting the case for direct trade with foreigners to the crown. Indeed,
prior to July 1820, when Pezuelas nephew by marriage, Francisco Xavier de
89. Ministro de Hacienda de Indias to Ministro de la Guerra, 25 Dec. 1819, agi-Lima, leg.
1550; agi-Indif. gen., leg. 2440, is full of records of licenses granted between 1818 and 1824 to
organize commercial ventures in neutral ships sailing to Spanish America. And note that the
liberal Constitution of 1812 contained a clause (Artculo 170, facultad 10) empowering the king
alone to direct diplomatic and commercial relations with other powers: Agustin de Argelles,
De 1820 1824: Resea histrica (Madrid: A. de San Martn and Agustin Jubera, 1864), 108.
90. Gaspar Rico to Secretario de las Indias, 23 Mar. 1819, agi-Lima, leg. 1551.
Olarra, arrived in Madrid, the viceroy had no known advocates at court.
91
Not even Pedro de Abada and his colleagues in the Lima office of the
Filipinas Company ventured to defend Pezuelas policy in representations
to the crown.
92
Pezuela relied upon the official documents containing the
minutes of the meetings of the Junta extraordinaria de tribunales, supple-
mented by his own personal appeals in letters to the ministers, to justify
his conduct during the free-trade controversy of 181821. He assumed that
his authority as viceroy of Peru carried more weight with the crown than
the opinions of fractious private citizens.
By the end of August 1819, the ministry of the treasury in Spain had
before it documents with which each side in the controversy sought to defend
its position. Pezuelas bitter and repeated denunciations of the consulados
stubborn refusal to support his efforts to prepare an adequate defense
establishment, coupled with the consulados insistence that the viceroy was
acting illegally, made plain the fact that serious problems were brewing in
Peru that demanded attention at court.
The initial reaction in Madrid favored the consulados position. The
bureaucrat in the ministry of the treasury who summarized both Gaspar
Ricos memorandum and Pezuelas letter of 21 July 1819 declared that the
viceroys letter, taken by itself, was convincing. Nevertheless, in light of
the other documents, including the minutes of the meetings of the junta,
it was not to be taken seriously. Pointing out that the consulado had sup-
ported the war effort with a considerable sum of money and accepting its
assertions as to its amount, the bureaucrat criticized Pezuela for failing to
mention that copious pecuniary service.
93
Another powerful voice was raised in opposition to Pezuelas pleas for
direct trade with the British, one that furthermore reinforced suspicion
about the activities of Abada and the Filipinas Company. Pezuelas pre-
decessor as viceroy, Fernando de Abascal, contributed an eloquent essay to
the file on direct trade in Peru.
94
As we have seen, the fate of the landowners
91. Francisco Xavier Olarra to Crown, Madrid, 29 July 1820, agi-Lima, leg. 1022. Pezuelas
brother, Ignacio, who had in the past presented petitions on his behalf, does not appear in the
documents concerned with free trade in Peru.
92. This may be attributed to the fact that Abadas relations with his superiors in the
company were strained, thanks to allegations about his private commercial ventures and to his
brothers arrest and exile from Madrid: Roquefeuil, Le tour du monde, cdip-Tomo 27, 1:129; Daz
Trechuelo Spinola, Real Compaa de Filipinas, 180; Costeloe, Response to Revolution, 1516.
93. Informe de mesa, undated but probably written in Sept. 1819, agi-Lima, leg. 1551.
94. Informe del marqus de la Concordia sobre el proyecto de comercio libre entre el puerto
del Callao de Lima, y la Inglaterra . . . , Madrid, 29 June 1819, agi-Lima, leg. 1550. The expediente
and traders with Chile who supported Pezuelas policy was dismissed as of
little importance. In his Informe, Abascal also expressed at some length his
fear that foreign goods would destroy artisanal industry. As for Pezuelas
argument attributing the opposition of the consulado to free trade to a
few monopolists who think to enrich themselves at the expense of public
necessity, Abascal insisted that, on the contrary, he had reason to believe
that those who developed and sustained the project are a few egoists who
hope to collect commissions thanks to their understanding of the English
language and their commercial relations with England. This, of course,
was a direct reference to Abada, Arismendi, and the Filipinas Company.
Pezuelas point of view was overwhelmed, and the consulado eventually
received evidence of support from the crown. On 10 November 1819 the
ministry of the treasury wrote to the consulado declaring that the king
had been informed of the merchants generous contributions for the defense
of the realm, donated on the assumption that duties on goods imported
according to the provisions of the proposed treaty of free trade would then
be unneeded, as Rico alleged. The consulado was informed that Pezuela
would receive a royal order to fulfill the obligations of his office without
altering the laws by agreements which can produce disagreeable conse-
quences, even though the alterations would be in force for only a limited
period of time.
95
The letter and the corresponding royal order to the viceroy were apparently
signed and sent only after a dispute between the ministry of war and the
ministry of the treasury had been resolved. The minister of war had
approved Pezuelas plan for direct trade, but no sooner had the aforesaid
dispatch been delivered to me, than Sr. Imaz [then serving as treasury minis-
ter]
96
requested the file, and it has been impossible to make him return it
to this desk in spite of repeated requests, as the irritated official wrote in a
note appended to the draft. On 10 December 1818 the minister of treasury
had learned that, in response to Pezuelas appeals, the crown has agreed
to authorize said viceroy to take whatever measures are convenient to the
purpose of conserving those dominions, including granting permission
for free trade with the British. The angry treasury minister took his case
had been forwarded to him on 11 June 1819: see the note appended to Marqus de Casa Irujo to
Ministro de Hacienda, 10 May 1819, agi-Lima, leg. 1550.
95. Ministerio de Hacienda to Consulado de Lima, 10 Nov. 1819, agi-Lima, leg. 1550; Jos de
Imaz to Viceroy of Peru, 10 June 1819, MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 4, q. 8.
96. A real orden dated 15 Sept. 1818, in agi-Lima, leg. 761, advised Pezuela that Martn de
Garay had been dismissed as minister of treasury, and replaced by Jos de Imaz.
to the king himself, demanding that this authorization granted by the
ministry of war to the viceroy to concede commercial privileges to the
British be impounded immediately. Furthermore, Pezuela was to be repri-
manded for directing correspondence on this affair to war instead of treasury.
The king acceded to his wishes, and Pezuela was ordered to obey the laws
forbidding direct trade with foreigners.
97
Thus Pezuela had a direct royal order to abstain from all measures not
in accord with Spanish laws concerning the regulation of colonial trade.
Exceptions were not allowed even for munitions: in June 1819, the treasury
minister, still furious about Pezuelas proposal to open the port to direct
trade, suggested sarcastically that, if Pezuela were allowed to import 160
naval artillery pieces from England, to be paid for by permissions to sell
merchandise, 160 English ships would soon anchor in Callao Bay.
98
But the principle of obedezco pero no cumplo was by no means a dead
letter in Peru. Pezuela made use of it to the fullest extent possible, given the
contentious atmosphere prevailing in Lima at the end of 1819. In January
1820 he also wrote to the treasury minister defending his determination to
make use of every sort of means outside the law in order to defend this
territory for His Majesty.
99
The merchants were well aware of what the
viceroy was doing. As a Chilean merchant in Lima reported to a friend at
the end of 1819, There is no more free trade, only permissions, and it
remains be seen which is better or worse.
100
REALITIES OF POLICY AND PRACTICE
While the proposal to allow temporary direct trade with foreigners was
being debated in Madrid, the issue was not discussed openly at the govern-
mental level in Lima. Indeed, following the acrimonious meeting of the
97. Ministerio de Hacienda to Consulado de Lima, 10 Nov. 1819, agi-Lima, leg. 1550; Jos de
Imaz to Viceroy of Peru, 10 June 1819, MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 4, q. 8.
98. Palacio: El Sr. Secretario del Despacho de la Guerra pregunta este ministerio si habr
inconveniente en el pago de 160 piezas de artillera que el virrey del Per le ha pedido al
embajador de V.M en Londres, 7 June 1819, agi-Lima, leg. 1550. For examples of the activities of
the Peruvian-born duke of San Carlos, Spains ambassador in London, to arrange shipments of
arms to be carried to Pezuela by British merchants along with other merchandise, see San Carlos
to Viceroys of Peru and Mexico, 21 Mar. 1818, and San Carlos to Viceroy of Peru, London, 20
Oct. 1818, sim-Estado, leg. 8223; San Carlos, no. 104 (draft) to unknown recipient, London, 27
Mar. 1818, and San Carlos to Casa Irujo, 5 May 1819, sim-Estado, leg. 8179.
99. Pezuela to Ministro de Hacienda, 28 Jan. 1820, MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 4, q. 8.
100. Juan Valentn Caadas to Miguel de Eyzaguirre, 24 Nov. 1819, Eyzaguirre, Archivo
epistolar, 333.
Junta extraordinaria de tribunales on 10 February 1819, no record has been
found of any further official discussion of the question for fifteen months.
Although the metropolitan merchants made no secret of their hatred of
the English, to the casual observer it appeared that both sides had called a
truce, at least at the official governmental level. Opportunities for confron-
tation had been purposely reduced to a minimum by the viceroy, however;
except for one meeting on 15 July 1819, the highly politicized Junta de tri-
bunales did not meet again until 25 May 1820. Meanwhile, Pezuela convened
a few meetings of the smaller, more supportive Junta de arbitrios, and sent
them written appeals for money.
101
They followed the pattern established
in the meeting of 15 July 1819, where Pezuela issued yet another urgent appeal
for funds, and the results were discouraging. There was no acrimonious
debate, and apparently no discussion of direct trade, but no effective new
means of financing the war were suggested. To the viceroy, it seemed as
though he and the army stood alone for the defense of Peru:
The anguish I endure because of the lack of money to support
the war is indescribable, nor can the King adequately compensate
a Viceroy who finds himself, for four years already, as I am, having
to put up with ill-bred, avaricious, and perhaps less than loyal men,
in order to preserve these dominions for him. This is enough to
note in the Diario, since on this point I could fill a ream of paper
with data and examples of the apathy and indifference of all of
them without exception, save the impoverished military class,
which poor as it is, willingly gives of its meager salary whatever is
asked of it.
102
The new year began even more inauspiciously than the old had ended.
By the first week of February 1820, the viceroy knew that the insurgents
of Buenos Aires and Chile were actively preparing an expedition for the
invasion of Peru.
103
The next and most acute phase of the crisis was at hand,
and the only policy that Pezuela believed would yield resources adequate
to meet it was forbidden him by royal order. There could be no officially
decreed direct trade with foreigners in Peru. Instead, the viceroy pursued two
101. Carta annima de uno de los agentes patriotas en el Per, 28 Oct. 1819, Archivo de San
Martn, 7:155; Acta, Junta general de tribunales, 15 July 1819, MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 4, q. 6; Pezuela,
Memoria de gobierno, 494, 64546, 653, 657, 704, 713.
103. Ibid., 646, 671, and Manifiesto, 67.
parallel courses of action, one overt and in accord with the law prohibiting
direct trade by foreigners in colonial ports, the other not entirely covert,
but certainly unofficial and as discreet as conditions permitted. Both courses
of action increased conflict between the viceroy and the merchants who
opposed colonial contact with foreigners.
Pezuela continued to exert pressure on the merchants to bring payments
on all of the earlier pledges up to date. But he was not without a big stick
to accompany his tough talk. On 9 August 1818, the Council of the Indies
had ruled that colonial authorities were authorized to trade directly with
foreigners in emergencies, as the governors in Central America had done
in spite of protests from the consulados of Mexico City and Veracruz. By
February 1820, Pezuela had a copy of the ruling in hand, and had under-
lined the passage where the Council declared:
When the chiefs of provinces, especially remote ones, find them-
selves . . . surrounded by dangers of such gravity, under great
pressure, bereft of means and of resources for escaping from the
problem and saving the district in their care, and reduced to dissi-
pating their own subsistence because they lack not only the aid of
the superior government but also that which nearby jurisdictions
could supply, it appears . . . that in such cases they must be
considered authorized to make honest use of every expedient
imaginable for the exercise of their duties.
104
With this ruling in hand, by early May 1820 Pezuela felt both compelled
and empowered to use tactics little short of blackmail to collect forced
loans. The dangerous threat of officially sanctioned direct trade was dis-
creetly blandished before the officers of the consulado, who were still
unable to collect the money promised. On 2 May 1820, Pezuela called one
of the consuls to his office and in an embarrassing and unpleasant inter-
view ordered the consulado never again to default on its pledges. He himself
gave the consul more than five hundred ounces of gold from his own funds
as a contribution to the consulados quota. His tactics, however, were less
104. Consejo de Indias to Hacienda de Indias, 9 Aug. 1818, MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 4, q. 9. Two of
Pezuelas most frequent correspondents, the ambassadors to London and Washington (the duke
of San Carlos and Luis de Ons), were presenting arguments favoring direct trade in their
dispatches to the court: Delgado, Pacificacin de Amrica, 1820, 3233. The United States
ambassador to Madrid, George W. Erving, informed Secretary of State John Quincy Adams that
Pizarro had told him to expect Spanish American ports to be opened to direct trade with the
English: Erving to Adams, 27 Aug. 1817, Manning, Diplomatic Correspondence, 3:1947.
successful in extracting money from the merchants than in embarrassing
one of their representatives; only 40,000 pesos were made available to the
government as a result of that interview.
105
Nor did the meeting of the Junta de tribunales on 25 May 1820 yield
the sum of money necessary to prosecute the war effort. It did, however,
lead to yet more conflict between the viceroy and one faction of the con-
sulado. The junta considered another recommendation from Arbitrios
that direct trade be adopted as the only source of funds adequate to meet
the demands of the armys officers for men and matriel. But as Pezuela
wrote in his diary, The junta was fully informed, but after talking for two
hours, mostly off the point, the archbishop declaring the necessity of every
sort of means outside the law, since within it they were not to be found,
and . . . all in general advocating free commerce with the exception of the
consulado, and the latter absolutely refusing to grant the slightest aid nor
to open the way for the government, the junta had reached an impasse.
The viceroy, seeing that without a doubt [direct trade] was going to be
agreed upon once again by the majority of the junta, hastened to change
the subject, being absolutely determined not to agree to free trade for any
reason, because having in my hands the power to permit one or another
foreign ship which comes to the port of Callao to unload its cargo, and to
encourage them to approach, the same goal is accomplished without uproar.
The junta was willing to reiterate its support for this tactic, declaring offi-
cially that Pezuela was indeed possessed of the authority to do so and
should make more extensive use of it, especially since only two Spanish
ships had anchored in Callao Bay during the previous twenty-eight months.
106
Pezuela had already begun to do so. A few days earlier, he had issued an
order to the chief of the naval station in Callao calling on him to require
all ships to anchor in the outer reaches of the bay until after their captains
or supercargoes had appeared before the viceroy in person; under no circum-
stances were they to be permitted to speak with anyone until after their
interview with him, at which time he would decide whether and how they
were to be received.
107
Viceregal intervention on a case-by-case basis,
formalized by this order, proved highly successful as a way to acquire the
money needed for the war effort: as a result of Pezuelas taxes on foreign
106. Ibid., 70910, 71314. For an earlier (Aug. 1819) instance of this same tactic, see 5045.
107. Pezuela to Sr. Comandante General de Marina, 20 May 1820, MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 4, q. 9.
trade at Callao in 1819 and 1820, the viceregal aduana [customs house]
collected net revenues of 2,965,085 pesos.
108
The policy of granting special permissions to foreigners trading to Peru
constituted the unofficial and relatively discreet means of raising money
for the war effort, and it brought with it another important change. Prior
to the loss of Chile in April 1818, the viceroy had consistently consulted
the consulado about the treatment to be accorded foreign visitors, but by
the end of 1820 it appears that he no longer bothered to do so. Instead, he
negotiated with the captains of British and North American warships and,
wherever possible, took advantage of their goodwill to mount clandestine
operations that were in fact violations of the laws of neutrality.
109
During the latter half of 1820, Pezuela convened the Junta de tribunales
only twice, on 14 July and 20 October. Direct trade with foreigners was
not discussed, neither were any significant funds forthcoming from internal
sources to pay for the war. On 20 July, the Junta de arbitrios and the con-
sulado proposed a second amortizacin de obras pas, the confiscation of
debts owed to religious orders and the church.
110
Once again, Gaspar Ricos
hand in affairs is evident: he had been in charge of the highly contro-
versial Consolidacin in 1804. There is no evidence, however, that this scheme
was carried out. No record has been found of any contributions from the
consulado during this period, nor is there evidence that efforts were being
made to collect the money pledged on previous occasions.
In any case, Pezuela adopted a new strategy that he hoped would raise
money and, at the same time, absolve him of responsibility for further
contacts with foreigners. On 8 December 1820, little more than seven weeks
before his overthrow, the viceroy appointed a junta resembling that of Reem-
plazos in Cdiz, charged with the armys subsistence. Eight merchants,
four of whom were either associated with the Filipinas Company or hostile
to Gaspar Rico, were named to it. Abada as well as Ricos old nemesis,
the count of Villar de Fuente, were among them. But so was Faustino del
Campo, an apoderado of the consulado of Cdiz, who, although opposed to
108. Nils Jacobsen, Taxation in Early Republican Peru, 18211851: Policy Making Between
Reform and Tradition, in Liehr, Amrica Latina en la poca de Simn Bolvar, 318. See also
Heraclio Bonilla and Karen Spalding, La independencia en el Per: Las palabras y los hechos,
in Bonilla and Matos Mar, Independencia en el Per, 59, where they record the growth in value of
exports from England to Peru, amounting to 3,149 in 1818, 30,000 in 1819, and 39,322 in 1820.
109. Commodore Biddle was prosecuted in the United States for conduct not in accord with
neutrality: Billingsley, Defense of Neutral Rights, 63, 6975. See also Pezuela to Ministro de la
Guerra, 13 June 1818, MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 4, q. 1.
direct trade with foreigners at Callao, had chartered an English ship in Cdiz
to carry merchandise to Peru.
111
In mid-December, the viceroy approved
the plan submitted by the commission whereby supervision of the treasury
would be placed in its hands. The commission was free to raise money by
whatever means it saw fit.
112
Thus Pezuela came to rely on a group of
powerful merchants, several of whom were known to be interested in
furthering direct trade with foreigners, to provide a smokescreen for his
dangerous policy and practice. Those who disapproved of Pezuelas conduct
including Gaspar Rico and, perhaps, one or more members of the Junta de
subsistencias who were friendly with La Serna
113
were left to seek a remedy
for their grievances in another quarter.
It is difficult to exaggerate the extent of political conflict between Ricos
faction of the consulado and Viceroy Joaqun de la Pezuela that arose from
the free-trade dispute. At the very beginning, on 24 July 1818, when Pezuela
and the Junta de arbitrios proposed opening Callao officially to direct
trade with foreigners, the first intimation of a threat to Pezuelas position
111. Ibid., 810. The other members of the commission were Francisco Javier de Izcue,
appointed agent of the Filipinas Company in 1820 (Daz-Trechuelo Spinola, Real Compaa de
Filipinas, 180); the limeos Manuel de Santiago y Rotalde, whose opinion on direct trade is not
known, and his son-in-law Martn Jos Prez de Cortiguera, who was involved in the Atlantic
trade (Duplicado del registro que se le ha formado en esta Real Aduana de Lima a la fragata de
guerra Santa Rufina, 23 Jan. 1803, agi-Lima, leg. 726; Apoderados del comercio de Cdiz to Prior
and Consuls, 25 June 1816, agnp-Hacienda colonial, leg. 1227); Manuel Ortiz de Villate, an ally of
Manuel de Barreda and therefore likely to oppose direct trade (Consulado to Viceroy, 29 Dec.
1816, agnp-Hacienda colonial, leg. 1227); and Manuel de Aramburu, about whom nothing is
known, but who may have been a member of the powerful merchant family whose patriarch,
Martn, was in partnership with Faustino del Campo and clearly opposed to direct trade (the
name may have been transcribed wrongly in Pezuelas Memoria de gobierno). Mendiburu,
Diccionario, 8:420, adds Antonio lvarez del Villar, who quarreled bitterly with Gaspar Rico:
Joaqun de Caadas to Miguel de Eyzaguirre, 8 Dec. 1819, Eyzaguirre, Archivo epistolar, 33637.
On Faustino del Campo, who had been both prior and consul of the consulado in the period
from 1813 to 1818, and who was living in Spain by the end of 1821, see Apoderados del comercio de
Cdiz to Prior and Consuls, 25 June 1816, agnp-Hacienda colonial, leg. 1227; Acta, Junta general
de comercio, 14 Oct. 1818, agnp-Consulado, leg. 24; Espejo, Nobiliario, 822; Pezuela to commander
of the English warship Hyperion, 28 Nov. 1820, cdip-Tomo 6, 3:21213. On the Spanish Comisin
de reemplazos, see Costeloe, Response to Revolution, 13, where he describes it as a small commit-
tee set up in September 1811, probably at the initiative of the merchants themselves, for the
express purpose of raising the funds needed to pay for military expeditions to the colonies. Its
members were drawn from the Cdiz merchant community and throughout the vital years from
1811 to 1820, it was to be at the centre of Spains attempt at military reconquest. A more extensive
discussion is in Michael P. Costeloe, Spain and the Latin American Wars of Independence: The
Comisin de Reemplazos, 18111820, JLAS 13 (1981): 22337.
113. In his Memoria de gobierno, 82728, Pezuela suggests that La Serna and Llano had close
ties to someone on the Junta de subsistencias.
as viceroy surfaced, but of course it was not recorded in the minutes of the
Junta de tribunales. Instead, it was one of San Martns spies in Lima who
reported that Spanish merchants spoke with great vehemence against the
conduct of the viceroy in this business, even asserting that he had a
personal interest in it. In the spys opinion, the depth of their anger was
such that if the viceroy proceeds with free trade with England, the Spanish
merchants here will make war against him mercilessly, either by refusing
to continue their aide or by deposing him from the viceroyalty as they did
with Iturrigaray in Mexico. The chapetones are the only ones who can
make a revolution in Lima, and they will surely do so rather than consent
to their ruination. In addition, the merchants of Cdiz will contribute to
support their counterparts in Lima because of their own interest in mono-
polizing this trade.
114
Thus the danger to Pezuelas continued rule was evident immediately
following the proposal to declare Callao open to direct trade with foreigners.
By November 1818, another suggestion that Pezuelas days as viceroy might
be numbered surfaced in Lima. Rumors that Pezuela was soon to be relieved
as viceroy by the hard-line former captain-general of Guatemala, Jos de
Bustamante, were circulating in the capital. Whether or not he attributed
them to his opposition in the consulado, we do not know, but according
to one witness, since this news arrived he has tempered that very active
zeal with which he agitated everything, and already the entire aspect of
politics has changed. More than a year later, in December 1819, General Jos
de Cienfuegos was said to be on his way to Lima to replace Pezuela.
115
Rumors like these could seriously compromise the authority of the viceroy,
making governance ever more difficult.
Clearly, conspiracy was in the air. One of San Martns spies reported
that the decision of most of the godos
116
is to aid the viceroy in the war as
much as they can; but already there are a great many of them who loathe
the viceroy to death, and they are capable of joining a conspiracy against
him. . . . For a conspiracy of godos against the viceroy the following are
best-suited: don Pedro Abada, don Jos Arismendi, and don Gaspar Rico
114. Report by an unidentified spy, 25 July 1818, Archivo de San Martn, 7:5760. On the
overthrow of Mexicos viceroy by angry merchants, see Enrique Lafuente Ferrari, El Virrey
Iturrigaray y los orgines de la independencia de Mjico (Madrid: Consejo Superior de
Investigaciones Cientficas, Instituto Gonzalo Fernndez de Oviedo, 1941), and Francisco
Santiago Cruz, El virrey Iturrigaray: Historia de una conspiracin (Mexico: Editorial Jus, 1965).
115. Padre Segundo Antonio Carrin to Miguel de Eyzaguirre, 23 Nov. 1818, and Joaqun
Caadas and Fr. Len Faxardo to Miguel de Eyzaguirre, Eyzaguirre, Archivo epistolar, 311, 33637.
116. A disparaging name for peninsular Spaniards.
letters should be written to them in order to compromise them.
117
The
spy had named three of the merchants most prominently involved in the
free-trade dispute, two of whom had been members of the Junta de arbitrios
that, with Pezuelas approval and continuing support, had proposed direct
trade with the British and had publicly and heatedly defended the pro-
posal. The third, Gaspar Rico, was a leader of the opposition to Pezuelas
policy. The spys report indicates that conflict between groups of merchants,
and between one group and the viceroy, had escalated markedly since the
middle of 1818,
118
and that only three merchants had amassed political power
sufficient to challenge the viceroy. But neither Abada nor Arismendi
harbored a grievance against Pezuela. Rico did.
117. Report of Aristipo Emero to San Martn, undated but after Sept. 1820, Archivo de San
Martn, 7:189. Gaspar Rico received a letter from San Martn dated Huaura, 21 Dec. 1820, which
explained why his enlightened intelligence should lead him to cast his lot with the
independence movement; this letter and others like it are in agi-Lima, leg. 800.
118. The attitude and behavior of the elderly Antonio de Elizalde in 1820 confirms this
observation: Villa Esteves, Liderazgo y poder, 168.
By the end of September 1820, when Gaspar Rico said that he began his
four-month effort to oust Pezuela from office, the metropolitan merchants
found themselves possessed of an empty victory in the free-trade dispute.
Although the crown supported their claims as to what the law required,
the viceroy effectively prevented execution of that very law in the colony
in which they resided. As it happened, however, a remedy was close at hand,
one that was to the liking of hard-line merchants and army officers who
had already declared themselves in favor of a purely military solution to the
problem of Perus accelerating drift toward independence. Merchants interested
in driving foreigners and their cargoes fromthe Pacific could find good reasons
to make common cause with hard-line army officers discontented with the
viceroys management of the war and his refusal to permit the establishment
of an autonomous military regime in the provinces where the army operated.
The quarrel between La Serna and the viceroy offered Rico and his allies
an opportunity to escalate pressure on Pezuela, whose closest friends in
the merchant community openly advocated direct trade with foreigners.
FORGING ALLIANCES
Gaspar Rico and his metropolitan associates in the consulado would have
encountered few obstacles to forging an alliance with La Serna and his
faction of peninsular officers new to Peru. As members of the small elite
community of Lima,
1
consulado merchants and high-ranking military men
1. Mark M. Burkholder, Titled Nobles, Elites, and Independence: Some Comments, Latin
American Research Review 13, no. 2 (1978): 29293; Anna, Peruvian Declaration of Independence,
S I X
MERCHANTS, THE MILITARY, AND THE

DISINTEGRATION OF PEZUELAS AUTHORITY
could easily get to know one another, by reputation if not in person. The
foundations of their alliance had been laid in Spain during the Napoleonic
war, when the besieged governmentreacting tardily and feebly to Ameri-
can insurrectionscreated the Comisin de reemplazos and charged it with
managing the financial and logistical arrangements for reinforcing units
of the regular army serving in America. The commission had been formed
on the recommendation of the consulado of Cdiz, and operated as a
dependency of it, performing tasks normally expected of a ministry of
war. Thus the principal merchants involved in the Atlantic trade were in
effect managing the defense of America, and had been charged with doing
so while Gaspar Rico was resident in Cdiz.
2
When he returned to Peru
in 1818, Rico found that Pezuela retained management of the war effort
firmly in his own hands, while demanding that the consulado supply the
funds required for its prosecution. The viceroy determined where and how
the funds would be allocated, but his policies were the subject of animated
discussion among Limas loquacious elite.
In the absence of independent newspapers and investigative reporters,
talk was the principal means of political communication. Socializing at
parties was a frequent, probably daily, occurrence. As Toms de Iriarte makes
clear in his Memorias, upon their arrival in Peru the peninsular army officers
were constantly fted, and at least in towns outside of Lima, were quar-
tered with leading families.
3
The same may have been true when they moved
to Lima, though no record of the location of La Sernas quarters has been
found; nor do we know where Valds or Canterac took rooms. In any
case, disaffected members of Limas elite lost no time making contact with
the army officers recently arrived from the peninsula. According to Jernimo
de Valds, they were besieged by men who openly expressed their discon-
tent with Pezuela. The civilians claimed to have been restrained from
directly advocating Pezuelas ouster from office only by their fear that the
armys respect for authority might have caused them trouble.
4
Who were
they? We do not know, but it may be significant that the one merchant
mentioned by name in La Sernas correspondence was Fernando del Mazo,
23437, where he writes that occupation was . . . the chief determinant of status, and calculates
that the occupational elite of Lima numbered no more than 2,489 persons.
2. Comisin de Reemplazos representa a la Regencia del Reino . . . ; Albi, Banderas olvidadas,
9192, 105, 123, 14546, 179, 205.
3. Iriarte, Memorias, 24, 25, 43, 46, 48.
4. Valds, Exposicin, in Torata, Documentos para la historia, 1:50, 51.
Gaspar Ricos old friend and mentor.
5
Regardless of how they became per-
sonally acquainted, however, it is clear that Rico and some officers shared
a devotion to the more radical version of Spanish liberalism, one that
despised Carlos IV, the Bourbon monarch whose father had instituted the
reforms admired by merchants and military alike.
6
There were also ample opportunities to participate in both public and
private gatherings of like-minded people. As independence approached,
certain cafs in Lima became known as gathering places for politically active
men. The first one opened in 1771, and it soon became the locus of dis-
cussions that made the authorities anxious. Beginning in 1809, during the
Napoleonic invasion of Spain, the Caf del Comercio was the most popular
in Lima, where problems of authority, loyalty, and legitimacy, as well as
the outlook for Spanish arms, were most openly discussed.
7
In 1820, many
Spaniards of dissolute customs, gathered in public cafs, and played the
part of fervent supporters of the Constitution, inflaming the twisted
passions of the military enemies of the viceroy.
8
Then, too, there were the
tertulias, limeo equivalents of the politicized salons and court levees well
known in European society; one of them gathered regularly at the viceregal
palace. In the eighteenth century, another such group became the Sociedad
Amantes del Pas and published a periodical, El Mercurio Peruano, that
enjoyed the patronage of Viceroy Gil de Taboada and commendation by
the king.
9
During the Napoleonic occupation of Spain, both Dr. Hiplito
Unanue and the count of Vega del Ren got into trouble for participation in
tertulias where political affairs were discussed, and the liberal army officers
who went to Peru after 1814 were known to have gathered to lament the
demise of the Constitution of 1812.
10
And after Pezuelas overthrow, one of
the disintegration of pezuelas authority 267
5. La Serna to Pezuela, 30 Sept. 1820, MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 4, q. 10.
6. El Peruano, 8 Oct. 1811, cdip-Tomo 23, 2:7982; Wagner de Reyna, Ocho aos de La
Serna, 5657. See also Charles W. Fehrenbach, Moderados and Exaltados: The Liberal Oppo-
sition to Fernando VII, 18141823, HAHR 50, no. 1 (1970): 5269. Rico and the peninsular officers
in Peru may also have shared a hatred for Manuel Godoy, Carlos IVs favorite, who had many
enemies in the Spanish army: Esdaile, Spanish Army in the Peninsular War, 5860.
7. Vicua Mackenna, Revolucin de la independencia, 9394; Nieto Vlez, Contribucin a la
historia del fidelismo, 103; Robert J. Shafer, The Economic Societies in the Spanish World, 17631821
(Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1958), 162.
9. Shafer, Economic Societies, 15760, 168.
10. Vicua Mackenna, Revolucin de la independencia, 7778, 83, 108, 136; Percy Cayo Crdoba,
Hiplito Unanue, Biblioteca Hombres del Per, 1st ser., 10 vols. (Lima: Editorial Universitaria,
1964), 8:2627; Pacheco Vlez, Conspiraciones del Conde de la Vega del Ren, 355425;
Exposicin que hace un peruano al Virrey La Serna, cdip-Tomo 13, 2:196.
San Martns spies reported that the tertulia presided over by Gaspar Rico
was comprised of sediciosos; while it was an object of ridicule, he wrote, Rico
should be taken seriously because he is tireless and stubborn to an extreme.
11
As important as social occasions were to the development of an alliance
between the officers and Ricos faction of the consulado was the fact that,
in Peru, merchants and the military were remarkably close. Contacts between
the two rested on a history of association in colonial militia units, espe-
cially the milicias disciplinadas, which were trained and commanded by
officers of the regular army. As in Spain prior to the Napoleonic invasion,
militia units in Peru were sometimes organized on the basis of their
members occupation. Thus, in 1767, Viceroy Manuel de Amat created the
Batalln del comercio. The battalions colonels were Antonio Rodrguez del
Fierro and Gaspar Quijano Velarde, count of Torre Velarde; both men
served terms as prior of the consulado. In 1796, the regiment, which had
been inactive, was revived by Viceroy Marqus de Osornos call to arms,
prompted by fear of an English attack.
12
Thereafter, until the end of the colonial regime, merchants and other
gentlemen of Lima maintained their interest in military service. In 1814,
when the restored Fernando VII asked former delegates to Cortes for infor-
mation about their constituents grievances, the representative of Limas
cabildo included the lack of opportunities for military service on his list.
The cabildo asked that the old militia dragoon regiment be reestablished
and upgraded to form part of the regular army. Apart from the indisput-
able advantages that the creation of that regiment would entail for the
security and internal tranquility of Peru, he wrote, it is extremely important
as a means of opening an honorable career for the sons of the principal
families of Lima.
13
According to Carmen Parrn Salas, at the end of the eighteenth century
and the beginning of the nineteenth, The spirit and prestige of military
activity among the merchants reached its apogee. . . . The consulado
acquired a marked military aspect, a characteristic that other American or
Spanish consulados do not appear to share.
14
She attributes the merchants
11. Report of 180T, dated 30 May 1821, Archivo de San Martn, 7:287.
12. Campbell, Military and Society, 3536; 23839; Albi, Banderas olvidadas, 101; Marchena
Fernndez, Ejrcito y milicias, 104; Mendiburu, Diccionario, 11:425; Parrn Salas, Reformas
borbnicas, 75, 77. The Marqus de Osorno was Ambrosio OHiggins.
13. Francisco Salazar Carrillo de Crdoba to Secretario de Estado y del Despacho Universal
de las Indias, Madrid, 17 Aug. 1814, agi-Lima, leg. 1018-B.
14. Parrn Salas, Reformas borbnicas, 75, 79.
interest in military service to the fact that members of the milicia disci-
plinada were granted the fuero militar. This was no small favor: it permitted
members of the militia to refuse to testify and to evade arrest for ordinary
civil infractions, as Gaspar Rico did during the 1802 dispute with Vicente
Morales y Durez. Defendants in both civil and criminal lawsuits were
permitted to live in their barracks rather than in the public jail until their
cases were resolved. Moreover, the fuero militar exempted them from the
consulados jurisdiction in commercial disputes, and they were to be tried
in military, not consular, courts. The consulados attempts to arrest merchant
milicianos for breaches of commercial contract were rebuked by the crown,
which demanded that the fuero militar be respected.
15
Besides the advantages enjoyed by militiamen involved in lawsuits, con-
siderable social prestige attended military activity in late colonial Peru.
Military service was even preferred to positions on Limas town council.
Leading merchants who had purchased seats on the cabildo, like Javier
Mara de Aguirre and Antonio de Elizalde, resigned in order to take up
posts in the militia. Wealthy criollos and members of the nobility vied for
commissions in the army; Gaspar Ricos friend Jos Bernardo de Tagle,
marqus de Torre Tagle and caballero of the Order of Santiago, devoted
considerable effort while in Spain (181417) to securing his rank as briga-
dier.
16
A number of merchants were also members of the honorific Spanish
military orders; according to the baron Alexander von Humboldt, a German
scientist and traveler who visited Peru in 1802 and was a guest in Tagles
house, it was not unusual to come upon one of the caballeros in his shop,
serving his customers in full and gaudy uniform.
17
Rico, who saw himself as an exemplary Spanish patriot, was particu-
larly interested in the military. American rebellions led him to consecrate
my person and my fortune to repressing their horrible consequences. He
was as good as his word. In July 1810 he offered to pay for a militia unit
charged with keeping an eye on the restive slaves who lived and worked
15. Informe de Juan de Dios Moreno, 16 Dec. 1802, Testimonio general no. 21d, Expediente
sobre el conducto, agi-Lima, leg. 1620; Parrn Salas, Reformas borbnicas, 6568. Campbell,
Military and Society, 195, dates the militias privilege of fuero militar to 1799, when the real orden of
9 Feb. 1793 was extended to include them. For the effects of the fuero militar on the adminis-
tration of justice, see Abascal, Memoria de gobierno, 1:114, 372.
16. Parrn Salas, Reformas borbnicas, 75 and n. 214; Campbell, Military and Society, 66, 68
table 3, and 213; Juan Marchena Fernndez, The Social World of the Military in Peru and New
Granada: The Colonial Oligarchies in Conflict, 17501810, in Fisher et al., Reform and
Insurrection, 7071.
17. Humboldt, Ensayo poltico, 558; Campbell, Military and Society, 213; Flores Galindo,
Aristocracia y plebe, 235.
on haciendas to the south of Lima. He took great pride in having been
the author and creator of the Concordia Regiment, the foundation of
Limas security during those early critical years, and a formidable publici-
zer of its political system throughout the other vacilating and revolutionary
provinces.
18
The Regimiento de Voluntarios Distinguidos de la Concordia Espaol-
Americano came into being in 1811 as a unit of the milicias disciplinadas, the
result, according to Viceroy Abascal, of his decision to reform the
militia.
19
According to his Memoria de gobierno, when he arrived in Lima
Abascal found that there were two imaginary corps, a cavalry regiment
comprising members of the nobility, and the old infantry Batalln del comercio.
Neither, he said, was capable of reform. Creating a new regiment, however,
could not be effected without enormous expense, which the treasury
could not support. He therefore decided to create a militia regiment that
included both cavalry and infantry, and was supported by private donations.
The response was gratifying. In short order, the Concordia had been orga-
nized and equipped, thanks to the distinction of its members and the wise
selection of persons for commandand the generosity of its officers,
who competed with each other to supply the men with uniforms of the
best quality and appearance.
20
According to the marqus de Torre Tagle, among the first to enlist in
the Concordia were the most exalted nobility of the city. Abascal himself
accepted the post of colonel; the archbishop was its chaplain, and Jos
Baqujano y Carrillo, count of Vistaflorida, was its auditor. Tagle himself,
who was alcalde of Lima in 1811, was the regiments sargeant-major. Within
a very few days, Tagle wrote to the king, more than 2,200 individuals signed
up, making it necessary for your viceroy to suspend the enlistment. He,
too, remarked on the generosity of those who paid for regimental flags,
uniforms, and the band, many of whom spent 6,000 or more pesos fuertes,
18. Rico, Relacin de mritos, 23 Mar. 1824, agi-Lima, leg. 762; El Peruano Extraordinario, 26
Feb. 1812, cdip-Tomo 23, 3:16382, 17073. Rico believed that San Martns agents had been busy
persuading slaves to join the revolution, which would emancipate them.
19. Abascal issued the decree creating the Regimiento de la Concordia Espaol-Peruano on
26 January 1811: Carlos Garca Barrn, La implantacin del rgimen Constitucional en el Per,
18121813, Ciclo de Estudios Histricos de la Provincia de Santander, La guerra de la
independencia (18081814) y su momento histrico (Santander: Centro de Estudios Montaeses,
Institucin Cultural de Cantabria, 1982), 1:397. According to Albi, Banderas olvidadas, 101, on 2
Mar. 1813 [the Concordia] became integrated with the troops of the line, with the stipulation that
its members did not receive a salary.
20. Abascal, Memoria de gobierno, 36667.
and others in proportion to their incomes. Tagle himself contributed more
than 40,000 pesos to the project.
21
Abascal wrote his Memoria de gobierno in 1816, some four years after he
had exiled Gaspar Rico to the peninsula, and he does not mention Ricos
contribution to the creation of the Concordia regiment. But Rico had long
since made certain that he would be given credit for his part in the enter-
prise. On 12 May 1812, the cabildo of Lima considered a petition of D.
Gaspar Rico requesting its members to inform the sovereign that the
origin, plan, and organization of the Concordia regiment was his, and that
of the Sr. Marqus de Torre Tagle, and that he is the author of its name
and title, and other details which he says have been attributed to others, as
is seen in the Real aprobatoria. After taking testimony on the matter, the
cabildo voted unanimously to dispatch a memorandum to the Regency in
support of Ricos claims.
22
For Rico, it must have been bitter indeed to resign his commission as
captain of the Concordias third infantry company, which he did on 16
September 1811, alleging that he was ill, and in need of avoiding all mili-
tary exertion in order to survive. He also referred to the serious and very
complicated affairs that prevent him from serving even for a short time,
which included the dispute with the directors of the Cinco Gremios Mayores
that was then reaching its climax.
23
Abascal accepted his resignation on 28
September, and permitted him to draw up a notarized file of testimony in
which his military services to the crown in Peru were set forth.
On 26 February 1812, in the midst of the dispute over Pedro de Abadas
citizenship and when Rico was being attacked in the Gaceta del Gobierno
by Abadas supporters, Rico published his defense in the Peruano Extra-
ordinario. He began by challenging those who were insulting him to present
documents attesting to any conduct of mine that is inappropriate in an
honorable man. It is from this document that we learn something about
the extent of Ricos interest in military service. His old mentor, Fernando
del Mazo, testified that Rico had served with exemplary obedience and
military skill as a lieutenant in his Compaa de cazadores from the time it
was created by Viceroy Marqus de Osorno. In February 1806, Osorno
promoted Rico to the rank of captain in the musketeers company of the
Batalln del comercio, and, on 15 February 1811, Abascal appointed him captain
21. Draft of a petition to the crown by Tagle, undated but from 1817, Tagle mss, amoz;
Snchez, Familia, comercio y poder, 53.
22. Acta, Cabildo de Lima, 12 May 1812, ahml-Cabildo, Libro 42.
23. El Peruano Extraordinario, 26 Feb. 1812, cdip-Tomo 23, 3:163.
in the Concordia regiment. In both posts, according to a fellow peninsular
merchant, Matas de Larreta,
this meritorious officer has been outstanding for his martial
aptitudes, his dedication, his diligence, and his effectiveness in
the dispatch of his duties. On every occasion, in every military
action, in the training exercises, in the parades, in contributions:
in all, by his enthusiasm and exactitude, if he has not exceeded,
at least he has equalled the most distinguished officers of his rank in
both corps, making him worthy of well-deserved applause; and his
companies, because of the discipline and perfection to which he
has brought them, are a praiseworthy example and standard for
many others.
24
Ricos friend the marqus de Torre Tagle testified that, besides all that
Larreta had said about him, it had been Rico who paid for equipping most
of the individuals of the Concordia with dress and fatigue uniforms,
sabres, and the other items of clothing, as well as outfitting the band and
paying for its instruments. And he had subsidized the regiment while his
plan for supporting it permanently was placed in operation.
25
In a word,
Tagle wrote, Ricos unremitting attention to everything relating to the
formation of this corps was unwavering, and a great deal of its complete
organization is owing to him; everything said, exaggerated though it may
seem, corresponds exactly to the merit of this active, punctilious, and deci-
sively patriotic officer.
26
Toribio Monts, sub-inspector general de las armas, was markedly less
effusive, though he, too, testified to Ricos outstanding performance as a
captain in the Concordia. But Joaqun de la Pezuela, then serving as a briga-
dier in the royal army and sub-inspector comandante general de artillera, was
downright parsimonious in his testimony about Ricos role in what was in
mid-1810 a secret project, the creation of a corps of three hundred men to
police the slaves working on haciendas south of Lima. After recounting in
detail how Ricos proposal to contribute 50,000 pesos to pay for the corps
24. Testimony of Matas de Larreta, in ibid., 166.
25. In 1817 the consulado claimed that it had donated 1,024,000 reales velln toward the
establishment and maintenance of the Concordia regiment: Consulado to Crown, 3 May 1817,
26. Testimony of Jos Bernardo de Tagle, Marqus de Torre Tagle, Peruano Extraordinario, 26
Feb. 1812, cdip-Tomo 23, 3:167.
came to be accepted, and the schedule on which half that amount was
actually paid out, Pezuela describes the circumstances of the corps dis-
banding. Throughout, Pezuela leaves the impression that neither he nor
Abascal thought much of the proposal in the first place, and did not share
Ricos fear that the slaves were about to rebel.
27
Rico characterized Pezuelas
testimony as captious, and asked whether he would have made an anony-
mous contribution of 25,000 pesos to maintain tranquility if he had been
a revolutionary, as he was accused of being.
28
Ricos defense against his enemies in Lima makes it clear that he was no
stranger to the military. Did he rejoin his old regiment after returning to
Peru in 1818? The Concordia was still in existence, and active. In July 1818,
when the free-trade dispute was becoming a political crisis, the regiment
passed in review before Viceroy Pezuela. In his Memoria de gobierno, Pezuela
noted that it presented 1,000 men, but since its leaders are the gentlemen
and merchants of the city, with families, wealth, warehouses, shops, etc.,
etc., rich men, I count on them only to remain in the city to oversee
tranquility and [protect] their properties, and not for fighting even within
it. Later, he changed his mind: on 1 March 1820, the regiment, then 1,136
men strong, was ordered to garrison Lima and Callao while the newly
created Army of Lima sallied forth in the hope of engaging San Martn in
battle on the citys outskirts.
29
But no complete roster of the Concordias
officer corps has yet been located for any year of its existence, and neither
Ricos correspondence nor his periodicals mention his reinstatement as an
officer of the regiment after his return to Peru.
30
By comparing names of
those who signed petitions emanating from the Concordia, however, with
lists of merchants matriculated in the consulado, it is clear that the regiment
enrolled many of the most prominent merchants. Juan Martn Larraaga,
an officer who later served as aide-de-camp to Viceroy Pezuela, testified
that the principal merchants were proud to be soldiers in that regiment.
This fact takes on added significance in light of Jernimo de Valds
testimony that the greater part of the Concordia was involved in a plot
27. Testimony of Joaqun de la Pezuela, in ibid., 17073.
28. Ibid., 174. The expediente goes on to collect testimony about the Consolidacin de vales reales
and to present Ricos justification of his conduct as its director.
29. Pezuela, Memoria de gobierno, 290, 658, 666.
30. Campbell, Military and Society, 226 n. 43, notes that he, too, was unable to locate service
records to indicate the exact social composition of the Concordia, and Marchena Fernndez,
Ejrcito y milicias, does not include the Concordia among the military corps analyzed in his very
useful book.
to depose Pezuela in October 1820, prior to the time that he and the other
peninsular officers arrived in Lima.
31
There was, however, another issue that provided an opportunity for Rico
to forge an alliance with the liberal peninsular army officersthe issue
of foreigners threat to Perus security. Even after April 1818, when Chile
became independent, there was one point on which all partiesRico and
his friends, La Serna and his officers, and even Pezuela himselfcould agree:
the security of Spanish Peru was threatened by the presence of foreigners
in the Pacific. As Pezuela remarked in his Memoria de gobierno soon after
learning of the disaster at Mayp, Whenever the kings forces suffer a
reverse in the Americas, a foreign ship presents itself on the pretext of
sniffing out everything that happens, in order to gain an advantage . . .
[T]hey never come to do us good, but rather harm, as much as they can.
Nor did he lose his suspicion of foreigners even when he had contrived
ways to make use of them: as late as November 1820, after the Chileans
captured the warship Esmeralda in Callao Bay and the mob attacked for-
eigners who were believed to have aided them, he remarked that the
People are not wrong to believe that foreigners are our enemies, . . . they
have done and continue to do us all the harm possible.
32
It was obvious
to him, and to La Serna and Rico, that foreigners were supplying the
Chileans with the men, matriel, and funds required to prosecute the war
against the royalists. But there agreement ended. Pezuela and his supporters
on the one hand, and a group of merchants and military officers on the
other, perceived the threat differently, and proposed different strategies for
dealing with it.
Prior to the loss of Chile and of the expedition escorted by the Mara
Isabel, Pezuelas policy toward foreigners differed little from that favored
by Rico; he also wanted to keep them out of colonial ports. Afterward,
however, his policy underwent a radical change and he, too, needed an
alliance between elements of the military and his own supporters among
limeo merchants. He based his appeals on the argument that direct trade
with foreigners was essential if Spanish arms were to prevail over rebel
armies. Thus, beginning in July 1818 when he first proposed direct trade
31. Larraaga to Sr. Lobo, Madrid, 5 Aug. 1867, bn-m, Coleccin Fernndez Duro, leg. 1066,
MS 20054
25
; Valds, Exposicin, in Torata, Documentos para la historia, 1:5051.
32. Pezuela, Memoria de gobierno, 273, 798; the accusation that foreigners aided Cochrane is in
the reports of Antonio Vacaro, Comandante de Marina, to Pezuela, 6 and 12 Nov. 1820, MenP,
Pezuela, Sig. 4, q. 10. For an attempt to blame Pezuela for the loss of the Esmeralda, see Valds,
Exposicin, in Torata, Documentos para la historia, 1:4446.
with foreigners, Pezuela was determined to use foreigners to acquire the
military resources essential to defending Perunot only revenues but also
information, communication with Spain, and war matriel. In the process,
he became more willing to trust some of them, especially North Americans,
as his relationship with Commodore James Biddle, commander of the
U.S. warship Ontario, illustrates.
Although it began in an atmosphere of distrust, the viceroys relation-
ship with Commodore Biddle became altogether different. As time passed,
the two gentlemen learned to like and respect each other. With Pezuela,
Biddle had none of the difficulties that had soured his dealings with the
Chilean patriots and especially with Lord Cochrane.
33
It would seem that
both recognized the possibilities of a relationship from which mutual
benefit could be derived.
Biddles mission in Peru was to gain concessions from the Viceroy to
the advantage of United States shipping and commerce.
34
To that end, he
asserted that the Ontario had interrupted its journey to the Northwest
Territory especially to inform Pezuela of the royalist defeat at Maip, and
to warn him that the rebels were preparing an invasion. Thus Biddle
supplied information critical to the defense of the viceroyalty. Pezuela was
grateful. He had often complained about the behavior of the English,
who arrogantly demanded commercial privileges while giving nothing in
return; the Americans, by contrast, were more courteous and moderate,
offering their services to the viceroy in exchange for the commercial privi-
leges they sought.
35
Surprisingly, Biddle was persuaded to return imme-
diately to Valparaiso with an important passenger, Flix dOlhaverriague y
33. Report by one of Pezuelas spies in Valparaiso, Nov. 1819, sim-Estado, leg. 8298; Billingsley,
In Defense of Neutral Rights, 40, 6167. For Biddles opinion of Pezuela, see ibid., 70, and Captain
James Biddle to Mateo de la Serna, 23 Oct. 1819, ahn-Estado, leg. 5645
2
: It was for me truly a
great satisfaction, as a public official, to communicate with D. Joaqun de la Pezuela, a gentleman
whose personal character makes him worthy of great respect. Much of Biddles difficulty with
the Chileans stemmed from the fact that the rebels commander at sea was Lord Cochrane,
whose testy personality alienated many who were dedicated to the rebel cause, but who also
subscribed to the British interpretation of the law of the sea permitting impressment of seamen,
among other doctrines. Biddle and his compatriots had recently fought a war with England on
just that issue. Cochrane also enraged British naval commanders and merchants to the point
where the British government ordered Sir Thomas Hardy, commanding the British fleet on the
South American station, to force Cochrane to abandon his service with the American insurgents:
Duke of Frias to Joaqun de Anduaga, 1 May 1821, sim-Estado, leg. 8181.
34. Billingsley, In Defense of Neutral Rights, 41.
35. Pezuela to Secretario de Estado y del Despacho, 22 Apr. 1820, MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 4, q. 9.
See also Costeloe, Response to Revolution, 46.
Blanco, a new factor of the Filipinas Company in Lima.
36
Ostensibly sent
to Chile merely to arrange an armistice and an exchange of prisoners,
dOlhaverriagues real mission was to verify the rumors about an impending
attack on Peru to be mounted by sea. DOlhaverriagues secretary, a British
merchant named Thomas Crompton, was to use the 10,000 pesos he was
carrying (supposedly for the relief of the prisoners) to purchase several thou-
sand rifles said to be available for sale by foreign merchants in Valparaiso.
37
Apparently Biddle was unaware of the real mission of the Spanish
gentleman and his British secretary, learning about it only after his return
to the United States. Nor did he understand that another, later, passenger,
Francisco Xavier de Olarra, was an important royalist agent who was on
his way to Spain to present the viceroys secret report to the crown on the
situation in Peru. Olarra was Pezuelas nephew by marriage; he had been
commissioned by the crown some years previously to investigate and
report upon the condition of South America. Most of his time was spent
in Peru, and when he embarked for the peninsula in December 1818, he
was smuggled past the insurgent blockade of Callao, and even into and
out of rebel-held Valparaiso, aboard Commodore Biddles Ontario. As far
as Biddle knew, Olarra was nothing more than a Spanish officer tempo-
rarily posted to Peru who was returning to Spain in the normal course of
his service. In fact, Olarra had been instructed by Pezuela to inform the
king that unless Spain sent immediate aid in the form of naval forces
capable of recapturing control of the Pacific, Perus continued existence as
a Spanish colony would be in serious and increasing jeopardy. Moreover,
Pezuela considered his message so vital that General Osorio, his son-in-
law and the commander of the disastrous expedition to Chile, was given
the same mission via other transportation.
38
36. DOlhaverriague y Blanco was characterized as a person of much mercantile knowl-
edge: Exposicin de la Junta de Gobierno de la Real Cia. de Filipinas, 10 July 1818, agi-
37. Pezuela to Secretario de Hacienda, 3 Nov. 1818, agi-Lima, leg. 759; Billingsley, In Defense
of Neutral Rights, 44; Mendiburu, Diccionario, 8:41819. For official correspondence on
dOlhaverriagues mission to Chile, see cdip-Tomo 8, 1:35264. On the likelihood that Lima
would be attacked by sea, see Oficio transcrito al brigadier don Mariano Ricafort, 10 Dec. 1818,
cdip-Tomo 6, 1:19497. For dOlhaverriagues report to the viceroy, see Pezuela, Memoria de
gobierno, 28183.
38. Billingsley, In Defense of Neutral Rights, 45, 6365, 105. The alternate transportation used by
Osorio was provided by Eliphalet Smiths Boston merchantman, the Macedonian: Pezuela,
Memoria de gobierno, 396. Osorio never reached Spain; he died in Panama. See Micaela de Lastra
to Miguel de Eyzaguirre, 14 Oct. 1819, Eyzaguirre, Archivo epistolar, 331; Pezuela to Ministro de la
Guerra, 12 Oct. 1819, MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 4, q. 6; and Pezuelas moving tribute to his son-in-law,
in Memoria de gobierno, 67778.
Part of Olarras mission was to convince the crown that the security of
Peru depended upon making use of foreign penetration of the Pacific in a
way that was anathema to Gaspar Rico and his friends: If the dissidence
of those provinces continues, it is absolutely necessary in order to pacify
them to make a treaty of free trade with England and the United States
of America, thus promoting the weakening of the rebels and the greater
strength of that part which remains loyal to our government.
39
In keeping with his moderate approach to pacification and his realistic
assessment of the royalists position, Pezuela was arguing for change that
would redress long-standing grievances of limeos and, perhaps, reduce
the attractions of independence for Peruvians and foreigners alike. In
order to argue his point at court, he made use of Commodore Biddle for
an essential service: maintaining communication with Spain in spite of
Lord Cochranes blockade. The viceroy believed it unlikely that anyone
would interfere with Biddle or his passengers.
40
But the Ontario was only
one of many foreign ships actively engaged in supplying resources to the
royalists. In his Memoria de gobierno, Pezuela made note of the comings
and goings of French, British, American, and Russian warshipsand the
merchantmen of several nations.
41
Notable among them was Eliphalet Smiths
merchantman, the Macedonian. Pezuela dispatched the Macedonian on
various errands along the coast. Smith quickly established business connec-
tions with the Spanish merchants of Peru, specifically with Pedro de Abada
and the Filipinas Company, to whom he eventually sold the Macedonians
cargo. As a result of his dealings with Pezuela, brokered by Abada, Smith
and the Macedonian became anathemas to the patriots. San Martn is
reputed to have said that he did more damage to the cause of liberty than
any other man.
42
39. Olarra to Crown, 29 July 1820, agi-Lima, leg. 1022. Compare the memorandum for the
king on pacification, composed by Jos Garca Len y Pizarro, Ministro de Estado, on 9 June
1818, where he argued that foreign support for independence would disappear if American ports
were opened to direct trade: Costeloe, Free Trade Controversy, 229.
40. Pezuela to Secretario de Estado, 12 Nov. 1818, cdip-Tomo 22, 2:39. Because he cooperated
with Pezuela, Biddle was accused of violating the laws of neutrality: Billingsley, In Defense of
Neutral Rights, 6975.
41. The British were especially active in dispatching warships to the South American station
to protect their citizens and their property; for the diplomacy involved, see British Ambassador
Wellesley to Manuel Gonzlez Salmon, Madrid, 4 Aug. 1819, 10 Aug. 1819; Spanish crown to Sr.
Embajador de Inglaterra, 23 Aug. 1819; Gonzlez Salmon to San Carlos, Madrid, 24 Aug. 1819
and 7 Sept. 1819; and Castlereagh to San Carlos, London, 22 Oct. 1819, all in sim-Estado, leg.
8179. See also Graham and Humphreys, Navy and South America.
42. Billingsley, In Defense of Neutral Rights, 15354. See also Pezuela to Governor of Panama, 8
Dec. 1818, MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 4, q. 4; Mateo de la Serna to Manuel Gonzlez Salmon, Philadelphia,
Finally, Pezuela was forced to use foreign shipping to perform tasks for
the defense of Per that normally would have been undertaken by warships
under his command and attached to the Spanish naval station at Callao. But
the navy had failed in its mission, and Pezuela again turned to foreigners
for aid. Not only did he make use of the immunity of their flag to supply
Lima with essential goods, such as wheat, he also commissioned armed
foreign ships to protect Spanish shipping in the Pacific.
43
Thus Pezuela was convinced that, by negotiating agreements with for-
eigners, he was promoting the military security of the royalist regime in
Peru. He was also forging a link between the military and one faction of
merchantsthose associated with Abada and the Filipinas Company. This
link, supported if not created by Pezuela and his free-trade policy, depended
on the acquiescence of a military faction that was not in thrall to La Serna,
Valds, and the liberal peninsular officers who came to Peru after 1814. In
a Junta de guerra, held at Pezuelas behest on 16 May 1820 and presided over
by La Serna, the generals in attendance issued a statement supporting the
viceroys policy of enlisting the aid of foreigners to prevent Peruvian inde-
pendence. The junta declared that the revenue collected on foreign goods
had been indispensable to the effort to clothe and equip the army. To justify
its opinion of the uses to be made of foreigners, the juntas statement appealed
to the embryonic state-of-siege thought that was gaining ground in Peru:
The rule of necessity, the duty to the service of the king united to that of
the nation in general . . . obliges that a means be adopted which, though
extraordinary in other circumstances, ought not to be so in the critical ones
of today.
44
This, of course, was precisely Pezuelas reasoning on the benefits of his
new policy toward foreigners, and the composition of that particular Junta
de guerra explains Pezuelas success in obtaining a statement supporting his
position. In addition to La Serna, three menJos de La Mar, Manuel de
Llano, and Manuel Olaguer Feliattended the junta. Two of the three
had been promoted by Pezuela to their ad interim rank as field marshals,
12 Nov. 1819, ahn-Estado, leg. 5645
2
; Records of U.S. Claims against Chile, State Department
Record no. 76, and Claim of Schooner Macedonia, don Pedro Abada, Claimant, Diplomatic
Section E261: Miscellaneous claims against Peru, 18221851, both in the National Archives,
Washington, D.C.; John Bassett Moore, ed., History and Digest of the International Arbitrations to
which the United States has been a Party, 6 vols. (Washington, D.C., 1898), 2:44968.
44. Junta de generales to Viceroy, 16 May 1820, Pezuela, Manifiesto, Appendix, Document 26,
39698.
and none of them participated in his overthrow.
45
La Serna was isolated.
As Valds later wrote, in the Juntas de guerra General La Serna was alone
in opposition, and as a consequence his vote was always useless.
46
Clearly
evident here is the existence of a group of royalist officers occupying posi-
tions of considerable influence who were loyal to Pezuelaand of rivalry
between criollo and peninsular officers: two of these men were criollos, and
the third spent his childhood and almost all of his military career in America.
47
Equally clear is Pezuelas sense that his policy was dangerous, and required
testimony to the effect that it was both necessary and defensible in the
face of the military emergency then confronting Peru. To disarm the oppo-
sition, the viceroy continued to hold out the hope, which he undoubtedly
shared, that aid from Spain was on its way,
48
thereby making his policy
seem to be merely a temporary expedient. In a Junta de generales, which met
on 1 October 1820,
49
the viceroy mentioned that he had been in touch with
his correspondent in Cdiz, don Juan Antonio de Uriarte, a prominent
member of that merchant guild. Uriarte informed him that he could
expect the arrival of two warships, the Asia and the San Julin, which were
being made ready to sail to the Pacific to protect peninsular commerce.
The generals attending the junta believed that, because of the great interest
in the expedition openly expressed by the Atlantic traders in Lima, the
metropolitan merchants would be willing to pay the expenses of the two
ships once they arrived in Callao.
50
But by 14 January 1821, only a week before Pezuelas overthrow, the Asia
and San Julin had not appeared,
51
the temporary policy was still in force,
45. Pezuela, Memoria de gobierno, 692. Garca Camba, Memorias, 442, reports that Llano was
an especially close friend of the viceroy. Pezuelas promotions were illegal: a real orden of 27 May
1816 allowed viceroys to grant battlefield promotions only to the rank of colonel, reserving higher
ranks to royal appointment: Marqus de Campo Sagrado to Viceroy of Peru, Madrid, 27 May
1816, MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 11.
46. Valds, Refutacin . . . del Manifiesto, in Torata, Documentos para la historia, 2:97.
47. Mendiburu, Diccionario, 4:379, 5:147, 7:131; Paz Soldn, Historia . . . 18221827, 20; Sara
Hamann de Cisneros, Jos de La Mar, Biblioteca Hombres del Per, 3rd ser. (Lima: Editorial
Universitaria, 1965), 24:5; Torata, Consideraciones sobre la Historia de la Expedicin Libertadora, in
Torata, Documentos para la historia, 3:373. Olaguer Feli was the only peninsular-born officer. On
rivalry between Peruvian officers and those associated with La Serna, see Exposicin que hace un
peruano al Virrey La Serna, cdip-Tomo 13, 2:18990; Vargas Ugarte, Historia . . . Emancipacin,
145. Campbell, Military and Society, 174, notes the existence of this rivalry as early as 1787. On
criollo officers loyal both to Spain and Pezuela, see Maritegui, Anotaciones, 50.
48. Pezuela to Ministro de la Guerra, 29 Nov. 1820, MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 4, q. 10.
49. La Serna to Pezuela, 30 Sept. 1820, cdip-Tomo 6, 3:1013; Pezuela, Memoria de gobierno, 77374.
50. Continuacin de la junta de generales celebrada el 30 [Sept. 1820] por haber quedado
pendiente el artculo 5
o
del oficio del Seor General La Serna, cdip-Tomo 6, 3:108.
there had been no battle between the royalists and San Martns army, and
the royalists hold on Peru had deteriorated markedly.
52
Both the metro-
politan merchants and La Sernas faction of peninsular army officers could
point to serious and increasing problems with the security of the viceroyalty,
blaming Pezuela for the peril in which the royalists found themselves. For
his part, Pezuela had spent almost all of his political capital.
MILITARY POLITICS
Since 29 November 1819, when he arrived in Lima from Alto Per, Jos de
La Sernas political power had been on the rise. Even though no action of
importance had occurred while he had been in command in Alto Per,
his reputation as a skilled army officer had not suffered except, of course,
in Pezuelas eyes.
53
According to Pezuela, the fundamental skill of a military
man was his ability to obey orders. The viceroy believed that insubordina-
tion in military officers was absolutely inexcusable, that whether it took place
in Spain or America, it represented a contagion that made both governance
and military success impossible.
54
And he had obtained a clear royal order
declaring that he, not La Serna, was the commanding general of all royalist
armies operating in the viceroyalty; La Serna was merely a comandante
general subordinate to the viceroy. But even though La Serna had proven
himself relentlessly insubordinate, the viceroy had no way to punish him
because he had been appointed by the king, who was alone authorized to
remove him from his command.
55
Pezuela had repeatedly rebuked him for
his conduct, however, and the rebukes may have had some effect. In Decem-
ber 1817, when Pezuela was preoccupied with readying the expedition to
recapture Chile from the insurgents, La Serna resigned as commander of
the Army of Alto Per and asked the crown to permit him to return to
Spain. He alleged that his health had been broken by the voyage from Spain
52. Most notably, the Numancia regiment had defected to San Martn, and the intendant of
Trujillo, Ricos old friend the marqus de Torre Tagle, had declared the provinces independence:
Pezuela, Memoria de gobierno, 8089, 825, 829, 83132; Vargas Ugarte, Historia . . . Emancipacin,
21819, 23942; Javier Ortiz de Zevallos, ed., Correspondencia de San Martn y Torre Tagle (Lima:
Editorial Juan Meja Baca, 1963); Javier Ortiz de Zevallos, Trujillo y Torre Tagle (Lima: Privately
Printed, 1965).
53. Vargas Ugarte, Historia . . . Emancipacin, 15354; Pezuela to Juan Ramrez, 1 Oct. 1819,
54. Pezuela, Memoria de gobierno, 78485. On the level of obedience expected from military
men, see Blanco Valds, Rey, Cortes y fuerza armada, 42.
55. Egua (Ministro de la Guerra) to Pezuela, Madrid, 3 Dec. 1819, MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 4, q. 9.
Blanco Valds, Rey, Cortes y fuerza armada, 32.
and by long marches through difficult terrain, but Pezuela insisted that his
problems had more to do with the indisposition of his spirit than with
physical ailments. La Serna himself suggested that a successor will be able
to do things that I cannot do nor think should be done. But even before
receiving the crowns ruling on his petition, La Serna demanded that Pezuela
relieve him of his command immediately, without awaiting the arrival at
headquarters of his successor, Juan Ramrez.
56
Pezuela refused, but when
private correspondence brought the news that La Sernas resignation had
been accepted, the viceroy reluctantly permitted him to delegate command
temporarily to Jos Canterac and travel to Lima.
57
It is possible, however,
that La Serna may not have been as interested in leaving Peru as his
resignation implied, and that his real purpose in relinquishing command
of the army in the Andes was to position himself at the center of viceregal
authority while ostensibly awaiting passage on a ship bound for Europe.
58
Soon after arriving in Lima he took advantage of another opportunity to
disobey Pezuela: on 2 December 1819, he informed the viceroy that he would
not assume interim command of the army to be dispatched to Guayaquil,
as ordered by Pezuela after consultation with the Junta de guerra. Instead,
he offered to resume command of the Army of Alto Per.
59
There can be little doubt that Pezuela would have welcomed La Sernas
departure from Peru, but when a group of civilians became involved in the
decision-making process, the viceroy discovered that La Serna was not to
be gotten rid of so easily. On 4 December 1819, the day before La Serna
was scheduled to sail for the peninsula aboard an American warship, just
as a Junta particular de guerra was finishing its deliberations, many first-
class persons congregated in the office of the viceroys secretary demanding
that La Serna remain in Lima. Pezuela does not tell us who they were, but
he does give his reasons for acceding to their demand. Publicly, he conceded
that he was short-handed. I had no general here, he wrote, to assist me
56. Pezuela, Memoria de gobierno, 476, 513; Pezuela to Sr. Secretario de Estado y del Despacho
de la Guerra, 22 Dec. 1817, MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 4, q. 2; La Serna to Pezuela, Tupiza, 19 Jan. 1818,
MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 8; La Serna to Pezuela, Tupiza, 20 Oct. 1818, and Pezuela to La Serna, 25
Nov. 1818, MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 4, q. 4.
57. Pezuela learned of the crowns decision to accept La Sernas resignation on 29 Apr. 1819.
Pezuela, Memoria de gobierno, 204, 445, 572; Real orden, 29 Aug. 1819 (received by Pezuela in
October 1819), and La Serna to Pezuela, 13 Sept. 1819, MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 4, q. 7.
58. Mendiburu, Diccionario, 10:148. M. N. Vargas, Historia del Per, 1:92: [O]n his arrival in
Lima, La Serna placed himself at the front of the opposition, surreptitiously, meanwhile saying in
public that he would very soon go to the peninsula.
59. Acta, 2
a
Junta de guerra, 2 Dec. 1819, MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 4, q. 7; Pezuela, Memoria de
gobierno, 57273.
in defending the viceroyalty at a time when Santa F, Popayn, and Quito
were in danger of falling to the insurgents. Moreover, the entire public
was begging me not to permit that embarkation. The junta then agreed
to ask La Serna to remain in Peru, but in a note in the margin of the
manuscript of his Memoria de gobierno, Pezuela made it clear that he had
been forced to retain La Serna by political necessity. The junta did not
know La Serna, I did.
60
Nevertheless, Pezuela hoped that, with La Serna in Lima and indebted
to him for advancing his career, he might be better able to control him.
61
Thus Pezuela promoted him to the rank of lieutenant general, and from
this time forward La Serna participated in the Juntas de guerra convened
by the viceroy.
62
La Sernas promotion had a second effect: it put him in position to take
over the government of the viceroyalty if Pezuela were absent or incapa-
citated. Prior to 1806, when a viceroy died in office, the Audiencia of Lima
ruled ad interim until a new viceroy arrived in Lima to take up his post.
63
But by a royal order of 30 October 1806, in all the viceroyalties and
capitals where there is an Audiencia, in case of the death, absence, or illness
of the incumbent [viceroy or captain-general], the political, military, and
presidential power falls to the highest ranking officer of the army, so long
as he held the rank of colonel or above, and provided that the crown had
not issued a pliego de providencias by which a successor to the viceroy was
designated by name.
64
Thus, according to the minutes of the Junta de guerra
of 26 December 1819, were it not for La Sernas promotion, the government
would have fallen to one of two elderly field marshalls, the peninsular-born
60. Pezuela, Memoria de gobierno, 57475; Pezuela to Ministro de la Guerra, 14 Feb. 1820,
MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 4, q. 8, where Pezuela remarked that La Serna enjoys a shining reputation
which, in the present circumstances can be influential in the preservation of these dominions for
the king. See also Vargas Ugarte, Historia . . . Emancipacin, 155.
62. Pezuela to Ministro de la Guerra, 14 Feb. 1820, MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 4, q. 8. At this time,
the other members of the Junta de guerra were the criollo brigadiers Jos de La Mar (Subin-
spector General), Manuel de Llano (Subinspector de Artillera), peninsular-born but acriollado
Manuel Olaguer Feli (Subinspector de Ingenieros), and Antonio Vacaro (Comandante General
de Marina). Acta, 2
a
Junta de guerra, 2 Dec. 1819, MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 4, q. 7.
63. See, for example, the period from 18 Mar. 1801, when Viceroy Marqus de Osorno
(Ambrosio OHiggins) died, until 5 Nov. 1801, when Gabriel de Avils arrived in Lima: Vargas
Ugarte, Historia . . . siglo xviii, 2:71, 76. But see Marchena Fernndez, Ejrcito y milicias, 1011,
where he reports that, according to a real orden issued on 20 Nov. 1774, governors were to be
succeeded by military officers.
64. Real orden, 30 Oct. 1806, MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 11. See also Valds, Refutacin . . . del Mani-
fiesto, in Torata, Documentos para la historia, 2:11011.
Manuel Gonzlez y Montoya or the criollo marqus de Montemira, neither
of whom was judged fit for office at such a critical juncture.
65
Pezuela
continued to hold out hope that La Serna would be removed from the
viceroyalty in the near future: If circumstances change, the juntas minutes
record, as is to be expected with the arrival of the grand expedition to the
Ro de la Plata, Pezuela would encourage La Serna to sail for the peninsula.
66
The hoped-for expedition never arrived. On 1 January 1820, Rafael de
Riego, an officer in the formidable expeditionary force then preparing to
sail from Cdiz, led a military revolt that prevented the army with its escort
of warships from departing. His pronunciamiento, the most visible element
of a well-organized conspiracy by leading liberal politicians, including
important merchants, forced the king to reestablish the Constitution of
1812.
67
Thus for three critical years in Perus history1820 to 1823Spain
was ruled by the same liberal party to which Gaspar Rico and Jos de La
Serna belonged.
The revolt had a profound effect on the battle for America. Pierre Chaunu
believes that this second wave of constitutionalism persuaded the majority
of criollos to seek independence, while making it impossible for Spain to
defend the remaining loyal colonies.
68
In Peru, Colonel Toms Guido, one
of San Martns delegates to the conference at Miraflores, wanted to
persuade the viceroy to declare a constitutional government, independent
of Fernando VII, in Lima. He did not succeed, but the Spanish revolt
increased dissention in royalist ranks because of enmity between liberals
and absolutists.
69
In Spain, fiscal problems and tense relations between the
liberal government and the military meant that no Spanish warships or
high ranking peninsular officers and troops succeeded in reinforcing the
royalists in Peru while Pezuela remained viceroy.
70
65. Pezuela to Ministro de la Guerra, 12 Feb. 1820, MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 4, q. 8; Lohmann
Villena, Americanos en las rdenes nobiliarias, 1:467, 2:343. Gonzlez was 74 years old, lame, and
had never seen the face of the enemy; the marqus de Montemira, was characterized simply as
in no sense up to the job.
66. Acta, 3
a
Junta de guerra, 26 Dec. 1819, MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 4, q. 7.
67. Antonio Alcal Galiano, Apuntes para servir a la historia del origen y alzamiento del Ejrcito
destinado a Ultramar en 1 de enero de 1820 (Madrid: Imprenta de Aguado y Compaa, 1821; reprint
Obras escogidas, II, Biblioteca de Autores Espaoles, vol. 84. Madrid: Atlas, 1955); Cepeda Gmez,
Ejrcito destinado a Ultramar, 209301; Esdaile, Spanish Army, 19799; Blanco Valds, Rey,
Cortes y fuerza armada, 48183. The expeditionary force comprised some 20,000 men, and was to
be escorted by 4 men-of-war, 3 frigates, and 10 brigs and smaller ships: Destefani, Real Armada y
la guerra naval, 4:398.
68. Chaunu, Interpretacin de la independencia, 14950.
69. Ganda, San Martn, 91; Paz Soldn, Historia . . . 18191822, 54.
70. Blanco Valds, Rey, Cortes y fuerza armada, 354410.
La Serna could not be replaced. Moreover, according to a royal order
which La Serna later claimed had been issued on 30 September 1820 and
addressed directly to him in a sealed envelope to be opened only in the
event of Pezuelas absence or incapacity, the crown had named him viceroy.
71
If it had been delivered to him prior to the overthrow of Pezuela, La
Serna would have understood its import simply by the instructions on its
cover: it could be none other than a pliego de providencias, by which an
emergency successor to the viceroy was designated by name. But when was
the pliego issued, and when did La Serna receive it? There is no evidence
of its existence prior to March 1822, when the Gaceta del Gobierno Legtimo,
published by Rico, dated it September 1820 but did not say when it had
been received in Peru.
72
In March 1824 La Serna exhibited it to prove his
continued legitimacy as viceroy, although one of his generals was asserting
that all appointments issued by the then-defunct Constitutional regime
had been annulled.
73
But whether or not a pliego de providencias had been
issued and received in Peru before 1822, by mid-November 1820 La Serna
felt empowered to escalate his attack on Pezuelas conduct of the war.
Once again, La Serna made a grab for power, this time by proposing
that the Junta de guerra be reconstituted as an autonomous Junta directiva
de la guerra, and permitted to make decisions on its own, without Pezuelas
participation or ratification. As usual, the incident began with an act of
disobedience, one that would prevent La Serna from leaving Lima or
commanding troops in the field when there was the likelihood that a full-
scale battle might be fought. On 13 November 1820, Pezuela decided to
dispatch the warship Venganza to Chancay, to the north of Lima, where it
could protect the coast from an attack by San Martns ships. The Ven-
ganza was to be followed by La Serna, moving overland in command of
three battalions and three squadrons, plus an artillery unit. The next day,
the viceroy gave La Serna his orders but, as the viceroy wrote in his
Memoria de gobierno, La Serna delayed his departure for the field with an
insolent and indiscreet memorial proposing the formation of a Junta de
71. Real orden, 30 Sept. 1820, cdip-Tomo 22, 3:28687.
72. Artculo de oficio, Gaceta Extraordinaria del Gobierno Legtimo del Per, no. 10 (9 Mar.
1822). In ihcm, Caja 5590, there are pliegos de providencias naming emergency successors for
viceroys Gil de Taboada and OHiggins, and an undated envelope reading Pliego de providencia
eligiendo a La Serna por virrey del Per en caso de muerte, ausencia, o enfermedad, but the
pliego itself is missing. The pliegos are printed forms, with spaces left blank for handwritten
insertion of the relevant names and dates.
73. Ganda, Guerras de los absolutistas y liberales, 420.
generales directiva de la guerra.
74
(A contemporary historian, Mariano Felipe
Paz Soldn, believed that La Sernas refusal to march against San Martn
as ordered was part of his plan to discredit Pezuela and prepare the ground
for his ouster.
75
) The junta was to meet daily, and was supposed to prosecute
the war more actively than Pezuela could manage, given his responsibility
for other aspects of government. Pezuela admitted that the junta might be
useful, and therefore wrote that I agreed to its creation, as though it had
been considered and planned ahead of time.
76
But according to the discreetly
worded minutes drawn up by the juntas newly appointed secretary, Colonel
Juan Loriga, there was some discussion about various articles of the
military plan presented by the Exmo. Seor don Jos de La Serna. The
discussion centered on the question of whether or not the plan trespassed
on the authority of His Excellency. Pezuela recorded a more heated discus-
sion, one that angered and worried him. The generals of the junta . . .
were unwilling to sign the minutes of the act that created it because they
wanted authority to allocate funds from the treasury and also authority to
develop and carry out their military decisions without consulting me
about them, whenever I was unable to attend the sessions of the junta.
77
Pezuela was fully aware of the extent to which La Sernas proposal
represented a challenge to his authority as viceroy: In other words, he
wrote, they proposed essentially that the junta would be a corporation
superior to the viceroythat is, La Sernas long-sought military regime.
The viceroys pride was clearly hurt by his generals willingness to entertain
La Sernas proposal. Having consulted all the generals on every military
decision, arriving at them in good friendship, he wrote, and having had
all of them agreeing with me, except General La Serna, and him giving
no indication of the least aversion, on the contrary with many reasons to
be grateful to me, he had not expected them to seek his removal from
74. Pezuela, Memoria de gobierno, 799800; Acta, Junta de guerra, 14 Nov. 1820, MenP, Sig. 6,
where the summary label in the upper left corner reads, Creation of the junta proposed by La
Serna. This boldness will give rise to evil consequences. Note that the published edition of the
Memoria contains a typographical error that would change the facts of the case. Instead of peda
que se formase una Junta de Generales . . . , as this researcher verified in the manuscript of the
Memoria, the published edition prints the word as ped, which would have made Pezuela
instead of La Serna the author of the proposal. The manuscript of the Memoria is in MenP,
Pezuela, Sig. 3, and comprises three notebooks. See also the draft of testimony for an expediente
refuting La Sernas charges against Olaeta, MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 15; Vargas Ugarte, Historia . . .
Emancipacin, 220; Miller, Memoirs, 1:295.
75. Paz Soldn, Historia . . . 18191822, 124.
77. Ibid., 800801; Acta, Junta de guerra no. 7, 14 Nov. 1820, cdip-Tomo 6, 3:221.
military command. His reaction to what he considered a grave insult was
as might be expected. In his Memoria, he claimed to have addressed the
generals in the most circumspect manner, telling them exactly how his
character, service, and military reputation had prepared him for the com-
petent exercise of his military command. But Pezuelas account and the
discretely worded minutes of the junta clearly reflect a heated discussion
of the power and authority of the viceroy. In the end, according to Pezuela,
the generals unanimously desisted from their pretension and the daily
juntas continued according to proper procedure. The official minutes say
that the junta would meet whenever His Excellency pleased and would
be consultative.
78
Pezuela, it would appear, remained in command of the
war effort.
But Pezuelas victory may have been more apparent than real. The minutes
are contradicted by Pezuelas account of the incident. In his Memoria de
gobierno, he says that he agreed to [the proposal] with complete repug-
nance, and in order to avoid greater damage to the service of the King and
the Nation.
79
In his Manifiesto, written after his overthrow, he claimed to
have acquiesced to La Sernas demands, particularly on the important
point of whether the junta would be merely consultative.
80
By then, of
course, it was in his interest to declare that others were responsible for the
failure to attack San Martns army. Nevertheless, immediately following
the Junta de guerra of 14 November 1820 Pezuelas authority was visibly
compromised in one important respect. The junta was allowed to convene
and make decisions when he was not present; it did so on eight occasions
during November and one in December, but it is not known whether
those decisions were subjected to his ratification. Pezuela was present on
two occasions, 17 and 18 November, and presided without La Serna (who
was ill) over the six juntas that met from 28 November to 7 December.
Thereafter, until 29 January 1821, when he was deposed, Pezuela presided,
but the secretary was careful to record the fact that, except on one occasion,
El Excelentissimo Seor Jos de La Serna was also present.
81
La Serna,
78. Pezuela, Memoria de gobierno, 801; Pezuela, Manifiesto, 29394; Acta, Junta no. 7 de guerra,
14 Nov. 1820, cdip-Tomo 6, 3:221; Torrente, Historia de la revolucin, cdip-Tomo 26, 4:187.
80. Pezuela, Manifiesto, cdip-Tomo 26, 3:294.
81. See the minutes of the Juntas de guerra from 15 Nov. 1820 to 29 Jan. 1821, cdip-Tomo 6,
3:221308. From 11 December 1820 until 29 January 1821, the junta met fifteen times; La Serna
missed only the session of 14 December 1820. Note that in the past the Junta de guerra had met
without Pezuela in attendance, but only for the sake of expressing an opinion on an issue
presented by the viceroy; see, for example, Pezuela, Memoria de gobierno, 70910.
it will be noted, was being addressed with the same honorific title as the
Excelentissimo Seor Virrey.
How had La Serna managed to carry out what amounted to a mini-golpe
de estado? Again, the composition of this Junta de guerra is revealing. The
three generals who had supported Pezuela in previous juntasJos de La
Mar, Manuel de Llano, and Manuel Olaguer Feliwere still in atten-
dance, along with the viceroy. But La Serna was no longer isolated. Two
menAntonio Vacaro, commander of the naval station at Callao, who had
quarreled with Pezuela over the refusal of the warships stationed in Callao
to leave port, and Colonel Juan Loriga, adjutant to the general staff, who
was later accused of complicity in the plot to overthrow Pezuelahad
been added to the group.
82
Thus the discussion about the powers of the
junta was considerably more vigorous than the earlier discussion of the
benefits to be had from permitting foreign merchants to trade directly with
Peru had been. Moreover, according to Pezuelas Manifiesto, the viceroy
recognized that the disorganizing faction was disseminated throughout
the viceroyalty, and its center of support resided in the capital; it was
preponderant, and had subverted the forces on which power depends, and
prudence demanded compromise at times and the sacrifice of something
in order not to risk everything in a final dissolution.
83
The minutes of the Juntas de guerra that followed 14 November 1820
no longer begin by naming those in attendance, and end only with Lorigas
signature. Thus it is difficult to trace precisely the process by which Pezuelas
support in the junta was diluted by the presence of La Sernas partisans, or
the extent to which Olaguer Feli and especially Llano withdrew their
support from the viceroy. It is clear, however, that the process proceded in
tandem with capturing control of the newly formed Army of Lima.
On 1 March 1820, Pezuelas Memoria de gobierno records what turned
out to be a fateful order of the day: All the corps of infantry, artillery, and
cavalry existing in Lima are to comprise the Army of this name.
84
Pezuela
reserved for himself the supreme command, and two of his aides de camp
Brigadiers Marqus de Valdelirios and Marqus de Torre Taglewere criollos.
La Serna was Pezuelas second, commanding the armys center, and the
82. Pezuela, Memoria de gobierno, 749, 75455, 770; Larraaga, Testimony on the overthrow of
Pezuela, bn-m, Coleccin Fernndez Duro, mss, leg. 1066, ms 20054
25
; Rodrguez Ballesteros,
Historia de la revolucin, 1:612.
84. Pezuela, Memoria de gobierno, 66170. See also Junta de guerra, 20 Nov. 1820, cdip-Tomo
6, 3:22728.
peninsular General Diego OReily the left wing. Command of the right
wing, however, and the post of major general of the army went to the
criollo Jos de La Mar; all of Pezuelas orders were to be communicated to
the army by him. Manuel de Llano was to command the artillery, and
Manuel Olaguer Feli was named quartermaster-general.
According to Andrs Garca Camba, one of La Sernas supporters, the
army was badly organized and poorly trained. On 17 August 1820, Garca
Camba sent a memorandum to Pezuela urging him to improve the condi-
tion of the army as rapidly as possible and, by implication, criticizing its
criollo officers as incompetents of doubtful loyalty.
85
Pezuela, of course, found
the memorandum insulting and dangerous: copies circulated throughout the
city, revealing too much to the enemy (a copy was sent to San Martn).
86
The report also discredited the viceroy as a military commander, with the
result that Pezuelas prestige declines every day, both in the eyes of the
public and the officers, among whom there is neither the least harmony
nor obedience.
87
Pezuela may have been stung by criticism of his loyal criollo
officers, however, and begun to take their competence less for granted; as
his Memoria de gobierno reveals, beginning in August 1820 he developed
extensive and detailed plans for attacking the invaders, and training began
in earnestfor which Garca Camba took credit.
88
In order to bring the new army up to strength, several units were to be
detached from the Army of Alto Per and dispatched to Lima. Originally,
the Gerona and Centro batallions were to join the Army of Lima, but La
Serna insisted that they were then so far away in the Andes that they could
not arrive in Lima for three to four months. Instead, La Serna, La Mar,
and Llano suggested that the Batalln de Granaderos and Esquadrn de
85. Garca Camba, Memorias, 1:44445. The supposed incompetence and disloyalty of criollo
officers was a major theme of Valds writings after Ayacucho: see his Exposicin and his
Refutacin . . . del Manifiesto, both in Torata, Documentos para la historia, 1:1960 and 2:2137,
respectively. Note also the comment of Valds son, count of Torata, in his Contestacin al artculo
bibliogrfico publicado por Don Ricardo Palma . . . sobre el Tomo I, Documentos para la historia de la
guerra separatista del Per, bound in at the back of vol. 1 of Toratas Documentos para la historia, 24:
Pezuela committed the transcendental error . . . of mistrusting instead of depending upon the
peninsular element, which was the only one in those circumstances capable of dominating the
situation, as was later demonstrated.
86. Archivo de San Martn, 7:17581.
87. Comments of Jos Pardo y Prieto, attached to a copy of Garca Cambas memorandum
and dated 17 Sept. 1820, Archivo de San Martn, 7:185; Garca Camba, Memorias, 445. Garca
Camba insisted that he had not leaked the report to the public, and blamed the leak on disloyal
members of Pezuelas staff, possibly including La Mar.
88. Pezuela, Memoria de gobierno, 742; Paz Soldn, Historia . . . 18191822, 124; Garca Camba,
Memorias, 1:446.
la Unin be substituted. Pezuela agreed, but as a result of the change of
plan, confusing and conflicting orders were issued to the commanders of
the various royalist regiments, and orders were not always received by them.
89
Both Jernimo de Valds and Antonio Seoane, two of La Sernas closest
allies, took advantage of an order intended for the commander of the Army
of Alto Per, General Juan Ramrez, which they intercepted, opened, and
read, to move two battalions under their command to Lima. Another of
La Sernas allies, Jos de Canterac, marched his battalion to Lima when
he learned of the appointment of Jos de La Mar as chief of staff of the
Army of Lima. Canterac insisted that the king had named him chief of
staff for the Peruvian army, and that La Mars office as jefe de estado
mayor of the Army of Lima surely corresponded to that appointment. By
4 December 1820, Canterac had joined Valds and Seoane in Lima, and
on the next day the Junta de guerra named him to its ranks.
90
Never-
theless, Pezuela continued to call La Mar to the palace, along with Llano,
Olaguer Feli, Vacaro, and La Serna, for consultations leading to decisions
on the conduct of the war. The last one recorded in Pezuelas Memoria de
gobierno took place on 12 January 1821, and only the five men are listed as
attending.
91
Canterac, apparently, was not invited.
But Juan Martn de Larraaga, an aide to Pezuela and an eyewitness to
his overthrow, testified that Canterac had been an active participant in the
Junta directiva de la guerra. Soon after he was added to the junta, Canterac
proposed that Lima be abandoned, blowing up or destroying the bridge
of Santa Catalina, and the army retiring to Jauja in the central valley east
of Lima, where the royalists would await massive military aid from Spain.
92
As La Serna had advocated while in command of the Army of Alto Per
(and as had been true of the Spanish armies battling Napoleon), the royalists
were to live off the land, extracting whatever resources they needed from
the local population, by force if necessary.
89. Pezuela to Mariano Ricafort, 2 and 22 Mar. 1820, MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 4, q. 7; Pezuela,
Memoria de gobierno, 66869; Pezuela to Ricafort, 2 and 4 Nov. 1820, and the minutes of the Junta
de guerra, 16 Dec. 1820, cdip-Tomo 6, 3:16670, 260.
90. Larraaga, Testimony on the overthrow of Pezuela, bn-m, Coleccin Fernndez Duro,
mss, leg. 1066, ms 20054
25
; Pezuela to Ricafort, 18 Feb. 1820, MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 4, q. 8; Pezuela
to Ricafort, 4 Dec. 1820, and minutes of the Junta de guerra, 5 Dec. 1820, cdip-Tomo 6, 3:238,
240.
mss, leg. 1066, ms 20054
25
. The proposal to abandon Lima surfaces on 11 Dec. 1820: Acta, Junta
de guerra, cdip-Tomo 6, 3:24445.
According to Timothy E. Anna, substantial evidence given by a variety
of royalist officials indicates that the core question leading to the armys
overthrow of Viceroy Joaqun de la Pezuela . . . was the dispute over
whether Lima should be abandoned.
93
While it may not have been as
important as Anna suggests, there can be no doubt about the urgency of
the issue. Like other matters on which Pezuela disagreed with the peninsular
officers, it reflected the changes in strategic thought engendered by the
Napoleonic war in Spain. To Pezuela, cities were important for many reasons,
but especially as sites of governmental power. The peninsular officers, by
contrast, exhibited a marked anti-urban bias in their thinking. In his later
attack on Pezuelas Manifiesto, Jernimo Valds repeatedly characterized the
city as a corrupter of military virtue. Lima, he wrote, was voluptuous,
and he decried the fact that the Army of Lima was stationed so close to
the city that the commanders, the officers, and even the troops were
constantly entering and leaving it, participating in the corruption of the
most seductive and sensual town of the New World. . . . The only things
to be had from its possession are the moral corruption of the troops, an
increase in the armys workload, and the weakening of the spirit of the
officers, who only with great repugnance leave behind the pleasures offered
them by such large cities to fight a difficult and painful war like that of
Peru in the mountains of the Andes. La Serna shared this attitude toward
cities, having objected to stationing troops in Arequipa in 1818 because
they would become corrupt and effeminate. Unlike Pezuela, who believed
that the royalists were masters only of the territory actually occupied by
the army, the officers who had fought in the peninsula were advocates of a
single, large, and mobile force stationed in the countryside and disciplined
to endure long and rapid marches to a scene of battle. As Valds expressed
it, General La Serna was never in agreement with Viceroy Pezuela on the
issue of the disposition and placement of the troops. [La Serna] believed
that these should operate as a single unit of the greatest possible number
against targets that could be attacked decisively. [Pezuela], by contrast, was
dominated by the school that he called in various documents de escalones,
that is, a system whereby the army was divided into various units deployed
in a series of strategic locations, from which they could move swiftly to support
93. Anna, Economic Causes, 658; Rodrguez Ballesteros, Historia de la revolucin, 1:604. See
also Anna, Fall of the Royal Government, 178.
each other as the need arose. To Pezuela, that strategy was more appropriate
to a war of internal rebellion in a large and mountainous country.
94
The dispute about withdrawing from the viceregal capital was not merely
a matter of military discipline and strategy, however; it also involved the
question of the foreign threat to the security of Peru. La Serna, Canterac
and two or three of the junta who supported the proposal
95
knew that
withdrawing from Lima also meant withdrawing from the sea, where for-
eigners were in control. On this point, La Serna and Gaspar Rico could
make common cause. During the free-trade dispute, Rico had argued that
the resources provided to the royalists by seaborne foreigners were illegally
gotten and unnecessary, while withdrawing from Lima would permit the
royalists to give up the dangerous trade with independent Chile, a territory
that La Serna felt was irrelevant to the preservation of royalist rule in Peru.
96
For Pezuela, by contrast, control of the viceregal capital was essential
for political, military, and strategic reasons, and if the royalists were to
hold Lima, then the city had to be supplied with the wheat that was
obtainable in adequate quantities only from foreigners willing and able to
run the Chilean blockade. Continued royalist occupation of Lima, he insisted,
would make it possible to receive military matriel carried to Callao by
foreigners. It would also leave open the governments ability to tax imports
rather than the general population, contrary to the policy proposed by both
La Serna and Rico. Finally, Pezuela argued that withdrawal from Lima
would bring with it the loss of the warships then in Callao, and would
probably lead to the loss of any additional warships sent from Spain.
97
I
94. Valds, Refutacin . . . del Manifiesto, in Torata, Documentos para la historia, 2:60, 72, 116, 118.
Pezuelas Memoria de gobierno contains many examples of his troop dispositions that were in
accord with the idea of escalones. See also Acta de la junta de guerra secreta, 26 Aug. 1820, and
Pezuela to Ministro de la Guerra, 11 Sept. 1820, MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 4, q. 10, where he spells out
his plan for deploying troops por escalones in anticipation of San Martns invasion; this tactic was
particularly useful in mountain warfare, as Pezuela knew well from his years in Alto Per. La
Serna had learned his tactics from Napoleon, for whom the destruction of the enemys main
field force, rather than the mere occupation of territory or the capture of the enemys capital was
of primary importance: Rothenberg, Art of Warfare, 23, 147.
95. According to the draft of testimony refuting La Sernas charges against Olaeta, only La
Serna, Valds, and Canterac supported withdrawal from Lima: MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 15.
96. Rico, Convocado a Junta de tribunales para auxiliar a la Real Hacienda buscando arbitrios, he
encontrado . . . , 10 Feb. 1819, agi-Lima, leg. 1551; La Serna to Pezuela, Potos, 1 Nov. 1817, MenP,
Pezuela, Sig. 8; Draft of testimony refuting La Sernas charges against Olaeta, n.d., and Report
of Antonio Vacaro to Ministro de Marina, Bay of Cdiz, 15 Mar. 1822, MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 15.
97. After returning to Spain, Pezuela blamed La Serna for losing the Spanish fleet in the
Pacific by withdrawing from Lima: Draft of testimony refuting La Sernas charges against
Olaeta, MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 15.
am convinced, Pezuela said in the Junta de guerra of 16 December 1820,
that everything is lost if we lose Lima.
98
Defending Lima was his first
priority, and the defense of Lima required that he permit direct trade with
foreigners even in the face of determined opposition from men who believed
in a hard-line land-based military solution to the problem of pacification.
As a result of the dispute over withdrawal from Lima, the viceroy who
believed that it was his responsibility, and ultimately his alone, to prevent
Perus independence, found himself increasingly subjected to public denun-
ciation of his policies and person. Gaspar Rico and the metropolitan mer-
chants of the consulado continued to issue ultimatumsthe latest in January
1821
99
demanding that he reverse policy decisions that he believed essen-
tial to rallying the resources necessary to prevent independence. La Serna,
and now other officers of the army, were challenging his military decisions.
More serious, for the first time an entire royalist regiment, the Numancia,
deserted to the rebels.
100
The unnamed civilians who gathered in the
palace to demand La Sernas continued presence in Peru indicated serious
leakage in the viceroys fund of political power among royalists in the
capital itself. Surrounded by enemiesnot only army officers and merchants
but also San Martns army and growing numbers of Peruvian supporters
of independencePezuela had lost hope. He had never had great faith in
the efficacy of force alone, and now believed that defeat was inevitable,
because against a widespread opinion favoring independence there can
be no effective force.
101
It was this understanding of the realities of Perus
political situation that proved to be Pezuelas undoing.
98. Acta, Junta de guerra, 16 Dec. 1820, MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 6, printed in cdip-Tomo 6,
3:26162. For more on Pezuelas reasons for refusing to abandon Lima, see his Manifiesto, 28081,
293, 295, 296, and his Memoria de Gobierno, 204, 255, 298, 782. San Martn shared Pezuelas belief
in the importance of controlling Lima, and therefore made the capture of the capital his primary
objective: James R. Scobie, La estratega de San Martn en Per, 18201821, Cuarto Congreso
Internacional de Historia de Amrica, 8 vols. (Buenos Aires, 1966), 4:53840.
99. Oficio sobre libre comercio, Jan. 1821, agnp-Consulado, leg. 4.
100. Pezuela to Exmo. Sor. Embajador de smc en la Corte de Londres, 10 Dec. 1820, sim-
Estado, leg. 8298; Garca Camba, Memorias, 46869; Miller, Memoirs, 1:29192. The Numancias
new commander was Jernimo Valds, whose decision to leave the regiment in the rear while
royalist troops retreated was harshly criticized. For Valds defense, see his Refutacin . . . del
Manifiesto, in Torata, Documentos para la historia, 2:8385. The most accessible account of the
desertion is in Vargas Ugarte, Historia . . . Emancipacin, 21819. Widespread but scattered deser-
tion by rank-and-file recruits garrisoning Lima and the coast, which Pezuela attributed to rebel
agents, had worried him for several years: Pezuela to Duke of San Carlos, 18 Nov. 1818, sim-
Estado, leg. 8223.
101. Pezuela, Memoria de gobierno, 801. See also Pezuela to Duke of San Carlos, 18 Nov. 1818
and 14 Jan. 1819, sim-Estado, leg. 8223, where he declares that the public had deserted the
royalists and now favored independence.
WAR AND POLITICAL CULTURE
For much of Pezuelas tenure as viceroy of Peru, he had been moved to paint
a dark picture of the prospects for continued Spanish rule. He was honestly
convinced that the situation was serious, and until the last days of his vice-
regency he tried desperately to persuade the government at Madrid and the
politically active population of Lima that pacification required more resources,
financial, military, and political, than he had at his disposal.
102
But the
authority of his high office was rapidly draining away, leaving him with-
out the ability to command even those resources that lay near at hand, as
La Sernas disobedience and the failure of one after another of his forced
loans demonstrated. The viceroys commands could be, and were, ignored
with impunity.
103
Although they themselves were guilty of insubordination,
the peninsular officers of the Army of Lima nevertheless ridiculed Pezuela
for his attempts to mobilize political support for the royalist cause in the
face of radically changed political conditions. According to Valds, Pezuela,
creator of the Juntas de tribunales, arbitrios, comercio, in short, . . . creator
of an endless number of juntas . . . under different names, had intended
only to escape responsibility for the unfortunate outcomes of his projects
and policies. Convening juntas in the circumstances and manner that
Pezuela had done was the clearest proof . . . of his irresolution and lack of
talent. The officers could not comprehend civilian politics: Anyone who is
intelligent and capable of exercising the command entrusted to him, never
has recourse to such expedients, which are counter to good sense and are
condemned with reason by the General Ordinances of the army.
104
Military politics were a different matter altogether. In that arena, negotia-
tion and compromise of the sort undertaken by Pezuela and called for by
the government at Madrid in the hope of ending American rebellions was
seen as a sign of weakness.
To men who had fought in Spain during the Napoleonic invasion and
who believed that, in rebellious provinces, the commanding general of the
army rightfully held political as well as military command, the idea of a
negotiated armistice was anathema. They recognized only two alternatives:
victory on the field of battle, or defeat. Thus, in mid-December 1820, when
the cabildo of Lima presented the beleaguered viceroy with a petition,
signed by seventy-two citizens, calling on him to sign an armistice and
102. Garca Camba, Memorias, 1:296.
103. Valds, Exposicin, in Torata, Documentos para la historia, 1:47.
reopen peace negotiations with San Martn, the hard-liners had another,
more serious, excuse for opposing Pezuela.
The cabildos petition argued for a policy that, it hoped, would prevent
the destruction of this faithful city and its loyal population. In addition to
clergy and nine holders of ttulos de castilla, twenty-two merchants, including
Pedro de Abada, signed the petition. So did Dr. Hiplito Unanue, who
had argued so eloquently in favor of free trade in the Juntas de tribunales
of 181819.
105
According to Garca Camba, the considerable part of the
population that was dedicated to the interests of Spain was scandalized,
and declared its anger publicly. As Garca Camba put it, the indignation of
those who wished to defend themselves against San Martn rose to a high
pitch, and in the vast field that was opened to conjectures the high standing
of the [viceroy] suffered immeasurably.
106
The hard-line opposition, including
a group of consulado merchants and 134 members of the Concordia militia
regiment (in which many merchants served), quickly presented petitions
declaring that negotiations would be fruitless and shameful, and would
amount to capitulation and acquiescence in Perus independence from
Spain. Instead, they insisted, the royalists should welcome military action
against San Martn. At least thirty-six consulado merchants lent their names
to these petitions.
107
Pezuelas response to the petitions illuminates the fine line he walked
between politically active pressure groups. To the cabildo, although angered
by their petition, he was courteous and careful, explaining his decision not
to enter into further negotiations with San Martn and defending his
determination to meet the invaders on the field of battle. He suggested,
however, that the cabildo should not intrude on matters that were not
within its competence, and that it would be more suitable for them to
105. Representacin de 72 ciudadanos, 16 Dec. 1820, MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 4, q. 10, printed in
cdip-Tomo 6, 3:24951; Garca Camba, Memorias, 1:47475; Acta, Junta de guerra, 16 Dec. 1820,
MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 6; cdip-Tomo 6, 3:24952. See also Unanues earlier article favoring direct
trade in El Verdadero Peruano, Tomo 2, no. 1 (May 1813).
106. Garca Camba, Memorias, 1:47879, 483.
107. Ibid., 1:48182; Solicitud de otro grupo de ciudadanos, 16 Dec. 1820, MenP, Pezuela, Sig.
4, q. 10, printed in cdip-Tomo 6, 3:25558; Concordia petition, no date (16 Dec. 1820), Apndice
A, no. 3, Valds, Refutacin . . . del Manifiesto, in Torata, Documentos para la historia, 2:153; Prorrata
de los 400,000 pesos . . . para completar el milln de pesos de emprstito forzoso, 5 Mar. 1819,
agnp-Consulado, leg. 34. Not all of the signatures were copied onto the citizens petition sent to
Pezuela, and Valds states that the number of Concordia petitioners was 136, although only 134
names appear on the petition published by Torata and Garca Camba.
dedicate all your resources to the common defense, and then the capital
city, whose security you invoke, will be saved.
108
To the merchants, Pezuela was less deferential, in part, surely, because
their petition, addressed to the consulado to be forwarded to the viceroy,
was less than respectfully composed. It elicited from Pezuela the same kind
of response that Gaspar Ricos ultimatum had provoked during the free-
trade dispute of 1818. The anger in his reply is palpable: I have given abun-
dant public and relevant proofs, he wrote, that I desire to accommodate
myself in my conduct and decrees to the wishes of all those individuals
who exist politically under our orders, insofar as they promote the public
good and the prosperity of this country, in the attainment of which no
one is more interested than I am. He assured the consulado that he would
not divert his attention from the serious problems facing the regime, and
that he would continue to prevent general and specific evils insofar as the
difficult circumstances of the day permit. He needed no instruction in
such matters from merchants.
109
As a result of the cabildos petition, and in spite of Pezuelas declara-
tions to the contrary, rumors began to circulate in Lima that the viceroy
intended to avoid going on the offensive; instead he would merely defend
the capital and its port, Callao, holding out as long as possible in the hope
that aid would arrive from Spain. Such a policy, according to Garca Camba,
was exceedingly harmful to the Spanish military, which henceforth
would have no significant role to play in the events that would deter-
mine Perus future.
110
Far more serious, however, were rumors that Pezuela intended to sur-
render to San Martn. They, too, arose from the cabildos petition, which
members of the Concordia regiment and the peninsular officers of the
army saw as tantamount to acquiescance in Perus independence. They
asserted that Pezuelas motive was utterly reprehensible: the capitulation
would serve to secure his assets which according to general opinion were
not few.
111
According to both Valds and Garca Camba, the petition
clear evidence of a conspiracy, in their opinionhad been drawn up by
108. Testimony of Toribio de Acebal, Pezuelas secretary, Madrid, 26 May 1830, Apndice A,
no. 4, Valds, Refutacin . . . del Manifiesto, in Torata, Documentos para la historia, 2:153; Pezuela to
Cabildo, 16 Dec. 1820, MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 4, q. 10, printed in cdip-Tomo 6, 3:25859; Garca
Camba, Memorias, 48990.
109. Pezuela to Consulado, 2 Jan. 1821, cdip-Tomo 6, 3:279.
110. Rodrguez Ballesteros, Historia de la revolucin, 1:604; Garca Camba, Memorias, 1:472.
111. Draft of testimony refuting La Sernas charges against Olaeta, MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 15.
some of Pezuelas closest associates at the viceroys behest (an officer of San
Martns army attributed this information to Abada)
112
and had even been
signed in his presence. In the opinion of the two officers most closely
associated with the viceroys overthrow, the fact that Pezuela did nothing
to reprimand either the cabildo or the signers proved his involvement in
the affair, especially when contrasted with his behavior toward the men who
signed the Concordia petition. They had demanded that the commanders
and officers who had signed that petition calling for an armistice and
negotiations be separated from this corpsand they singled out Pedro de
Abada as one of the worst offenders. Instead of doing as they asked, however,
Pezuela had threatened them, and treated them as insubordinate.
113
These acts, occurring in the presence of the officers of the army
camped in Aznapuquio, were sufficient to convince even the
most moderate that the capitulation was being prepared with the
consent of Sr. Pezuela, without whose knowledge it was entirely
impossible that such a scandalous step could have been taken and
could have involved the most respected and wealthiest men, many
of them until then the most firmly supportive of the Metropolis
cause. The circumstance that the friends and associates of the
palace were those who collected the signatures and directed this
conspiracy . . . and the public declarations made by the viceroy in
the Junta de generales and in his own tertulia, always intended to
persuade that Peru was hopelessly lost, gave to this project a level
of evidence such that capitulation was already spoken of as some-
thing definitely consented to and agreed upon.The town council
was busy drawing up the preliminary draft of the so-called peace
treaty when the Aznapuquio action took place.
114
To the men who had fought against Napoleon in Spain this was treason
of the highest order, and was the true cause that had provoked their
112. Diario de la expedicin libertadora, 23 Oct. 18201 Jan. 1821, cdip-Tomo 26, 2:5067. The
anonymous author of this Diario was probably Juan Gregorio de Las Heras, whose Diario de las
operaciones del Ejrcito Libertador, 528, reports the same thing in identical words.
113. Valds, Refutacin . . . del Manifiesto, in Torata, Documentos para la historia, 2:67; Garca
Camba, Memorias, 47883. According to Paz Soldn, Historia . . . 18191822, 125, patriots had
worked to convince the cabildo that Pezuela should negotiate with San Martn; members of the
cabildo had recently been elected in accord with the reinstated Constitution of 1812 and, he says,
included undercover patriots.
See also his Exposicin, in Torata, 1:5556.
golpe de estado. Especially for La Serna, who had fought with Palafox
at Zaragoza, perhaps the most ferocious battle of the peninsular war,
115
surrender was unthinkable except in the face of overwhelming defeat by
an opposing army.
After he returned to Spain, Pezuela denied the conspirators allegations
that he intended to capitulate by discussing the motives they said had
determined his supposed policy. In the first place, he wrote, if his primary
interest had been to protect his fortune (which he insisted did not exist),
he would have dispatched it to Spain aboard one of the foreign warships
then in Callao, as many peninsular merchants had done. As for the charge
that he thought Peru was lost and was acting accordingly, he pointed out
that the well-equipped royalist army in Aznapuquio far outnumbered San
Martns forces7,208 men versus 4,500, with only 191 royalist soldiers on
the sick listand that additional forces were available to him. It was
inconceivable that the victor of Vilcapugio, Ayohuma, and Viluma, who
had won battles against superior forces, would capitulate under those circum-
stances. Furthermore, at that time he had been issuing orders to commanders
of the royalist army, including La Serna, to march into position to attack
San Martn.
116
The problem was that La Serna refused to obey Pezuelas
orders to take to the field, as his conduct in November of 1820 demonstrated.
When La Serna presented his proposal to create the Junta directiva de
la guerra on 14 November 1820, Pezuela immediately recognized that some-
thing was afoot, and that at least some of his army officers were involved
in it. The proposal was sufficient to persuade me that together they were
already agreed on a plan that will probably be revealed in the near future,
he wrote. There was little he could do about it, since they are the officers
on whom I depend to make war. The viceroy understood, too, that penin-
sular officers of the Army of Lima were not alone in conspiring against
him: La Sernas challenge to his authority in the Junta de guerra indicated
clearly some planning for greater things, in combination with some poder
oculto.
117
Pezuela did not record his suspicions as to the identity of the
hidden power, and the conspirators did not set down in writing the minutes
115. Valds, Refutacin . . . del Manifiesto, in Torata, Documentos para la historia, 2:67, 123; Ren
Chartrand, The Guerrillas: How Oman Underestimated the Role of Irregular Forces, in Sir
Charles W. C. Oman, A History of the Peninsular War, intro. John R. Elting, 9 vols. (London:
Greenhill Press, 1995), 9:16768. See also Raymond Rudorff, War to the Death: The Siege of
Saragossa, 18081809 (London: Hamilton, 1974).
of their meetings. In spite of his fears, however, Pezuela continued to work
furiously for the defense of Lima, preparing for battle against San Martns
army. This was the only honorable option left open to him, and even Garca
Camba, one of La Sernas closest allies, admitted that the rumor alleging
that Pezuela intended to capitulate to San Martn was calumny; neverthe-
less, it had its effect on public opinion.
118
But Pezuela also believed that public opinion had moved decisively against
the royalists. He had lost hope that Peru would remain a part of the Spanish
empire and, unbeknownst to merchants and the military, he had tendered
his resignation as viceroy. But on 14 January 1821, just a week before he
was removed from office, he learned that the crown had not accepted his
resignation because the king was well satisfied with my conduct and good
services in this command. The news came as a terrible blow. I do not desire
nor have I ever sought any command whatever, he wrote, and my health
is being destroyed by the very serious weight that rests on my shoulders.
119
Pezuelas stress was surely increased by the attacks on his person and
personal life that surfaced in Limas gossipy society, some of them dating
from the early years of his viceregency. They took two forms: rumors about
his wifes conduct, traded verbally, and the pasquines or lampoons that appeared
in November 1820 on broadsides posted in public places. Unfortunately,
only one of the lampoons has been located:
Naci David para rey,
Para sabio Salomn,
Para soldado La Serna,
Pezuela para ladrn.
120
In his Tradiciones peruanas, Ricardo Palma reports the opinion among Pezuelas
contemporaries that the insult cut the marqus de Viluma to the quick,
for he certainly did not merit that characterization. Pezuela managed public
funds honestly.
118. Garca Camba, Memorias, 1:489. But according to Valds, Refutacin . . . del Manifiesto, in
Torata, Documentos para la historia, 2:24, the viceroy arrived at the extreme of proposing in the
Junta de generales the necessity of capitulating to San Martn, because, he said, he could no
longer defend the kingdom. If true, this sounds very like his earlier attempts to shock the crown,
the consulado, and the military into providing him with the funds and other resources needed to
preserve Spanish rule in Peru, and may reflect Pezuelas frustration at La Sernas refusal to obey
his orders.
120. David was born to be king, / Solomon to be wise, / La Serna to be a soldier, / Pezuela to
be a thief : Palma, Tradiciones peruanas, 918.
According to a historian writing shortly after independence, most of the
lampoons blamed Pezuela for the military and political crisis, and claimed
that La Serna could save the day.
121
In this part of the campaign to discredit
the viceroy, Gaspar Rico (who declared himself to have been active in the
campaign to overthrow Pezuela at this time) could have been instrumental:
his sarcastic and creative turn of phrase, and his experience in printing
and publishing, would have been useful. Indeed, there is evidence of his
activity as a writer and distributor of lampoons: between November 1821
and January 1824, eleven satirical verses were published in El Depositario,
two of them signed by Rico himself.
122
There is nothing to link Gaspar Rico directly with the rumors about
Pezuelas wife that one eyewitness to the overthrow reported to the crown,
but they resemble the criticisms of Queen Mara Louisa, wife of Carlos IV,
that Rico published in El Peruano in 1811.
123
Juan Martn Larraaga recorded
several stories that served to compromise the viceroys standing as an honor-
able Spaniard in a society where gender carried with it clearly defined roles.
They concern the ill-advised conduct of [Pezuelas] wife, Doa Angela
Zeballos y Ollarra, who apparently had a talent for offending others that
was exploited by her husbands enemies. The virreinas conduct at the
beginning of his viceregency suggested that Pezuela was incapable of
ruling his own household, let alone the viceroyalty. This impression grew
with the passage of time. When the expedition to recover Chile was being
prepared in December 1817, the viceroys wife was once again perceived to
be out of his control, exerting an inappropriate influence on public affairs
and even on the conduct of the war. Part of the blame for the disaster in
Chile in April 1818, when the patriot army defeated the royalists at Mayp,
was attached to her. According to Larraaga, it appears that, in the appoint-
ment of the commander of the expedition, Brigadier Mariano Osorio, the
virreina was influential. Osorio was her son-in-law.
124
According to Andrs
Garca Camba, one of the officers most active in Pezuelas overthrow, Osorio
was believed incapable of dispatching such responsibility, even though he
122. The two that were signed by Rico are in El Depositario, no. 99 (Cuzco, 20 Oct. 1823).
123. El Peruano, no. 10 (8 Oct. 1811), cdip-Tomo 23, 2:7980.
leg. 1066, MS 20054
25
; Pezuela, Memoria de gobierno, 677. In Una moda que no cundi, Ricardo
Palma recorded an amusing anecdote about the virreina that, he believed, had serious
consequences: From the night of the marriage of his daughter Joaquina [to Mariano Osorio],
Viceroy Pezuelas popularity began to decline, and was terminated by the mutiny of Aznapuquio:
Tradiciones peruanas, 92527.
had commanded the army that recaptured Chile in 1814.
125
Finally, at the
end of 1820, the viceroys wife and family were blamed for Pezuelas failure
to place himself at the head of the royalist army and to launch an attack
on San Martns forces.
126
This last accusation was false: Pezuela intended to command the royalist
army in the field, having made plans for the governance and security of
Lima and Callao during his absence.
127
According to Jos Rodrguez Bal-
lesteros, he delayed doing so because of La Sernas mini-golpe, the demand
that the viceroy cede management of the war to the Junta directiva de la
guerra: Because of the bold and insolent manner in which the demand
was conceived the viceroy realized that the commanders were angry and
excited, and that something might happen to compromise public security.
128
But Pezuela fully expected the army to engage San Martn in a general
battle on the outskirts of the city, a battle that would determine the
military fate of Peru. A week after he created the Army of Lima, Pezuela
ordered Tagle to prepare battlegrounds on the nearby haciendas Lima-
tambo and Calera de Monterico, and to indemnify their owners.
129
On 12
January 1821, seventeen days before his overthrow, he gave orders for a
reconnaissance of the enemy lines, after which the army was to engage San
Martn in a decisive battle.
130
Nevertheless, as Pezuela had long recognized, battles alone could not
determine the future of Peru; politics were also critically important. But a
war of opinion was extremely difficult to win, especially when the enemy
was as adept as San Martn, or the loquacious elite of Lima. He tried to
expose the machinations of all those hidden powers in a pamphlet calling
125. Garca Camba cited testimony to the effect that, because of Osorios ambition and his
in-laws determination to see him appointed presidente of Chile and promoted to the rank of
field-marshall, he had launched an attack on rebel forces without awaiting momentarily-expected
reinforcements: Garca Camba, Memorias, 1:359, 377. Larraaga reported a similar assessment of
Osorios lack of fitness for command: see his Testimony on the overthrow of Pezuela, bn-m,
Coleccin Fernndez Duro, leg. 1066, MS 20054
25
. For Osorios account of his defeat, see Gaceta
del gobierno . . . 18161818, 3:28590.
126. M. N. Vargas, Historia, 1:130. Torrente, Historia de la revolucin, cdip-Tomo 26, 4:187,
says that Pezuela was unwilling to subject his family to the rigors of a military campaign in the
Andes, and had refused to send them home to Spain, as the officers had suggested.
127. Pezuela, Memoria de gobierno, 743; Report of Antonio Vacaro to Ministro de Marina, Bay
of Cdiz, 15 Mar. 1822, MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 15; Paz Soldn, Historia . . . 18191822, 124.
128. Rodrguez Ballesteros, Historia de la revolucin, 1:613.
129. Pezuela to Marqus de Torre Tagle, 8 Mar. 1820, Tagle mss, amoz.
130. Pezuela, Memoria de gobierno, 782, 78627.
attention to the use of propaganda as a weapon of war,
131
but to little
avail. His enemies had succeeded in discrediting him politically, militarily,
and personally, and it is their view of him and his viceregency that has
been preserved by historians of Perus independence. Under the weight of
persistent and vehement ad hominem public attackand resurgent
rumors that he was to be replacedhis authority had disintegrated.
131. Joaqun de la Pezuela, Fidelidad de los vecinos de esta invicta capital atacada por la
seduccin mas veces que por la fuerza de las armas, 1820, Latin American Pamphlets from the
Yale University Library, I.D. no. 8016799. In his Memoria de gobierno, 827, Pezuela characterized
seduction as the insurgents favorite weapon.
At about 11:30 on the morning of 29 January 1821, an officer of the Army
of Lima presented himself in the office of Colonel Juan Loriga, Viceroy
Joaqun de la Pezuelas secretary. With him he brought an ultimatum addressed
to the viceroy demanding his resignation and a letter for Loriga signed by
Jernimo Valds, Jos Canterac, and Antonio Seoane in which they appealed
to Lorigas friendship to induce him to deliver their ultimatum to Pezuela.
Juan Martn Larraaga, who left us an eyewitness account of that day, believed
that Loriga was in league with the conspirators in spite of his excessive pas-
sion for one of Pezuelas daughters and his engagement to her; in his opinion,
Lorigas reluctance to deliver the ultimatum was mere play-acting.
1
Larraaga accompanied Loriga into the viceroys office, and upon opening
the door of the cabinet in which Pezuela was writing, he [Loriga] stopped
on the threshold, showing fear either pretended or genuine. Pezuela, who
spied him hanging his head and not daring to enter, said to him . . .
What is it Loriga? Why dont you come in? And here Larraaga shifts
to a verbatim account of the conversation:
Loriga: Seor Excelentssimo, I am so sorry to see myself obliged to be . . .
Pezuela: What! Is there news? Is there some disaster?
leg. 1066, MS 20054
25
. Another detailed account, said to have been written by Pezuelas nephew
Fernandito in 1822, is in Rodgguez Ballesteros, Historia de la revolucin, 1:60721. La Sernas
account, which omits mention of Lorigas visit and Pezuelas demand that he call the rebellious
officers to order, is dated 10 Feb. 1821 and is in MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 15. For an account justifying
the officers action, see Valds, Exposicin, in Torata, Documentos para la historia, 1:1960, and also
by Valds, Refutacin . . . del Manifiesto, in Torata, Documentos para la historia, 2:2137.
S E V E N
THE PRONUNCIAMIENTO AND ITS AFTERMATH

Loriga: No, Seor. The officers of the army transmit by me this commu-
nication for Your Excellency.
Pezuela: And what do they want?
Loriga: That your excellency resign the viceregency in favor of General La
Serna.
Pezuela: An insurrection! Eh! Lets see, open it and read it.
Larraaga continued his dramatic testimony with an account of what hap-
pened next:
Loriga opened the communication, and read a menacing ultima-
tum, in which he [Pezuela] was told to transfer the command to
General La Serna within two hours on pain of having the army
move on the capital to make him do so by force, demanding also
that within the same period of time he remove himself from the
palace and the capital. Pezuela with the greatest serenity heard
the reading of this singular document signed by eighteen officers,
and directing himself forthwith to this witness, ordered him to go to
the house of General La Serna, inform him of what had been heard,
and demand that he go immediately to the encampment and call the
eighteen signatory officers to order. La Serna . . . heard the order
given him with the greatest indifference, answering that he was ill
and could not go: this increased the suspicions already entertained
of his complicity in the plan organized to overthrow the viceroy.
Larraaga then went to the house of Colonel Juan Antonio Monet, and
Monets conduct offered an interesting contrast to that of La Serna.
[Monet] immediately presented himself at the palace and offered
to reestablish order in the army with the two battalions of his
regiment which he had in Piedra Liza [near Lima]. The viceroy
did not wish to accede to the offer, in order to avoid a conflict
which could be the occasion for fatal consequences, although it could
not have had any effect because Canterac, doubtless foreseeing some
opposition from this unit, removed it from Piedra Liza while its
colonel was in Lima and incorporated it into the Aznapuquio line.
The time stipulated by the original ultimatum for his compliance passed
without Pezuelas resignation, and a second officer appeared bearing a yet
more threatening letter to the viceroy. If Pezuela failed to answer the
ultimatum within forty-five minutes, the army would march on Lima.
Pezuela called the Junta de guerra into session, and submitted his resignation.
2
La Serna was named viceroy in his stead, and within minutes broadsides
announcing the appointment were circulating on the streets of Lima.
Although the conspirators were anxious for Pezuelas resignation to appear
voluntary, the result of his chronic illness, they nevertheless subjected him
to further indignities that called attention to the armys coercion. Larraaga
continues his narrative:
[A]t three oclock in the afternoon, Antonio Seoane and the
marqus de Valleumbroso presented themselves in the palace
with an order not to separate themselves from Pezuela until he
had left both the palace and the city, and in case of resistance, to
remove him by force. It was not necessary to use any force, for at
five in the afternoon [Pezuela] left for the town of La Magdalena
with his family, accompanied by Colonels Monet and Loriga,
Infantry Captain D. Francisco Santiago, . . . Navy Lieutenant D.
Simn Londoo, and this witness, the only ones who were
faithful to him.
Five men, no more, were permitted to stand by Pezuela on the day when
his enemies moved against him.
THE CONSPIRATORS STRATEGY
On 29 January 1821, for the first time since the sixteenth century, a viceroy
of Peru was torn from office illegally. Pezuela was placed under guard and
banished to an outlying town. How is it possible that a small group of
army officers was able to carry out a plot against the viceroy virtually
unopposed? The details of the operation reveal that the conspirators had
developed their plans with care, and that they followed the model of a
successful pronunciamiento established by La Sernas mentor, Jos de Palafox,
at Zaragoza in May 1808.
First of all, the leaders of the military branch of the conspiracy took
advantage of opportunities to move from the Army of Alto Per, stationed
the pronunciamiento and its aftermath 305
2. Acta, Junta de guerra, 29 Jan. 1821, MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 6, q. 1; Pezuela to Antonio Porcel,
Ministro de Ultramar, 15 Feb. 1821, as recorded in Mendiburu, Diccionario, 8:47778.
in the Andes, to the capital city. La Serna resigned his command, then
refused to remain at headquarters until his successor arrived. Once in Lima,
he disobeyed Pezuelas orders to take command of units that were posted
outside the city, and acceded to the demand by a group of unnamed
civilians that he remain in Peru instead of sailing for Spain on the ship
about to depart from Callao. In October and November 1820, Valds,
Canterac, and Seoane all moved to Lima. And there they stayed until 29
January 1821.
Second, the conspirators were adept at keeping their plans secret. Unlike
those who overthrew Viceroy Iturrigaray in Mexico, they left no paper
traildrafts of plans, minutes of clandestine meetings, correspondence
that came to rest in archives.
3
There is even some doubt that all those who
gathered in Canteracs tent the night before to sign the pronunciamiento knew
exactly what it was they were agreeing to.
4
And, unfortunately for historians
trying to reconstruct the events leading up to Pezuelas overthrow, by 1821
Toms de Iriarte, whose Memorias offer so much information about the
arrival and early months of La Sernas time in Peru, had deserted to the
rebels and was engaged in the civil strife that followed independence in
his native Argentina. Nevertheless, rumors slipped out. San Martns spies
reported that conspiracy was in the air, although they attributed it not to
the military but to the merchants. And Gaspar Rico was known to be
entertaining men who disguised their identities and went to his house late
at night. Pezuela himself sensed that something was afoot. Apart from
these vague rumors, however, the conspirators kept their plans secret.
Next, on the morning of Pezuelas overthrow, when a royalist patrol sighted
a few soldiers of San Martns army, the rebellious officers spread the rumor
that the entire rebel army was on the march. The Army of Lima was
deployed in full battle formation, supposedly to defend Lima from an attack.
In fact, there was no danger, but the movement of the army convinced
Pezuela and his allies that resistance would be both dangerous and useless.
In addition, the two corps that could have offered support to Pezuela were
immobilized. Monets unit was removed from Piedra Liza, where its colonel
could have taken command of it and used it to bring the rebellious officers
3. The impressive documentation on the Iturrigaray affair was used in two books: Santiago
Cruz, El Virrey Iturrigaray: Historia de una conspiracin, and Lafuente Ferrari, El Virrey
Iturrigaray y los orgines de la independencia de Mjico.
leg. 1066, MS 20054
25
; Pezuela to Antonio Porcel, Ministro de Ultramar, 15 Feb. 1821, in
Mendiburu, Diccionario, 8:478; Rodrguez Ballesteros, Historia de la revolucin, 1:61012; and San
Martns periodical El Pacificador del Per, no. 4 (10 May 1821), 12.
to order; Pezuelas son-in-law, Rafael Cevallos, commander of the Cantabria
battalion, was detained in Lima on the pretext that he was to inspect new
equipment and a hospital for the troops, and was therefore unable to take
command of his unit.
5
Thus the conspirators threat to attack Lima if Pezuela
failed to resign immediately appeared credible, and Pezuelas refusal to resist
by force seemed both wise and virtuous.
Finally, the conspirators kept Pezuela isolated from even his civilian
supporters. In the hours before his abdication, he had been unable to con-
voke a session of the provincial deputation, recently reestablished along
with the Constitution of 1812, which might have lent its support to the
viceroys resistance.
6
Once he and his family moved to La Magdalena, his
house was surrounded by a military picket commanded by Valentn Ferraz,
one of the conspirators, and for a few days no one was allowed to enter.
Thereafter, the former viceroys visitors, including women, were detained
and questioned. According to one witness, on two occasions the conspira-
tors agreed to place Colonel Cevallos and the son of Sr. Pezuela (D. Ramn)
in Casas Matas for the purpose of holding them as hostages and avoiding
the possibility of a counter-revolution by the large party of supporters that
none other than Viceroy Pezuela had in the army itself and in the capital.
7
In spite of their careful planning, therefore, the conspirators believed that they
had good reason to worry that their golpe de estado might be overturned.
CONSOLIDATING POWER
The ease with which the conspirators seized the reins of government in
Peru did not blind them to the necessity of consolidating their power. They
could not count on the continued quiescence of Limas population, nor were
they certain that Pezuelas supporters in the army would prove unable to
organize a counter-revolution. To garner support for the golpe, or at least
keep the opposition from gaining ground, the conspirators embarked on a
public relations campaign, the dimensions of which became clear only
leg. 1066, MS 20054
25
; Rodrguez Ballesteros, Historia de la revolucin, 1:60910, 618.
6. Pezuela to Antonio Porcel, Ministro de Ultramar, 15 Feb. 1821, as recorded in Mendiburu,
Diccionario, 8:478.
7. Anonymous (El Ingenuo), Rebelin en Aznapuquio por varios jefes del ejrcito espaol
para deponer del mando al dignsimo virrey del Per el Teniente General Don Joaqun de la
Pezuela, cdip-Tomo 26, 3:537. Casas Matas was the principal prison. See also Pezuela, Memoria
de gobierno, 843, 84849. Contrast the Mexican case, where the viceroy was apparently without
supporters: Santiago Cruz, El Virrey Iturrigaray, 15658.
after the actors in the drama published their accounts of the events,
sometimes many years later.
One of the first cares of the new regime was to present itself as legiti-
mately constituted. Therefore the conspirators had to prove that their action
was legally justified. They also had to distance La Serna from complicity
in the plot, make Pezuelas resignation appear to be voluntary, and persuade
the authorities in Madrid that the new viceroy had the support of the
people. All four points were emphasized by Valds in his Exposicin que
dirige al Rey Don Fernando VII . . . sobre las causas que motivaron la prdida
del Per and his Refutacin . . . del Manifiesto que el Teniente General D.
Joaqun de la Pezuela imprimi en 1821, both published by his son, the
count of Torata, at the end of the century.
8
For legal justification of their pronunciamiento, the officers insisted that,
unless Pezuela were removed from office, Peru could not be preserved as a
colony of Spain.
9
In light of the cabildos petition of mid-December 1820
calling on Pezuela to reopen negotiations with San Martn, which they cited
as evidence that the viceroy intended to capitulate, they declared that they
had no choice but to assume responsibility for the defense of Peru. The
liberal peninsular officers, veterans of the war against Napoleon, claimed
that they had operated in accord with a decree of the Spanish Junta Central,
dated 13 April 1811, a decree that amounted to an invitation to insubordi-
nation: When the governor of a besieged plaza declares that he cannot
continue defending it any longer, if there is any officer who wishes to take
charge of it, every officer of whatever rank must subordinate himself to
him and obey him.
10
Pezuelas military enemies went on to declare that
obedience ceases in the very instant when it is clearly going to be used
against the Nation which is to be served. These principles allowed the
conspirators to assert that the officers of Aznapuquio did not depose Vice-
roy Pezuela, for the only thing they did was take charge of the defense of
the kingdom at the moment when it was to be delivered into the hands of
the dissidents.
11
Patriotism was their only motivation. Personal ambition,
especially in the case of La Serna, they said, had nothing to do with the
pronunciamiento.
8. In vols. 1 and 2 of Torata, Documentos para la historia.
9. Officers pronunciamiento, 29 Jan. 1821, Documento no. 1 appended to Pezuelas Manifiesto,
35758.
10. Valds, Exposicin, in Torata, Documentos para la historia, 1:56; Valds, Refutacin . . . del
Manifiesto, in Torata, Documentos para la historia, 2:69 and n. 1; Garca Camba, Memorias, 1:494.
Fig. 7 Anonymous, El Ex
mo.
Sr. D
n
Jos de La Serna e Hinojosa . . . , Viceroy of
Peru, 18211824. The portrait was painted in 1962 by Jos Mara Gutirrez
Infantas from a photograph of the original that was lost when the govern-
ment palace was destroyed by fire in 1921. Courtesy Museo Nacional de
Arqueologa, Antropologa e Historia del Per (photo: Daniel Giannoni).
Image Not Available
Valds stated flatly that La Serna had played no part in the events that
paved the way for the Aznapuquio occurrence. Valds later claimed that
when Loriga and Larraaga appeared at La Sernas quarters on the morning
of 29 January 1821, he had been busy packing his bags for Spain.
12
None of
the other accounts mentions this circumstance. One has La Serna refusing
to do as Pezuela commanded because he did not want to get involved.
13
Loriga reported that La Serna refused to obey Pezuela because the order
was couched in strong terms, and because it was futile to oppose the army.
14
Larraaga testified that La Serna had claimed to be ill, and therefore unable
to play any part in the events of the day: This strengthened suspicions
already held that he had conspired to depose the viceroy, he wrote.
15
In any
case, La Serna was well enough to attend the Junta de guerra a few hours
later, where he encouraged the generals to accept Pezuelas resignation.
In a letter to the Spanish ambassador in Rio de Janeiro, the count of
Casa Flores, as well as in the hours immediately following the delivery of
the ultimatum, La Serna insisted that he had been taken by surprise at
being named by the officers to replace Pezuela.
16
The viceroy, of course,
did not believe him. Had La Serna not been party to the plot, he insisted,
he would not have disobeyed orders to remain in Aznapuquio with the army
on the night of 28 January, or to put down the plot by returning to the army
on the 29th.
17
When the Junta de generales was informed of the officers
ultimatum, Pezuela wrote, all save La Serna exhibited signs of great surprise.
18
According to another witness, the other generals in attendanceLlano,
La Mar, Olaguer Feli, and Vacarocrossed themselves, exclaiming Jesus!
what a monstrosity! La Serna, although appearing indifferent, said only
that the ultimatum was too insolent, that he was of the opinion that it was
necessary to accede to the officers demand, but that in the circumstances
he did not want to take command, because it was not agreeable, and what he
12. Ibid., 2:126, 133.
leg. 1066, MS 20054
25
.
16. For example, La Serna to Casa Flores, 3 Feb. 1821, ahn-Estado, leg. 5849; La Serna to
Ministro de la Guerra, 9 Feb. 1821, agi-Indif. gen., leg. 313; and a letter in code from La Serna to
an unknown correspondent in Spain, 10 Feb. 1821, MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 15. Palafox pretended
surprise and great reluctance to take command of the government at Zaragosa: Esdaile, Spanish
Army in the Peninsular War, 9192; Rudorff, War to the Death, 4783.
18. Pezuela to Antonio Porcel, Ministro de Ultramar, 15 Feb. 1821, as recorded in Mendiburu,
Diccionario, 8:47778.
had asked was that he be given his passport so that he could return to the
peninsula.
19
(Pezuela disputed La Sernas claim that he had asked for his
passport: This is another falsehood, proven to be so by Colonel Loriga).
20
In spite of his reluctance, and in phrases reminiscent of Ricos patriotic
effusions, La Serna explained in a letter to Casa Flores that his dedication
to the nations welfare had induced him to accept the office forced upon
him, even though it would entail great personal sacrifice.
21
Later, in his
attack on Pezuelas Manifiesto drawn up in Madrid in 1827, Valds insisted
that La Sernas accession to power was nothing more than the natural
operation of the kings command as set forth in the pliego de providencias
with which every viceroy was supplied.
22
After Pezuela, La Serna was the
highest-ranking officer in the viceroyalty and as such was designated to
succeed him automatically. His complicity in the plot was not only non-
existent; it was unnecessary. But Valds argument was specious. In 1822,
when the crown acknowledged La Serna as viceroy, its official document
came in the form of a pliego de providencias, not a royal appointment, and
this is the earliest reference on record to a pliego. La Sernas confirmation
as viceroy en propiedad was not issued until 19 December 1823.
23
For his part, on 29 January 1821 Pezuela refused to pretend that his
health was so precarious that he had to resign and, because of the presence
of San Martns army on the outskirts of Lima, did not then protest against
the officers coercion. His letter to the rebellious officers was straightforward,
stating simply that he had resigned, and that La Serna would henceforth
govern Peru.
24
But Valds took pains to prove that the resignation was
voluntary, and that those who took part in those events acted in accord
with the most stringent principles of honor as Spaniards and as military
officers. As proof that the viceroys resignation had not been coerced, he
argued that Pezuela had at his disposal a force large enough to put down
the rebellion, including a population of 70,000 souls in Lima (which knew
nothing of the events taking place in the viceregal palace), various army
21. La Serna to Casa Flores, 3 Feb. 1821, ahn-Estado, leg. 5849; La Serna to Ministro de la
Guerra, 9 Feb. 1821, agi-Indif. gen., leg. 313.
22. Valds, Refutacin . . . del Manifiesto, in Torata, Documentos para la historia, 2:129.
23. Gaceta Extraordinaria del Gobierno Legtimo del Per, no. 10 (9 Mar. 1822); La Serna to
Ministro de Estado y del Despacho Universal de la Guerra, no. 195, Cuzco, 18 Oct. 1824, ihcm,
Caja 5590.
24. Pezuela to La Serna, 29 Jan. 1821, cdip-Tomo 26, 3:361; Rodrguez Ballesteros, Historia de
la revolucin, 1:615. For the official documents forwarded to the Audiencia, see Guillermo Durand
Flrez, La renuncia del Virrey Pezuela, Revista del Archivo General de la Nacin 2 (1974): 16772.
corps including the Concordia regiment (made up largely of hard-line
merchants), the Army of Alto Per (in Tupiza, 454 leagues from Lima),
additional troops stationed in Salta and Huamanga (several days or weeks
marches from Lima), and the palace guard (surely no match for the Army
of Lima, more than 7,000 men strong and said to be marching on Lima
on orders of the conspirators). Moreover, Valds declared, Pezuela himself
not La Sernashould have ridden out to the headquarters of the Army of
Lima to call the rebellious officers to order. The fact that Pezuela did not
attempt to mobilize the resources allegedly available to him, Valds insisted,
was proof that his resignation was voluntary, or was at least welcomed by
him in the situation in which he found himself.
25
But Valds failed to
mention that the sentinels of the Army of Lima had orders to shoot anyone
found on the road from Lima to Aznapuquio, including the viceroy himself,
and that the conspirators had dispatched two of their number, the marqus
de Valleumbroso and Antonio de Seoane, with orders not to leave Pezuelas
side until he had left the city, and if he resisted to remove him by force.
26
They had taken care to leave very little room for voluntary action of any
sort on the part of the viceroy they had determined to remove from office.
La Serna also alleged that his accession to power had been greeted with
enthusiasm and jubilation by all the classes,
27
implying that something
akin to a viceregal entrada or a ceremony swearing allegiance to a new king
or constitution had taken place. In a letter to the Spanish ambassador in
Rio de Janeiro justifying the golpe de estado, La Sernas envoys, Valleum-
broso and Seoane, were careful to describe events in terms that increased
the impression that he had come to power as a result of the peoples will:
The Army . . . of Lima was the executor of this change; but it is
important for Your Excellency to be aware that everyone else was
in agreement; that the people were only awaiting the armys distance
[from Lima] in order to bring it about; and that the people would
not have accomplished it without bloodshed and disorders, which
the enemies would have taken advantage of without the decorum
owed to a legitimate authority that they abhor. Witnesses to this
truth are the enthusiasm that seized everyone, the promptness and
leg. 1066, ms 20054
25
; Rodrguez Ballesteros, Historia de la revolucin, 1:610, 617.
27. La Serna to Casa Flores, 3 Feb. 1821, ahn-Estado, leg. 5849.
jubilation with which all the officers, all the corporations, all the
provinces recognized the new viceroy.
28
According to Valds, All the corporations, the ecclesiastical authorities,
civilians and the military applauded the decision of the officers as the only
one capable of saving that kingdom.
29
There is no evidence, however, for
anything more than a propaganda campaign mounted by Gaspar Rico. As
Pezuela wrote in his Manifiesto, the conspirators had attempted to support
the change of government with the false excuse of the general will, their
celebrations and noisy acclamations, their invective and sarcasm against
my administration, propagated grossly under cover of freedom of the press,
but they had failed to corrupt the opinion of reasonable men.
30
Celebra-
tion and public acclaim were absent. The city was remarkably quiet. As
William Shirreff, commander of the British warship Conway, remarked,
This event has proved the indolence and carelessness of the immense
population of the capital, and was hardly spoken of as a matter of more than
ordinary importance.
31
There was no public ratification of La Sernas appoint-
ment comparable to previous changes in the occupant of the viceregal palace,
or to the signing of the declaration of independence a few months later.
The second urgent concern of the conspirators was to have their golpe
de estado legitimized by the government at Madrid. It was difficult, however,
for a Spanish ship to run the Chilean blockade of Callao. It was not until
29 March 1821 that La Serna was able to dispatch his two emissaries to
Cdiz aboard the Spanish warship Mayp. The marqus de Valleumbroso
and Colonel Antonio Seoane had a difficult voyage: the weather was bad,
the brig was in poor repair and, just off Rio de Janeiro, it was attacked by
an insurgent ship out of Buenos Aires. Before being captured, however,
Valleumbroso and Seoane threw La Sernas official correspondence over-
board, later claiming that they had memorized it in case their ship was
molested by pirates. When they were put ashore in Rio de Janeiro, they
immediately made contact with the Spanish ambassador, the count of Casa
Flores, and began reconstructing La Sernas letters.
32
Part of their legitimizing
28. Valleumbroso and Seoane to Casa Flores, Rio de Janeiro, 7 July 1821, ahn-Estado, leg. 5849.
29. Valds, Exposicin, in Torata, Documentos para la historia, 1:60.
31. Shirreff to Hardy, 5 Feb. 1821, Graham and Humphreys, Navy and South America, 327. See
also Pezuela, Manifiesto, 271, where he writes that the population did not appear to be in any way
involved in the movement.
32. Casa Flores to Sr. Secretario del Despacho, 7 July 1821, ahn-Estado, leg. 5849; Valleum-
broso and Seoane to Crown, 18 Oct. 1821, agi-Indif. gen., leg. 313; Rodrguez Ballesteros, Historia
mission was accomplished by the time they left Rio: Casa Flores wrote
to the minister of state declaring that both men merit my opinion that
they are very distinguished officers, and I beg you to recommend them to
His Majesty.
33
We do not know exactly what Valleumbroso and Seoane said to minis-
ters of government to justify the golpe de estado, but their presentation
surely followed closely the arguments set down by Valds in the first part
of his Exposicin, composed on his return to Spain in 1825.
A few days before [the pronunciamiento] General Pezuela had
indicated in a clear and conclusive manner that it was impossible
for him to defend Peru any longer, and therefore the necessity to
capitulate; to which end he had seeded agents in the city, in order
to persuade the Corporations and others that they should request
it; such preliminary steps, Pezuela said, were to cover the expe-
diente, a favorite expression of his. . . . On the basis of what has
been said up to this point, could it not be said, Seor, that the
procedure of the officers of Aznapuquio was just, necessary and
even legal, given the distance [from the court] and other circum-
stances in which they found themselves? He who was in command
was going to surrender, and the officers of the army found the
means to prolong the defense, placing someone they trusted in
charge; thus it cannot appear strange that they did what they did,
when their lack of communication [with the court] and the urgency
of the moment made it impossible to appeal legally to Your Majesty.
I believe, Seor, that the strictest defenders of blind obedience
would not dare to quarrel with the decision that [the officers] should
have taken, even when they want to suppose that the declaration
of the Junta Central authorizing such procedures is not in force,
and even recommended to them. Furthermore, Seor, do not
various authorities on public law believe that it is legitimate for a
general to disobey a Royal order, when obeying it would compro-
mise the security of a province, plaza or castle, because it is believed
that the one who issued it was taken unawares or deceived? How
de la revolucin, 1:668; Paz Soldn, Historia . . . 18191822, 146. Another Spanish ship, the
Sacramento, left Callao on 10 Mar. 1821, carrying copies of La Sernas correspondence to be
dispatched to the peninsula via Panama; a mutiny on board led to its capture by the insurgents
off Paita, and the loss of the second copy of La Sernas letters. Ibid., 147.
33. Casa Flores to Sr. Secretario del Despacho, 17 July 1821, ahn-Estado, leg. 5849.
much more important was it therefore, Seor, that in a single
instance the officers of Aznapuquio ought not to comply with the
laws of subordination in order to save not merely a province, plaza
or castle from the claws of the enemy, but an entire kingdom?
34
For Valds and the other hard-line officers of the army, surrender except
after defeat on the field of battle was unthinkable, and a negotiated settle-
ment was tantamount to surrender. Pezuelas realistic assessment of the
royalists military and political situation was unacceptable to them, just as
the viceroys realistic assessment of the viability of Spains commercial
laws had been unacceptable to Gaspar Rico and the hard-line merchants
of the consulado. The hard-liners, military and mercantile, were insisting on
obedience to principles that they believed were fundamental to the preser-
vation of Spains colonial empire.
Securing the crowns ratification of the golpe de estado was apparently
easy, as Pezuela bitterly foresaw: from his refuge in La Magdalena, the
deposed viceroy noted that in spite of their illegal insubordination, secure
in being a Masonic branch of the tree that exists in the Cortes and minis-
tries of the day (and of the future if the actual government of Spain
endures), they would not be punished.
35
The liberal government at Madrid,
itself the result of a military pronunciamiento, could hardly do otherwise.
But it took a long time for the governments decision to arrive at the head-
quarters of the royalist army, then encamped in Cuzco. The announcement
of La Sernas appointment was published in the polemically titled Gaceta
Extraordinaria del Gobierno Legtimo del Per, No. 10, on 9 March 1822. In
the same issue, the public was assured that the Constitutional government
of Spain was firmly in power, unopposed except by a few disaffected people,
or men deluded by the old regime. In other words, La Sernas appointment
had been legitimate, and had been ratified by a legitimate government in
Madrid. The fact that both had been installed by military pronunciamiento,
not by the will of king and council, was not mentioned.
A PURELY MILITARY INSURRECTION?
This has been a purely military insurrection, Pezuela declared in his Mani-
fiesto, and historians have viewed it as such in spite of several curiosities
34. Valds, Exposicin, in Torata, Documentos para la historia, 1:5556; emphasis in the original.
35. Notes in Pezuelas hand, La Magdalena, 22 Feb. 1821, MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 15.
evident in the documents concerning the affair. Pezuela himself, however,
did not intend the matter to be understood in quite the sense it has been
taken, for he went on to say that the people had no part in it, did not learn
of it until after it was consummated.
36
In declaring it to have been a military
revolt, Pezuela meant that it had none of the characteristics of a popular
uprising or revolution, for the people had been forced to surrender to the power
of the bayonets. But, as both the conspirators pronunciamiento and Pezuelas
Manifiesto make clear, more than military interests were being advanced.
A close reading of the conspirators pronunciamiento reveals that they
did not charge Pezuela with military shortcomings alone. On the contrary,
their charges parallel those to be found in the consulados petitions and
memoranda to the crown, some of which are known to have been com-
posed by Gaspar Rico. In some cases, the language alone calls to mind Ricos
style in the documents composed by him in the course of his disputes with
his enemies in Peru: In great crises, virtues ought to be made manifest;
and the American and European Spaniards, who fortunately are not bereft
of them, have given clear proof that they do not lack that of disinterest:
witnesses to this truth are the considerable sacrifices made by the merchants,
the corporations, and private persons. Besides the moralizing evident in
the first phrase, the passage refers to one of Ricos most persistent themes,
the extraordinary virtue of merchants who contributed funds to support
the war effort. Another of Ricos themes emerges in the next sentences:
All at the same time desire equality in the exactions and good adminis-
tration of that which has been collected. . . . All complain that certain groups
and persons are not obliged to contribute for fear that, resentful, they will
complain of the errors of the government: everyone is ignorant of the
whereabouts of the immense funds taken in contributions and loans; and
if the general opinion of every class is to be believed, misuse has been
great and indubitable. Ricos earlier criticisms of fiscal administration under
viceroys Abascal and Pezuela parallel those expressed by the armys pronun-
ciamiento. In El Peruano, Rico had published a damning assessment of the
professional behavior of bureaucrats employed in Limas treasury offices,
and he had devised a scheme specifically intended to address the problem
of overdependence on the commercial sector to provide the revenue required
by viceregal government.
In yet another passage of a document purported to be an account of
grievances presented by only one interest group, the ambitious peninsular
officers of the Army of Lima, the free-trade crisis of 1818 surfaces:
Merchants see themselves afflicted with the considerable losses caused
them by a scandalous contraband and tolerance of foreigners, and the
[royalist] cause has not suffered less from their espionage, and the triumphs
that the enemies have obtained in their shadow and with their aid.
37
Pezuelas tolerance of foreigners was, of course, the principal point of
contention between the viceroy and the metropolitan merchants, and also
worried the military because of the information about royalist positions and
plans that, they assumed, was supplied by foreigners to San Martn and
Cochrane. It is curious, however, that the officers of the army should have
been so exercised over the problem of contraband, and here, too, Ricos
interestsand those of the metropolitan merchantscan be discerned.
Rico repeatedly expressed his anger at the contraband carried to Peru by
foreigners, and had even offered 10,000 pesos to help arm ships capable of
patrolling the waters off the coast.
Pezuela himself apparently assumed that another, nonmilitary, interest
group was involved in this charge against him, for he directly attacked the
consulado for its failure to cooperate with his efforts to put a stop to a
particularly harmful form of contraband, the illegal export of specie. Attached
to his Manifiesto is the letter written by him to the consulado on 2 May
1820, in which he rebuked the merchants for their part in scandalous
contraband in silver taking place in Callao:
It is very strange that, when this government has decided and is
about to grant a secure registry for the extraction of funds detained
in this capital, a vile greed on the part of those very merchants
who are perhaps the most prompt to offer absurd criticisms of
the public administration, is so bold as to usurp from the State
the taxes which legitimately belong to it, giving the foreigners
some income which today more than ever is needed by the vice-
royalty to resist the enemies of its conservation and repose.
38
Pezuela emphasized the fact that the very persons who refused to cooperate
in his efforts to control contraband now justified the golpe de estado in
part by citing the damage done by that contraband. Few accusations could
have been more infuriating to the viceroy, who had in fact ordered the
37. Officers pronunciamiento, 29 Jan. 1821, cdip-Tomo 26, 3:356.
38. Pezuela, Manifiesto, 403. The secure registry was to be aboard the warship Esmeralda,
soon to be captured by Lord Cochrane.
ineffective maritime authorities at Callao to deploy armed launches capable
of preventing foreign warships from taking specie on board.
39
From their own pronunciamiento, then, it seems difficult to ignore the
fact that the peninsular army officers had found an ally in that faction of
the consulado that opposed the viceroys policy of encouraging direct trade
with foreigners. The alliance became more visible with the appearance of
El Triunfo de la Nacin, a liberal periodical that began publication just two
weeks after Pezuelas overthrow. La Serna chose the short-lived periodical
to publish his statement as to why he had been installed as viceroy, and
the metropolitan merchants published their arguments in favor of what
they were then calling free trade, that is, abolition of privileges like those
enjoyed by the Filipinas Company and the opening of all Spanish and
American ports on an equal footing to citizens of both parts of the empire,
but with the rigorous exclusion of foreigners.
40
Pezuela apparently believed that the alliance existed, and it is curious
that the passages in his Manifiesto dealing with the issues of the free-trade
crisis of 1818 have been ignored. Two passages in particular support the
supposition that merchantsand Ricowere involved in the plot to over-
throw him. In a very significant sentence that reveals Pezuelas opinion as
to the identity of one of the most active members of the conspiracy,
Pezuela declared that the merchant was writing to the peninsula against
me, because he supposed me dedicated to free commerce; and he exalted
the necessity that I be relieved by La Serna at the very moment when he
[La Serna] was inclined in his opinion to sanction that famous project.
41
Pezuela was probably referring to La Sernas acquiescence in the statement
issued on 16 May 1820 by the Junta de guerra, declaring that revenues
collected on direct trade had been indispensable to supporting the army,
and to Ricos several presentations to the Junta de arbitrios that had been
forwarded to the crown along with other essays composed by him. If Pezuelas
memory was accurate (or if, in his anger at being deposed, he chose to
represent it accurately), this is an interesting turn of events: Pezuela was
accusing Rico not only of undermining his standing with the crown but
also of openly advocating his removal from office. But no corroborating
40. Martnez Riaza, Prensa doctrinal, 42. El Triunfo was published from 13 Feb. until 29 June
1821, that is, during the period when La Sernas regime remained in Lima.
evidence of Ricos subversive activity during the last weeks of 1820 has
been located, not even in the gossipy reports of San Martns spies.
42
Later in his Manifiesto Pezuela mentioned Rico by name. Referring to
the adulation of La Serna published in Ricos latest periodical, El Depositario,
and the insults directed against his own person, Pezuela asked rhetorically
Who does not know D. Gaspar Rico, author of those obscene chapters
in the history of the infamous disorders of the human race? He then
referred his readers to an outline, very condensed, of his life, appended
to the Manifiesto.
43
The document consists of an anonymous attack on
Rico originally published in El Censor, another short-lived royalist periodi-
cal,
44
but the author does not mention the possibility that Rico might have
been involved in the overthrow of the viceroy.
The evidence from the officers pronunciamiento and Pezuelas Manifiesto
for merchant involvement in Pezuelas overthrow is indirect and circum-
stantial. Except for the testimony of a single contemporary, Jos Morales,
there is no direct accusation of merchant complicity in Pezuelas overthrow.
In his Memoir . . . on the causes that have retarded the revolution in
Lima, Morales wrote that, when San Martns army landed in Peru, perhaps
the former government might have been inclined to recognize indepen-
dence, had it not been hindered by the league of the monopolists and Spanish
officers . . . from which the rebellion of Aznapuquio resulted.
45
Were
metropolitan merchants the hidden power active in the events of 29 January
1821? At the height of the free-trade crisis of 1818, one of San Martns
spies in Lima reported that the peninsular merchants were threatening to
remove Pezuela from office, as had been done in Mexico in the case of
Viceroy Iturrigaray. Another spy remarked that such a conspiracy was
being considered, naming Rico as one of those most likely to organize it.
46
42. Junta de generales to Viceroy, 16 May 1820, Pezuela, Manifiesto, Document 26, 39698; Rico
to Secretario de las Indias, 23 Mar. 1819, agi-Lima, leg. 1551. Note that the initial, official version
of the overthrow of Viceroy Iturrigaray in Mexico also claimed that merchants had nothing to do
with the pronunciamiento, attributing it instead to army officers, members of the Real Acuerdo,
and the bureaucracy: Lafuente Ferrari, El Virrey Iturrigaray, 26466.
43. Pezuela, Manifiesto, 351 and Document no. 56, 48386.
44. The document calls the periodical merely El Censor; Flix Denegri Luna, in an editorial
note appended to the document in Pezuelas Manifiesto (p. 483), suggests that it was El Censor
Econmico, published between Mar. and May 1821. See also Martnez Riaza, Prensa doctrinal, 45.
45. Morales, Memoria . . . sobre las causas que han retardado en Lima la revolucin, cdip-Tomo
13, 1:465. Morales may have been referring to the controversy surrounding the cabildos petition of
16 Dec. 1820 seeking renewed negotiations with San Martn.
46. Report by an unidentified spy, 25 July 1818, and Report of Aristipo Emero, to San
Martn, undated but after Sept. 1820, Archivo de San Martn, 7:5760, 189.
If Rico were to promote Pezuelas forcible removal from office, it would
be natural for him to turn to the military for help in executing the plan;
his liberal sympathies as well as his long-standing and marked interest
in militia service suggests that he would have developed contacts with the
officers of the Army of Lima. Is there any evidence that Rico and La Serna
were personally acquainted? So far, the archives have yielded no information
to that effect that antedates Pezuelas overthrow. Once La Serna was installed
as viceroy, however, Ricos relationship with him was revealed to be remark-
ably close. Manuel Abreu, the agent of the Spanish government sent to
Peru in 1821, reported that Rico, Canterac, and Valds had considerable
influence on La Serna; this report, among others, prompted a remark in a
secret document in the ministry of state in Madrid to the effect that Ricos
influence controlled La Sernas decisions on some matters.
47
The relation-
ship baffled the author of a pamphlet addressed to La Serna: Do you
imagine that you will gain a good reputation by placing your confidence
in and granting your friendship to a man as corrupt as Rico, whose name
alone is execrable both to Spaniards and Americans?
48
But where direct trade with foreigners was concernedeven with inde-
pendent and therefore foreign ChileAbreu appears to have been accurate.
In Ricos periodical El Depositario and La Sernas description of his policy,
direct trade with foreigners, especially Chile, was rejected. In a letter to
the secretary of war in Spain, La Serna wrote that from the moment
when the battle of Mayp was lost, it would appear that our very security
demanded prohibition of imports of grains as the best means of denying the
enemy considerable resources . . . ; but an erroneous policy commanded
the opposite,
49
and wheat continued to be imported from Chile, usually
in foreign ships.
Significant, too, were attacks on Ricos old enemy, Pedro de Abada, and
his partner, Jos de Arismendi. A few days after Pezuelas overthrow, the
47. Informe reservado de la Gobernacin de Ultramar, Mar. 1822, Seccin de Gobierno,
Negociado Poltico, agi-Lima, leg. 800. Note, too, that during the siege of Zaragoza, La Sernas
mentor and commander, Jos de Palafox, operated in close association with a wealthy merchant
named Lorenzo Calvo de Rozas: Esdaile, Spanish Army, 92.
48. Exposicin que hace un peruano al Virrey La Serna, cdip-Tomo 13, 2:188.
49. El Depositario, no. 2 (24 Feb. 1821), no. 7 (3 Mar. 1821), no. 12 (15 Mar. 1821), no. 13 (17 Mar.
1821), no. 16 (16 Apr. 1821); La Serna to Secretario de la Guerra, 20 Mar. 1821, agi-Indif. gen., leg. 313.
See also the testimony of Domingo Ximnez, interim intendant of Tarma, on Ricos persistent
activity on behalf of Spanish commerce against foreign competition, and . . . his firmness in
combating the latter until the last moments of the government of the Exmo. Sr. Pezuela, which
had occasioned him very serious and disagreeable damages: Relacin de mritos y servicios,
agi-Lima, leg. 762.
consulado moved against Arismendi, demanding an embargo on the mer-
chandise imported from Calcutta aboard the English ship Lord Lyndoch;
this was the expedition for which Pezuela had granted permission in exchange
for a contribution of 200,000 pesos to the treasury.
50
In the correspondence
of the marqus de Valleumbroso and Antonio de Seoane, La Sernas agents,
with the Spanish ambassador in Rio de Janeiro, Abada and Arismendi were
also singled out. La Sernas agents began by criticizing Pezuela in much
the same terms as during the free-trade crisis of 1818. They then made
plain the new regimes opposition to direct trade with foreigners and its
support for the old system whereby neutral ships could be chartered only
by metropolitan merchants: In the actual situation of Lima, it would also
be useful to ship flour, meat, and bacon for the consumption of the army
and navy; but we believe it our duty to instruct you that these shipments
undertaken by Spaniards under an English or American flag would be pre-
ferable to those undertaken by foreigners, against whose commerce and
conduct in the actual dissensions there is an extraordinary animosity in
those regions. If it turned out to be impossible for peninsular Spanish
merchants to charter neutral ships for the Peruvian trade, then, Valleum-
broso and Seoane advise, at least the supplies ought to be consigned to a
commercial house other than that of the Seores Abada and Arismendi,
whose intimate relations with foreigners are viewed by the public, perhaps
incorrectly, as suspicious and prejudicial to the public interest.
51
But the
attack on Abada by La Sernas royalists was not only indirect, depriving
Ricos old enemy of opportunities to profit from commerce. On the con-
trary, once Pezuela was out of the way, the royalist army attacked his
interests directly, breaking up the steam engines he had installed to drain
water from the rich silver mines of Cerro de Pasco.
52
50. Consulado to La Serna, 10 Feb. 1821, agnp-Hacienda colonial 1239 (the consulado alleged
that Arismendi owed 64,132 pesos 7 reales in consular fees). Documentation on Arismendis plan
is in agi-Lima, leg. 649; the expediente on the lawsuit with Arismendi is in agi-Lima, leg. 604.
For previous proposals by Arismendi, rejected by the consulado, see Oficio del consulado, 22 Aug.
1818, Testimonio del expediente de la Junta extraordinaria de tribunales . . . , 22 July15 Oct. 1818,
agi-Lima, leg. 759. The case gave rise to litigation that continued well into the 1830s.
51. Valleumbroso and Seoane to Casa Flores, Rio de Janeiro, 23 June 1821, agi-Indif. gen., leg.
313; Casa Flores to Eusebio de Bardaxi, Rio de Janeiro, 7 July 1821, ahn-Estado, leg. 5849, and, for
background on the consulados opposition to Arismendis commercial activity, Informe expedido
. . . por la Junta permanente de arbitrios, 12 Jan. 1820, agnp-Consulado, leg. 12.
52. Abadas deposition before the Peruvian congress, 22 June 1831, U.S. National Archives,
Diplomatic Section E261: Miscellaneous Claims Against Peru, 18221851, Envelope 1, folder 8:
Claim of Schooner Macedonia, don Pedro Abada, Claimant. Exactly when this happened is not
known, but the royalists (including Valds) held Cerro de Pasco for a time in Oct. 1821, when
they went on rampages: Vargas Ugarte, Historia . . . Emancipacin, 229; Toribio Dbalos to San
Besides attacking Abadas interests, the new viceroy took steps to court
the metropolitan faction of the consulado. The themes of La Sernas letter
of 15 February 1821 were those that Rico had been discussing for years. La
Serna promised the merchants a better administration, economic austerity,
and efficient, honest use of government funds. He also declared that com-
mercial activity would soon be resumed, since he expected to drive the rebels
and their foreign allies away from key ports and cities in a very short time.
53
Equally unrealistic was his decree of 8 November 1822 establishing a rigorous
blockade of Perus southern coast, and declaring severe penalties for anyone
caught engaging in trade with foreigners.
54
At that time, La Serna and his
army were holed up in the Andes, and the royalists had not a single war-
ship in the Pacific.
Thus, once he became viceroy, La Serna evidently adopted a policy toward
foreigners that Rico had vehemently supported, and even seconded Ricos
antipathy toward Abada and Arismendi. Moreover, even if we discount
the panegyric praise lavished on the new viceroy by Rico in the early
numbers of El Depositario as an effort to ingratiate himself with the regime,
there remains evidence that he and La Serna were good friends. In 1824,
La Serna returned Ricos compliments. In a letter to the secretary of the
treasury in Madrid, he praised him extravagantly: He has served publicly
and secretly the cause of our Sovereign with an imperturbable spirit, he
wrote, and it is certain . . . that no one other than Rico has impugned the
revolutionary system with greater tenacity and decision . . . and equally
that he is the only public employee who accompanied me in my departure
from Lima.
55
Unfortunately, the nature of the secret services rendered by
Rico to the royalist cause are not specified, but since La Sernas letter was
drawn up in response to Ricos effort to update his Relacin de mritos, in
which he claimed to have been instrumental in Pezuelas overthrow, their
nature may be surmised.
Finally, La Serna and Rico shared a devotion to Spanish liberalism, and
there is evidence that liberal politics played a role in the viceroys overthrow.
Martn, Canta, 25 Oct. 1821, and Francisco de Paula Otero to San Martn, 27 Oct. 1821, cdip-
Tomo 5: La accin patritica del pueblo en la emancipacin. Guerrillas y montoneros, 6 vols., ed. Ella
Dunbar Temple (Lima: Comisin Nacional del Sesquicentenario de la Independencia del Per,
1971), 1:420, 423.
53. Regalado and Salinas, Apuntes sobre la actitud del Consulado, 288.
54. Decree dated 8 Nov. 1822, and La Serna to Secretario de Hacienda, 10 Nov. 1811, agi-Lima,
leg. 762.
55. La Serna to Secretario de Hacienda, Cuzco, 2 Apr. 1824, agi-Lima, leg. 762.
According to Benjamn Vicua Mackenna, the motive for violently
deposing Viceroy Pezuela was nothing less than Spanish liberalism.
56
Although the quarrel between liberals and absolutists is not referred to
directly in the pronunciamiento or in Pezuelas Manifiesto, its presence is
unmistakable in Ricos Relacin de mritos. His reference to the scandalous
lawlessness of the former government and his accusation that Pezuela did
not know, or did not care to perform his duties according to law reflect
Ricos long-standing and publicly reiterated criticism of absolutists as capri-
cious tyrants. Equally interesting is the timing of Pezuelas overthrow; it
followed the military revolt that installed a liberal government in Madrid,
official notice of which arrived in Lima at about the same time that Rico
claimed to have begun his campaign to remove Pezuela from office. To
Rico, the change of government in Spain doubtless implied that Pezuelas
appointment as viceroy was no longer legitimate; he had argued that point
in 181112 in El Peruano, insisting that creatures of Godoy no longer
had authority to govern, once the corrupt regime of Carlos IV, which had
appointed them, had been overthrown. In any case, the liberal government
of Spain was quick to recognize the fait accompli, and on terms that La
Serna had sought since his arrival in Peru. But he was not immediately
named viceroy; instead, he was appointed Captain General of Peru, with
the same privileges and distinctions as the viceroys and governors and,
on 15 August 1821, he was also named Supreme Political Commander of
Peru. The decree specified that it is convenient to the better service of the
State to preserve for now in that country political and military command
united in one person. La Serna was enjoined to swear allegiance to the
Constitution and the king before the cabildo of Lima, and to observe the
laws insofar as they do not conflict with the decrees and instructions
of Cortes.
57
Ironically, the principle that authority was derived from government
rather than the crown caused trouble for La Serna in 1824, after news
arrived that Fernando VIIs absolutist regime had been restored to power.
A royalist general, Pedro Antonio Olaeta, insisted that Fernando VIIs
decree of 1 October 1823 in which he abolished everything done during
the Constitutional government had annulled La Sernas appointment as
56. Vicua Mackenna, Revolucin de la independencia, 63.
57. Ramn Lpez Pelegrn, Ministro de Ultramar, to Sr. Gefe Poltico Superior del Per,
Madrid, 15 Aug. 1821, agi-Lima, leg. 629; Al Superintendente General de Hacienda del Per,
insertndole el Real decreto . . . por el que se nombra Gefe Poltico de aquella Provincia a D. Jos
de La Serna, Madrid, 17 Aug. 1821, agi-Lima, leg. 1480.
viceroy.
58
Understandably, La Serna attempted to dissociate himself from
the liberals, explaining that he had delayed recognizing the reinstated abso-
lutist regime only because it seemed to him illegal, politically unwise, and
extremely dangerous to alter the system in force in Peru without a previous
authentic and direct order of the king. But although news of Fernando
VIIs restoration was widely known, official notice had not arrived by May
1824. La Serna then consulted his legal, military, and ecclesiastical advisors,
all of whom were of the opinion that he should remain in office in spite of
the change of government. When he finally acknowledged receipt of the
royal order of 19 December 1823, by which the king declared himself
repossessed of the full measure of his sovereignty, La Serna hastened to
assure him that he had already complied with orders to abolish the Con-
stitutional regime in Peru.
59
How did the officers of the consulado of Lima react to Pezuelas over-
throw? As might be expected, and indeed as was traditional, they were quick
to congratulate La Serna on his accession to power. But in light of all that had
gone before, and even discounting the hyperbolic language customary
on such occasions, their letter of 6 February 1821 makes it clear that they
welcomed Pezuelas departure from office. News of La Sernas appoint-
ment could do nothing less than fill our heart with a sweet ardor and this
marvelous fire of love that an intimate knowledge of the great qualities
that distinguish and beautify Your Excellency inspires, they wrote.
The spirit alone speaks, moved by an intimate veneration and by
the great hopes that it conceives, Your Excellency being at the
head of the government. It awaits everything from such a power-
ful influence . . . and the merchants, full of such keen ideals, offer
their respect to Your Excellency with gratitude and good will.
Trade is paralyzed; resources entirely used up; evils have multiplied;
but in spite of it all, the consulado together with the merchants
58. Ganda, Guerras de los absolutistas y liberales in America, 420; Real cdula, 28 Dec. 1814,
re-issued Cuzco, 10 Mar. 1824, ihcm, Caja 5590. See also Olaeta to Valds, 20 June 1824, MenP,
Pezuela, Sig. 15: I have always believed that the intrigues and perfidious arts of those who
consider themselves liberals would lead Peru to a critical situation. . . . I have sworn and promised
the king to die in defense of his sacred rights. . . . In this belief I am disposed to make war against
you and the Constitucionales, as against every rebel. Olaeta had also accused La Serna and
Valds of seeking only to provide a safe haven for the Constitucionales of the peninsula, and to
establish the treacherous plan of the Peruvian Empire to be ruled by liberals.
59. La Serna to Secretario de Estado y del Despacho Universal de la Guerra, Yucay, 15 May
1824, MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 15; La Serna to Ministro de Estado y del Despacho Universal de la
Guerra, no. 194, Cuzco, 18 Oct. 1824, ihcm, Caja 5590.
fully intends to do everything in its power to cooperate in the
pacification of these Provinces.
60
And cooperate they did. The conspirators reported that the closed coffers
of the merchants were opened at the first intimation by the new authority.
In his letter to the consulado of 15 February 1821, after assuring the merchants
that foreigners would soon be driven from Peruvian ports, La Serna asked
for a loan of 600,000 pesos to be paid in three monthly installments. On
the same day, the consulado approved a loan of 160,000 pesos to be paid
within two months, and immediately set about collecting it. In addition,
the merchants offered merchandise on credit to the government, provided
uniforms for the army, and requisitioned horses and mules for its use.
61
The contrast with their behavior during the last months when Pezuela
was viceroy is striking: toward the end of his viceregency, promises were
sometimes given, but little effort was made to collect funds or supplies.
And on 11 January 1821 the consulado informed Pezuela that it would not
convene a Junta general de comercio to assign new quotas for yet another
loan.
62
Indeed, there may have been an organized campaign to deprive
Pezuela of financial support for the war effort; one historian suggests that
it was an integral part of the plot to overthrow him.
63
Once La Serna took office, there were no more quarrels about licenses
to trade with foreigners, or protests at their presence in Peru; the con-
sulados correspondence with the viceroy was reduced to routine matters.
64
The new viceroy appeared to share Ricos attitude toward foreignersand
toward Abada and the Filipinas group. According to one royalist eyewitness
to the events following 29 January 1821, La Serna moved quickly to cut off
direct trade with foreigners on the pretext that with that trade coin
would disappear quickly from our coffers, and enrich our enemies. The
eyewitness attributed the fatal error to Gaspar Rico and his mercantile
friends, saying that it was born of the mistaken and vicious ideas of men
who, out of ancient grudges against upright individuals, seek to sacrifice
us in order to wreak their vengeance, a clear reference to Ricos old quarrel
60. Consulado to La Serna, 6 Feb. 1821, agnp-Hacienda colonial, leg. 1239.
61. Valleumbroso and Seoane to Casa Flores, 7 July 1821, ahn-Estado, leg. 5849; Regalado and
Salinas, Apuntes sobre la actitud del Consulado, 288.
62. Consulado to Pezuela, 11 Jan. 1821, agnp-Hacienda colonial, leg. 1239.
63. M. N. Vargas, Historia, 1:13132, 141.
64. Comunicacin y legislacin: Oficios de los virreyes, 18161821, agnp-Consulado, leg. 12.
with Abada and Villar de Fuente.
65
And when La Serna wrote to San
Martn on 9 April 1821, he offered him the opportunity to negotiate the
means . . . to end differences that are as damaging to American and Euro-
pean Spaniards, as they are useful to foreigners.
66
In January 1822, La Serna
issued an order that would have pleased Pezuelas mercantile enemies: all
foreign cloth and merchandise existing in towns currently held by San
Martns forces will be confiscated without exception when the royalist
army recaptured them.
67
The metropolitan merchants who controlled the consulado were in
accord with the military government of La Serna, but they were not the
ones who succeeded in preventing foreign merchants from trading directly
to Callao. That was accomplished by Lord Cochranes Chilean fleet,
which had blockaded the port shortly before Pezuelas overthrow.
68
The
effects on Callao and Lima were vividly described by the British sea captain
Basil Hall, who returned to Callao in February 1821:
In the harbour of Callao, the shipping were crowded into a corner,
encircled by gun-boats, close under the fort, and with a strong
boom drawn round them. The custom-house was empty, and the
door locked; no bales of goods rose in pyramids on the quays; no
loaded mules covered the road from Callao to Lima, nor during
the whole ascent was an individual to be seen, except, perhaps, a
solitary express galloping toward the fortress. In Lima itself . . .
jealousy and distrust of one another, and still more of strangers,
filled every breast.
And, he added, everything speaks of past splendor and present wretchedness.
69
In effect, the Chilean blockade enforced the policy toward foreigners
advocated by Gaspar Rico and the metropolitan merchants. Basil Hall was
65. Representacin a la junta provincial, 20 Mar. 1821, signed G.P., printed in El Pacificador
del Per, no. 5 (20 May 1821). The Representacin was among Pezuelas correspondence taken from
the Spanish ship Sacramento, captured by the insurgents off Paita.
66. Paz Soldn, Historia . . . 18191822, 163. La Serna had been forced to open negotiations by
Manuel de Abreu, sent by the liberal government in Spain to negotiate a settlement with the
insurgents.
67. Gaceta del Gobierno Legtimo, 20 Jan. 1822, as reprinted in Rodrguez Ballesteros, Historia de
la revolucin, 3:60.
68. Pezuela to Casa Flores, 10 Dec. 1820, Archivo de San Martn, 5:245; Maritegui, Anotaciones,
5960.
69. Hall, Extracts from a Journal, 1:8889, 127.
among those who noticed that the quarrel over direct trade had become
irrelevant. The Chilean squadron, he wrote, . . . closed the discussion by
enforcing the celebrated Spanish code, the Laws of the Indies, as to the
Lima trade: the port was blockaded, and the treasury remained empty.
70
As Pezuela clearly foresaw, without the help of foreigners it was impos-
sible for Lima to be adequately supplied with inventories of goods, even
food. Once that had come to pass, the armys evacuation of the capital city
became absolutely necessary.
Only five months after La Serna and the royalist army abandoned Lima
and San Martns forces had occupied it, the city presented an entirely
different aspect. Basil Hall, once again in Lima, reported:
The most remarkable change had taken place in the aspect of
affairs. . . . The harbour . . . was now open and free to all the
world; and instead of containing merely a few dismantled ships
of war, and half a dozen empty merchant vessels, was crowded
with ships unloading rich cargoes; while the bay, to the distance
of a mile from the harbour was covered with others waiting for
room to land their merchandise. On shore all was bustle and activity.
In the capital also, a great change was visible. . . . Instead of the
former dilatory style of doing business that prevailed in former
days, all was decision and activity. . . . The population appeared,
to our eyes, increased in a wonderful degree; and the loaded carts
and mules actually blocked up the thoroughfares.
71
The first Reglamento de comercio promulgated by the newly independent
Republic of Peru had opened Callao to direct trade with foreigners, and
the taxes collected there were used to support the independent government.
72
The Reglamento had been composed by a committee on which Pedro de
Abada played a major role, and its provisions attempted to reserve the
70. Ibid., 1:115.
71. Hall, Extracts from a Journal, 2:6366. Hall was in Lima from 9 to 17 Dec. 1821. See also
Casa Flores to Eusebio de Bardaxi, Rio de Janeiro, 1 Oct. 1821, ahn-Estado, leg. 5849, where the
Spanish ambassador reports that all the merchants, except the Spaniards . . . are preparing
expeditions for Lima.
72. Taxes on direct trade yielded much less than expected, however; Dr. Hiplito Unanue,
then serving as treasury minister, reported that once Lima was supplied this source of revenue
dried up because the royalists still occupied our best provinces and mines: Unanue, Memoria de
hacienda, 23 Sept. 1822, in Pedro Emilio Dancuart and J. M. Rodrguez, eds., Anales de la hacienda
pblica del Per, 24 vols. (Lima: Librera e Imprenta Gil, 190326), 1:241.
coasting trade and the sale of foreign imports to Peruvians, who had long
been allies and clients of Abada and the Real Compaa de Filipinas.
73
DENOUEMENT
Early on the morning of 6 July 1821, the recently installed viceroy, General
Jos de La Serna, evacuated Lima. For most of the day, the citys popu-
lation remained in their shuttered houses, in fear of San Martns troops
and the guerrillas wandering on the outskirts. But after the cabildo had
secured a declaration from San Martn that he would take Lima under his
protection, the fear evaporated.
74
On this occasion, the people of the capital city exhibited none of the
indifference that had greeted the second proclamation of the Constitution
of 1812 or the overthrow of Viceroy Pezuela. On the contrary, as San Martns
army approached, the streets of the city came alive. According to Mariano
Felipe Paz Soldn, La Sernas departure resulted in extreme confusion,
including what he saw as rioting, looting, even rape.
75
An Englishman in
Lima wrote to San Martns minister of war and navy saying that the riot
increases every moment. Abada has been dragged from his house notwith-
standing the Protectors resguardo and afterwards permitted to go back. . . .
The people are breaking open many houses.
76
Francisco Javier Maritegui
contradicts them, explaining that Lima was celebrating. The city was having
a party, the streets were full, the fireworks stupefying, the cheers deafened
some and made others hoarse. The limited disorders, he claimed, had
been provoked by royalist agents who incited [a mob] to sack shops in
Bodegones street, where patriotic Americans had shops.
77
When San
Martns army marched silently into the city on the evening of 9 July, the
soldiers were cheered by the people and there was no more rioting. But,
according to the royalists, it was
73. Mendiburu, Diccionario, 1:55; Gaceta del Gobierno de Lima Independiente, 1:11518; Bernardo
Monteagudo, Exposicin de las tareas administrativas del gobierno desde su instalacin hasta el 15 de
julio de 1822 (Lima: Imprenta de D. Manuel del Ro, 1822), 25. The Reglamento was issued on 28
Sept. 1821 by San Martn and the provisional minister of treasury, Dr. Hiplito Unanue. It also
called for higher duties on goods which competed with Peruvian manufactures, and attempted to
encourage mining and other industry by freeing capital goods from all duties.
74. Pedro Dvalos y Lissn, San Martn, 18201822: Episodio de la independencia peruana
(Barcelona: Montaner y Simn, 1924), 18081.
76. Veda y Mitre, Vida de Monteagudo, 3:5859.
77. Maritegui, Anotaciones, 68, 74. See also Vargas Ugarte, Historia . . . Emancipacin, 294.
[a] night marked by the Author of Nature with an earthquake of
the severest magnitude and of the greatest duration that has been
felt in those countries where earthquakes are so frequent. Fateful
night in which the Supreme Creator showed with signs of unmis-
takable grief and horror His divine displeasure at the unfaithful
and impious vassals of the Spanish monarchy. Terrible night which
pricked the criminal consciences, even of the least credulous, and
made the most arrogant among our republicans reel, while it gave
new hope and consolation to those who had not strayed from the
path indicated by loyalty and virtue to see that tacit approbation
from heaven for the nobility of their cause.
78
The patriots, however, had another explanation, not catastrophe, as in 1746,
but celebration. It was, they said, a commotion of the Incas in their tombs.
79
On 15 July 1821, in a ceremony reminiscent of a viceroys triumphal
entrada, San Martn himself entered Lima. He was enthusiastically
received; houses were adorned with multicolored banners, and, in the
traditional mark of civic celebration, had been illuminated the night before.
80
He was accompanied by the members of the cabildo and the elderly marqus
de Montemira, in whomLa Serna had delegated authority to oversee public
order. But the new regime still lacked another sign of legitimacy, which
San Martn supplied three days later. On 15 July 1821, the triumphant
general called a cabildo abierto, the ancient Spanish consultative body, which
declared that the people wanted independence from Spain. The Declaration
of Independence was displayed in public, and the citizens of Lima began to
add their signatures to those of the members of the town council; the docu-
ment was exhibited again on 1720 July, when more signatures were gathered.
San Martns independence proclamation of 28 July 1821 was similar in
form, if not in content, to the ceremonies swearing allegiance to the Con-
stitution of 1812: From this moment Peru is free and independent, by the
will of the people and for the justice of their cause, which God defends.
Long live the fatherland! Long live independence! Long live liberty! The
three vivas were echoed by the populace gathered in the Plaza de Armas.
78. As translated by Ricardo Rojas, San Martn, Knight of the Andes (Garden City, N.Y.:
Doubleday Doran & Co., 1945) 330; Spanish text in Torrente, Historia de la revolucin, cdip-
Tomo 26, 4:2045.
79. Rojas, San Martn, 181.
80. Enrique Rvago Bustamante, El Gran Mariscal Riva Agero (Lima: Editorial Peruana
Para Todos, 1959), 17.
The declaration was then carried in procession to three more plazas, where
the ceremony was repeated.
81
A great many peninsular Spaniards were still present in Lima on 28
July 1821.
82
Except for Gaspar Rico and a few bachelors of good family, no
members of the civilian social, mercantile, or bureaucratic elite of the
capital accompanied the army. The archbishop, too, refused La Sernas
appeal to withdraw with the royalists.
83
The march into the Andes was
difficult in the extreme. By the time the royalist army reached Jauja in the
Central Valley east of Limamore than 11,000 feet above sea level
illness, winter weather, harassment by patriot troops and guerrillas, and
desertion had reduced its force by half.
84
To the evident delight of his
enemies in Lima, the march also took its toll on Rico; they began making
fun of him and his maladventures, even ridiculing his appointment as
intendant of Huancavelica. A priest, Jos Joaqun Larriva, was especially
adept at making Rico a laughingstock; unfortunately, his very funny punning
prose and poetry, exhibited in La Angulada and El Nuevo Depositario,
is untranslatable.
85
On 31 December 1821, La Serna and the main force of the army arrived
in Cuzco where, for three long years, the royalists held out against the
patriots. In the meantime, independent governments at Lima (and Trujillo)
succeeded one another with bewildering frequency, San Martn abdicated
his offices of Protector of Peru and commander-in-chief of the patriot
army, and Simn Bolvar took charge of the fortunes of the nascent republic.
Two battles, at which the royalists were defeated, sealed Perus indepen-
dence.
86
Ironically, at the battle of Junn on 6 August 1824, La Serna, who
had distinguished himself as an artillery officer at Zaragoza, relied exclusively
on his cavalry and their sabres: [N]o firearms were used by either side,
81. Rojas, San Martn, 183. Fernando Gamio Palacio, La municipalidad de Lima y la emancipa-
cin, 1821 (Lima: Sanmart, 1944) has a map showing the route of the procession and the stops
where the declaration was held up before the people, much as a consecrated host is held up by
the priest in a Catholic mass.
82. The massive exodus of peninsular Spaniards began at the end of 1821, when San Martns
minister Bernardo Monteagudo began persecuting them in earnest: Maritegui, Anotaciones, 74;
Paz Soldn, Historia . . . 18191822, 243, 314; Vargas Ugarte, Historia . . . Emancipacin, 3089.
83. La Serna, Testimonio de los mritos y servicios de D. Gaspar Rico y Angulo, 24 Mar. 1824,
AGI-Lima, leg. 762; Vargas Ugarte, Historia . . . Emancipacin, 287.
84. Torrente, Historia de la revolucin, cdip-Tomo 26, 4:204, says that by the time the royalists
reached Jauja the army had been reduced to scarcely 4,000 men.
85. Jos Joaqun Larriva, Coleccin de las producciones en prosa y verso, serias, jocosas y
satricas, in Odriozola, ed., Coleccin de documentos literarios, 2:61116.
86. For detailed accounts of the battles, see Gerhard Masur, Simon Bolvar (Albuquerque:
University of New Mexico Press, 1948), 50639.
and except for the sound of hoofs on the plain, and the hoarse shouts of
the men engaged, the battle was fought in silence.
87
On 9 December 1824,
the royalist generals decided to stand and fight at Ayacucho. In both armies
there were friends and relatives whom coincidence or conviction had placed
on opposite sides. They stepped out from their ranks and bade each other
farewell.
88
La Serna was badly wounded, and it fell to Canterac, named
supreme commander by the viceroy, to preside over the formal surrender
to Bolvars army.
89
Soon afterward, they along with Valds and other royalist
officers, both criollo and peninsular-born, were on their way to Spain, still
cheering a liberal regime that by then had been overthrown with the help
of a post-Napoleonic French army.
90
They were not well received in Spain;
Fernando VII, once again restored to his absolutist throne, banished La
Serna and Valds to the provinces.
91
The kings ire was probably provoked
less by La Sernas liberalism than by the loss of Peru,
92
which La Serna
blamed on the treachery of the absolutist general Pedro Antonio de
Olaeta. La Serna claimed that Olaeta had rebelled against him not out
of love for king and country, but simply because he wanted to continue his
lucrative direct trade with foreigners.
93
Finally, on 2 January 1826, long after La Serna, Valds, and their coterie
of liberal hard-line royalists had left Peru, the last Spanish fortress
surrendered. During the long siege of the seaside fortifications at Callao, a
great many people who had taken refuge there against Bolvars regime
perished.
94
Among them were Gaspar Rico, his sworn enemy the count of
87. J. B. Trend, Bolivar and the Independence of Spanish America (Clinton, Mass.: Colonial Press,
1951), 150. According to Scobie, Estratega de San Martn, 550, The royalist army was proud of
its columns of cavalry, well-equipped and always comprised of peninsular Spaniards.
88. Masur, Simn Bolvar, 537. See also Albi, Banderas olvidadas, 382, where he again
emphasizes that royalist armies in America, and especially in Peru, were overwhelmingly
composed of Americans.
89. Vargas Ugarte, Historia . . . Emancipacin, 512, 514.
90. Wagner de Reyna, Ocho aos de La Serna, 5659.
91. Torata, Prlogo to Valds, Exposicin, in Torata, Documentos para la historia, 1:8.
92. On 2 July 1825 the Consejo de Estado considered a proposal to court-martial the officers
defeated at Ayacucho: Costeloe, Response to Revolution, 115.
93. La Serna to Secretario de Estado y del Despacho de la Guerra, Jerez de la Frontera, 12
Sept. 1826, MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 15.
94. Miller, Memoirs, 2:24647: Out of above four thousand of the unfortunate people who
retired to Callao, not more than two hundred outlived the effects of famine and epidemical
disease. Military casualties were also high: 2,095 perished, while only 444 survived: Confiriendo
la Cruz del Comendador de Isabel la Catlica al Mariscal de Campo D. Jos Ramn Rodil, 12
Aug. 1826, agi-Lima, leg. 1480. See also Susy Snchez, Clima, hambre y enfermedad en Lima
durante la guerra independentista, 18171826, in OPhelan Godoy, ed., La independencia del Per,
25659; Trend, Bolvar and the Independence of Spanish America, 185; and, for an account by the
Villar de Fuente, and his old friend the former marqus de Torre Tagle,
who died of scurvy a few hours after trading his last silver spoon for a cup
of thin chicken broth.
95
In spite of his cooperation with the independent regime, Pedro de Abada
very nearly lost his life, too. Basil Hall reported his arrest and imprisonment
at the hands of Bernardo de Monteagudo, San Martns radically anti-
Spaniard minister of state, in December 1821:
About this time a great sensation was excited among the British,
as well as the majority of the inhabitants of Lima, by the arrest
and imprisonment of an old Spaniard, who had possessed for
many years the highest influence over every class of society; a
power which he owed, not so much to his extensive wealth, as to
his talents and knowledge, and amiable disposition. . . . During
the siege of Lima, and while its fall was still doubtful, his good-
will had been sedulously courted by the emissaries of the Patriots;
but when the conquest was complete, his support was of less
moment; and the old man, fallen from his high estate, had not
forbearance enough to conceal his chagrin; and probably, in con-
versation, expressed himself indiscreetly with respect to the reigning
powers. Be this as it may, the first opportunity was taken advant-
age of to give him a severe lesson of prudence. Two friars called
upon him one morning, saying, they had come from that part of
the country where his mines lay, then occupied by the Spanish
forces. They gave out that they were bearers of a message from
the Viceroy that, unless he sent back correct information respecting
the state of Lima, his steam-engines and other works should all
be destroyed. He endeavoured to get rid of these friars without
committing himself, so seriously as to give them the intelligence
they wanted, but they declared that they dared not return without
something to prove they had actually seen and conversed with
him. The old man resisted for a long time: At last, one of them
took up a book with his name on it, and said that it would serve
royalist commander of the fort, Jos Ramn Rodil, Memoria del sitio de El Callao, ed. Vicente
Rodrguez Casado and Guillermo Lohmann Villena (Sevilla, 1955).
95. The story of Tagles last silver spoon has been passed down in his family, and was told to
me by his descendant, Rosario Ortiz de Zevallos. For more on the Tagle familys suffering, see
Luis Alayza Paz Soldn, Unanue, San Martn y Bolvar (Lima: Librera e Imprenta Gil, 1934),
Anexo C, Documento I.
as a voucher, and he unwittingly allowed them to take it away.
The friars, who were arrested in the course of the same day, with
the book in their possession, were, at first, treated as spies, and it
was expected they would be hanged on the spot; but, to the
surprise of everyone, they were both released, and the old Spaniard
alone imprisoned. This gave rise to the belief, that they had been
employed merely to entrap our incautious friend. It was soon known
that he was to be tried by a military commission, and alarm and
distress spread from one end of Lima to the other: indeed, had
the public sentiment been less universally expressed in his favour,
he would, in all probability, have been put to death, for the pur-
pose of striking terror into the minds of all the remaining Spaniards,
and inducing them to leave the country.
96
John Miller, an English general in San Martns army, presided over the
military court, and Miller later suggested that it was generally expected,
in Lima, that [Abada] would have been sentenced to death, which would
have been followed by the confiscation of his property. Instead, he was
honourably acquitted.
97
But according to Basil Hall, he was ever afterwards
watched with a jealous eye, and when the great persecution commenced
against the Spaniards in the beginning of 1822, he was banished, and his
property was confiscated.
98
He made his way to Puerto Rico, where years
earlier he had bought an estate that he had almost forgotten about. General
Miller, who visited him there in 1825, takes up the narrative that, like Basil
Halls, reveals a great deal about Abadas character:
96. Hall, Extracts from a Journal, 2:7378. The arrest of Abada and Arismendi was also
reported by Manuel Abreu in his Diario poltico, 18 June 1822, agi-Lima, leg. 800. See also
Abadas deposition before the Peruvian congress, 22 June 1831, U.S. National Archives, Diplo-
matic Section E261: Miscellaneous Claims Against Peru, 18221851, Envelope 1, folder 8: Claim of
Schooner Macedonia, don Pedro Abada, Claimant; and Paul Rizo Patrn, Las emigraciones de
los sbditos realistas del Per haca Espaa durante la crisis de la independencia, in OPhelan
Godoy, ed., Independencia del Per, 40728.
97. Miller, Memoirs, 2:144.
98. Hall, Extracts from a Journal, 2:80. On Bernardo de Monteagudos persecution of Spaniards
in Peru, see the eyewitness account of the Spaniards horrific forced march to Callao and subse-
quent voyages by sea, in Larraaga to Sr. Lobo, Madrid, 5 Aug. 1867, bn-m, Collecin Fernndez
Duro, leg. 1066, ms 20054
25
, and in Gilbert F. Mathison, Residencia en Lima entre Abril y
Mayo de 1822, cdip-Tomo 22, 1:3079; also Dancuart and Rodrguez, eds., Anales de la hacienda
pblica, 1:1023; Deposicin de Monteagudo. Lima justificada en el suceso del 25 de julio [1822]. Impreso
de orden de la ilustrisima municipalidad (Lima: Manuel del Ro, 1822); Maritegui, Anotaciones,
12429; Veda y Mitre, Vida de Monteagudo, 6668, 1078.
To that island he bent his steps, uncertain of the value of his pro-
perty there or even of his own reception. But when misfortune
lowered on every other side, he found relief where he had hardly
dared to look for it. His steward, an honourable Frenchman,
hailed his master with the warmth which conscious integrity
inspires, and soon rendered, unasked-for, a faithful account of
income and expenditure during his long stewardship, the result of
which placed a handsome balance at the disposal of Abada. That
grateful master, returning the books, exclaimed, Well done, thou
good and faithful servant! Henceforth we are partners in this
property; half of this estate is yours. The writer of this had the
singular pleasure of sitting at table with these rare specimens of
fidelity and gratitude.
Miller ended his narrative of Abadas fate with the report that in 1829 the
old Spanish merchant, whom he clearly admired, was living at Antwerp,
in very straitened circumstances.
99
He probably would have agreed with
Basil Hall that more unmerited misfortune never befell a worthier man.
100
The fate of Abadas friend and patron, Viceroy Joaqun de la Pezuela,
was perhaps the most fortunate, but not before his life was also placed in
jeopardy by none other than Gaspar Rico. Although the officers ultima-
tum had called for the viceroys departure from Peru within twenty-four
hours, that proved impossible: Pezuela refused to go farther than his country
house in La Magdalena.
101
He could not sail on board the French warships
then in Callao because their captains insisted that the ships could not be
adequately provisioned, thanks to the scarcity of food in Lima.
102
The
captain of the British frigate Andromache, on which the conspirators had
demanded that he take passage immediately, refused to allow the viceroy
on board on the pretext that doing so would violate the laws of neutrality.
(Pezuelas wife and children, however, were permitted to sail for Europe
99. Miller, Memoirs, 14546.
100. Hall, Extracts from a Journal, 80.
102. Casa Flores to Evaristo Prez de Castro, 8 Apr. 1821, ahn-Estado, leg. 5849. The French
ships sailed from Callao on 4 Feb. 1821. Three French warships had been dispatched to patrol the
seas off Spanish America to protect French merchantmen, and in an attempt to prevent the
British from acquiring an exclusive and prejudicial ascendency . . . when the rendition [of Lima]
might produce a mercantile revolution in those parts affecting the interests of the seafaring
nations of Europe: Marqus de Casa Irujo to Ministerio de Estado, Paris, 22 Jan. 1822, agi-
Indif. gen., leg. 313; William Spence Robertson, France and Latin American Independence (New
York: Octagon Books, 1967), 18586.
on the Andromache.) But thereafter his attempts to sail for Spain were
frustrated by the actions of those associated with La Sernas regime, perhaps
because the conspirators had realized that it would be easier to secure crown
approval for their golpe de estado if the deposed viceroy did not arrive at
court before Valleumbroso and Seoane did.
103
The details of Pezuelas har-
rowing midwinter escape from Peru, without his luggage and with only
the shirt on his back, demonstrate the effectiveness of Ricos intervention.
First, and in spite of La Sernas promise to the contrary, the new royalist
regime refused to issue a passport for Pezuelas son-in-law, Colonel Rafael
Cevallos, to accompany him on board the Mayp, the ship on which Val-
leumbroso and Seoane sailed. Later, once the passport problem was solved,
Pezuela booked passage on an American merchantman, the General Brown,
which had been chartered by a group of royalist migrs. But Gaspar Rico
published the viceroys itinerary in El Depositario, thereby notifying Cochranes
fleet that the viceroy was on board the Brown, which had run the rebel
blockade. The blockade of Callao was tightened, and San Martn himself
refused to allow the Brown to sail. After complicated negotiations with
the captain of the U.S. warship Constellation, which arrived opportunely at
Callao, the Brown was permitted to leave port accompanied by the Constel-
lation and on condition that Pezuela and the other royalist military officers
disembark. They did so, of course, but not before making arrangements to
meet the Brown at night in a small port to the south of Lima, where
Pezuela would reembark secretly. Here it was Mother Nature who frustrated
the viceroys escape: an offshore storm sent huge waves crashing in to the
beach, making it impossible for the ships boat to reach the shore. At great
peril to his life, one of the viceroys aides swam out to the Brown to make
arrangements for another attempt the following night, at Chorrillos, where
the Indians were celebrating the feast day of their patron saint, San Pedro.
With some difficulty, Pezuelas party was able to contract with the inebriated
owners of balsa canoes to row them out to the Brown, which had put out
to sea because of the continued high seas. After three hours of rowing
about in the dark, the endangered viceroy was finally taken on board the
American merchantman.
104
He sailed without his luggage, which had been
put aboard the Constellation in accord with the plan for the viceroy to transfer
to the warship for the voyage to Rio de Janeiro. But the Constellation did
not appear at the agreed-upon rendezvous point, and Pezuela was forced
103. M. N. Vargas, Historia, 1:137.
104. Pezuela, Memoria de gobierno, Apndice, 84861; Officers pronunciamiento, appended to
Pezuelas Manifiesto, 358.
to sail on the Brown around icy Cape Horn without his passport, in borrowed
clothing, and with a single borrowed blanket to keep him warm.
By 20 August 1821, the General Brown was anchored in Rio de Janeiros
bay, where Pezuela wrote to the Spanish ambassador, the count of Casa
Flores. His earlier letter to the ambassador, sent with his wife aboard the
Andromache, had informed Casa Flores of the scandalous military insur-
rection which, he now declared, had seriously compromised the royalist
cause in Peru. San Martn had taken advantage of the golpe de estado to
improve his political position, as demonstrated by the public periodicals
of the enemy army that the viceroy had brought with him. He recounted
his escape from Lima, saying that San Martn had tried to capture him
because he recognized no other legitimate Authority apart from mine with
which he could negotiate an armistice. Pezuelas capture had been made
more likely once [San Martn] learned of my intention to embark from
his agents in Lima, and from a malicious public scribbler tolerated by the
Innovators, of whom you will form an idea from the attached periodicals.
105
This, of course, was a direct reference to Gaspar Rico.
Pezuela remained in Rio de Janeiro for several months, awaiting the
arrival of his baggage and papers. He sailed for Europe aboard a British
ship on 12 December 1821 and, after a sixty-day voyage, arrived in Plymouth,
England, on 9 February 1822. That trip, too, had placed him in danger:
two severe storms had buffeted the ship. Two days later, he and Rafael
Cevallos took passage for Lisbon, arriving in Madrid on 20 May 1822.
Unlike La Serna and Valds, Pezuela was cordially received at court,
even though the liberals were still in power there.
106
His way had been
prepared by Doa Angela, his troublesome and much-maligned wife, who
on her arrival in Spain had enlisted their son Manuel, an artillery lieute-
nant, to press suit against La Serna and his military co-conspirators. On
the crowns orders, the suit against those who had removed Pezuela from
office violently and heinously had been heard by the Council of State.
The Council also had before it La Sernas account of the golpe de estado,
which had been approved by the crown on 29 July 1821: there was nothing
that could be done about it, since Pezuela had in fact resigned in order to
105. Pezuela to Casa Flores, Rio de Janeiro, 20 Aug. 1821, ahn-Estado, leg. 5849. Casa Flores
enclosed Pezuelas letter with his own, dated 25 Aug. 1821, to Eusebio de Bardaxi y Azara, in
which he also declared that the situation of Sr. La Serna is very critical, and will be more so
once the insurgents learned that Portugal (in the person of the Prince Regent then in Brazil) had
recognized the independence of Buenos Aires.
106. Pezuela, Memoria de gobierno, Apndice, 86263.
avoid subjecting the innocent population of Lima to civil discord . . .
when it was threatened by the presence of a foreign enemy. Although the
Council was unable to offer Pezuela the unspecified satisfaction demanded
in the suit, it declared that this in no way diminished the distinguished
good reputation acquired by General Joaqun de la Pezuela in his long
military career. Three members of the Council offered their personal
rulings. Two of them suggested that
[I]n attention to his distinguished services and relevant merits
incurred in his military career and especially in Peru in order to
sustain the rights of the Nation and the throne, Your Majesty
consent to declare himself very satisfied with them, as on other
occasions; and that [Pezuelas] conduct in the latest events that
motivated his return to the Peninsula, is considered to be a new
proof of his ardent desire and indefatigable zeal to preserve those
vast dominions united to the Mother Country, and to avoid those
evils that could have been occasioned by his refusal to resign com-
mand of the viceroyalty in favor of Lieutenant General D. Jos de
La Serna.
The duke of Fras, a dedicated liberal, went further:
Your Majesty can declare to General Pezuela how pleasing his
services have been to him during his entire career, adding that it
has been extremely painful to him that the circumstances of those
countries where he has been in command have denied him the
opportunity to provide more proof of his loyalty to the Consti-
tutional Monarchy [!], which Your Majesty doubts not would have
been, if not greater than those already given, at least worthy of them.
And finally that Your Majesty recognize, even in the transfer of com-
mand, the most prudent conduct that could be observed, given the
state of affairs, and appropriate to the concerns of General Pezuela.
107
On 26 May 1822, Pezuelas petition to be assigned to the Madrid garrison
was granted,
108
but he was apparently reluctant to serve the liberal govern-
ment. Instead, he asked for leave to go to Sevilla for four months to
107. Ruling of the Consejo de Estado, 3 Apr. 1822, ahn-Estado, leg. 115.
108. Real orden, 26 May 1822, agi-Lima, leg. 650.
recover his health, a petition readily granted by the government, which
nevertheless later ordered him to remain in Crdoba for the duration.
While he was there, the French Hundred Thousand Sons of San Louis
invaded Spain to restore Fernando VII to his absolutist throne, and as
soon as the regency had been established in Madrid, Pezuela returned to
the capital.
109
The duke of Fras encomium, however, may have been a
disservice: added to knowledge of Pezuelas sons conduct in an earlier
liberal revolt and his brothers service in both Constitutional governments,
even the absolutist Pezuela could be suspected of harboring liberal sym-
pathies. It was not until 17 June 1825, after he had been purified, that he
was appointed governor and captain-general of Castilla la Nueva, the region
of central Spain just south of Madrid. A few days later, the crown granted
him the public satisfaction denied him by the liberal regime. The king issued
a declaration reiterating his appreciation for all of Pezuelas military and
political services, especially those performed as viceroy of Peru.
110
109. Pezuela, Memoria de gobierno, 863; Robertson, France and Latin American Independence,
25960.
110. Crown to Pezuela, 26 July 1825, MenP, Pezuela, Sig. 15. Pezuela died in office on 16 Sept.
1830: Hoja de servicios, Joaqun de la Pezuela, ihcm-Expedientes personales.
When independence came to Peru on 28 July 1821, Pedro de Abada was
by no means the only merchant of the consulado of Lima to cast his lot
with the new nation. He, like his partner, Jos de Arismendi, even the
peninsular-born consul, Manuel de Barreda, and 67 percent of those matri-
culated in 1821 signed the Declaration of Independence.
1
Their signatures,
however, did not necessarily mean that they favored independence. As
Timothy E. Anna has demonstrated, some of them felt coerced into
signing by threats of retaliation if they failed to do so, and some, including
Barreda, took advantage of the first opportunity thereafter to flee Peru.
2
But
not all of the consulado merchants were royalists, as the official documents
of the guild might suggest. Political conflict within the consulado had long
since divided merchants into contending factions, with some criollo and
peninsular-born members moving back and forth among them as their
business interests dictated. Those same interests influenced a number of
them to make the best of both changes in government that occurred in
the viceregal palace in 1821. After independence, the metropolitan merchants,
who were closely tied to the Atlantic trade, were the most likely to emmi-
grate.
3
Many limeos, on the other hand, had already demonstrated that
1. cdip-Tomo 21, : 379439; Gaceta del Gobierno de Lima Independiente, 3:82348; Abadas
signature is on p. 824, Arismendis on p. 840, and Barredas on p. 832.
2. Anna, Peruvian Declaration of Independence, 22148; Razn de los individuos que han
contribuido al cupo . . . los cuales han obtenido permiso de este Superior Gobierno para sus
salidas, cdip-Tomo 21, 1:446.
3. Razn de las personas, cuya ausencia se ha advertido, and Razn de los individuos que han
contribuido al cupo . . . , cdip-Tomo 21, 1:43839, 446; Relacin de los individuos que han salido
de la ciudad de Lima para la pennsula, 15 Mar. 1822, agi-Indif. gen., leg. 1571; letters from
migrs written in Rio de Janeiro, 18211822, in agi-Lima, leg. 798.
CONCLUSION: LEGITIMACY AND THE SALVATION OF THE STATE

they could make a living independent of Spain and its mercantile system,
often by disobeying the laws governing colonial trade. In between the two
extremes were merchants like the Grate family, whose commercial networks
in Peru were broad enough to allow them to survive independence, even
though they remained royalist in their sentiments.
The divisions within the consulado did not go unremarked by the
foreigners who had been welcomed to Callao by Viceroy Joaqun de la
Pezuela. On 28 July 1821, the very day of Perus independence, the British
admiral, Sir Thomas Hardy, wrote to the Admiralty saying that many of
the respectable merchants have become attached to the patriot cause, and
a constant communication is kept up between the Chilean Army and the
city.
4
Whether or not they favored independence, however, respectable
merchants were deeply involved in controversies over governance in the
last years of colonial Peru, as were other sectors of the elite.
After 1808, and in spite of the vigor with which they conducted their
disputes, limeno elites, both criollo and peninsular-born, were less restive
under Spanish rule than were their counterparts in Buenos Aires or San-
tiago. A long tradition of submetropolitan dominance in the Pacific, the
commercial practices of the Filipinas Company, and an active contraband
trade allowed a sector of the local elite to survive economically and to
recover a measure of the autonomy that Bourbon reformers sought to deny
them. When Pezuela became viceroy, the interests of this recomposed elite
gained explicit political support, thanks in part to Pezuelas understanding
of the importance of opinion and his willingness to use advisory commit-
tees to air local grievances and mobilize support among those who existed
politically. In this respect, he was attempting to honor the principle of
consent, fundamental to legitimate governance, but consent more broadly
defined than was customary in Spain and her colonies. Traditionally, public
ceremony properly conducted was believed sufficient to signify consent
and establish the duty to obey. By construing consent so narrowly, the
crown exempted itself from the obligation to hear and redress grievances
and to create an adequate fund of consensus. Nor could the colonial regime
enforce the law or compel compliance with decrees issued by viceregal
authorities. Nonmilitary institutions and instruments of coercion, apart from
exhortation, seem to have been remarkably weak. Nor did military means
mitigate noncompliance; indeed, Pezuela believed they were incapable of
doing so. During the free-trade controversy, for example, when armed
340 conclusion
4. Hardy to Croker, 28 July 1821, Graham and Humphreys, Navy and South America, 342.
officials were sent to collect a forced loan from the merchants, a storm of
protest arose and the desired resources remained beyond the reach of the
viceroy. This systemic and endemic failure of governance left open a broad
field for people to act without regard for law.
Unlike Perus noncompliant viceroy and subjects, Gaspar Rico and
many liberals wanted to make law itself sovereign at a time when the
legitimacy of Spains kings and governments was in dispute. They argued that
law as it existed was nothing less than the expression of a mans own rational
self-interest, and was therefore legitimate, incapable of being mistaken, and
immutable. Noncompliance was not an option, nor was consultation with
the crown on the meaning of a law or its application to a particular case.
Almost three centuries of governmental practice, which had created a sur-
prising degree of colonial autonomy in Peru, was declared inadmissible.
With Gaspar Ricos return to Peru in 1818, the dtente between limeos
and government was once again publicly and vehemently attacked by a
minority of metropolitan merchants opposed to Pezuelas willingness to
permit direct trade with foreigners in Peru. When they conspired with a
cabal of liberal army officers recently arrived from Spain to overthrow Pezuela,
limeo interest could no longer prevail. In its stead, on 29 January 1821
metropolitan interest was reinstalled in the viceregal palace along with a
military regime intent on enforcing Spains hegemony to a degree that
local elites had been resisting since the 1770s.
Timothy E. Annas insight that by 1821 royal government had become
all but irrelevant is in large part correct.
5
Noncompliance had seen to that.
In the case of Peru, however, it may be necessary to add that, for at least
one sector of the elitethe limeo merchantsroyal government under
Pezuela represented their interests and therefore elicited little opposition
from them. When, beginning in 1816, La Serna, Rico, and their friends
attempted to impose metropolitan discipline, both economic and military,
royal government began to seem all too relevant, and was rejected. What
had been a relatively quiet drift toward independencethe war of opinion
that Pezuela understood well, and tried to stanchbecame an unstoppable
tide. Ironically, it was the die-hard royalists who contributed most voci-
ferously to draining legitimacy from the colonial regime.
During the dispute over direct trade with foreigners, the political issue
at stake came to be nothing less than the legitimacy of Viceroy Pezuela.
legitimacy and the salvation of the state 341
5. Anna, The Last Viceroys of New Spain and Peru: An Appraisal, American Historical
Review 81, no. 1 (1976): 63.
In the late eighteenth century, when the Bourbon reforms were disrupting
Limas elite and causing dissension between viceroys and visitadores, gover-
nors and bureaucrats were harshly criticized, but their legitimacy was not
called into question. With the upheavals of the Napoleonic period and its
immediate aftermath, however, the concept of legitimate rule was intensely
debated throughout Spain and her American possessions. For the first
time since the crisis of the War of the Spanish Succession in 17001713,
when Bourbons replaced Hapsburgs as sovereigns, Spaniards were confronted
with multiple claimants to legitimacy and the consequent right to be obeyed.
As the Peruvian jurist Jos Baqujano y Carrillo described the problem in 1814,
[a]t one and the same time, America received the accumulated
report of abdication by [Carlos IV], of the ascension to the throne
of Your Majesty [Fernando VII], of the coerced abdications of
Bayonne, of the constitution formed in that city, and of the interim
rule of [French General] Murat; letters from the disgraced Azanza
and OFarril accompanied it, along with the order of the Council
to obey [Murat] and submit to the plan drawn up by the treachery
of the execrable Corsican. The viceroy of Peru forwarded these
documents to the [Audiencia]; I was one of the magistrates, and
everything having been read, without a moments delay it was
resolved by unanimous acclamation to swear allegiance to the Seor
Don Fernando VII as the legitimate true sovereign of Spain and
the Indies with the greatest possible speed, preserving without the
least alteration the attributes of the authorities and the established
regime of government.
6
But in the aftermath of the confusing changes in sovereignty, doubts about
the validity of appointments made by Carlos IVs discredited ministers
surfaced. Viceroys and governors, who derived their legitimacy from the
crown, found their authority questioned by town councils and other colo-
nial institutions. On various pretexts in other Spanish colonies, they were
removed from office by groups that (at least at first) declared themselves
subject to the crown, but not to persons appointed by a government perceived
to have been illegitimized by a series of forced abdications and usurpations
of the kings sovereignty.
342 conclusion
6. Baqujano, Dictmen . . . sobre la revolucin hispanoamericana, Madrid, 31 May 1814, in
cdip-Tomo 1, 3:473.
In Peru, Viceroy Fernando de Abascal succeeded in preserving his
authority for reasons that have not yet been thoroughly explored,
7
but his
successor was not so fortunate. Although the question of the viceroys legi-
timacy had been raised during Abascals tenure (most notably by Gaspar
Rico) and his authority threatened by a series of rebellions and petitions
presented to the crown for his removal from office, he was able to survive
every attempt to displace him. The next viceroys overthrow was accom-
plished only when two important sectors of the elite combined against
him. For different reasons, both the Army of Lima, possessed of the most
powerful means of coercion, and the Rico group of the consulado, which
effectively controlled the purse strings, believed that Pezuelas rule had
become illegitimate. They withdrew their support for the incumbent political
authoritybut not for the colonial regimeand refused to comply with
his rulings. The result was the overthrow of the viceroy by merchants and
army officers who remained loyal to the royalist cause, and a radical change
in the aspect of political culture that is associated with succession.
Why, apart from personal advantage, did one group of merchants decide
to resort to political violence against Pezuela rather than accept his decisions
on a critically important strategy to acquire the means to pacify Peru? In
the first place, the conspirators were genuinely convinced that direct trade
with foreigners threatened Perus existence as part of Spain. This was an
old and well-established principle. It had led to centuries of efforts to
curb the contraband trade; it lay at the heart of the Bourbon commercial
reforms, which sought to reduce Spains dependence on foreign supply of
goods for the American trade; and it prompted the crown in 1818 to award
the cross of the Royal Order of Isabela la Catlica to the prior and two
consuls of the consulado as a testimony of the kings appreciation for the
loyalty, patriotism, and heroic efforts of those honored in support of his
sacred rights of sovereignty by their vigorous commerce in Alto Per.
8
Moreover, as the maritime wars of the turn of the century erupted, the
commercial ties that were seen as essential to colonial dependency had been
loosened. In fact, thanks in part to increasingly obvious limeo noncom-
pliance with the rules for the regulation of trade, the conspirators feared
that those ties were in danger of disappearing altogether. Finally, by attacking
7. Anna, Last Viceroys, 47, suggests that Abascal was able to preserve his authority because
he attempted . . . to direct the actions of the various constitutional agencies by actually giving the
appearance of participation, thus placing himself in a position to supervise the actions of the
councils.
8. Gaceta del Gobierno . . . 18161818, 3:522.
Pezuelas policies regarding direct trade with foreigners, Rico and his friends
raised the specter of foreign intromission in national affairs at a time when
the memory of the French invasion of Spain was painfully fresh. Thus the
allegation by Rico and his faction that their interest was identical with the
national interest resonated with mercantile loyalists. Gaspar Rico and the
metropolitan merchants, with the support of the consulado of Cdiz, were
attempting to return to a form of commercial practice that, they believed,
had actually existed in the past, that was established by law, and that was
essential to the maintenance of Perus colonial status.
9
Therefore, if the
viceroy deprived them of what they believed to be their legal righta
monopoly over the supply of imported manufactured goods to the colony
he was acting contrary to law and to the national interest.
According to Ted Robert Gurr, discontent arising from the perception
of relative deprivation is the basic, instigating condition for participants in
collective violence. He goes on to define the concept of relative deprivation
as a perceived discrepancy between mens value expectations and their
value capabilities. Value expectations are the goods and conditions of life
to which people believe they are rightfully entitled. Value capabilities are
the goods and conditions they think they are capable of attaining or main-
taining, given the social means available to them.
10
Gurrs formulation
describes the perceived condition of merchants like the limeos of the
years following promulgation of the Reglamento de comercio libre of 1778,
and those who, like Gaspar Rico, saw the viceroys policies as threats to
their economic well-being and as governmental support for the zero-sum
value gains of their rivals.
11
Moreover, because of the Bourbon reforms
on the one hand, and Pezuelas policies favoring the group of merchants
clustered around Pedro de Abada and the Filipinas Company on the other,
two disparate groups of merchants perceived that their own value capa-
bilities were in decline, a condition called decremental deprivation by Gurr,
who goes on to say that men are likely to be more intensely angered when
they lose what they have than when they lose the hope of attaining what
344 conclusion
9. For a lengthy exposition on how colonial commerce could be organized to promote the
national interest, see Informe de la junta de diputados consulares, 26 Aug. 1817, agi-Consulados,
leg. 62.
10. Ted Robert Gurr, Why Men Rebel (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1970), 13.
11. See Gurr, Why Men Rebel, 153: To the extent that any valued goods or conditions are inflexi-
ble, or perceived as such, any group that aspires to improve its position threatens the value positions
of other groups. When people have such zero-sum perspectives on value distribution, violence is
more likely as a tactic of value enhancement and as a response to attempts by others to improve
their relative position than it is when men believe there are possibilities of generating new values.
they do not yet have.
12
For generations, the peninsular merchants who
carried goods to Peru from Spain, and their agents in Lima, had enjoyed the
profits to be reaped from a market in which artificial scarcity, and conse-
quent high prices, had gone hand-in-hand with various forms of protection
from competition, including forced sales to rural populations (the reparti-
miento) and regulations forbidding some forms of local manufacture and
intercolonial trade. The advent of uncontrolled imports, first with the
implementation of the Reglamento de comercio libre and later with the growth
of contraband carried directly to the Pacific by foreign merchants, funda-
mentally disrupted this system. With the crisis precipitated by Chilean
independence and the loss of the Spanish military expedition escorted by
the warship Mara Isabel in 1818, the old commercial system, often as much
fiction as fact, simply ceased to exist. The impact on merchants who expected
to profit from the governments support of that system was catastrophic.
Bankruptcies proliferated, and those who could do so left Peru for Spain,
taking what remained of their capital with them. Lawful commercial
activity very nearly came to a standstill. As a result, the Abada group had
improved its position relative to the Atlantic traders, who could not acquire
the legal imports on which their commerce depended. The Rico groups
rapidly increasing sense of relative deprivation, therefore, made them unwilling
to support and obey the viceroy who, they believed, should have pro-
tected their privileges. His failure to do so caused them to go so far as to
attack the political system as embodied by Pezuela.
13
But something more was at work here. Granted that Gurrs theory of
relative deprivation is relevant to the case, it does not fully explain why
Gaspar Rico and his merchant allies should have perceived Pezuela as illegi-
timate. Unfortunately, a study of the concept of legitimacy in late colonial
Peru is still to be undertaken. Nevertheless, the officers of the Army of
Lima and the two merchant factions that were politically active during
the commercial dispute of 181821 have provided important evidence for
their assumptions about legitimacy. Their ideas represent enduring strains
of political thought in Spain and Spanish America.
In Spain and Spanish America, the fundamental conditions which created
legitimacy and consequently authority in a ruler were continuity and consent,
the first initiated by a kings formal declaration of a son as his heir,
14
the
12. Gurr, Why Men Rebel, 46.
13. On the relationship between relative deprivation and regime legitimacy, see Ibid., 18392.
14. The importance of continuity in Spanish political thought is demonstrated by an
illustration in Juan and Ulloa, Relacin histrica, in the John Carter Brown Library, Providence,
second by the ceremonies in which the heir was presented to his subjects
as represented by various corporations such as town councils, who as a body
swore allegiance to him. As the Peruvian Manuel Lorenzo de Vidaurre
expressed it in 1815, the right of the king of Spain to rule consists in the
unvarying consent of the people: in their will expressed in different ways:
in the most solemn and repeated oaths.
15
These ceremonies of legitimacy
were replicated at the viceregal level by ceremonies swearing allegiance to
a new monarch (or, as in 1812 and 1820, to a new government) and by
ceremonies in which a new viceroy, possessed of a royal decree (cdula)
declaring his appointment, was received into the capital city of the territory
he was to govern in the kings name. The concept and the ritual bring to
mind religious practices conveying apostolic succession, and legitimate poli-
tical succession, ritually affirmed, was extremely important in the case of
viceroys. If the decree or the ritual was in some sense defective, then the
viceroys legitimacy was open to question.
In Pezuelas case, his enemies could and did argue that the appoint-
ment and swearing-in were imperfect expressions of legitimate viceregal
succession. To begin with, in 1816, Pezuela was appointed merely interim
viceroy. The fact that his permanent appointment arrived tardily vitiated
Pezuelas authority at a critically important juncture in Peruvian history.
Thus, when the relentlessly insubordinate Spanish General Jos de La Serna
arrived in Peru and when disputes about forced loans arose, Pezuelas
authority rested on an unstable and questionable foundation.
Moreover, circumstances surrounding Pezuelas formal entrada into Lima
convinced some members of the elite that he was less than the virtuous
and honorable ruler demanded by Spanish political thought. Both virtue
and honor were embedded in ideas of gender roles, which Pezuela seemed
to have transgressed. A legitimate viceroy was expected to be subject to
his king, not to his wife. But Pezuela had apparently permitted his wife to
overstep the boundaries of custom and propriety that insured the smooth
transfer of power. The reputed character of Pezuelas personal life recalled
to mind the scandals associated with Carlos IVs queen and her protg,
Manuel Godoy, which had been bruited about in El Peruano, the periodical
346 conclusion
Rhode Island. The illustration portrays the succession of Inca rulers . . . continued by a series of
Spanish kings. The idea of legitimate succession is emphasized by the continuous numbering of the
portraits, indicating an accepted progression of rule and transfer of power (In JCB, Jan. 1992).
15. Vidaurre, Votos de los americanos a la nacin espaola, y a nuestro amado monarca el
Seor Don Fernando VII, cdip-Tomo 1, 5:301.
published in Lima in 181112 by Gaspar Rico.
16
Not even the king had
been exempt from paying the penalty of domestic misrule: the scandal was
part of the justification for forcing Carlos IV to abdicate in favor of his
son, Fernando VII, in 1808.
17
Thus it was politically significant that those
who were supposed to obey Pezuela in Peru became convinced that he
was incapable of ruling his own household.
In addition, the ritual of succession was tarnished by Doa Angelas
lack of respect for the previous incumbent and usurpation of a resource
the viceregal palacethat was integral to an office not yet formally acquired.
The virreina had also demonstrated an immoral cupidity in the matter of
the golden keys to the city, customarily presented to a new viceroy at his
entrada. This instance of greedone of the seven deadly sinsmade more
plausible later accusations that Pezuela and his family stood to profit from
the sale of sugar and tobacco embarked with the expedition to recover Chile
from the insurgents, and that the viceroy himself enjoyed a percentage on
the profits from direct trade with foreigners promoted by the Abada
group. The issue of corruption prompted by greed was exploited by the
cabal that overthrew the viceroy. In the ultimatum delivered to Pezuela on
the morning of 29 January 1821, the officers hinted strongly that he had
diverted funds contributed toward the defense of Peru to his own pocket.
18
Accusations of corruption, however defined, became a constant in the decrees
justifying golpes de estado in Peru and elsewhere in Latin America in
the nineteenth century, and its links to the idea of legitimacy are clear.
Indeed, by definition, a corrupt ruler was believed to be illegitimate. The
anti-Machiavellian ideal of the legitimate ruler as a virtuous man was of
great importance to Rico and his allies. Obedience was not owed to a
corrupt official.
Thus from the imperfections observed in his appointment and the rituals
associated with his formal accession as viceroy, and in the allegations of
corruption, Pezuelas authority was compromised and his legitimacy could
be questioned by his enemies. But there was another element of Pezuelas
behavior that was deeply embedded in Spanish political culture. It had to
do with basic attitudes in the Bourbon court of Madrid toward the rule of
law. On this field of play the Rico group skillfully manipulated ideas about
the rules of the game to justify their usurpation of the viceroys authority.
16. El Peruano, 8 Oct. 1811, cdip-Tomo 22, 2:79. There was one very important difference in the
gossip about the two women: unlike the Queen, Pezuelas wife was not accused of cuckolding him.
17. Toreno, Historia del levantamiento, 1:23; Herr, Eighteenth-Century Revolution, 439.
18. cdip-Tomo 26, 3:356.
According to Spanish political thought, one of the principal duties of a
legitimate ruler was to promote the unity of society. In accord with the
organic metaphor for the good society,
19
conflicting interests within the
body politic jeopardized the existence of the state. Faction was therefore
to be avoided, and uniformity of opinion ardently to be desired.
20
The
Rico group of merchants argued that there would be no factional conflict
if commercial laws were meticulously observed. By favoring the Abada
group and its contention that the rules for the regulation of trade should
be set aside in the emergency, Pezuela was not only breaking the law; he
had ruptured the unity of society, promoting faction where union was essen-
tial. Thus Pezuelas policies posed a fundamental threat to the continued
existence of the body politic.
Gaspar Ricos statement in his Relacin de mritos y servicios of 1824
makes plain his assumption that a viceroy who did not obey the law was
illegitimate. He speaks of the scandalous lawlessness of the former govern-
ment, and declares that Pezuela either did not comprehend the nature of
his duty or did not want to do it. Pezuelas failure to obey the law meant
that the colonial regime was likely to perish ignominiously if he were
not removed from office. By this logic, Pezuelas alleged trespass on the kings
prerogatives in the matter of commercial law also threatened the existence
of the state. The metropolitan merchants, led by Rico, insisted that the
viceroys authority did not extend to matters on which the king alone
could legislate. But because it served their interests, Pedro de Abada and
another faction of the consulado advocated a course of action that allowed
crown decrees and edicts, and even the Laws of the Indies, to be set aside
when necessary, and especially during an emergency when, as Pezuela and
his allies insisted, the very survival of the state was at stake. This, of course,
was an embryonic form of what became the state-of-siege in later Latin
American polities,
21
but Pezuela was perfectly well aware of its importance.
It offered him a much broader scope for action than could have been the
348 conclusion
19. Stoetzer, Scholastic Roots, 67. In the eighteenth century, the Spanish arbitrista Gaspar
Melchor de Jovellanos was an exponent of this view; his writings were very influential in Spanish
America.
20. This idea outlived the Spanish colonial regime: Simn Bolvar, for example, also
subscribed to the ideal of the state as a community in which faction or party would have no
place: Anthony Pagden, Spanish Imperialism and the Political Imagination (New Haven and
London: Yale University Press, 1990), 141, 143.
21. See San Martn on the same point: The need to exist is the first law of governments. . . .
The remedies are adopted according to the character of the diseases and when survival is
endangered all is just, except to allow it to perish: Ganda, San Martn, 337.
case had he adhered strictly to the letter of the law. The principle was
reiterated constantly in minutes of the Junta de guerra, the Junta de tri-
bunales, and especially in the Junta de arbitrios. Pezuela himself invoked
it, for example, in a strongly worded letter to the consulado of 29 August
1818: It is essential that this tribunal understand that in the complicated
administration of today, the government is presented with very difficult
issues that must be resolved in accord with a policy very different from
that prescribed for tranquil circumstances.
22
There was nothing new, however, in Pezuelas stance. On the contrary,
it was in keeping with obedezco pero no cumplo, an aspect of colonial
governance that was a sensible accommodation to the realities of geography
and communication prior to the invention of telephones, steamships, and
airplanes: When a royal decree did not suit the circumstanceor the
special conditions of a corner of the far-flung empirethe viceroys were
authorized to modify or suspend it, at least temporarily.
23
This principle
and practice led to allegations that viceroys were capricious despots, with
too much power to do as they pleased. As an early historian of indepen-
dent Peru put it, although the viceroy was subject to the king and the
Supreme Council of the Indies, experience had proved that this dependence
was a brake on the honorable and virtuous, but served for nothing against
the venal, cruel, or corrupt.
24
More seriously, as Antonio Genovesi had
observed in 1803 about Spanish rule in Naples, The Spaniards . . . had
destroyed the rule of law by setting up separate courts to deal with the special
interests of sectors of the elite (as was the case with the Cinco Gremios
Mayores de Madrid in Peru, and members of the military), and by allowing
into the legal system entire categories of exemptions and exceptions so
that no one could predict the outcome of a case or know which part of the
law applied to him.
25
Pezuelas dilemma was to ascertain which law, or part
of the law, applied in the unprecedented chaos of a colony beset by foreigners
and in revolt against a metropolis ruled by a king unable to establish a
stable government or consistent colonial policy. The beleaguered viceroy
chose the reductionist, pragmatic course, but not without extensive consul-
tation and exploration of precedent. For Pezuela, there came to be only
22. Pezuela to Consulado, 29 Aug. 1818, agnp-Consulado, leg. 12. Modern constitutions in
Spanish America are set aside for similar reasons by means of declarations of states of siege: Glen
C. Dealy, Prolegomena on the Spanish American Political Tradition, HAHR 48, no. 1 (1968):
3758.
23. Stoetzer, Scholastic Roots, 14 n. 40.
25. Pagden, Spanish Imperialism, 84.
one supreme law, the survival of the colonial state, and any practical means
that served that end was permissible. Thus he accepted the fait accompli
of direct trade with foreigners, which was against the law, and attempted to
manipulate it in the service of the fundamental principle, the states survival.
The Abada group supported pragmatic change in the rules for the
regulation of trade which, if unobtainable from the crown itself, could be
made effective by viceregal decree in response to an emergency. Like other
moderates in Peru and Spain, and as Pezuela sought to do, they believed that
loosening restrictions on trade would be likely to remove a major obstacle
to the pacification of the viceroyalty. Indeed, direct trade with foreigners
was one of two reforms most ardently sought by politically active merchants
and landowners of Lima.
26
They had arrived at the conclusion that change
was necessary in part because, as Spain fought one maritime war after
another, the colonial commercial system was obviously unable to function
in accord with the law. But some participants in the debate insisted that only
royal fiat could create legitimate change. As Manuel Lorenzo de Vidaurre
put it, My Monarch . . . your voice alone is the law.
27
That voice had
uttered a great many decrees and edicts in the recent past that modified
commercial rules and regulations, sometimes secretly or in ways that were
mutually contradictory, and often in ways that Peruvians perceived as unjust
or tyrannical and therefore not to be obeyed. And yet Rico and his allies
referred repeatedly to the immutability of the Laws of the Indies to justify
their opposition to Pezuela, in spite of the fact that special permissions
issued by the crown, the weight of public opinion, and daily practice had
long since made those laws irrelevant.
Abada and his allies supported Pezuelas strategy of granting de facto
direct trade in order to wage an effective war of opinion and acquire fiscal
resources to pursue military victoryand to improve their own position
vis--vis the Atlantic traders. Like Pezuela, they argued that the only immut-
able law was the law of necessity, especially when the state was dealing
350 conclusion
26. The second was currency reform, which would create a colonial coinage permitted to
circulate only within the viceroyalty, and thus alleviate the critical shortage of specie. Francisco
Salazar Carrillo to Ministro de las Indias, Madrid, 17 Aug. 1814, agi-Lima, leg. 1018-B; Marqus
de Torre Tagle and Francisco de Valdivieso to Ministro de las Indias, Madrid, Aug. 1814, agi-
Lima, leg. 613; Consejo de Indias en Sala 2
da
, Madrid, 17 Jan. 1816, agi-Lima, leg. 602. For
opposition to the proposal, see Informe del Consulado sobre el proyecto de que se acuan veinte
millones de pesos de plata cortada o macuquina . . . para que gire por este Reyno sin peligro de la
extraccin, Jan. 1817, agnp-Hacienda colonial, leg. 1227.
27. Vidaurre, Comercio libre de Amrica, 1818, cdip-Tomo 1, 5:344.
with nothing less than existing or ceasing to exist.
28
They argued, too,
that change was essential to the well-being of society, even though it would
create faction and always be tenaciously opposed. The enlightened advocates
of change would have to suffer the tyranny of being treated as innovators
who wish to destroy everything, merely because they depart for a moment
from the well-beaten path of custom, that tyrant of mortals understanding
and action.
29
Because of their belief that Pezuela, as viceroy, could legiti-
mately make decisions on the basis of his inherent authority as the repre-
sentative of the kings person, the principle of obedezco pero no cumplo, and
the evolving post-Napoleonic state-of-siege doctrine, their interest was
in accord with the viceroys policy, and they were, of course, willing to obey.
There is no evidence that anyone belonging to this group questioned
Pezuelas legitimacy.
But because it served their interests, Gaspar Rico and another faction
of the consulado insisted that the Laws of the Indies constituted an
absolute restraint on the viceroys conduct. Those laws called for the
exclusion of foreigners from the internal commerce of a state, that is, from
trade to Spains American possessions. In all of their memorias and petitions
during the controversy over direct trade, this faction called upon Pezuela
to obey the law, making no concessions to those who would set mercantile
laws aside in cases where they were mistaken or unjust, or even in an emer-
gency where regime survival was at stake. In essence, Rico and his allies
were insisting on the principle of continuity, which translated to predict-
ability, on which trust in government is based. Obedience to law was an
aspect of both, and therefore the opposite of capricious government, which
was tyranny, and tyrants were by definition illegitimate. Thus, regardless of
his reasons for setting aside the commercial laws, by granting permissions
to foreigners to trade directly to Lima Pezuela had compromised the validity
of his claim to legitimacy.
Neither Pezuela nor his enemies raised another question embedded in
the twin concepts of obedezco pero no cumplo and the law of necessity. That
was left to Jos de Tejada, the contador general de Indias in Madrid, who
understood what was at stake. He admitted that in great conflicts the
laws cede their place to the most fundamental one of all, which is the
salvation of the Fatherland and of the rights of the throne. But he also
28. Report of the Junta de arbitrios, 22 July 1818, Testimonio del expediente . . . sobre eleccin
de arbitrios de comercio libre, 22 July15 Oct. 1818, agi-Lima, leg. 759.
29. Observaciones sobre el reglamento de libre comercio, 28 July 1818, Testimonio del
expediente . . . , 22 July15 Oct. 1818, agi-Lima, leg. 759.
understood the contradictions inherent in Spanish legal and political culture
that gave rise to the dilemma faced by a viceroy beset by challenges to his
authority from factions that refused to accept negotiation and compromise
as legitimate means of resolving political and economic conflicts. Commenting
on the consulados willingness to allow the proceeds from export taxes on
silver and specie to be retained in Peru, which was contrary to law, while
insisting that direct trade with foreigners could not be admitted because it
was contrary to law, Tejada asked What privilege could be found by the
Junta [de arbitrios] and the consulado that would allow them to hold
inviolable the latter laws and not the former ones? He found only one
answer: the merchants of both parties had been governed by personal interest,
an accusation that seriously compromised the accused mens honor because
personal interest aggressively pursued ruptured the unity of the body poli-
tic. But Pezuela was not held blameless. Although Tejada recommended
approving his action in this case, he urged him to find less onerous and
damaging ways to acquire the means to defend Peru.
30
Because, in Ricos opinion, Pezuelas conduct of the affairs of the
viceroyaltyespecially his disobedience of the laws for the regulation of
tradehad made him illegitimate, Rico believed that the viceroy could
and should be removed from his position of authority. He and his allies
invoked the right to rebel against illegitimate authority that had been promi-
nent in Spanish political thought prior to the advent of the Bourbons to
the throne, but which survived in Hispanic America throughout the eigh-
teenth century.
31
The principle had surfaced again following the uprising
of the people of Spain after the French invasion of 1808, when they rebelled
against the puppet government installed in Madrid by Napoleon. Thus
Rico could declare that he acted as an honorable Spaniard, and that the
overthrow of Viceroy Joaqun de la Pezuela was the most important and
useful thing that I have undertaken in my life. But when the citizens
personal right to take up arms against a ruler he perceived to be illegi-
timate was grafted onto the long tradition of disregard for the rule of law
embodied in obedezco pero no cumplo and the practice of exceptions and
special privileges, it destroyed the old culture of continuity and consent
as the basis of legitimate authority. Arguably, after 1821, it also inhibited
352 conclusion
30. El Contador General de Indias informa sobre la carta del Virrey del Per no. 269, 22 Oct.
1818, agi-Lima, leg. 1550.
31. For a very brief discussion of the right to resist the state in sixteenth-century Spain, see
Stoetzer, Pensamiento poltico, 1:1819. The right of rebellion against a tyrant, even tyrannicide,
was also part of Spanish political thought; see Stoetzer, Scholastic Roots, 26, 31, 52.
development of national institutions of governance capable of commanding
widespread obedience, able to establish stable procedures for legitimate
succession, and sufficiently secure to provide for legal, nonviolent removal
of incompetent or corrupt heads of state. Instead, the golpe de estado assumed
the functions of ballot box, legislature, and impeachment procedure to save
the state from threats to its continued existence, as identified by self-appointed
rescuers like the merchants and military men who existed politically in
late colonial Peru.
With the overthrow of Viceroy Pezuela, Peru experienced an early form
of Latin American praetorianism in which a sector of the civilian popula-
tion, unable to prevail politically and unwilling to compromise, persuades
army officers that they must act to save the state.
32
The officers ultimatum
demanding Pezuelas resignation, Ricos self-congratulatory Relacin de mritos,
Valds Exposicin and Refutacin . . . del Manifiesto, and the appeals to the
law of necessity issued by Pezuela, Abada, and their allies, are replete with
salvationist rhetoric similar to that contained in Spanish pronunciamientos
of the nineteenth century and those of the leaders of the golpes de estado
that so vexed the early republican history of Peru. Gaspar Rico, Jos de La
Serna, and their co-conspirators of 1821 established a model of praetorian
politics that persists to this day in the nation-state that emerged from the
Peruvian revolution for independence.
32. The nineteenth-century constitutions of many Latin American republics contain clauses
calling on the military to save the state: Dealy, Prolegomena, 3758. Blanco Valds, Rey, Cortes y
fuerza armada, 47983, emphasizes the participation of civilians in what appear to be purely
military insurrections in Spain between 1814 and 1823.
Aguardiente Brandy or rum; alcoholic beverages produced from
grapes or sugar cane
Alcabala Sales tax; the alcabala de reventas (resale tax) was
charged every time goods changed hands
Alcalde A mayor or municipal magistrate
Alcalde del crimen Criminal prosecutor of the Audiencia de Lima
Almojarifazgo Duty paid on imported goods
Alto Per Upper Peru, an Andean province of the viceroyalty
that became the Republic of Bolivia
Apoderado A holder of a power-of-attorney who acted as
an agent or proxy
Armada A fleet of warships and armed merchantmen; the
Armada del Mar del Sur operated in the Pacific
off Peru
Audiencia High court, invested with both judicial and
administrative powers; judges of the Audiencia
were the principal advisors of the viceroys
Banco de rescate A bank where miners and others could exchange
bullion for coin
Cabezn A tax paid as a lump sum by a guild such as the
hacendados, whose members contributed an amount
prorated according to the value of their commerce
Cabildo Municipal council; a cabildo abierto was a meeting
of the council attended by representatives of other
government agencies, the church, and the social
and economic elite; it was called to discuss and
decide matters of great importance
Cargadores Merchants living in Spain who shipped Euro-
pean goods to Peru, sometimes traveling to Peru
GLOSSARY OF SPANISH TERMS
themselves and sometimes appointing agents to
handle their business there
Consulado Merchant guild
Corregidores Provincial governors, replaced in 1786 by intendants
Criollo/criolla A person born in America of Spanish ancestry
Efectos del pas Goods produced within the boundaries of the
viceroyalty of Peru
Entrada solemne A new viceroys inaugural procession during which
he took the oath of office and the people swore
allegiance to him as the kings representative
Expediente File of depositions and testimony in legal pro-
ceedings or on matters of government policy
Factora A commercial agency that acts as a commission
merchant
Golpe de estado Violent overthrow of a governing regime
Gremio A guild
Guerra War
Hacendado Owner of a hacienda or large estate
Hacienda A large estate; also the treasury: the Ministro de
Hacienda was the minister of treasury
Indendants Provincial governors
Junta de arbitrios Ways-and-means committee
Junta conciliar A group of about two dozen leading merchants
convened to advise the officers of the consulado
Junta de guerra Committee composed of leading officers of the
army to advise the viceroy on the conduct of
the war
Junta de tribunales An advisory commission appointed by the viceroy
and composed of senior bureaucrats, the arch-
bishop, officers of the consulado, and occasionally
representatives of other interest groups such as
the hacendados
Juzgado de alzadas Court of appeals for commercial cases
Limeo Person either born in Lima or a permanent resident
Matrcula Register of merchants permitted to participate
in the affairs of the consulado
Navieros Shipowners
356 glossary of spanish terms
Obras pas Church-based charitable foundations funded by
provisions of last wills and testaments; they in
turn loaned money at interest
Obrajes Textile workshops, often located on the estates
of hacendados
Pliego de providencias Official document issued by the crown desig-
nating a resident of a colony to assume the duties
and authority of a viceroy or captain-general who
died in office or was incapacitated
Pronunciamiento Declaration by revolutionaries that they had ousted
the incumbent government, and justifying their
action
Regidor Town councilman
Registros Merchant ships licensed by the crown to sail to
ports of the Pacific on an irregular basis, usually
unescorted by warships
Relacon de mritos Accounts of merits, a rsum that often included
the services rendered to the crown by a petitioners
ancestors
Repartimiento Forced sale of goods to Indians, who were required
to make purchases valued at a set amount
Sndico procurador Municipal official charged with representing
the cabildos opinions and interests before other
governing bodies
Tribunal privativo A court with special jurisdiction to hear all cases
involving certain privileged organizations such
as the Cinco Gremios Mayores de Madrid
Vales reales Government bonds that also served as paper money
Visitador Inspector-general sent by Spain to investigate
governmental practice in the colonies and to
implement reforms
glossary of spanish terms 357
manuscript sources
Archives
agi: Archivo General de Indias, Sevilla, Spain
Audiencia de Buenos Aires: legajos 16, 473
Audiencia de Cuzco: legajo 29
Audiencia de Filipinas: legajos 991, 993, 994
Audiencia de Lima: legajos 602, 603, 604, 613, 626, 627, 628, 629, 639, 649, 650,
651, 726, 732, 734, 735, 736, 737, 741, 743, 744, 746, 747, 751, 759, 760, 761, 762,
769, 772, 773, 774, 793, 798, 799, 800, 802, 911, 913, 957, 977, 1009, 1010,
1014, 1016, 1018, 1019, 1020, 1022, 1029, 1074, 1082, 1083, 1098, 1130, 1357,
1448, 1471, 1480, 1538, 1539, 1540, 1541, 1546, 1547, 1548, 1549, 1550, 1551, 1554,
1619, 1620
Consulados: legajos 62, 81
Estado: legajos 74, 86
Indiferente general: legajos 313, 803, 1016, 1130, 1571, 1622, 1623, 1891, 1892, 2172,
2256, 2409, 2439, 2440, 2462
Ultramar: legajo 833
agnp: Archivo General de la Nacin Peruana, Lima, Peru
Consulado: legajos 1, 4, 5, 12, 23, 24, 33, 34, 151; Gremios de Madrid 249,
cuaderno 185
Hacienda colonial: legajos 23, 900, 907, 1031, 1087, 1115, 1173, 1227, 1239
Seccin Notarial: Notarios Ayllon Salazar, Figueroa, Mendoza, Tenorio y Palacios,
Torres Preziado
ahn: Archivo Histrico Nacional, Madrid
Consejo de Indias, Gobierno: legajos 43.611, 48.434, 51.689, 51.690
Consejos suprimidos: legajos 20243, 20300, 21287, 21721
Estado: legajos 45, 62, 115, 176, 2314, 2851, 3182, 3208, 3442, 5633, 5642, 5643, 5645,
5849, 6379
Inquisicin: legajo 6379
Hacienda: Libros 8034, 8046, 8050; legajo 6070
rdenes Militares: Alcntara, Calatrava, Carlos III, Montesa, Santiago
Reales cdulas: Consulado libros 1490, 1515
Regencia: Libro 3.732
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Page numbers in italics indicate illustrations;
numbers followed by m indicate maps.
Abada, Francisco Xavier, 16465
Abada, Pedro, 8, 33, 131 n. 87, 15051, 162, 278,
344
and armistice negotiations, 294, 296
attacks on, 25253, 32021, 328, 33234
and foreigners, 16768, 17677, 188, 2045,
215, 277, 321
and free trade (1818), 22164 passim, 32728,
344
and independence, 17172, 339
and Rico, 16466, 219, 271, 322
and rule of law, 348, 350, 353
See also Filipinas Company
Abascal, Fernando de, marqus de la
Concordia (viceroy, 180616), 8, 30, 136,
148, 15051
authority of, 343
and Chile, 213, 237
and Concordia militia regiment, 27071
and contraband, 138, 140
and free trade (1818), 228, 23637, 25556
and Joaqun de la Pezuela, 16970
and mercantile debt, 120
and pacification, 183, 184
and Rico, 131, 16268, 170, 248, 27071, 273,
316
and rule of law, 15354, 178
and Spanish Cortes, 147, 15153, 178, 180, 201
and taxes, 15253, 15758
trade by, 25, 14041
Abisbal, count of ( Jos Enrique ODonnell),
181
Abreu, Manuel de, 19899, 227, 320
absolutism
defined, 147, 201
in Peru, 196, 2012, 219, 323
in Spain, 8, 147, 177, 199200, 32324, 331
See also royalists
Adams, John Quincy, 214
agriculture, export, 2728, 57, 103
aguardiente. See brandy
Agero, Jacinto, 39, 46, 126
Aguerrevere, Juan Josef de, 42
Aguerrevere, Juan Miguel de, 42, 43
Aguerrevere, Lostra & Co. (Cdiz), 38, 42, 43,
44, 45
Aguirre, Javier Mara de, 269
as apoderado of consulado of Cdiz, 113
and consulado matrcula, 6971
and contraband, 134
and neutral trade, 11213
Alayza y Paz Soldn, Luis, 199
Albo y Cabada, Luis Manuel de, 45, 48, 70 n. 57
alcabalas (sales taxes), 21, 32, 88, 9096
and elegibility for consulado membership,
35, 6970
See also revenue; taxation
Alcuda, duke of. See Godoy, Manuel de
lfaro, Angel Toms de, 46
Aliaga y Borda family, 222
Aliaga y Santa Cruz, Diego de, 40, 46, 47, 48, 53
Alto Per (now Bolivia), 15, 6465
and independence, 184, 185
and interprovincial trade, 6263, 64, 9697
and revenue, 64
See also Army of Alto Per
lvarez del Villar, Antonio, 33, 34, 39, 46, 72 n.
65
and free trade (1818), 22122
Amat y Junient, Manuel de (viceroy, 176176),
5556, 268
and maritime security, 87, 110
and reform, 5657, 90, 9293, 97, 104
Amenabar, Gaspar de, 38, 44, 45
Amenabar, Silvestre, 38, 39, 4346, 72 n. 65, 128
INDEX
America Nursing Spanish Noble Boys, 101, 102
Ancon (Peru), 189
Andromache (English warship), 22324, 239,
250, 33435, 336
Anna, Timothy E., 253, 290, 339, 341
Anson, George, 25
apoderados
of the cabildo of Lima, 73
of the Cinco Gremios Mayores de
Madrid, 72
of the consulado of Cdiz, 52, 113, 26162
of the consulado of Lima, 30, 7475, 82 n.
102, 91 n. 138, 95
definition of, 23 n. 30
of Gaspar Rico, 129, 133 n. 92
Aramburu, Martn de, 33
Aranjuez (Spain), motn de, 146
arbitrios, junta de (ways-and-means
committee), 154, 22164 passim, 293, 318,
349, 352
Areche, Josef Antonio de, 90100, 1045, 107,
183, 249
Arequipa (Peru), 40, 42, 94, 144, 150, 221, 223, 247
and Cinco Gremios Mayores de Madrid,
74, 8284, 120
civil disorder in, 97
royalist army in, 201, 290
Arias, Dmaso de, 33, 39
Arias, Izcue & Company, 39
Arica (Peru), 62, 66, 97, 247
Arismendi, Jos Santos, 33, 215, 26364, 32022,
339
and free trade (1818), 22122, 230, 244, 256
Armada del Mar del Sur (South Sea Fleet),
1516
armistice negotiations, 191, 283, 29397
at Miraflores, 191
army, royalist, 201, 265, 266
civilians and, 18183, 19395
criollo careers in, 185, 195, 268, 279, 287, 288
officers of, 12, 185, 19798, 267, 3056
strategy and tactics of, 185, 18891, 193,
28992, 297, 300
Army of Alto Per (royalist), 29, 193, 312
and the Army of Lima, 28889
La Serna and, 18182, 189, 197, 28081
and Pezuela, 16970, 187, 211
Army of Lima (royalist), 12, 4, 5, 191, 273, 300
formation of, 28789
and overthrow of Pezuela, 9, 29697,
30326, 343
Arrescurrenaga, Eduardo Jos de, 221
390 index
Arriaga, Mariano, 45
Arriz y Uceda, Jos de, 122
Asia (Spanish warship), 279
Asn, Joaqun de, 50
Atlantic trade, 1518, 62, 1089, 15962
control of, 175
effects of war on, 3554, 103, 109, 150, 156,
21964 passim
expansion of, 7585, 101, 13435
and neutral trade, 11017, 145
and puertos habilitados, 66, 77, 142, 154
and transfer of precious metals, 5859
See also Reglamento de comercio libre (1778)
Audiencia (high court), 14, 22, 25, 83
administrative function of, 282
advisory function of, 178, 342
and Rico, 122, 167
Aurora (Spanish merchantman), 36, 12527, 130
Avendao, Antonio de, 3840, 46
Avendao, Salinas & Co. (Cdiz), 39, 40,
46, 53
Avils, Gabriel de (viceroy, 18016), 58, 112
and Rico, 117, 122, 125, 127, 130, 132
Ayacucho (Peru), 200, 331
Ayala, Bartolom, 46
Azanza, Miguel Jos de, 342
Azcona, Joaqun Manuel, 96
Aznapuquio (Peru), 296, 308, 310, 312, 31415, 319
Baltimore, 178, 231, 232
bankruptcy
of colonial government, 242, 248
of merchants, 34, 78, 100, 103, 115, 240, 345
of Spanish government, 110, 114
See also debt, mercantile
Baqujano y Carrillo, Jos, count of
Vistaflorida, 3132, 77, 162, 181, 187, 270
Disertacin histrica y poltica sobre el
comercio del Per, 32
Elogio del Excelentssimo Seor D. Agustn
de Jauregui, 1045
and legitimacy, 342
and Rico, 12426
Barbier, Jacques, 111
Barreda, Manuel, 339
Barreda y Benavides family (Arequipa), 42
Barreda y Benavides, Francisco de, 43
Barrera, Fermn Ramn de, 43
Bayonne (France), 146, 177, 342
Beaver (U.S. merchantman), 234
Bedmar, marqus de, 114, 117
Bedoya, Bartolom de, 24
Bellavista (Peru), 13, 247
Berindoaga, Juan de, 16162
Biddle, James, 224, 261 n. 109, 27576, 277
Billingsley, Edward B., 207
Blanco Azcona, Jos Manuel, 222
Blossom (English warship), 250
Bolvar, Simn, 330, 331
Bonaparte, Jos (king of Spain), 14647
Bordelais (French merchantman), 23334
Bourbon reforms, 6, 7, 19, 55105, 135, 220
and colonial elites, 37, 55, 74, 85, 88, 219,
340, 342, 344
Bowles, William, 22324, 226, 227
Brandy, 26, 84, 85, 8788, 148, 215
Brazil, 91, 135, 139, 226
Brillante Magdalena (Portuguese merchant-
man), 234
Britain. See England
Brito, Jos Manuel, 46
Brown, William, 172
Buenos Aires (Argentina), 14, 18, 34, 64, 85, 88,
170
79, 11314, 116, 117, 121
consulado of, 68
English invasion of, 110, 139
and Filipinas Company, 79
and free trade, 66, 137, 226
and independence, 139, 148, 17071, 201
and interprovincial trade, 62, 77, 96
and slave trade, 229
See also Ro de la Plata, Viceroyalty of
bureaucrats, trade by, 2226, 73, 140
Bustamante, Jos de, 263
Caballeros de Santiago (military order), 23
cacao, 27, 36, 41, 87 n. 119, 88, 167
and Cinco Gremios Mayores de Madrid, 121
drop in price of, 78, 90 n. 135
Cdiz, 1517, 19, 32
English blockade of, 109, 110
and Peruvian trade, 34, 36, 5152, 1089, 118,
143, 239
and Reglamento de comercio libre (1778), 6
See also consulado of Cdiz; Cortes
Calatayud, Francisco, 70 n. 56
Caldas, Agustn, 45
Caldern, Guillermo, 33
Callao (Limas port), 2, 16, 20m, 25, 88, 33132
and Atlantic trade, 15, 17, 80, 95, 1089, 154
blockade of, 207, 215, 276
index 391
and Bourbon reforms, 6, 18, 63, 66, 77
and earthquake of 1746, 1113
and Filipinas Company, 80
and free trade (1818), 4, 21964 passim
and interprovincial trade, 63, 9798, 100, 154
Campo, Francisco Xavier del, 46, 241, 26162
Campoblanco, Juan de, 112
Campomanes, Pedro Rodrguez, 75, 88
Canibell, Francisco de Paula, 5152
Canterac, Jos de, 185, 186, 196, 266, 281, 320
and Army of Lima, 289, 291
and overthrow of Pezuela, 3034, 306
and royalist surrender, 331
Canton (U.S. merchantman), 234, 235, 236
Cape St. Vincent, Battle of, 109
Capital formation, 4950
cargadores de Espaa, 3740, 44, 51
and consulado of Lima, 3738
and interprovincial trade, 5960
and limeo merchants, 53
and privileged trading companies, 71
Carlos III (king of Spain, 175988), 18, 108
Carlos IV (king of Spain, 17881808), 145, 155,
267, 299, 323
abdication of, 14647, 342, 34647
Carlota (U.S. merchantman), 111, 114, 117
Carlota Joaquina (queen of Portugal), 135
Carrillo de Crdoba, Luis, 22
Carrillo de Crdoba, Mara Ignacia, countess
of Vistaflorida, 2122
Casa Flores, count of, 172 n. 10, 176 n. 24, 188,
310, 311, 336
and Valleumbroso mission to Spain, 31314
Casa de moneda (mint), 110
Casa y Piedra, Diego de la, 39, 45
cascarrillo. See Peruvian bark
Castaeda, Juan Miguel, 33, 50, 87 n. 119
Castor (Spanish merchantman), 51
Cavallero, Ramn, 45, 74 75, 113, 119, 12425
Cavero y Tagle, Jos, 222
Cerro de Pasco (Peru), 321
Cevallos, Pedro de (viceroy of Ro de la Plata,
177778), 6465
Cevallos Escalera, Rafael, 209 n. 154, 307, 335, 336
Chacabuco (Chile), 172, 174, 183, 221, 223, 235
Chaunu, Pierre, 283
Chile, 62, 291
and free trade, 139, 21964 passim, 320
independence of, 148, 172, 191, 274; effects
of, on Peru, 17374, 201, 212, 214, 220,
224, 261, 345
and interprovincial trade, 22, 49, 6263, 96
reconquest of, 29, 171, 213, 223, 23233, 237,
299300
See also sugar-wheat exchange
Chiloe (Chile), 248
Chorrillos (Peru), 335
Church, Catholic, 90, 197, 218
and free trade (1818), 22122, 244, 260
Cienfuegos, Jos de, 263
Cinco Gremios Mayores de Madrid, 3, 7, 24,
45, 74, 109, 11733, 186, 206
and Bourbon reforms, 79, 8285, 117
and consulado of Lima, 7175, 8283, 118
and debt collection,11921, 124, 132
and export trade, 82
and Filipinas Company, 117, 12833, 164,
219, 222
and interprovincial trade, 82, 119
special privileges of, 61, 86, 118, 122, 179, 349
See also Rico y Angulo, Gaspar
civil disorder, 171, 31516, 328, 337
in Arequipa, 97
in Hunuco, 16667
in Lima, 2930, 70, 73, 92, 104, 166, 328
in Spain, 146, 18384
cloth
importation of, 76, 86, 13839, 141, 144
in interprovincial trade, 41, 85
manufacture of, in Peru, 26, 8586
Cochrane, Thomas (Lord Cochrane), 275, 317
and blockade of Peruvian ports, 207, 215,
276, 277, 291, 32627, 335
and control of the sea, 172, 2067
colonialism. See governance, colonial
Comparet y Blacader, Juan Antonio, 48
Concordia, marqus de la. See Abascal,
Fernando de
Concordia militia regiment, 27071, 27374,
29495, 312. See also, Abada, Pedro de;
army, royalist; militias; Rico y Angulo,
Gaspar
consent, 31213, 316, 340
rituals of, 16970, 329, 34647
as source of legitimacy, 1, 345, 352
consignments
and criollos, 44, 53, 112
and free trade (1818), 226, 242, 247
and privileged trading companies, 7175, 81
Consolidacin de vales reales, 11417, 261
Constellation (U.S. warship), 335
Constitution of 1812, 8, 147, 178, 198, 307, 315
392 index
and colonial governance, 162, 196, 283,
32324, 328
and the military, 267, 283, 383
and pacification, 191, 203, 204
See also equality
consulado of Cdiz, 37, 134, 266, 344
apoderados of, in Peru, 52, 113, 261
and contraband, 134
criollos matriculated in, 32, 33
and free trade, 1811: 16061; 1818: 228, 252, 261
consulado of Lima, 15, 3233, 91, 95, 173, 215,
268, 352
and armistice negotiations, 295
7175, 8283, 118, 122
and Consolidacin, 115
control of, 7, 6875, 99
diputados (provincial representatives), 3839
factions of, 46, 21, 2930, 37, 63, 6875, 104,
138, 168, 170, 187, 21964 passim, 339, 340
and free trade, 16061, 187, 203; with the
English (1818), 210, 215, 21964 passim,
316, 321
jurisdiction of, 6768
and loss of Chile, 173
matrculas of, 6, 21, 30, 32, 35, 6875
ordenanzas (charters) of, 74
and overthrow of Pezuela, 32426
and privateers, 215
and sugar trade, 91
and value of imports, 77, 103
contraband, 4, 49, 78, 92, 13346, 149, 225, 340
and the Armada del Mar del Sur, 1516
control of, 75, 13738, 14244, 154, 2068,
210, 223
and export of specie, 110, 250, 31718
and the Filipinas Company, 143, 2056
and the registro trade, 1819
and the slave trade, 228
and taxation, 152
Conway (English warship), 313. See also
Shirreff, William Henry
Cordelia (U.S. merchantman), 114, 117
Correa, Jos, 46
corregidores (provincial governors), 14, 24, 49
corruption, 1617, 8384, 105, 112, 145, 223
and legitimacy, 347
Pezuela accused of, 4, 204, 214, 238, 240,
25253, 263, 295, 297, 298, 316, 347
Chile, continued
Rico and, 122, 12527, 130, 155
and taxation, 152, 156
viceroy Amat and, 9293
See also contraband
Cortes (Spanish congress)
and civilian control of the military, 200
and equality, 15762, 196
and freedom of the press, 15355, 165167
and Indian tribute, 15152
Peruvian delegates to, 124, 150, 159, 168, 268
and the rule of law, 180, 323
and sovereignty, 147, 160, 177
Corts, Josef, 39, 126, 130
Cosso, Matheo de, 38, 40 n. 73
Costeloe, Michael P., 5, 253
Cotagaita (Peru), 169, 182
Council of the Indies (Spain), 52, 7071, 7375,
132, 236, 259, 349
Council of State (Spain), 33637
Credit, 41, 4850
and loans to miners, 59, 120
See also bankruptcy; Consolidacin; debt,
mercantile
criollos
in the Atlantic trade, 3335, 37
and consignments, 44, 53, 112
in the military, 185, 195, 268, 279, 287, 288
Croix, Teodoro de (viceroy, 178490), 2930, 147
and consulados matrcula (1787), 70
and imports, 77, 86
and viceroyalty of Ro de la Plata, 6465
Crompton, Thomas, 276
Cruzeta, Ignacio de, 2425
Cuba, 55, 88, 91 n.138, 239
customs house (aduana), 9294, 97
Cuzco (Peru), 84, 94, 171, 315, 330
debt
governmental, 21118
mercantile, 2627, 34, 115, 173; and Cinco
Gremios Mayores de Madrid, 11920,
124, 132
See also bankruptcy; loans, forced
Delgado Ribas, Josep, 110
despotism. See tyranny
Disertacin histrica y poltica sobre el comercio
del Per (Baqujano), 32
DOlhaverriague y Blanco, Flix, 226, 230,
27576
Dolores (Spanish warship), 118
Dominguez, Paulino, 45
index 393
Dorca, Agustn, 46
dowries, 50
earthquakes, 1112, 63, 329
economy, Peruvian, 14, 202, 240
Bourbon reforms and, 79, 100105
and loss of Chile, 17374, 201, 212, 214, 220,
224, 261, 345
and war, 103, 168, 23738
efectos del pas, 2728, 57, 8589, 103
definition of, 15
and interprovincial trade, 1819, 86 n. 117
markets for, 27, 154, 162
See also trade, Peruvian
elites, Peruvian, 26568, 340
bargaining by, 3, 6, 9596, 281, 352
and Bourbon reforms, 55105
grievances of, 37, 74, 85, 88, 95, 97105
mercantile, 1954
and militia service, 26870
and viceregal authority, 170, 346
Elizalde, Antonio de, 264 n. 118, 269
Elizalde Hermanos, 39, 45
Elogio del Excelentssimo Seor D. Agustn de
Jauregui (Baqujano), 1045
England, 135, 175, 268
alliance with Spain, 112, 136137, 241
and Filipinas Company, 187, 256
and free trade, 137, 160, 174, 204, 215; in
181821, 219264 passim
and war with Spain, 36, 55, 7677, 103, 108,
111, 117, 145, 150, 203
entrada solemne. See Pezuela: entrada solemne
of; viceroys
equality, 157, 15862. See also governance,
colonial
Errea, Jos Antonio de, 27, 39, 45, 69 n. 55, 162
Escobedo, Jorge de, 70, 108
Escolano y Concha, Antonio, 45
Esmeralda (Spanish warship), 207, 21516, 274
Espelosn, Juan Francisco, 46
Espinosa, Manuel Sixto, 116
Espinosa, Pedro Jos de, 45
espionage
by Pezuela, 27576
by San Martn, 216, 218, 230, 25152, 263,
268, 306, 319
Estella, Pedro de, 33
expedientes (case files), 3, 314
on Cinco Gremios Mayores de Madrid,
11314, 11733
on free trade (1818), 228, 238, 254, 25556
on taxation, 158
exports, 154
120, 121
markets for, 99, 16162, 16768
drop in price for, 78, 90
of silver and specie, 7879, 82, 99, 109,
11516, 118, 218, 240, 245, 249, 250, 317,
325, 352
and tax policy, 9092, 9798, 15657
tin, 36, 120
See also contraband; efectos del pas
Eyzaguirre, Miguel de, 8384, 15455, 157
Fernndez, Antonio, 45
Fernndez, Gregorio, 45
Fernando VII (king of Spain, 180832), 135,
147, 148, 200, 283
abdication of, 342
captivity of, 135, 148, 177
and the motn de Aranjuez, 146, 347
restorations of, 153, 168, 175, 268, 32324, 338
and surplus army officers, 19798
Ferraz, Valentn, 307
Filipinas Company, 3, 8, 23, 71, 109, 149, 168, 278
charter of, 7980
82, 120, 12333, 155, 219
and England, 142, 187, 2056
factors of, 8, 128, 131, 150, 171
and foreigners, 111, 112, 17577, 277
and free trade, 17577, 21964 passim, 318, 344
and limeo merchants, 74, 81, 12933, 187,
340
Fisher, John R., 104
foreigners, 4, 17, 149, 174
and Abada, 16768, 17677, 188, 2045, 215,
277, 321
and consulado membership, 69, 71
and defense, 274, 275, 277, 29192, 317, 343, 344
and independence movements, 188, 2034,
212, 220
invasion of Buenos Aires by, 110, 139
and Laws of the Indies, 215, 229, 230, 242,
327, 351
and revenue, 211
See also contraband; free trade (1818)
394 index
Fragua, Francisco de la, 45
France, 145, 146, 228, 23334, 250, 334, 344
invasion of Spain by (1808), 3, 5, 107,
10910, 112, 132, 13637, 161, 177, 184;
(1823), 331, 338
See also Napoleon Bonaparte; Peninsular
War
free trade, 5, 17, 108, 135, 14849, 157, 167 68
and colonial dependence, 2034, 343
and defense, 275, 277, 29192, 317, 321
definitions of, 89, 66, 220, 318
as a revenue measure, 13738, 278
San Martn and, 19192, 204, 227, 317, 327
in Spain, 5, 175
free trade (1778). See Reglamento de comercio libre
free trade (1818), 179, 215, 21964 passim, 265,
277, 317, 320, 321
Freemasons, 197, 315
Fras, duke of, 33738
Fuente Gonzlez, counts of. See Gonzlez
Gutirrez, Josef; Villar de Fuente,
count of
fuero militar, 179, 269, 349
Glvez, Jos de, 18, 75, 108
Glvez, Juan Mara, 222
Grate family (Arequipa), 340
Grate, Juan Bautista de, 39, 4146, 54, 72 n. 65,
100
and contraband, 143
Grate, Miguel de, 45
Garca, Jos Po, 46
Garca Camba, Andrs, 182183, 288, 299300
and armistice negotiations, 29496, 298
insubordination of, 185
as liberal, 196, 200
Garca Carrasco, Francisco Antonio, 137
Garca de la Plata, Manuel, 122
Garca del Ro, Antonio, 40
gender, 2122, 298300, 34647. See also women
General Brown (U.S. merchantman), 33536
Genovisi, Antonio, 349
geography, 15
Gil, Francisco, 46
Gil de Taboada y Lemos, Francisco (viceroy,
179096), 101, 108, 267
and consulado, 7274
and imports, 77
and mining, 5758
and Reglamento de comercio libre (1778), 78, 86
and trade policy, 59, 8486, 104
expedientes (case files), continued
Godoy, Manuel de, duke of Alcuda (royal
favorite), 3, 7475, 147, 184, 346
and colonial governance, 323
and contraband, 145
and free trade, 14849
Rico and, 155, 163, 165, 180, 323
and taxes, 155
Golovnin, Vasili Mickhailovicht, 17577, 188
golpe de estado, 1, 287, 29697, 300, 347, 353
Pezuelas overthrow as, 307, 315, 335, 336
See also pronunciamiento
Gonzlez de la Fuente, Jos Manuel, count of
Villar de Fuente (1801) and count of
Fuente Gonzlez (1804). See Villar de
Fuente, count of
Gonzlez Gutirrez, Josef, count of Fuente
Gonzlez and count consort of Villar
de Fuente, 25 n. 29, 28 n. 43, 128
7175, 129
Gonzlez y Montoya, Manuel, 283
Gorbea y Badillo, Jos, 46
Gorbea y Badillo, Manuel, 33, 39, 46, 25152
governance, colonial, 163, 16566, 175, 17783,
21920, 352
collapse of, 3, 10, 163, 219, 341
and Constitution of 1812, 147, 162, 199202,
323
and free trade (1818), 230, 251, 255
See also law, rule of; legitimacy; obedezco
pero no cumplo
Governor Shelby (U.S. merchantman), 234
Goya, Francisco, 146
Goyeneche family (Arequipa), 42
Goyeneche y Barreda, Jos Manuel de, 43
Great Britain. See England
Guayaquil (Ecuador), 18, 87, 88, 154, 207, 281
and contraband, 142
independence of, 62, 171
guerrillas, 328, 330
Guido, Toms, 283
Guirior, Manuel de (viceroy, 177680), 147
and Areche, 95, 183
and trade policy, 63
and viceroyalty of Ro de la Plata, 6465
Guisasola, Martn de, 46
Gurr, Ted Robert, 34445
Gutirrez Hermanos: Simn, Feliz, Manuel
(Cdiz), 38
index 395
hacendados. See landowners
Haigh, Samuel, 223
Hall, Basil, 32627, 33233
Hamburg (Germany), 111
Hardy, Thomas, 340
Hemas, Jos Ignacio, 46
Hernndez Barruso, Julin, 11314, 116, 117
Herrera, Manuel de, 122
Huancavelica (Peru), 6566, 12122, 330
Hunuco (Peru), 16667
Huaura (Peru), 189, 198
Humboldt, Alexander von, 103, 269
Hurtado, Pablo, 33, 245
Ibez, Ambrosio, 45
Idiquez, Jos Ramn, 45
Imaz, Jos de, 25657
imports, 17, 85, 91, 117, 154, 291
oversupply of, 7678, 11112
See also Cinco Gremios Mayores de
Madrid; contraband; Filipinas
Company; free trade (1818); Reglamento
de comercio libre (1778)
Inda, Francisco de, 39, 45
independence movements, 17074, 183, 185
in Buenos Aires, 139, 148, 17071, 258
in Chile, 29, 53, 139, 148, 17174, 220, 258, 345
and Constitution of 1812, 283, 329
and English mediation, 160
foreign support for, 188, 2034, 212, 220
in Peru, 1, 8, 9, 169219, 265, 278;
Declaration of, 313, 32930, 340
See also civil disorder; rebellion
Inquisition, 197, 218
Intendants (provincial governors), 56
Iriarte, Francisco de, 53
Iriarte, Jos Ignacio, 45
Iriarte, Toms, 266, 306
Iribarren, Pablo, 44
Irigoyen, Jos de, 221, 222
Irigoyen, Juan Miguel de, 42, 44
Isasi, Jos Hermenegildo, 39, 46
Iturrigaray, Jos de (viceroy of Mexico), 263,
306, 319
Izcue, Francisco Xavier de, 33, 39, 222
Jamaica, 138, 240, 241
Jauja (Peru), 33031
Joaquina (Spanish merchantman), 36, 40
Juan y Santacilla, Jorge, 1213, 14, 44, 50, 51, 55
Junn (Peru), 33031
juntas de gobierno, 107, 16667
in Buenos Aires, 139, 148
in Spain, 147
Kamtchatka (Russian warship), 175, 188
Lacy, Luis de, 201
Lagos, Jos de, 100
La Magdalena (Peru), 305, 307, 315, 334
La Mar, Jos de, 27879, 287, 28889, 310
lampoons, 29899
landowners, 22, 161
and consulado, 29
and free trade (1818), 22122, 230, 235, 236,
246, 25556
as merchants, 26
and sugar-wheat exchange, 89, 187
and titles of nobility, 27
Larraaga, Juan Martn, 273, 289, 299
Larreta, Matas de, 39, 69 n. 55, 272
Larrieta, Paul, 46
Larriva, Jos Joaqun, 330
Larriva, Vicente de, 48, 49 n. 90, 53
La Serna, Jos de, 8, 198, 266, 278, 291, 309
and Army of Alto Per, 173, 181, 18586,
193, 28081, 306
and Constitution of 1812, 19899
defeat of, 331
and foreigners, 274, 326
insubordination of, 9, 18183, 185, 189,
28081, 28487, 297, 304, 306, 310, 346
as liberal, 196200, 283, 318, 324
and merchants, 26667, 322
and military rule, 181, 19394, 285, 293, 326
and overthrow of Pezuela, 10, 198, 3045,
30810, 311, 318
and pacification, 184
political capital of, 18283, 280
and praetorianism, 353
and Rico, 319, 320, 32223, 330
and Zaragoza, 185, 297, 305, 330
La Serna y Santander, Fernando de, 7475
law, rule of, 147, 153, 17780, 2023, 210, 323, 349
and compliance, 34041
and free trade (1818), 4, 220259 passim,
265, 278, 344, 350
and legitimacy, 348, 352
See also governance, colonial; obedezco pero
no cumplo
396 index
Laws of the Indies, 348, 350
and foreigners, 215, 229, 230, 242, 327, 351
lawyers, 2223, 70
Laya y Llano, Baltasar de, 45
legitimacy, 6, 8, 9, 10, 138, 33953
and Cortes, 177
and free trade (1818), 219, 229, 318
and Lima cafs, 267
and Napoleonic war, 147, 342
and the rule of law, 341, 348
and the overthrow of Pezuela, 308, 31115,
348
sources of, 1, 170, 284, 32324, 32930,
34547, 350, 351
See also tyranny
Lequanda, Jos Ignacio de, 18 n. 16, 87, 101
liberalism, 147
and consulado of Cdiz, 196
in Peru, 16364, 196200; and overthrow of
Pezuela, 32223
in Spain, 8, 9, 147, 163, 177, 201, 267, 283, 315
See also royalists
Lima (Peru), 16, 20, 26768
cabildo of, 73, 88, 100, 116, 14546, 14850,
187, 217; and armistice negotiations,
29397, 308; and Cinco Gremios
Mayores de Madrid, 82; and free trade
(1818), 222, 235, 246, 249; and indepen-
dence, 32930; jurisdiction of, 195, 323;
and Rico, 271; and taxes, 93 96, 156
civil disorder in, 2930, 70, 73, 328, 337
defense of, 17273, 222, 239, 29192, 295, 298
earthquakes in, 1112, 329
as entrept, 6, 7, 1213, 15
evacuation of, 28990, 328
recession in, 100101
as viceregal capital, 11, 14
See also consulado of Lima
limeo merchants. See merchants, limeo
Lizardi, Francisco, 46
Llano, Manuel, 27879, 287, 28889, 310
loans, forced, 4, 29, 30, 34, 158, 21214, 21618,
293, 346
and free trade (1818), 22559 passim, 34041
London (England), 175, 192, 201, 205, 215, 231
Londoo, Simn, 305
Lopetedi, Bartolom, 45
Lpez Aldana, Fernando, 162
Lord Lyndoch (English merchantman), 321
Loredo, Mariano, 100
Loriga, Juan Miguel de, 287, 3035, 310, 311
Lostra, Juan Miguel de, 38, 42
Macedonian (U.S. merchantman), 20910, 277
Macho, Antonio, 46
Macho, Juan, 33, 46
Madrid (Spain), 293
and massacre of 2 May 1808, 146
Madrid, Lorenzo A. de la, 45
Manila (Philippines), 55, 7981
Manso de Velasco, Jos Antonio. See
Superunda, count of
Mara Isabel (Spanish warship), 20810, 220,
274, 345
Mara Louisa (queen of Spain), 146, 299,
34647
Maritegui, Francisco Javier, 103, 328
Martn Luengo, Francisco and Mariano, 70 n.
56
Martnez Maraon, Francisco, 69 n. 55
Martnez de Salazar, Juan Antonio, 12627
Masons. See Freemasons
Mayp (Chile), 172, 208, 214, 222, 234, 274, 299,
320
Mayp (royalist warship), 208 n. 150, 313, 335
Mazo, Fernando del, 2829, 33, 45, 26667, 271
7475, 113, 126
Mendiburu, Manuel de, 1920
merchandise, supply of, 41, 7579, 82, 83, 85, 345
and contraband, 13346
See also consignments
merchants, 7, 29, 33, 39, 43, 4546, 48
and Bourbon reforms, 1718, 55105, 10768
criollo, 3335
family networks of, 2122, 3233, 4144,
5152, 55, 63
and independence, 33940
landowners as, 2728
lawyers as, 2223
and the military, 26869, 273
and mining, 41, 5859, 66
number of, 30, 68
and overthrow of Pezuela, 318, 341, 343
peninsular-born, 37, 47
and Peruvian independence, 8, 339
provincial, 21, 97
and repartimiento, 58, 8384
wealth of, 30, 32, 33, 35, 4749
women as, 2122
index 397
See also bankruptcy; consignments;
consulado of Lima; debt, mercantile;
trade, Peruvian
merchants, limeo, 17
7175, 8285, 11733
definition of, 37
and the Filipinas Company, 74, 81, 12933
grievances of, 37, 74, 85, 88, 95, 97105, 145,
148, 15662, 168, 175
patterns of trade of, 1516, 37, 63
merchants, metropolitan, 2627, 99, 11718, 150,
218
7175, 118
and consulado membership, 6971
definition of, 37
patterns of trade of, 3536, 4147, 67, 138,
143, 241
Mercurio Peruano (periodical), 32, 267
mercury. See mining
Mestre, Estevan Ventura, 53
Mexico, 81, 83, 86, 87, 92, 94, 98, 154
overthrow of viceroy of, 263, 306, 319
and revenue, 56, 103
and sugar trade, 88 n. 125, 91
Mexico City, consulado of, 259
Mier, Ignacio, 221, 222, 224
Milans del Bosch, Francisco, 201
military orders, 23, 269
militia, 9, 179, 268, 269. See also army, royalist;
Concordia militia regiment
Miller, John, 33334
mining, 15
and merchants, 41, 5859, 66
mercury, 6566, 120, 122, 148
Real tribunal de minera, 58, 249
and Spains economic policy, 5758
tin, 36, 120
See also Potos; silver
Miraflores (Peru), 191, 283
Molina, Joaqun de, 169
Monet, Juan Antonio, 3045, 306
Monteagudo, Bernardo de, 332
Montealegre de Aulestia, marqueses de, 222
Montemira, marqus de, 283, 329
Monts, Toribio, 272
Montevideo (Uruguay), 109
Morales, Jos, 319
Morales y Durez, Vicente, 12426, 130, 153, 269
Moreda, Manuel de, 133
Moreno, Pedro, 39, 46
Morillo, Pablo, 181, 214 n. 174
Murat, Joachim, 146, 342
Napoleon Bonaparte, 8, 146
and Spain, 3, 5, 107, 10910, 112, 132, 13637,
161, 177, 184, 26768, 296, 308, 342, 352
strategy and tactics of, 189, 193, 194, 28991
See also Bonaparte, Josef; Peninsular War
navieros. See shipowners
Navy, Spanish, 10910, 276, 278
and free trade (1818), 226, 239, 245, 248, 260
Pacific fleet of the, 144, 20610, 287, 291, 322
Nelson, Horatio, 109
neutral trade, 11017, 133
newspapers. See periodicals
nobility, Peruvian (ttulos de Castilla), 14, 27, 294
as hacendados, 91
as merchants, 14, 2224, 28 n. 43, 31, 4849, 70
and the military orders, 23
Nueva Granada, viceroyalty of, 6162
obedezco pero no cumplo, 17880, 242, 257, 341,
34849, 351, 352
obrajes. See cloth: manufacture of
OFarril, Gonzalo, 342
Olaguer Feli, Manuel, 27879, 28789, 310
Olaeta, Pedro Antonio de, 200, 323, 331
Olarra, Francisco Xavier de, 25455, 27677
Ons, Luis de, 232
Ontario (U.S. warship), 224, 275 76, 277
OReily, Diego, 288
Ortiz de Landzuri, Toms, 59
Ortiz de Villate, Manuel, 33
Ortiz de Zevallos, Toms, 45, 48
Orue, Ignacio de, 104, 15258 passim, 162
Osambela, Martn, 21718
Osma, Gaspar Antonio de, 113 n. 19, 122, 2012
Osorio, Mariano, 214, 276, 299300
Osorno, marqus de (viceroy, 17961801), 268,
271
Oyarzabal y Olavide, Juan Bautista de, 131 n. 87
Pacific trade, 37, 54, 63, 103, 16162, 187
and contraband, 133146
and efectos del pas, 8589
and Filipinas Company, 7981, 187
See also merchants, limeo
Paita (Peru), 24, 88, 142, 241
Palacio, Diego, 46
Palacios Aguirre, Jos Ignacio, 48, 49 n. 90,
5354
398 index
Palafox, Jos, 297, 305
Palma, Ricardo, 298
Panama, 15, 24, 87, 248
and corruption, 1617
and free trade (1818), 240, 241, 245
and imports, 154, 156, 186, 241
Pardo, Manuel, 222
Parrn Salas, Carmen, 268
Parrondo, Marcos, 45
Paz Soldn, Mariano Felipe, 285, 328
Peninsular War (180814), 10910, 135, 14647.
See also Napoleon Bonaparte
Pereyro Hormelo, Andrs, 45
Prez de Cortiguera, Antonio, 51
Prez de Cortiguera, Martn Jos, 32, 33, 48,
5152
periodicals
El Censor, 319
El Depositario, 2, 2034, 299, 319, 320, 322, 335
and freedom of the press, 15355, 16567, 313
Gaceta del Gobierno Legtimo del Per, 284,
315
Gaceta del Gobierno de Lima, 192, 207
Mercurio Peruano, 32, 267
El Peruano, 2, 8, 147, 156, 161, 2023, 299,
316, 323, 34647; suppression of, by
Abascal, 16267
El Peruano Liberal, 16162
El Satlite del Peruano, 162
El Triunfo de la Nacin, 199, 318
El Verdadero Peruano, 162
Perkins, Thomas Handasyd, 114
Prtica, Juan de, 39, 46
Peru, 14, 15
defense of, 169219, 275, 277, 343
independence of, 313, 32930, 339
Peruvian bark (cascarrillo), 24 n. 35, 36, 41, 167
drop in price of, 78, 90 n. 135
Pezuela, Ignacio de la, 200, 338
Pezuela, Joaqun de la, marqus de Viluma
(viceroy, 181621), 2, 4, 30, 144, 200, 243,
280
accused of corruption, 4, 204, 214, 238, 240,
25253, 263, 295, 29798, 316, 347
characterizations of, 189, 192, 195, 28586,
292, 293, 298
and civilian authorities, 194, 195, 29397
and criollos, 18788, 195, 28788
and defense of Lima, 17273, 222, 239,
29192, 295, 298
entrada solemne of, 16970, 181, 329, 346, 347
and foreigners, 188, 220, 223, 23334, 27478, 340
and La Serna, 9, 18183, 185, 189, 193, 195,
28087, 293
legitimacy of, 341, 343
loans to government by, 21112, 24041, 259
and loss of Chile, 29, 17374, 261
military career of, 16970, 18586, 188, 211,
28586, 288, 297, 33738
overthrow of, 1, 46, 138, 220, 233, 24041,
24849, 252, 26263, 290, 30328
and pacification of Peru, 8, 169219, 277,
29192, 293, 300301, 34041
political capital of, 170, 18081, 189, 218,
26364, 265301, 307
and Rico, 27273, 295, 318, 334
and the rule of law, 178, 202, 220, 234, 236,
240, 242, 24648, 251, 257, 259, 323,
34950, 353
See also Zeballos y Olarra, Angela
Pezuela y Zeballos, Ramn, 307
Philadelphia, 231
Piedra Liza (Peru), 3045, 306
Pisco (Peru), 189, 192, 222, 227
Plan del Per (Vidaurre), 15859
political capital:
of La Serna, 18283, 280
of Pezuela, 170, 18081, 189, 218, 26364,
265301, 307
of San Martn, 336
political culture, 1, 10, 54, 95, 33953
and fear of faction, 348, 351, 352
and intra-elite negotiation, 3, 6, 340
and the military, 28092
and negotiations with San Martn, 191, 195,
227, 29397
rebellion and, 293301
and the war of opinion, 183, 185, 188, 216,
217, 292, 300301
See also expedientes; governance, colonial;
law, rule of; pronunciamiento
Portugal, 135
Potos, 15, 62, 65, 66, 97
praetorianism, 353
Premio Real, count of ( Jos Antonio de
Lavalle y Corts,), 48, 49, 70
privateers, 143, 232, 313
English, 110
royalist, 208, 215, 253, 278
pronunciamiento
in Peru, 1, 10, 145, 3035, 398, 347
index 399
in Spain, 9, 178, 199201, 283, 315, 323, 353
See also golpe de estado
propaganda, 188, 305, 3078
and Rico, 313
San Martns use of, 18384, 19293, 300, 336
Prueba (Spanish warship), 207
Puerto Rico, 33334
Pumacahua, Mateo, 171
Puno (Peru), 189
Quadrado, Fernando, 122
Querejaz y Santiago Concha, Agustn, 48
Quijano Velarde, Gaspar, count of Torre
Velarde, 268
Quirs, Francisco Antonio, 48
Quito (Ecuador), 14, 18, 85, 148, 171
Ramrez, Juan, 18182, 281, 289
Ramrez de Arellano, Domingo, count of San
Javier, 22, 49 n. 90, 70
Ramrez de Laredo, Gaspar Antonio, 48
Real Compaa de Filipinas. See Filipinas
Company
rebellion, 8, 107, 145, 171, 19394, 220, 291
of the Army of Lima, 9, 29697, 30326
and free trade, 13940, 239
in Spain, 146, 283
of Tpac Amaru, 56, 83, 171, 183
See also civil disorders; independence
movements
Reemplazos, Comisin de, 261, 266
reform. See Amat y Junient, Manuel de; Areche,
Josef Antonio de; Bourbon reforms
registros (licensed merchant ships), 18, 71, 73,
80, 85, 86 n. 117
Reglamento de comercio libre (1778), 108, 148,
149, 178
and contraband, 145
and merchants, 3336, 44, 49, 53, 135, 157,
220, 344
and oversupply of imports, 7678, 248, 345
provisions of, 6, 1718, 54, 66, 96 n. 162, 97,
168
relative deprivation, theory of, 34445
Renovales, Mariano, 201
repartimiento, 26, 89, 345
8384
and mining, 58
and Tpac Amarus rebellion, 56
revenue, 58, 151
and contraband, 135, 136, 317
effect of Bourbon reforms on, 64, 103
effect of Chilean independence on, 212, 214
and free trade (1818), 244, 245, 254, 26061,
278
in Mexico, 56
and taxes on trade, 3, 57, 8699, 101, 13738,
14749, 152, 211, 244, 316
See also alcabalas; loans, forced; taxation;
tribute, Indian
Revoredo, Andrs, 33, 45
Rico y Angulo, Gaspar, 45, 150, 213, 267, 268,
331, 335
and Abada, 16466, 219, 271, 32526
and Audiencia of Lima, 122, 167
78, 117133, 271
and Consolidacin, 11417, 261
and Constitution of 1812, 203, 204
and contraband, 136
exile of, 8, 16268, 170, 266
and foreigners, 2034, 274, 291, 325
and free trade (1818), 2034, 21964 passim,
295, 316, 348
and freedom of the press, 15355
and Godoy, 155, 163, 165, 180, 323, 34647
and lampoons, 299
and La Serna, 319, 320, 32223, 330
and legitimacy, 323, 341, 343, 352
as liberal, 16364, 196, 199, 283, 319
and the military, 9, 158, 179, 26973, 320
and overthrow of Pezuela, 2, 5, 6, 265, 292,
306, 318, 319, 322
and praetorianism, 353
as publisher of periodicals, 23, 147, 16263,
2023, 284, 299, 319, 332
and revenue, 138, 15556, 24850
royalism of, 3, 16364, 186, 204, 254, 269
and the rule of law, 180, 2023, 210, 315, 323,
341, 35
Riego, Rafael de, 283
Rio de Janeiro, 175, 188, 215, 231, 241, 310, 312,
313, 321, 33536. See also Casa Flores,
count of
Ro de la Plata, viceroyalty of, 56
effect of, on Peruvian trade, 6466, 77
independence of, 139, 148, 17071, 283
riots. See civil disorder
Risco, Juan del, 5859
400 index
Riva Agero, Jos de la, 44, 47, 49, 140
Riva Agero, Josefa de la, 222
Robinson, Jeremy, 22425
Rodrguez, Matas, 45
Rodrguez, Miguel, 48
Rodrguez Ballesteros, Jos, 300
Rodrguez del Fierro, Antonio, 268
Romn Idiquez, Jos, 39
royalists, 283, 323
absolutists, 196, 2012, 219
defeat of, 33032
hard-liners, 5, 18487, 192, 210, 219, 237, 265,
292, 294, 315
liberals, 196200, 219, 308
moderates, 5, 18793, 219, 23738, 277, 350
See also Army, royalist
Rubio, Juan Jos de, 45
Ruiz, Josef, 45
Ruiz, Miguel Fernando, 33, 45, 241
Ruiz Dvila, Juan, 32, 48, 21718
Saint-Malo (France), 228
Salamanca, Bartolom Mara, 223
Saldamando, Manuel Lorenzo, 3840
Saldamando & Garca del Ro, 39
Saldivar, Josef, 46
Salinas, Roque de, 3840
San Carlos, duke of, 192
San Isidro, count of (Isidro de Abarca y
Guttirrez de Cosso), 23 n. 29, 44 n.
83, 128 n. 68
and commercial credit, 4950, 83
and consulado of Lima, 6971
and mining, 5859
San Javier, count of. See Ramrez de Arellano,
Domingo
San Julin (Spanish warship), 279
San Martn, Jos de, 196, 198, 227, 277, 288, 330
and Chilean independence, 172, 239
and free trade, 19192, 204, 227, 317, 327
invasion of Peru by, 17273, 187, 189, 195,
207, 21213, 258, 311, 319
and negotiations with royalists, 191, 195,
227, 283, 294, 326, 336
occupation of Lima by, 32930
and propaganda, 18384, 19293, 300, 336
spies reports to, 216, 218, 230, 25152, 263,
268, 306, 319
Snchez de Cueto, Juan A., 45
Snchez de Tagle, Rosa Juliana, 22
Santa Rufina (Spanish warship), 36, 40
Santiago (Chile), 68, 148
Santiago, Francisco, 305
Santiago de Rotalde, Ignacio, 32, 33, 4749, 52
Santiago de Rotalde, Jos, 33, 47, 52, 1089
Santiago de Rotalde, Luis, 45
Santiago de Rotalde, Manuel, 3233, 47, 52
Sarraoa, Antonio Jos de, 241
Sarria, Jos Antonio de, 45
Segurola, Jacinto de, 70 n. 56
Seoane, Antonio de, 186, 321
and Army of Lima, 289
as liberal, 19620
31214, 335
Seven Years War (175763), 55
shipbuilding, 62
shipowners, 22, 4748, 70, 86
and consulado matrcula, 71
and free trade (1818), 221, 235
Shirreff, William Henry, 22324, 226, 227, 313
Sidney (U.S. merchantman), 232, 234
Silva y Olave, Jos, 148, 149
silver, 64, 120, 249, 352
in colonial trade, 15, 36, 41, 57
See also mining; specie
slaves, African, 26970, 27273
and sugar production, 8889
trade in, 25, 49, 120, 22829
Smith, Eliphalet, 209, 277
Smith, Samuel, 178, 231
Smith, Sir Sidney (English admiral), 135
Smith-Buchanan (Baltimore merchants), 231, 232
Soler, Miguel Cayetano, 131
sovereignty
and abdications, 14647, 342, 34647
continuity of, 1, 345, 352
and Cortes, 147, 177
and crown prerogatives, 324, 348, 350
and free trade (1818), 229, 254
and law, 341
and taxation, 152
Soz, Ramn de, 46
Spain
colonial policy of, 5, 5658, 145, 14748, 175,
188, 253, 349
fiscal problems of, 11417, 283
French invasions of, 3, 5, 107, 10910, 112,
132, 13637, 161, 177, 184, 331, 338
governance in, 14647, 161, 283, 308, 315, 347
trade policy of, 5758, 137, 234, 248, 250
See also Bourbon reforms; Cortes;
Napoleon Bonaparte; Reglamento de
comercio libre
index 401
specie (coin)
export of, 118, 245, 325, 352; and Cinco
Gremios Mayores de Madrid, 82; and
Consolidacin, 11516; and contraband,
25, 78, 110, 218, 249, 250, 317; and free
trade (1818), 240; and Reglamento de
comercio libre (1778), 7879, 99, 109
shortage of, 64, 65, 7879, 173
state-of-siege, 278, 348, 351
Stevenson, William Bennet, 112
sugar, 85, 89
and Chilean trade, 23, 25, 49, 54, 8889, 108,
119, 120, 14041
and free trade (1818), 235, 237
industry, attack on, 8889
market for, 27, 91, 233
and trade to Buenos Aires, 88, 91 n. 138
sugar-wheat exchange, 12, 23, 25, 49, 63, 8889,
108, 119, 143, 174, 187
and Chilean independence, 174, 21214, 233,
235
Superunda, count of (viceroy, 174561), 12, 24
Tacna (Peru), 144
Tagle, Jos Bernardo de, marqus de Torre
Tagle, 22, 121, 26971, 272, 332
Tagle y Portocarrero, Josefa, 22
Taranco, Antonio Ortiz de, 45, 127, 129, 130, 132
taxation
Abascal and, 1034, 148, 15253, 156
Bourbon reform of, 8999
and free trade (1818), 224, 226, 237, 239, 250,
26061
Pezuela and, 211, 212, 215, 216, 317
political effects of, 97, 156
Rico and, 15556, 24950, 291, 316
and sovereignty, 152
and tax evasion, 24, 9295, 135, 152, 252
See also alcabalas; contraband; corruption;
loans, forced; tribute, Indian
Tejada, Jos de, 35152
tertulias (salons), 26768, 296
tin, 36, 120, 167
tobacco, 14041, 21314
Torata, count of, 308
Torre Antigua de Orue, countess of, 221
Torre Tagle, marqus de, 1314, 22. See also
Tagle, Jos Bernardo de
Torre Velarde, count of (Gaspar Quijano
Velarde), 268
trade, Peruvian, 57, 84, 85, 9091, 119, 13346
with Alto Per, 6467, 77, 94, 97
with Asia, 53, 7981, 133, 149, 16162, 168,
187, 2056, 249
with Buenos Aires, 34, 6467, 8586, 96
with Chile, 12, 22, 32, 53, 85, 8788; and
independence, 17374, 201, 21964
passim, 320
interprovincial, 15, 1819, 54, 5960, 77,
8589, 233; taxes on, 8687, 8999
with Panama, 15, 24, 87, 13738, 154, 156, 179,
186, 24041, 245
patterns of, 1519, 6467
restrictions on, 27, 3536, 87, 99, 108, 145,
154, 168, 345, 350
as source of revenue, 57, 15152, 154, 211
with Spain, 1718, 3436, 7585, 15862; and
colonial ties, 59, 8485, 157, 2034, 210,
228, 34344
See also Cinco Gremios Mayores de
Madrid; contraband; Filipinas
Company; free trade (1818); registros;
Reglamento de comercio libre (1778);
repartimiento; sugar-wheat exchange
Trafalgar, Battle of, 10910
treason, 29697
tribunales, junta de (viceregal advisory council),
15557, 22063 passim, 293, 294, 349
tribute, Indian, 15153, 15556, 180, 248
Trinidad (Spanish troopship), 208
Trujillo (Peru), 222
Tpac Amaru, rebellion of, 56, 83, 171, 183. See
also civil disorders; repartimientos
Tupper, P. C., 241
Two Catherines (U.S. merchantman), 234
tyranny, 105, 159, 163, 202, 323, 35051
Ugarriza, Sebastin de, 45
Ulloa, Antonio de, 1214, 44, 5051, 55
Unanue, Hiplito, 150, 167, 23536, 267, 294
United States, 174, 219264 passim
Uriarte, Juan Antonio de, 39, 279
Vacaro, Antonio, 287, 289, 310
Valdelirios, marqus de, 287
Valds, Bernab , 45
Valds, Jernimo de, 266, 290, 292 n. 100,
27879, 320, 353
and Army of Lima, 289
and civilian politics, 293
and Concordia militia regiment, 27374
402 index
as hard-liner, 186
insubordination of, 185
as liberal, 196200, 331
and loss of Chile, 173, 214
31014
Valdivia (Chile), 248
Valparaso (Chile), 206, 224, 239
Valleumbroso, marqus de (Pedro Jos Bravo
de Rivero), 305, 31215, 321, 335
Vsquez de Larriva, Mariano, 48
Vsquez de Uzieda, Francisco, 46, 48, 53, 70 n. 57
Veamurgua, Juan Francisco de, 43
Vega del Ren, count of ( Jos Matas Vsquez
de Acua Menacho), 31, 267
Venganza (Spanish warship), 206, 207
Veracruz (Mexico), 25
viceroys, 183
entrada solemne of, 16970, 181, 183, 329,
34647
and obedezco pero no cumplo, 17880, 242
powers of, 34, 8, 13738, 15253, 15657, 177,
197, 229, 280, 348; and free trade (1818),
229, 24257, 259260
succession of, 28284, 311, 312, 315, 343, 346,
353
Vicua Mackenna, Benjamn, 323
Vidaurre, Manuel Lorenzo de, 219, 229, 346,
350
Plan del Per, 15859
Villacampa, Pedro, 46
Villar de Fuente, count of ( Jos Manuel
Gonzlez de la Fuente), 48, 70 n. 57, 90
n. 135, 120, 128, 33132
117, 12833, 325
and free trade (1818), 22122, 261
See also Filipinas Company; Gonzlez
Gutirrez, Josef
visitador (inspector-general), 8687, 90. See also
Areche, Josef Antonio de; Escobedo,
Jorge
Vistaflorida, counts of, 14, 22. See also
Baqujano y Carrillo, Jos; Carrillo de
Crdoba, Mara Ignacia
Vivero, Jos Pascual de, 45
war
financing of, 5, 15153, 189, 193, 207, 21118,
23742, 258, 260, 278, 291, 318, 350
guerrilla, 146, 188
and political culture, 293301
strategy and tactics of, 18385, 18993, 28992
war of opinion, 183, 185, 188, 216, 217, 292,
300301, 341, 350
See also loans, forced
Washington (U.S. merchantman), 114, 116, 117
Wellington, duke of, 146
whaling, 121, 141, 15051, 225
wheat, 89, 92
and free trade (1818), 235, 247
and trade with Chile, 12, 23, 24, 49, 53, 54,
92, 119, 224, 278, 291, 320
trade in, by viceroys, 12, 24, 25, 140
See also civil disorder; sugar-wheat
exchange
index 403
women, 2122, 50, 122, 135, 146, 16970, 221,
298300, 33435, 336, 34647
Worthington, W. G. D., 214
Ximenez Texada, Garca & Co., 46
Zaragoza (Spain), 185, 297, 305, 330
Zeballos de Olarra, Angela (virreina, 181621),
16970, 298, 299300, 33435, 336, 34647
Zelada de la Fuente, marqus de (Sebastin
Aliaga y Colmenares), 2324, 31,
Zelayeta, Juan Pedro de, 42, 215, 241 n. 65
Zepeda, Domingo de, 45
Zuloaga, Francisco Mara, 33, 39, 45
VI CEROYS,
MERCHANTS,
AND THE
MI LI TARY I N LATE
COLONI AL PERU
patricia h.
marks
DECONSTRUCTI NG
LEGI TI MACY
THE PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIVERSITY PRESS
UNIVERSITY PARK, PENNSYLVANIA
WWW.PSUPRESS.ORG
ISBN 978-0-271-03209-2
9 780271 032092
90000
P E N N
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PRESS
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marks
Examining the bitter trade disputes that divided Peru and
shaped its conicts with Spain, Patricia Marks casts new light on
Spanish Americas bumpy transition from colony to republic. In
delightfully clear prose, she contributes to our understanding of
the Wars of Independence and the transatlantic struggles about
free trade and representation. This is a landmark book that
oers many surprising and welcome discoveries.
charles f. walker,
university of california, davis
This is an impeccably researched and articulately written
inquiry into the collapse of royal authority in Lima at the time
of independence. Not only does the book yield a bounty of
fresh insights and interpretations into these tumultuous events,
but it also identies actions by the rebels that set an important
precedent in Peruvian politics and reverberated in the political
culture for years to come.
peter f. klaren,
george washington university
patricia h. marks is an independent
scholar who received her doctorate in history
from Princeton in 2003.
Jacket illustrations: Top front: Edward Francis Finden, View of Lima
from the Sea Near Callao. Detail from Alexander Caldcleugh, Travels
in South American During the Years 18192021. London: John
Murray, 1825. Courtesy Rare Books Division, Rare Books and
Special Collections, Princeton University Library (photo: John
Blazejewski). Lower right: Mariano Carillo, Viceroy Joaqun de la
Pezuela. Courtesy Museo Nacional de Arqueologa, Antropologa
e Historia del Per (photo: Daniel Giannoni).
Jacket design by Kimberlly Glyder Design
T
he overthrow of Viceroy Joaqun de
la Pezuela on 29 January 1821 has not
received much attention from historians,
who have viewed it as a simple military uprising.
Yet in this careful study of the episode, based on
deep archival research, Patricia Marks reveals
it to be the culmination of decades of Peruvian
opposition to the Bourbon reforms of the late
eighteenth century, especially the Reglamento de
comercio libre of 1778. It also marked a radical
change in political culture brought about by the
constitutional upheavals that followed Napoleons
invasion of Spain. Although Pezuelas overthrow
was organized and carried out by royalists among
the merchants and the military, it proved to be
an important event in the development of the
independence movement as well as a pivotal factor
in the failure to establish a stable national state in
post-independence Peru. The golpe de estado may
thereby be seen as an early manifestation of Latin
American praetorianism, in which a sector of the
civilian population, unable to prevail politically
and unwilling to compromise, pressures army
ocers to act in order to save the state.

Marks Deconstructing Legitimacy Viceroys, Merchants and The Military in Late Colonial Peru

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Marks Deconstructing Legitimacy Viceroys, Merchants and The Military in Late Colonial Peru

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VI CEROYS,

01.Marks FM-Chap 4 8/22/07 10:56 AM Page iii

INTRODUCTION: MERCANTILE CONFLICT ANDPOLITICAL CULTURE

CITY OF KINGS, CITY OF COMMERCE

BOURBONREFORMERS ANDTHE MERCHANTS OF LIMA

THE FREE-TRADE DISPUTE

MERCHANTS, THE MILITARY, AND THE

THE PRONUNCIAMIENTO AND ITS AFTERMATH

CONCLUSION: LEGITIMACY AND THE SALVATION OF THE STATE

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