Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures and tables
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Economic Aspects of Spanish Imperial Expansion, 1492–1550
- 3 Commodities and Resources During the Conquest Period
- 4 The Hapsburg Commercial System
- 5 Inter-Colonial Trade and the Hapsburg Commercial System
- 6 Foreign Penetration of the Ibero-American Economy in the Hapsburg Period
- 7 Economic Growth in Spanish America in the Hapsburg Period
- 8 Commercial and Economic Relations in the Early Bourbon Period, 1700–1765
- 9 ‘Free Trade’ and the Peninsular Economy
- 10 ‘Free Trade’ and the American Economy
- 11 Economic Relations Between Spain and America on the Eve of the Revolutions for Independence
- 12 Conclusion: Economic Grievances and Insurrection in Late Colonial Spanish America
- Appendix: Spanish Monarchs
- Glossary of Spanish Terms
- Bibliographical Essay
- Index
12 - Conclusion: Economic Grievances and Insurrection in Late Colonial Spanish America
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures and tables
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Economic Aspects of Spanish Imperial Expansion, 1492–1550
- 3 Commodities and Resources During the Conquest Period
- 4 The Hapsburg Commercial System
- 5 Inter-Colonial Trade and the Hapsburg Commercial System
- 6 Foreign Penetration of the Ibero-American Economy in the Hapsburg Period
- 7 Economic Growth in Spanish America in the Hapsburg Period
- 8 Commercial and Economic Relations in the Early Bourbon Period, 1700–1765
- 9 ‘Free Trade’ and the Peninsular Economy
- 10 ‘Free Trade’ and the American Economy
- 11 Economic Relations Between Spain and America on the Eve of the Revolutions for Independence
- 12 Conclusion: Economic Grievances and Insurrection in Late Colonial Spanish America
- Appendix: Spanish Monarchs
- Glossary of Spanish Terms
- Bibliographical Essay
- Index
Summary
THE ABDICATION OF ECONOMIC AUTHORITY
It seems appropriate that this study should conclude with some general reflections about the importance of economic causation in creating revolutionary situations in Spanish America by the early nineteenth century by discussing briefly the principal conspiracies and insurrections of the late colonial period prior to 1810, with a view to determining, first, the extent to which they were ‘revolutionary’ and, second, and more specifically, the relative importance of economic grievances in their formulation and motivation.
The point has already been made in Chapter 11 that even in the first decade of the nineteenth century, when Spain had lost effective economic control of America, the abdication of economic authority actually helped to preserve Americans' political allegiance to the metropolis, for it satisfied, albeit in a cumbersome and inadequate way, the urgent need for producers to obtain direct access to the markets for their agricultural and mining production and to import manufactured goods directly from non-Spanish producers. This was a period in which Spanish America had already broken free from peninsular commercial control to become much more closely integrated than in the early-eighteenth century into the economic life of Europe as a whole, one complex consequence—and cause—of which was the diminishing importance of America as a source of international conflict between the great powers.
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- Publisher: Liverpool University PressPrint publication year: 1997