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The Mechanics of the Alcabalas: Reform, Local Bargaining, and Dwindling Taxation in New Granada, 1750–1810

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 March 2023

James V. Torres
James V. Torres*
Affiliation:
Universidad de los Andes Bogotá, Colombia jv.torres10@uniandes.edu.co jvtorresm@gmail.com
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Abstract

This article studies the mechanics of sales taxes in the viceroyalty of New Granada (present-day Colombia, Ecuador, Panama, and western Venezuela) during the second half of the eighteenth century. Advocating a careful examination of the accounting, institutional, and fiscal practices of North Andean customs houses, it provides an extensive discussion on how tax records can be harnessed to study the scope and nature of Bourbon reforms and to measure trade flows. The article pursues three interrelated goals. First, it studies the impact of local negotiations and jurisdictional fragmentation on local rates and revenue collection, providing new insights into the concrete mechanisms of tax bargaining. Second, the study reinterprets data on the main North Andean entrepôts of trade to measure fiscal cycles, real tax pressure, and tax incidence. Proposing a new method for examining customs records, this research shows how fiscal concessions and economic cycles led to diminishing fiscal revenues. Finally, the research places the viceroyalty within the broader context of fiscal change in the Spanish Empire, arguing that the region collected fewer revenues not only because of its comparatively smaller economic activity but also because the combination of custom and reform yielded lower taxation rates and unique fiscal structures.

Keywords

economic historytaxationBourbon reformsNorthern AndesNew Kingdom of Granada

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Article
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The Americas , Volume 80 , Issue 2 , April 2023 , pp. 221 - 259
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Academy of American Franciscan History

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Footnotes

This research was sponsored and supported by the Research Fund for Assistant Professors of the Universidad de los Andes (Bogotá, Colombia) and a Fulbright-Minciencias Graduate Fellowship. I would like to thank Ana María Otero-Cleves and Andrés Álvarez at the Universidad de los Andes; Daniel Gutiérrez at the Universidad Externado de Colombia; Erick Langer, John Tutino, and John McNeill at Georgetown University; and Oscar Granados at the Universidad Jorge Tadeo Lozano for their comments and suggestions. I would also like to thank the anonymous readers for The Americas for their recommendations.

References

1. The Viceroyalty of the New Kingdom of Granada encompassed the territories of present-day Colombia, Ecuador, Panama, and Venezuela. By the late 1770s, the Captaincy of Venezuela was granted executive and judicial autonomy. For simplicity, we will use the terms “New Granada” and “the Kingdom” to refer to present-day Colombia. The capital of the viceroyalty, Santafé de Bogotá, was commonly known as “Santafé.” Throughout this article, we will use the term “Bogotá” to avoid confusion for readers not familiar with the history of the region.

2. Archivo General de la Nación (Bogotá), Colonia [hereafter AGN-C], Alcabalas, tomo 4, fols. 230–231.

3. AGN-C, Alcabalas, tomo 4, fol. 231.

4. “Las costumbres son las legítimas intérpretes de la ley.” AGN-C, Alcabalas, tomo 4, fols. 231-232.

5. There is not a single work on the diputaciones de comercio in the Northern Andes. For their institutional setting in a nutshell, see Archivo Nacional del Ecuador (Quito), [hereafter ANE], Popayán, box 318, file 19, fols. 1-10.

6. Muñoz, Edwin, “Independencia y actividad económica. Tendencias cuantitativas en la renta de alcabalas de Santa Fe, Virreinato de la Nueva Granada, 1780–1821,” in Consecuencias económicas de la Independencia, Heraclio Bonilla, ed. (Bogotá: Universidad Nacional de Colombia, 2012), 17–43Google Scholar; Muñoz, Edwin and Torres, James, “La función de Santafé en los sistemas de intercambio de la Nueva Granada,” Fronteras de la Historia, 18:1 (2013): 165–210Google Scholar; Torres, James, “Entre el oro y la plata. Quito, el suroccidente de la Nueva Granada y el movimiento de mercancías norandino a fines del siglo XVIII,” Colonial Latin American Review, 27:1 (2018): 114–139Google Scholar.

7. Grafe, Regina and Irigoin, Alejandra, “The Spanish Empire and Its Legacy: Fiscal Redistribution and Political Conflict in Colonial and Post-Colonial Spanish America,” Journal of Global History, 1:2 (2006): 241–267CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Grafe, and Irigoin, , “A Stakeholder Empire: The Political Economy of Spanish Imperial Rule in America,” Economic History Review, 65:2 (2012): 609–651CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Torres, James and Henao, José, “Connecting the Northern Andes and the Atlantic: The Role of Inland Ports in New Granada's Interregional Trade (1770–1809),” Journal of Iberian and Latin American Economic History, 39:3 (2021): 469–507Google Scholar.

8. See the classic approach in Marichal, Carlos, Bankruptcy of Empire: Mexican Silver and the Wars between Spain, Britain and France, 1760–1810 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

9. Meisel, Adolfo, Crecimiento, mestizaje y presión fiscal en el virreinato de la Nueva Granada, 1761–1800 (Cartagena: Centro de Estudios Regionales, 2011), 23–24CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10. Allan J. Kuethe and Kenneth J. Andrien, The Spanish Atlantic World in the Eighteenth Century: War and the Bourbon Reforms, 1713–1796 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014); Gabriel Paquette, Enlightenment, Governance, and Reform in Spain and Its Empire, 1759–1808 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008); John Tutino, Mexico City, 1808: Power, Sovereignty and Silver in an Age of War and Revolution (Albuquerque, University of New Mexico Press, 2018); Ernest Sánchez, Corte de caja. La Real Hacienda de Nueva España y el primer reformismo fiscal de los Borbones (1720–1755) (Mexico City: Instituto Mora, 2013). For overviews on different regions of the empire, see Sánchez, Ernest, “Las reformas borbónicas como categoría de análisis en la historiografía institucional, económica y fiscal sobre la Nueva España,” Historia Caribe, 11:29 (2016): 19–51CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Pinto, José, “El reformismo fiscal borbónico en la Nueva Granada, balances y perspectivas,” Historia Caribe, 11:29 (2016): 53–82CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

11. See Adrian Pearce, The Origins of Bourbon Reform in Spanish South America, 1700–1763 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014) and Stanley Stein and Barbara Stein, Edge of Crisis: War and Trade in the Spanish Atlantic 1789–1808 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009). For the classic overviews, see Barbier, Jacques, “The Culmination of the Bourbon Reforms, 1787–1792,” Hispanic American Historical Review 57:1 (February 1977): 51–68CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and David Brading, “Bourbon Spain and Its American Empire,” in The Cambridge History of Latin America, Vol. 1, Colonial Latin America, Leslie Bethell, ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), 389–439. For the Northern Andes, see Anthony McFarlane, Colombia before Independence: Economy: Society and Politics under Bourbon Rule (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993); and Kenneth Andrien, The Kingdom of Quito, 1690–1830: The State and Regional Development (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995).

12. Edwin Muñoz and Monserrat Fernández have crafted pathbreaking studies of the alcabala in Bogotá and Quito, respectively. See Muñoz, “Independencia y actividad económica”; and Fernández, La alcabala en la Audiencia de Quito, 1765–1810 (Cuenca: Casa de la Cultura, 1984). See also the institutional approach of Lucy García's unpublished undergraduate thesis, written in 1978: García, “Aspectos generales del impuesto de la alcabala en la Nueva Granada 1760–1810” (Undergraduate thesis: Universidad Nacional de Colombia, 1978). Silvia Palomeque studied the alcabala in Cuenca, the southernmost province of the viceroyalty, in “Continuidad y cambio entre la colonia y la república. Estudio de los circuitos mercantiles y de las especializaciones productivas regionales en Cuenca, Ecuador,” in Circuitos mercantiles y mercados en Latinoamérica, siglos XVIII-XIX, Jorge Silva and Juan Carlos Grosso, eds. (Mexico City: Instituto Mora, 1995), 235–290. For New Spain, the institutional approach is distilled in Ernest Sánchez, Las alcabalas mexicanas (1821–1857). Los dilemas en la construcción de la Hacienda Nacional (Mexico City: Instituto Mora, 2009) and Yovana Celaya, “La norma y la práctica en la recaudación de la alcabala: potestad fiscal y contribuyentes en el siglo XVIII Novohispano,” in Diálogos con una trayectoria intelectual: Marcello Carmagnani, Yovana Celaya, ed. (Mexico City: Colegio de México, 2014), 245–282. For political debates regarding the Bourbon overhaul of the alcabalas, see Allan Kuethe and Douglas Inglis, “Absolutism and Enlightened Reform: Charles III, the Establishment of the Alcabala, and Commercial Reorganization in Cuba,” Past & Present 109 (1985): 118–143.

13. See Bernard Lavallé, Quito y la crisis de la alcabala, 1580–1600 (Quito: Corporación Editorial Nacional, 1997); and Javier Ocampo, La rebelión de las alcabalas. El primer grito de rebeldía contra el impuesto a las ventas, 1592 (Tunja, Colombia: ECOE, 1995).

14. The literature is extensive. The key works on Quito are Anthony McFarlane, “The Rebellion of the Barrios: Urban Insurrection in Bourbon Quito,” in Reform and Insurrection in Bourbon New Granada and Peru, John Fisher and Allan Kuethe, eds. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana University Press, 1990), 197–254; Andrien, The Kingdom of Quito; Borchart, Christiana and Moreno, Segundo, “La reformas borbónicas en la Audiencia de Quito,” Anuario Colombiano de Historia Social y de la Cultura 22 (1995): 35–57Google Scholar. On New Granada, see John Phelan, The People and the King: The Comunero Revolution in Colombia, 1781 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1978); McFarlane, Colombia before Independence; and Héctor Martínez, “La revolución de 1781. Campesinos, tejedores y la rent-seeking en la Nueva Granada” (PhD diss.: Universitat Pompeu Fabra, 2014).

15. In Phelan's words, “the cornerstones of New Granada's unwritten constitution were co-government, negotiation, and compromise.” See The People and the King, 34. McFarlane has analyzed Quito's rebellion along similar lines. See “The Rebellion of the Barrios,” 214–215. Martínez has provided a fresh, revisionist approach to the Comuneros rebellion. By putting economic and social history at the center of his analysis, he successfully underscores the role of the peasantry, the rent-seeking, and extractive institutions in the origin and development of the rebellion.

16. See Muñoz, “Independencia y actividad económica”; Fernández, La alcabala; and Palomeque, “Continuidad y cambio.”

17. For New Spain, see Juan Carlos Grosso and Juan Carlos Garavaglia, La región de Puebla y la economía novohispana. Las alcabalas en Nueva España 1776–1821 (Mexico City: Instituto Mora, 1996); Antonio Ibarra, “De la alcabala colonial a la contribución directa republicana. Cambio institucional y continuidad fiscal en una economía regional mexicana, Guadalajara, 1778–1834,” in Las finanzas públicas en los siglos XVIII-XIX, Luís Jaúregui and José Antonio Serrano, eds. (Mexico City: Instituto Mora, 1998), 317–348; and Ibarra, “Redes de circulación y redes de negociantes en Guadalajara colonial,” in Ibarra, Mercado e institución: corporaciones comerciales, redes de negocios y crisis colonial. Guadalajara en el siglo XVIII (Mexico City: Bonilla Editores, 2017), 253–266. For Peru and Upper Peru, see Enrique Tandeter, “Flujos mercantiles en el Potosí colonial tardío,” in Circuitos mercantiles y mercados en Latinoamérica, siglos XVIII-XIX, Jorge Silva and Juan Carlos Grosso, eds. (Mexico City: Instituto Mora, 1995), 13–55; Chocano, Magdalena, “Circuitos mercantiles y auge minero en la sierra central a fines de la época colonial,” Allpanchis,, 18:21 (1983): 3–26Google Scholar; and Gavira, María, “Producción de plata y comercio en Oruro a fines del periodo colonial. Análisis a través de fuentes fiscales,” Revista de Indias, 31:222 (2001): 377–405Google Scholar. For Buenos Aires and the interior of the Viceroyalty of Rio de la Plata, see Palomeque, Silvia, “La circulación mercantil en las provincias del interior 1800–1810,” Anuario IEHS 4 (1989): 131–200Google Scholar; and Biangardi, Nicolás, “Demanda, producción y circulación de bienes agropecuarios en la región del Río de la Plata (siglo XVIII). Balance y perspectivas,” Taller de la Historia 11 (2019): 137–163CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

18. See for instance Oscar Rodríguez, “La Caja Real de Popayán 1738–1810,” Anuario Colombiano de Historia Social y de la Cultura 15 (1987): 5–36; Meisel, Crecimiento, mestizaje y presión fiscal; Salomón Kalmanovitz, “El PIB de la Nueva Granada en 1800,” Revista de Economía Institucional 8:15 (2006): 161–183; José Pinto, Entre colonia y república. Fiscalidad en Ecuador, Colombia y Venezuela 1780–1845 (Bogotá: ICANH, 2018); and Andrien, The Kingdom of Quito.

19. As William Summerhill has pointed out, the emphasis on local variations has been encouraging but the “channels and outcomes” of bargaining are poorly understood. See Summerhill, “Fiscal Bargains, Political Institutions, and Economic Performance,” Hispanic American Historical Review 88:2 (2008): 219–230.

20. By emphasizing New Granada's polycentric connections with the world economy and its role as the largest gold producer of the Spanish Empire, new literature has challenged the “peripheral” depiction of the region. See James Torres, “Bullion and Monetary Flows in the Northern Andes: New Evidence and Insights, 1780–1800,” Tiempo & Economía 6:1 (2019): 13–46; Torres, “Entre el oro y la plata,” 114–117; and Nathalie Moreno Rivera, “Circulación de efectos de Castilla en el virreinato de la Nueva Granada a finales del siglo XVIII,” Fronteras de la Historia 18:1 (2014): 211–249. For the traditional view, following fiscal and custom records, see McFarlane, Colombia before Independence, 85–95; John Fisher, “The Effects of Comercio Libre on the Economies of New Granada and Peru: A Comparison,” in Reform and Insurrection in Bourbon New Granada and Peru, Fisher and Kuethe, eds., 147–163; and Meisel, Crecimiento, mestizaje y presión fiscal, 20–25.

21. Allan Kuethe, “The Early Reforms of Charles III in the Viceroyalty of New Granada, 1759–1776,” in Reform and Insurrection in Bourbon New Granada and Peru, Fisher and Kuethe, eds. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1990), 19–40. See also McFarlane, Colombia before Independence, 249–250.

22. Relación que se forma del estado de las administraciones de este Reino, AGN-C, Alcabalas, tomo 5, fols. 963-977. On Ensenada's reforms, see Kuethe and Andrien, The Spanish Atlantic World, 144–145.

23. Demostración de las rentas reales y distinción de ramos del primitivo establecimiento de estas cajas de la ciudad de Santafé, AGN, Anexo 2 [hereafter AGN-A2], Real Hacienda, Cuentas de Cargo y Data, box 64, folder 2, fols. 28-35.

24. See AGN-C, Impuestos Varios, tomo 55, fol. 15. Very little is known about the tax farmers before the reform. The fact that Bogotá merchants controlled these contracts suggests that New Granada followed a similar pattern to that of New Spain. In the latter, the merchants of Mexico City had farmed out sales taxes since the seventeenth century and, according to Guillermina del Valle, the crown's taking over of the alcabalas was an important strategy to reduce their power. See Valle, Donativos, préstamos y privilegios. Los mercaderes y mineros de la Ciudad de México durante la Guerra Anglo-Española de 1779–1783 (Mexico City: Instituto Mora, 2016), 62–65.

25. On the rise and fall of Herrera's dynasty in the management of the customs house see AGN-C, Alcabalas, tomo 19, fols. 299-318; AGN-C, Aduanas, tomo 2, fols. 226-244; and Biblioteca Nacional de Colombia [hereafter BNC], Comuneros, book 369, fols. 361-362.

26. Fernández, La alcabala en la Audiencia, 46–47; McFarlane, “The Rebellion of the Barrios,” 201–202.

27. Fernández, La alcabala en la Audiencia, 47.

28. Torres, “Entre el oro y la plata,” 120. Some revolts did arise in southwestern New Granada, but it seems they were directed mainly against the monopolies and not against the sales taxes. See McFarlane, “Civil Disorders,” 26–27.

29. AGN-C, Alcabalas, tomo 1, fols. 251-253.

30. Ernest Sánchez, “La Hacienda reformada: la centralización de la renta de alcabalas en Nueva España (1754-1781)”, in Finanzas y política en el mundo iberoamericano. Del antiguo régimen a las naciones independientes, Antonio Ibarra and Luis, eds. (Mexico City: Instituto Mora/ UNAM/ UAEM), 143-177.

31. In other regions, the reform was even more delayed. Potosí's customs house, for instance, was established in 1779. See Enrique Tandeter et al., “Indians in Late Colonial Markets: Sources and Numbers,” in Ethnicity, Markets, and Migration in the Andes: At the Crossroads of History and Anthropology, Brooke Larson and Olivia Harris, eds. (Durham: Duke University Press, 1995), 196–223.

32. Andrien, The Kingdom of Quito, 192–193.

33. AGN-Colecciones, Enrique Ortega Ricaurte, Folletos, box 71, folder 271.

34. AGN-Colecciones, Enrique Ortega Ricaurte, Folletos, box 71, folder 271, fols. 46-47.

35. The best analyses of both visitas are those of McFarlane, Colombia before Independence, 211–217; Andrien, The Kingdom of Quito, 194–199; and Rosemarie Terán, Los proyectos del Imperio Borbónico en la Real Audiencia de Quito (Quito: Abya-Yala, 1988), 65–69.

36. Kuethe and Andrien, The Spanish Atlantic World, 247–263; David Brading, Miners and Merchants in Bourbon Mexico 1763–1810 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1971), 35–37.

37. McFarlane, Colombia before Independence, 226–227; Terán, Los proyectos del Imperio, 70–73; Borchart and Moreno, “Las reformas borbónicas,” 40–42. The intendancy system was applied only in Cuenca, but some features of the system were adopted in specific areas of taxation elsewhere.

38. Andrien, The Kingdom of Quito, 190.

39. Borchart and Moreno, “Las reformas borbónicas,” 49–50.

40. Terán, Los proyectos del Imperio, 72–73, 92–93.

41. Instrucción general para la recaudación del Ramo de Alcabala y Armada de Barlovento del Nuevo Reino de Granada, 1781, BNC, Fondo Suárez, 350. Hereafter, this item is cited as “New Granada's Instructions.”

42. Instrucción y ordenanza para el régimen y forma que ha de observarse por el administrador general que de cuenta de Su Magestad se ha establecido en esta capital de Quito para la exacción y cobranza del derecho de Alcabalas, 1782, AGI, Quito, 241. Hereafter, this item is referred to as “Quito's Instructions.” Both visitadores also enacted ordinances for specific aduanas. For Cartagena, see BNC, Comuneros, book 377. For Guayaquil, see AGI, Quito, 239.

43. Celaya, “La norma y la práctica,” 260–261.

44. For judicial patterns, see the following lawsuits: AGN-C, Alcabalas, tomo 1, fols. 378-404; Alcabalas, tomo 1, fols. 175-236; Alcabalas, tomo 4, fols. 356-400; Alcabalas, tomo 11, fols. 349-409; and Alcabalas, tomo 12, fols. 967-982.

45. New Granada's Instructions, 41.

46. Quito's Instructions, 85.

47. New Granada's Instructions, 24; Quito's Instructions, 72–73.

48. For a recent approach to the mechanics of the alhondigas and pósitos in New Spain, see Amilcar Challú, “Grain Markets, Free Trade, and the Bourbon Reforms: The Real Pragmática of 1765 in New Spain,” Colonial Latin American Review 22:3 (2013): 400–421. On New Granada, see James Torres, Minería y moneda en el Nuevo Reino de Granada. El desempeño económico en la segunda mitad del siglo XVIII. (Bogotá, Instituto Colombiano de Antropología e Historia), 50–53.

49. In files and lawsuits regarding the deployment of the alcabalas, the authorities and the taxpayers used the word alhóndiga very few times. When they did, they used it mostly as a synonym of bodega or almacen (warehouse). See for instance one of the lawsuits regarding the establishment of the Mompox customs house in 1794, AGN-C, Aduanas, tomo 10, fols. 272-273.

50. In contrast to New Spain, where there was a separate category labeled efectos de la China to record goods of Asian provenance, in New Granada both Asian and European goods were registered in the efectos de Castilla.

51. Grosso and Garavaglia, La región de Puebla, 28–29; Sánchez, Las alcabalas mexicanas, 35–39.

52. New Granada's Instructions, 42–43; Quito's Instructions, 97–98. In Quito, the instructions were even more adamant in this regard since they stated that “this city is the transit hub for all the domestic goods (efectos de la tierra) that the workshops and the towns send to Pasto, Popayán and Barbacoas.” Therefore, the officials were to be careful in not imposing the alcabala twice. Quito's Instructions, 110–11.

53. See the following lawsuits: AGN-C, Alcabalas, tomo 1, fols. 378-404; Alcabalas, tomo 1, fols. 175-236; Alcabalas, tomo 4, fols. 356-400; Alcabalas, tomo 11, fols. 349-409; Alcabalas, tomo 12, fols. 967-982; Alcabalas, tomo 13, 461-463; Alcabalas, t. tomo 19, fols. 299-318; Alcabalas, tomo 22, fols. 949-995; AGN-C, Aduanas, tomo 20, fols. 776-807n; and AGI, Santa Fe, 803.

54. Fernández, La alcabala en la Audiencia, 84–85.

55. New Granada's Instructions, 18–19; Quito's Instructions, 97.

56. This recount was crafted by the Court of Accounts in 1791. See AGN-C, Alcabalas, tomo, 18, fols. 1003-1004. For the recount of one of Gutiérrez's supporters, written in 1789, see Joaquín de Finestrad, El vasallo instruido en el Estado del Nuevo Reino de Granada y en sus respectivas obligaciones [ca. 1789] (Bogotá: Universidad Nacional de Colombia, 2001), 229–230. Some historians have taken these comments at face value. See McFarlane, Colombia before Independence, 213–214; and Pinto, Entre colonia y república, 108–109.

57. For the ports on the Magdalena River, see Torres and Henao, “Connecting the Northern Andes and the Atlantic,” 489–495. For Antioquia, see AGN-C, Alcabalas, tomo 18, fols. 670-675. For Barbacoas, see AGN-C, Alcabalas, tomo 19, fols. 925-930.

58. AGN-C, Aduanas, tomo 1, 912-924.

59. On the impact of tax cuts on fiscal revenue see AGN-C, Alcabalas, tomo 23, fols. 895-899.

60. Borchart and Moreno, “Las reformas borbónicas,” 49–50.

61. Pizarro also opted for leaving the cabezón general “in the same terms under which the duty has been governed.” See Quito's Instructions, 139–140.

62. See an analysis of Gutiérrez de Piñeres's tax burden on cotton in Martínez, “La revolución de 1781,” 153–154, 257–258.

63. Francisco Silvestre, Descripción del Reino de Santa Fe de Bogotá [ca 1789] (Bogotá, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, 1988), 88.

64. Ibarra, “De la alcabala colonial,” 320-325; Chocano, “Circuitos mercantiles,”10-12: Tandeter, “Flujos mercantiles,” 16-18; Palomeque, “La circulación mercantil,”135-140.

65. Fernández, La alcabala en la Audiencia, 46–47.

66. Fernández, La alcabala en la Audiencia, 48–49.

67. AGN-C, Aduanas, tomo 7, fols. 71-72.

68. Archivo Central del Cauca [hereafter ACC], Colonia, Alcabalas, Sig. 5709, fols. 9-10.

69. On San Gil, see AGN, Anexo 3 [hereafter AGN-A3], Real Hacienda Cuentas, 41-c, N45. On Vélez, see AGN-C, Alcabalas, tomo 22, fols. 19-30. On Sogamoso, see AGN-C, Alcabalas, tomo 19, fols. 727-730.

70. See Muñoz, “Independencia y actividad económica,” 22–23.

71. Torres and Henao, “Connecting the Northern Andes,” 489–495.

72. Torres, “Entre el oro y la plata,” 121–122.

73. On Micay and Guapi, see ACC, Sig, 7602, fols. 7-12. On Quilichao, see AGN-A3, Real Hacienda Cuentas, 2244-c.

74. Torres, “Entre el oro y la plata,” 124.

75. Jason Bedolla, “Circulación de efectos de Castilla entre Maracaibo y la provincia de Pamplona (1785–1819),” Fronteras de la Historia 25:1 (2020): 208-232.

76. For a concise presentation of the authorization and the subsequent debate, see AGN-C, Alcabalas, tomo 6, fols. 994-1040.

77. James Torres, “Trade in a Changing World: Gold, Silver, and Commodity Flows in the Northern Andes, 1780–1840” (PhD diss.: Georgetown University, 2021); and Torres, Minería y moneda, 116-119.

78. AGN-C, Alcabalas, tomo 18, fols. 653-773.

79. On the reparto, see Torres, Minería y moneda, 183–184.

80. See several reports from Bogotá's high bureaucracy written in the 1770s and the 1780s. Francisco Moreno y Escandón, “Estado del Virreinato de Santafé, Nuevo Reino de Granada, año de 1772,” in Relaciones e informes de los gobernantes de la Nueva Granada, Germán Colmenares, ed. (Bogotá: Banco Popular, 1988), 1:153–270; Antonio Caballero y Góngora, “Relación del estado del Nuevo Reino de Granada, que hace el arzobispo de Córdoba a su sucesor el excelentísimo señor don Francisco Gil y Lemus 1789,” in Relaciones e informes, Colmenares, ed., 1:361–493.

81. On these reforms, see AGN-A3, Real Hacienda Cuentas, 2915-c, N 434.

82. For Bogotá, see BNC, Comuneros, book 369, fols. 236-244; and AGN-C Aduanas, Cartas, tomo 3, fols. 921-923. See also Finestrad, El vassallo instruido, 226-227. For Popayán, see ACC, Colonia, Sig 5709, fols. 2-5; and AGN-C, Real Hacienda, tomo 27, fols. 1149-1150. For Quito, see Fernández, La alcabala en la Audiencia, 64–65; and ANE, Alcabalas, box 11, file 5, fols. 1-11.

83. See AGN-C, Alcabalas, tomo 1, fols. 378-404; Alcabalas, tomo 1, fols. 175-236, Alcabalas, tomo 4, 356-400; Alcabalas, tomo 11, fols. 349-409; and Alcabalas, tomo 12, fols. 967-982.

84. On this matter, see McFarlane, Colombia before Independence, 174–175.

85. Nathalie Moreno, “Circulación de efectos de castilla,” 220–221; James Torres, “Tasas de interés y desempeño económico: el crédito comercial en Santafé de Bogotá, 1760–1810,” América Latina en la Historia Económica 21:3 (2014): 15–25.

86. AGN-C, Alcabalas, tomo 12, fols. 967-982; Alcabalas, tomo 13, fols. 762-775.

87. See the decrees at AGN-C, Alcabalas, tomo 13, fols. 719-733.

88. ANE, Alcabalas, box, 11, file 5, fols. 2-7.

89. Cuaderno de avalúos de mayor aumento, ANE, Alcabalas, box 12, file 21. We differ from Adrien's analysis of this logbook. See The Kingdom of Quito, 152.

90. AGN-C, Aduanas, tomo 16, fols. 330-348.

91. AGN-C, Aduanas, tomo 16, fols. 340-342.

92. AGN-C, Aduanas, Cartas, tomo 3, fols. 921-924.

93. AGN-C, Alcabalas, tomo 23, fols. 113-116; Alcabalas, tomo 8, fols. 138-153; ACC, Colonia, Sig, 7163, fols. 1-6.

94. AGN-C Aduanas, tomo 2, fols. 235-308. In Quito, there were only two installments of six months each.

95. Officials and contemporaries periodically reported the schedules to the viceregal authorities. Two of these reports, crafted in 1781 and 1794, are virtually the same. See Finestrad, El vasallo instruido, 225–226; and “Relación formada por la contaduría de la alcabala de esta ciudad de Santafé de Bogotá de los derechos reales como municipales que paga el comercio de España con expresión de los que se cobran en los frutos del país,” AGN-A2, Paquetes, box 155, folder 4. See also the logbooks in the following section of this article.

96. AGN-C, Alcabalas, tomo 16, fols. 3-7; AGN-C, Alcabalas, tomo 23, fols. 1-19. See also Torres and Henao, “Connecting the Northern Andes,” 476–477.

97. Torres and Henao, “Connecting the Northern Andes,” 480–482.

98. AGN-C, Alcabalas, tomo 22, fols. 508-523. On the mechanics of bimetallism in the region, see Torres, Minería y moneda, 81–95.

99. Grosso and Garavaglia, La región de Puebla, 46.

100. Djenderedjian, Julio and Martirén, Juan, “Los aforos de Alcabalas como fuente útil para el estudio de los precios en el Río de la Plata,” Folia Histórica del Nordeste 26 (2016): 74–94CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

101. Jeremy Baskes, Indians, Merchants and Markets: A Reinterpretation of the Repartimiento and Spanish-Indian Economic Relations in Colonial Oaxaca, 1750–1821 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000), 273.

102. For price data, see Torres, Minería y moneda, 67–68; and Torres, , “El comportamiento de los precios en una economía preindustrial: Popayán, Virreinato de Nueva Granada, 1706–1819,” Cuadernos de Economía, 34:66 (2015): 629–680CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

103. Torres, Minería y moneda, 69; Torres, “El comportamiento de los precios,” 652.

104. Clavijo, Hernán, “La economía de la ciudad y distrito de Neiva en el siglo XVIII. La importancia de una periferia en el subsistema colonial norandino,” in Historia comprehensiva de Neiva, Tovar, Bernardo, ed. (Neiva, Colombia: Academia Huilense de Historia, 2012), 435–540Google Scholar; Renée Soulodre-La France, Región e imperio, el Tolima Grande y las reformas borbónicas en el siglo XVIII (Bogotá: ICANH, 2004); Robson Tyrer, “The Demographic and Economic History of the Audience of Quito: Indian Population and the Textile Industry” (PhD diss.: University of California, Berkeley, 1975.

105. Torres, “Entre el oro y la plata,” 129–130.

106. Finestrad, El vasallo instruido, 226–227.

107. Francisco Silvestre, Relación de la provincia de Antioquia, ca. 1793 (Medellín: Secretaría de Educación y Cultura de Antioquia, 1988), 287–291.

108. This practice elicited conflicts between merchants and royal officials and created jurisdictional conflicts between the different administrators of the aduana. The authorities in Bogotá and Quito consistently ruled in favor of charging the alcabala on the pattern described above. See AGN-C, Alcabalas, tomo 6, fols. 112-115 and 461-463; Alcabalas, tomo 18, fols. 731-751; Alcabalas, tomo 21, fols. 167-185, 386-396, and 999-1023. See also AGN-C, Aduanas, tomo 10, fols. 545-568; Aduanas, tomo 19, fols. 691-706; ANE, Alcabalas, box 13, file 1, fols. 12-13; and Alcabalas, box 13, file 11, fols. 1-6.

109. The authoritative work is that of Sánchez, Corte de caja.

110. John Tepaske and Herbert Klein, The Royal Treasuries of the Spanish Empire in America, Vol. 1, Peru (Durham: Duke University Press, 1982); Álvaro Jara, El imperio español en América (1700–1820): una historia económica (Santiago de Chile: Sudamericana, 2011).

111. Sánchez, Las alcabalas mexicanas, 35–36. Antonio Ibarra has undertaken a cost-benefit analysis of the establishment of direct administration in Guadalajara, tracing the takeoff of income during the 1780s and a downturn between 1791 and 1810. See “De la alcabala colonial,” 329–330.

112. On the debates about the economic and fiscal performance on the eve of colonial collapse, see Meisel, Crecimiento, mestizaje y presión fiscal, 15–22; Kalmanovitz, “El PIB de la Nueva Granada,” 163–169; Torres, Minería y moneda, 59–69; and Pinto, Entre colonia y República, 59–62.

113. On trade flows and linkages, see Torres, “Trade in a Changing World,” 225–255.

114. On the history of environmental changes in the region during the late colonial period, see the analysis of Mora, Katherine, “Los agricultores y ganaderos de la sabana de Bogotá frente a las fluctuaciones climáticas del siglo XVIII,” Fronteras de la Historia, 20:1 (2015): 14–42Google Scholar.

115. Muñoz, “Independencia y actividad económica,” 26–27.

116. Maurice Brungardt's analysis of tithe districts arrives at similar conclusions. See Brungardt, “Tithe Production and Patterns of Economic Change in Central Colombia, 1764–1833” (PhD diss.: University of Texas, 1974), 245.

117. Fernández, La alcabala en la Audiencia, 111–112.

118. Grosso and Garavaglia, La región de Puebla, 68–69.

119. Grosso and Garavaglia, La región de Puebla, 69.

120. Tandeter et al., “Flujos mercantiles en el Potosí,” 39–40; Chocano, “Circuitos mercantiles,” 7–8; Gavira, “Producción de plata y comercio,” 400.

121. See Torres, “Entre el oro y la plata,” 120–125.

122. Assadourian, Carlos, El sistema de la economía colonial (Lima, IEP, 1983), 45–51Google Scholar; Romano, Ruggiero, Mecanismo y elementos del sistema económico colonial americano, siglos XVI-XVIII. (Mexico City: FCE, 2004), 151–152Google Scholar.

123. On the region's polycentric connections and political conflicts over customs revenues, see Torres, “Trade in a Changing World,” 265–290.