Little attention has been given to the role of penal servitude in the history of the Spanish Empire for historians traditionally have been more interested in other forms of coercive labor. With the exception of the galleys in Spain and the textile industry in Spanish America, the systematic exploitation of convict labor in the Hispanic World has remained a relatively unexplored field of investigation.1 Yet throughout the colonial period, prisoners were an important source of cheap labor both in Spain and Spanish America, and their utilization by the state as well as private interests merits close attention by those interested in colonial labor systems. Moreover, the history of penal servitude presents a good case for the approach to colonial Spanish American history suggested by the Belgian historian Charles Verlinden some years ago.2 Although Verlinden stressed the continuity between medieval European societies based on classical origins and Spanish American colonial societies, he also placed emphasis on the reciprocal contacts between colonies and metropolises. Penal servitude, like slavery, offers one of the best examples of the continuity of classical and medieval influences, but both institutions also existed simultaneously on the Peninsula and in the New World during the colonial period. The purpose of this paper is to examine the origins and development of penal servitude in the form of presidio labor in eighteenth-century Spanish America as well as to view its parallel evolution on the Iberian Peninsula.
Penal servitude derived from the opus publicum of antiquity has a long history in Spain as in other Mediterranean countries. Although it is mentioned as a penalty in Castilian medieval law, it appears to have been used infrequently in the Middle Ages. Medieval society (except the Church) lacked the funds and facilities for long-term imprisonment essential to penal servitude and therefore preferred inexpensive capital and corporal punishments.3 Significantly, the reappearance of penal labor in Western Europe at the end of the fifteenth century coincided with the emergence of the national state and an increase in its wealth.
In Spain convicted criminals were sentenced to terms at hard labor on the galleys, in the mercury mines of Almadén and the military presidios in North Africa throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.5 After the abolition of the galleys in 1748, presidio sentences became the most common form of punishment for both major and minor offenders.5 In the presidios prisoners performed the heavy manual labor of construction, repair and maintenance of fortifications and other military facilities. Prisoners (presidiarios) were regularly distributed among the Peninsula presidios (the maritime arsenals of Cartagena, La Carraca [Cádiz] and El Ferrol [Galicia]), and the overseas presidios in North Africa, Spanish America and the Philippines.6 In dispatching the prisoners, the guiding principle was the labor needs of the various presidios although other considerations sometimes intervened. Prisoners considered to be security risks, for example habitual criminals who appeared likely to desert to the Moslems and become renegades, were not sent to North Africa. As for the New World, fear of disorders arising from escaped prisoners dictated that the penal contingents sent there from Spain consisted primarily of military offenders, in particular deserters. Among civil prisoners only smugglers and defrauders of the royal tobacco monopoly were sent to the New World.7
In Spanish America penal servitude followed the peninsular model with the exception that the line between public and private interests was blurred. In Spain convicts could be used only in projects deemed to be in the interest of the state; for example, they labored on the galleys and in the presidios in the service of the king and were under military control and jurisdiction. In the New World there was no such distinction, and anything that helped to further develop the economy was deemed in the public interest. Faced with a severe shortage of labor because of the decline in Indian population from the middle of the sixteenth century, the colonial courts sentenced men to terms of service at hard labor and then turned them over to private employers who used them in mines, factories and mills.8 The growth of population in the eighteenth century reduced the need for such labor in the private sphere, but the demand in the public sector continued to increase in response to the requirements of imperial defense.
Spain’s losses to England during the Seven Years War (1759-1763) convinced the Spanish government that the defenses of the New World had to be reinforced. In the post-war years a plan was devised for strengthening and fortifying American ports, in particular Havana and San Juan, Puerto Rico, as a first line of defense. Havana had long been considered essential to the preservation of Spain’s control over America and its temporary loss to the British in 1762 was a severe blow. As for San Juan, the abandonment of the convoy system and the adoption of a more flexible strategy of defense increased its importance. In the hands of the enemy either of these ports could serve as bases for an attack on Spanish shipping in the Caribbean and threaten the security of Veracruz and Mexico. The rebuilding and improvement of their fortifications was therefore vital to the protection of the Spanish Empire.9 A subsidy of 300,000 pesos a year was assigned to the fortifications of Havana and 100,000 pesos to that of San Juan (both sums to be paid for by the situado from Mexico), but it was clear from the beginning that these funds would not be adequate unless expenditures were kept low.10 The success of the project therefore depended on the maintenance of a continuous supply of workers at minimum costs. In the opinion of the planners this problem could be resolved only through the utilization of penal labor as had been done in Spain in the construction of the maritime arsenals of Cartagena and El Ferrol. Thus, presidiarios came to play as important a role in the execution of Spanish defense plans in the Caribbean as they had performed on the Iberian Peninsula.
The improvement of the fortifications of Havana began immediately after the British returned it to Spain in July 1763. The new governor, Count of Ricla (1763-1765) who arrived in June to supervise the transfer of power, had instructions to repair all fortifications and defenses on the island, to rebuild whatever had been destroyed and to add to them whatever was needed as rapidly as possible. The reconstitution of El Morro and the erection of the forts of San Carlos de la Cabaña and Atarés were begun in July with a work force consisting of black slaves, free laborers and some local prisoners.11 Most of the black slaves were recent imports from Africa who had been introduced on the island during the British occupation. They were purchased by the governor specifically for this project from private owners at 150 pesos each making a total investment of 954,000 reales for the original group of 795.12 As far as can be determined, black slaves made up the largest percentage of workers during the first two years of construction, but subsequently their number decreased sharply. Available statistics show that a total of 4,198 of them worked on the fortifications during the years 1763-1765 and that they reached their highest number (1,967) in 1764. Figures for 1766 and 1767 are nonexistent, but those for 1768 and 1769 clearly show a decline in the number of slaves and a steady increase in presidiarios. In January 1768 there were 636 presidiarios to 1,136 black slaves out of a total of 1,977 workers, but by the following January, of a total work force of 2,030, the number of presidiarios had risen to 1,115 while the black slaves had declined to 766.13
In a letter to the King in May 1769 Governor Antonio María Bucareli explained the apparent shift away from the use of black slaves to that of presidiarios. Accordingly, the progress of the work had reached a critical point. The black slaves were proving too costly because of their high mortality rates while free laborers required an expenditure of three reales a day per man in wages. The only method to keep costs down and to stay within the 300,000 pesos annual subsidy was to replace the slaves and free workers with presidiarios. In August 1769 the King ordered Bucareli to sell the remaining black slaves and to dismiss the free laborers in proportion to the arrival of presidiarios from Spain and Mexico.14
In contrast to Havana a labor force made up predominantly of presidiarios was projected for San Juan from the beginning. In September 1765 when the King approved the plan to repair and reconstruct the forts of San Felipe del Morro and San Cristóbal, he authorized the use of 445 presidiarios from Spain, Cuba and Venezuela although it was expected that the majority would come from Spain. The shortage of available manpower on the island and the unwillingness to utilize black slaves because of the unhappy experiences with them in Cuba motivated this decision. Initially it was thought that the presidiarios could be supplemented by soldiers from the San Juan garrison who were to be paid two reales a day for their services.15 Apparently some were employed in the early years of construction when there were few presidiarios and subsequently when the pressure of work demanded extra laborers, but aside from these special occasions, the work force in San Juan consisted of presidiarios.
Work on the fortifications of San Juan began in January 1766, but the period of greatest activity occurred in the years 1769-1783, during which time the forts of San Felipe del Morro and San Cristóbal were converted into powerful strongholds. Statistics are lacking for the years 1766-1770, but it appears that fewer than the assigned number of 445 presidiarios worked on the fortifications in that period and even when the quota was raised to 600 (after 1771) they never reached their authorized number.16 It is possible to estimate their actual representation on the basis of existing data (see Table I). In the years 1771-1776 there were an average of 476 presidiarios in the San Juan Presidio; from 1778-1780, 446; 1781-1783, 260 and 1784-1786, 77 (after 1785, the quota was reduced to 300). According to these figures, they reached their highest point in July 1773 when they numbered 557; by December 1783 there were only 163. These statistics coincide perfectly with the different periods of construction; thus, the largest contingents of presidiarios appear during the years 1771-1783 which was precisely the most intense stage of the work while the sharp decline in 1783 and after reflects the completion of the major undertakings.
Although the figures seem to indicate that there was always an ample supply of presidiarios, they are somewhat misleading because they show the numbers existent in the presidio and do not take into account those unable to work because of illness. The actual number working at any given time was much smaller than appears from these statistics. Inaccuracies and inconsistencies in the official monthly reports make it difficult to calculate more than a rough estimate as to the number of presidiarios who were incapacitated due to poor health. In a normal year (one in which there were no major infections) an average of some ten percent of the presidiarios of San Juan were idle each month for health reasons. But these figures seem modest indeed when compared with Havana where monthly rates, for example, in 1768 and 1769, were never lower than thirteen percent and the average for both years was sixteen percent.17 In times of widespread illness the lack of presidiarios brought the work to a virtual standstill; for example, in October 1773 at the height of an outbreak of scurvy, some 361 presidiarios were incapacitated, that is, seventy-two percent of the labor force of the San Juan Presidio.
The physical health of the presidiarios was closely related to their diet and living conditions. Climatic considerations were another factor for life in the tropics with its constant heat, frequent storms and hurricanes in addition to infectious disease took its toll. The diet of the presidiarios in the New World was similar to the ration distributed in the Peninsula presidios which in turn was based on the food allotments established in the sixteenth century for prisoners serving on the galleys. Actually the ration had changed little since the end of the sixteenth century. In 1792 the daily ration in the presidio of Cartagena (Spain) still consisted of bread in the form of biscuit or hardtack and a vegetable stew made of beans, chickpeas or rice prepared in water and olive oil. Meat had virtually disappeared from the diet of the presidiarios (only eight stews a year with meat were included), a reflection of the decline in meat production in Europe in the second half of the sixteenth century that led to high prices and declining consumption in subsequent centuries. In effect, the only real difference between the galley fare and that of the eighteenth-century presidios was that the bread ration had been reduced from twenty-six to twenty-four ounces a day in consideration of the addition of a third meal (breakfast). Moreover wine (one pint per man a day) was distributed in the presidios instead of water, the standard beverage of the galleys.18
In the New World further modifications of the basic presidio diet resulted from two factors: the unavailability of wheat on the islands and the greater supply of food, especially meat. Biscuit made of cassava flour in the form of hard round cakes supplanted the hardtack of the peninsula presidios and the daily allotment was reduced from twenty-four to twelve ounces per man. The reduction of the bread ration was made possible through the addition of meat (either fresh or salted) to the stews. Since meat was plentiful and cheap in the New World, eventually it replaced beans (for centuries considered the most appropriate food for penal laborers) as the standard fare in the American presidios. Moreover the stews contained a sprinkling of vegetables such as potatoes and squash missing from their peninsular counterparts, all of which meant that the diet of the presidiarios in the New World was better balanced and more nutritious than in the Old while the cost was the same (one real).19 In addition to wine the presidiarios in Spanish America received a daily ration of brandy that was distributed to stimulate greater activity in a kind of “morning break” between breakfast and lunch.20
Although the food ration in the New World presidios was better than that in the Peninsula, it still was insufficient and therefore created a state of chronic malnutrition. Lack of fruits and vegetables in sufficient quantity meant that deficiency diseases, especially scurvy, were present at all times. Furthermore malnutrition made for lowered resistance to infections. The existence of scrofula and consumption in endemic form among the presidiarios can be attributed in part to their deficient diet. Poor living conditions constituted another factor in the incidence of disease. Lack of personal hygiene, infrequent changes of clothing and crowding meant that diseases such as scabies were common afflictions.21 More serious was body lice which in turn led to typhus fever, a frequent cause of death in jails and presidios, or wherever the unwashed were crowded together.
Besides the presidiarios who were genuinely sick there were those who feigned illness to avoid work. In 1770 this problem was serious enough to motivate the presidio officials in San Juan to take measures against it. Since the guards and overseers could not readily ascertain who was ill or not, they engaged the doctor of the presidio hospital to examine daily the presidiarios who claimed they were indisposed.22 Many of the imposters probably were discovered in this manner, but it was impossible to eliminate them all and absenteeism of this kind continued to be a problem. In view of this situation it is easier to comprehend the repeated complaints of the presidio administrators in their correspondence with the King as to the scarcity of presidiarios despite the existence of apparently sufficient numbers of them.
In addition to those who were indisposed temporarily (whether real or feigned) the category of unserviceable presidiarios also included those who were permanently incapacitated through disease or injury. The principal source of information about this group is a list compiled by the San Juan officials in 1773 with the objective of securing their release so as to replace them with fresh contingents. It contains the names of sixty-five men classified as incurably ill, the majority of whom were suffering from scrofula and consumption; the rest were incapacitated because of hernias or paralysis. Although this list covers a substantial period of time (1768-1773), it does not correspond to the years of most intense activity and therefore its statistical value is limited.23 It seems likely that the number of incurables increased substantially when both the penal contingents and the work reached their maximums.
The decision in 1773 to release the unserviceable presidiarios raised questions as to their ultimate destination as well as the fate of all those belonging to this category in the future. Castilian law specifically required the return of former prisoners to their places of origin after the completion of their sentences where they were known to authorities and could be under constant supervision. In practice it was difficult to enforce this provision because when prisoners were returned to Spain, few went back to their home districts. Most tended to congregate around their ports of entry, or to migrate to the larger towns and cities in these same regions. Many government officials blamed the high levels of crime in such areas as coastal Andalusia and Valencia on this situation and believed that it was necessary in the interests of law and order to decrease the number of such elements being brought back to the Peninsula.24 This idea accorded well with one of the principal objectives of eighteenth-century Bourbon reformism—the elimination, or at least reduction of criminals, social deviants and other “undesirables,” and ultimately prompted the royal decision in 1774 to resettle presidiarios on the island of Puerto Rico rather than having them returned to Spain. This measure further stipulated that they should be settled in groups in sparsely inhabited parts of the island and subjected to some kind of supervision.25 It might be noted in this connection that Spain, in contrast to other Western European countries such as England and France, never adopted the policy of penal transportation, but the attempt to settle released presidiarios on the island of Puerto Rico in 1774 manifested a similar approach and, in effect, accomplished the same objectives.26
The collection and distribution of presidiarios in Spain and Spanish America in the eighteenth century was based on a system devised in the sixteenth century to supply convict rowers for the galleys and was continued into the eighteenth century almost unchanged. In Spain local justices first sent convicted criminals condemned to hard labor in the overseas presidios to the central prisons of their respective judicial areas such as Toledo, Valladolid and Seville. When a sufficient number of them had been gathered, they were chained together, and manacled and marched overland under heavy guard to Cádiz, the main distribution center for the presidios of America.27 There they were placed in a jail (depósito de presidiarios) maintained especially for them in the maritime presidio—arsenal of La Carraca to await shipment to the New World. Since for purposes of security, presidiarios could be sent only on warships carrying troops, they often waited in the depósito for years before they finally were sent to their destinations.28
At La Carraca continuous incarceration in crowded and unsanitary conditions took its toll of the prisoners—many of those who survived were so weakened as to be unserviceable by the time they were ready to be sent to America. But men in feeble health were shipped out regularly, notwithstanding the requirement that they be examined and officially approved by the arsenal doctors. In practice, only in cases of obvious incapacity, for example, blindness or paralysis, were men rejected; the remainder, regardless of age or infirmities, were sent. This was especially true in the years 1771-1780 when the demand for presidiarios in San Juan was so great.29 In 1773, for example, the officials there complained to the King that the majority of presidiarios coming from Spain arrived on the island in such poor health that they were either “permanently incapacitated” or at least “temporarily unserviceable.”30 Four years later conditions among the prisoners destined for Puerto Rico in the depósito of La Carraca were so deplorable that the chaplain of the arsenal wrote the King’s confessor asking him to intervene with the King to provide for their immediate transport to the New World. Apparently nothing came of this appeal because two years later they were still awaiting shipment; the only difference was that those who were able were being employed in the work of the arsenal.31
The exploitation of prisoners while they were in the depósitos was a departure from accepted procedure which specifically prohibited their use, except in their assigned places of destination. This practice was introduced at La Carraca as a temporary expedient to serve the interests of both prisoners and the state. For the prisoners it offered relief from constant incarceration while the King benefited from the utilization of additional workers. While this system was introduced at La Carraca to meet a special situation, changing circumstances in the late 1770s and early 1780s led to its adoption in other depósitos, both in the Peninsula and overseas. A rise in the level of criminal activity (especially property crime), reflecting no doubt the growth in population in the second half of the eighteenth century and of more effective law enforcement and a decline in the death penalty, contributed to a surplus of presidiarios in the peninsular depósitos.32 At the same time a gradual decline in the demand for presidiarios in the Peninsula and North African presidios in the 1780s and 1790s (for example, the loss of Oran in 1792) further increased the number of prisoners in the depósitos and resulted in serious overcrowding. In contrast, in the New World the need for presidiarios remained steady with the exception of San Juan. In Havana, the volume of work had always been such that prisoners from the depósitos were utilized regularly regardless of the prohibition against it. In any event, whether in response to need or surplus, this system was firmly established on both sides of the Atlantic by the last decade of the century. Prisoners from the depósitos soon became a regular sight on the streets of many cities in Spain and Spanish America where they labored in chain gangs to clean streets and parks, construct roads and perform other public works services.33 In this manner, the depósitos were transformed into penal establishments and remained so into the nineteenth century. Thus, the origins of the public works presidios of the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries can be found in the depósitos rather than in the maritime or other military presidios of the eighteenth century.
Although Cádiz was the principal port of embarkation for presidiarios being shipped to the presidios of Spanish America, prisoners from the northern and northwestern regions of the Peninsula (Galicia, Asturias, Basque Provinces) often were taken to the naval arsenal at El Ferrol in Galicia for transport to the New World. Warships seemed to be more available in that port and the wait was shorter.34 On occasions, surplus prisoners from the maritime arsenal of Cartagena on the southeastern coast of Spain also were sent to Cádiz for transshipment to the New World.35 In addition prisoners who were being transferred from the North African presidios to those of America were brought to Cádiz from Málaga, the distribution center for the North African presidios. They consisted of deserters and others who had committed crimes while serving in those presidios as soldiers or presidiarios. Desertion from the North African presidios was a serious problem in the eighteenth century. Although the Spanish government tried to control it by various methods, including strict punishments, refusal to send prisoners thought capable of deserting to these presidios and the payment of bribes to Moroccan chieftains and others in the areas surrounding the presidios, desertions continued. A more effective means of control was the practice adopted by the Moslems of rejecting deserters who refused to convert to Islam. As a result, a large number (perhaps a majority) of those who deserted returned “voluntarily,” or were forcibly turned over to the presidio officials by the North Africans.36 Substantial numbers of returned deserters were sent to the New World throughout the second half of the eighteenth century even though in the late 1760s and 1770s it was more customary to sentence them to work the chain pumps (considered the maximum punishment in the category of hard labor)37 in the peninsular presidio of Cartagena. After the installation of steam-driven pumps at Cartagena, the penalty of hard labor at the pumps was abolished in the Peninsula presidios and from 1782 the majority of these deserters were destined for the New World.38
The principal sources of presidiarios for both San Juan and Havana were Spain and Mexico although it is impossible to determine exact numbers. In most instances, transcripts of sentences bore the designation “either Havana or San Juan,” thereby allowing officials to assign presidiarios according to need. This practice gave rise to abuses on the part of the officials in Havana since all presidiarios bound for the Caribbean from either Spain or Mexico had to pass through Havana before they could be remitted to their ultimate destinations. Havana was the main distribution center for the New World presidios and a depósito was maintained there for presidiarios in transit. The administrators of the Havana presidio made it a practice to retain prisoners destined for San Juan on the grounds of acute labor shortages in Havana and the lack of the necessary funds to cover the cost of their shipment to Puerto Rico. Under this guise, they detained prisoners “temporarily” and utilized them in the work of the presidio in the same manner as if they actually had been sentenced there.39 Once these prisoners were incorporated into the work of the presidio the Havana officials applied to the King to sanction their actions. Since royal approval usually was forthcoming, the retention of these prisoners became permanent.40
As has been noted, penal laborers sent to Spanish America were restricted in the beginning to military deserters and they continued to be in the majority throughout the century. Subsequently, prisoners who had committed other crimes, for example, homicide, assault, and theft were added along with a category of civilian prisoners—smugglers and violators of the royal tobacco monopoly.41 Sentences for deserters ran from eight years to life (in the case of recidivists, the life sentence represented a commutation of the death penalty) while smugglers and tobacco monopoly defrauders averaged terms of from four to six years. Prior to 1771 indefinite sentences often were imposed, but desperation caused by fear of interminable imprisonment led to frequent escapes. In order to prevent prisoners from resorting to desperate measures it was decided in March 1771 to restrict sentences to a ten-year maximum and to require judicial authorities to indicate fixed terms in their sentences. One year later the maximum for the New World presidios was lowered to six years with the exception of those individuals whose sentences bore the expression “retention,” which meant that in the opinion of the courts the individual was too dangerous to society to be released.42
Dissatisfaction with the law of 1772 led to its early modification. The presidio administrators in Havana complained that because of the six-year maximum too many men completed their terms within a relatively short time and there were not enough prisoners to replace them. In 1778 it was decided to apply the six-year maximum to those with indefinite sentences, or terms of over eight years. For prisoners within these two categories who had committed heinous crimes, presidio officials were given the authority to determine on an individual basis whether or not they merited the reduction of their sentences. Nevertheless, these new regulations did not satisfy the Havana officials, and in response to further pressure from them, the Crown declared in 1780 that the previous decrees represented a special royal concession only, and were not designed to establish a general rule.43 Thus, the law restricting presidio sentences in the New World to a six-year maximum was duly abrogated.
Whereas the presidiarios sent to Havana and San Juan from Spain were almost all military men, those destined for the same presidios from Mexico were, with few exceptions, civilians. A large number of prisoners sentenced by the two principal judicial bodies in New Spain, the sala del crimen of the audiencia in Mexico City and the tribunal of the acordada received presidio sentences, but it is very difficult to determine what proportion of them served their terms in Veracruz (the most important Mexican presidio), Havana or San Juan. The majority of acordada prisoners, for example, served their terms in Havana or Veracruz, but significant numbers also went to Acapulco, Piedras Negras, Pensacola and in rare instances, to the Philippines.44 As for San Juan, certainly not more than a small percentage of those shipped to Havana from Mexico were destined originally for San Juan, or ever arrived there because of the practice of retaining them in Havana. Since the Indians, except in rare instances, usually served their sentences in Veracruz or some other presidio within the jurisdiction of modern Mexico, those sentenced by the Mexican courts to Havana and San Juan were Spaniards, mestizos and mulattoes, a large proportion of whom had been convicted of crimes against persons.45 Similarly, existent records show that most offenders sentenced in Spanish courts to presidios in Spain and North Africa also had committed crimes against persons.46 It might be noted here that although property crime probably was more prevalent in this period, personal violence formed a larger part of the total number of offenses known to authorities. Besides, in Mexico a substantial proportion of cases involving property crimes probably were settled by local officials with punishment of short-term duration. The regular judicial system came into play only when a case involved a serious crime that merited a public display of judicial authority.47
In the 1780s and 1790s the labor demands of the Havana presidio far exceeded those of Veracruz and San Juan. During that period, officials undertook extensive improvements of the port, the harbor and the fortifications. The Castillo del Príncipe and the Battery of Santa Clara, both considered vital to defense, were completed during those years. In 1787 the Governor of Cuba blamed the slow work on the Castillo del Príncipe on the lack of presidiarios and he requested the Viceroy of Mexico to send 2,000 presidiarios to Havana to satisfy the requirements of the new fortifications alone.48 As for the needs of the port and arsenal, presidiarios manned the crews of the twelve pontoons and barges engaged in dredging the harbor and formed the work gangs employed in excavation work for construction projects around the port area. They also were used to cut and transport timber needed in the shipyard and to move masts and other heavy stores and equipment around the docks and arsenal. In addition a steady supply of presidiarios was required to move the chain pumps that prevented the dry docks from flooding. As in the peninsular presidios, this labor was so arduous that only men who had committed the most serious crimes were subjected to it, and their sentences always bore the specific designation of assignment “to the pumps.”49
In contrast to the men condemned to work the pumps, the remaining prisoners could be utilized in any kind of presidio labor since their sentences stated simply that they were destined for the “arsenal and fortifications of Havana.” Nevertheless, it became customary in this period to define work categories more carefully so as to achieve a better distribution of presidiarios. The inauguration of a municipal improvement program for Havana during those years (street paving, a water supply system, new buildings for the government) meant that there was keen competition for penal labor. In order to secure an adequate supply of presidiarios for the presidio as well as the public works projects, the courts were asked to specify in their sentences the kind of labor to be performed by the prisoners, that is, either “arsenal and fortifications,” or “public works.”50
The shortage of presidiarios in Havana in the last decades of the century was not only the result of the volume and the intensity of the work. Attrition rates from desertion, death and releases also must be considered. Figures for Havana are lacking for this period, but the official correspondence between Havana and Madrid contains repeated references to losses because of frequent escapes and completion of sentences by prisoners. Some statistics are available for San Juan during the years 1778-1782 (see Table III). In this period some forty percent of the working force was lost through death, desertion and releases, and it is likely that this ratio increased in the 1790s. Most surprising are the figures for releases which show that twice the number of men completed their sentences and were freed than died during these years. It seems that the survival rate was higher during the last decades of the century than in the previous period, but there is no evidence to suggest that this change resulted from better treatment or improved conditions for the presidiarios; on the contrary, the opposite was true.51 The decline in the death rate and the increase in the number of those completing their terms was more likely a reflection of the tendency in the last decades of the eighteenth century to reduce the length of sentences while at the same time to extend presidio punishment to a greater number of offenders. Intellectual opinion in the last quarter of that century influenced by the writings of penal reformers such as Cesare Beccaria and his Spanish interpreters (Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos, Manuel de Lardizábal, Juan Meléndez Valdés) rejected the death penalty in favor of punitive imprisonment. Lardizábal, while accepting the utilitarian and intimidatory purpose of the penalty, emphasized the correction of the offenders.52 The eventual acceptance of the reformatory aim of punitive imprisonment meant that forced labor, considered a corporal punishment in the early modern period, would become the principal ingredient of the modern prison system.
Although penal reform did not occur in Spain in the eighteenth century, the foundations for it were laid in such laws as the decree of 1771 that eliminated indeterminate and life sentences in the presidios. More important still was the impact of the new ideas on judges and magistrates who used their discretionary powers to modify and change the penal law; that is, to reduce sentences in accord with the concept that “the penalty must be proportionate with the crime.”53 A survey of extant data from the Sala de Alcaldes de Casa y Corte (the principal court of the district of Madrid) shows the degree to which the judges actually were reinterpreting the law in the last decades of the century. Presidio sentences (generally from four to six years) were given for serious crimes while lesser offenses were punished with short terms at hard labor in the public works projects (six months to two years). The death penalty appears rarely and only in cases of the most heinous crimes. A similar pattern of sentencing can be found in the data recently published for the tribunal of the acordada (Mexico) during the years 1782-1808.54
The movement against capital punishment and in favor of the extension of presidio sentences was not only the result of eighteenth-century sentiment for penal reform. It also was related to a conjunction of socioeconomic factors such as the decline of slavery in Spain, an increase in the number of convicted criminals, and a growth in the demand for unskilled workers in the public sphere. As for slavery, it was clear by the last quarter of the eighteenth century that it was in its final stage on the Iberian Peninsula. High prices for black slaves had limited their presence to a few noble houses where they served mainly as objects of curiosity and decoration while frequent prisoner exchanges between the North African states and Spain had decreased the number of Moslem slaves to a negligible point.55 At the same time that slaves were becoming scarce, an increase in the convicted criminal population made available a larger body of potential penal laborers. Coincidentally, an extension of the projects undertaken by the state, for example, construction of military fortifications, roads, canals and municipal improvements, heightened the demand for unskilled labor. Despite the growth of population in the second half of the eighteenth century, this need could not be met by free labor because of the refusal of the government (based on a claimed financial inability) to pay wages that would attract workers from the free market. Moreover, even when slightly higher wages were paid as occurred during the early years of construction at El Ferrol, free laborers still were reluctant to work there because of the hard and continuous labor performed under unfavorable working conditions.56 On the other hand, experience had shown that convicts were ideally suited to such labor. From the government’s perspective they were inexpensive to maintain and thoroughly expendable. It might also be noted that even in the New World, where slaves were more readily available, their high cost precluded their utilization as has been shown in the case of Cuba.
The same forces that motivated an extension of the institution of penal servitude and eventually brought it to its highest point of development also worked to change the nature of the penalty and its application. The second half of the eighteenth century was a particularly important period in the history of penal labor as a punishment in criminal law. At this time, it ceased to be considered a corporal punishment and instead was transformed into a system of rehabilitative forced labor that became a part of the modern prison systems. In addition to its development within the sphere of penal law, a study of the institution of penal servitude provides an opportunity to examine the phenomenon of filiation or continuity as well as that of parallel existence within a particular historical area. From this perspective the Spanish Empire can be viewed as one large historical entity in which the center and the parts reflected a common heritage and development. When this approach is combined with a consideration of the special circumstances in the New World, such as physical and anthropological environment, it provides new perspectives and dimensions through which historians can better view the complex relations between Spain and Spanish America in the colonial period.
For the galleys as a penal institution, the principal work is still that of Félix Sevilla y Solanas, Historia penitenciaria española (la galera): Apuntes del archivo (Segovia, 1917). Additional information in Gregorio Lasala Navarro, Galeotes y presidiarios al servicio de la Marina de Guerra en España (Madrid, 1969) and John Guilmartin, Gunpowder and Galleys (Cambridge, 1975). On the obrajes: Richard Greenleaf, “The Obraje in the Late Mexican Colony,” The Americas, 23 (Jan. 1967), 227-250 and John Super, “Querétaro Obrajes: Industry and Society in Provincial Mexico, 1600-1812,” HAHR, 56 (May 1976), 197-216.
Charles Verlinden, The Beginnings of Modern Colonization (Ithaca, 1970).
Alberto Aguilera y Velasco, ed., Códigos y leyes de España, 4 vols. (Madrid, 1866), III, Partida VII, title XXI, law 4, 323. In the medieval and early modern eras, prisons served mainly for the purpose of detaining persons awaiting trial or decisions on their appeals, or the execution of their corporal or capital punishments in addition to coercing debtors. Only the church used imprisonment for offenders under its jurisdiction and life sentences to prisons operated by monastic orders were employed at times, ostensibly for correction and penance. See Thorsten Sellin, “Penal Servitude: Origin and Survival,” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 109 (Oct. 1965), 277.
For the mines of Almadén see Ruth Pike, “Penal Labor in Sixteenth-Century Spain: The Mines of Almadén,” Societas—A Review of Social History, 3 (Summer, 1973), 193-206. By the eighteenth century there were three main North African presidios: Oran (except for the period 1708-1732 when under the control of the Moslems and after 1792 when again recaptured by them), Ceuta and Melilla, and two minor presidios: Peñón de Vélez and Peñón de Alhucemas.
For offenses like vagrancy and certain crimes against marriage (adultery and concubinage) naval and military service provided an alternative to hard labor in the presidios for those commoners who could meet the requirements of age, height and physical condition. Nobles, on the other hand, customarily were sentenced to banishment and military service since they could not suffer any form of corporal or degrading punishment.
The maritime arsenals of Cartagena and El Ferrol were built in the second half of the eighteenth century mainly through the use of convict labor. Presidiarios also were used to expand the facilities at La Carraca in the same period. See Antonio Meijide Pardo, Contribución a la historia de la industria naval de Galicia: Los arsenales del Ferrol en él siglo XVIII (Lisbon, 1961) and Rafael Salillas, Evolución penitenciaria en España, 2 vols. (Madrid, 1919), II, 125-128. Difficulties of transportation of prisoners from Spain to the Philippines made it an infrequent destination.
AGI, Audiencia de Santo Domingo [Santo Domingo], leg. 2503, Feb. 25, 1769; Nueva Recopilación de las leyes de España (Madrid, 1772), book VIII, title XXIV, law 13.
Greenleaf, “The Obraje,” 242-243; Charles Gibson, The Aztecs under Spanish Rule (Stanford, 1964), pp. 244-246.
Bernard Bobb, The Viceregency of Antonio María Bucareli in New Spain, 1771-1779 (Austin, 1962), p. 85.
AGI, Santo Domingo, leg. 2501, July 15, 1765; ibid., 2129, Nov. 31, 1772.
Prisoners from local jails worked on fortifications in Caribbean ports from the end of the sixteenth century. Bibiano Torres Ramírez, “Alejandro O’Reilly en Cuba,” Anuario de Estudios Americanos, 24 (1967), 1357.
AGI, Santo Domingo, leg. 2129, Nov. 31, 1772.
These statistics are based on ibid, and monthly reports for the years 1768 and 1769 in leg. 2122. The rest of the work force consisted of free laborers—overseers and specialized workers.
Ibid., leg. 2129, May 28, 1769; Aug. 13, 1769.
Ibid., leg. 2501, May 20, 1765; Nicolás Cabrillana, “Las fortificaciones militares en Puerto Rico,” Revista de Indias, 107 (1967), 172.
Although 445 prisoners were authorized in the decree of 1765, this number was reduced almost immediately to 350; AGI, Santo Domingo, leg. 2503, Feb. 25, 1769. The period of Governor Miguel de Muesas, 1769-1776, is being studied by Dr. Altagracia Ortiz-Squillace, and I am grateful for the information that she gave me on the progress of the fortifications during those years.
Figures for Havana for the years 1768 and 1769 have been derived from the monthly reports in AGI, Santo Domingo, leg. 2122.
Guilmartin, Gunpowder and Galleys, p. 269; Salillas, Evolución penitenciaria, II, 149, 160-164.
AGI, Santo Domingo, leg. 2366, June 30, 1786; leg. 2502, July 15, 1768; leg. 2506B, Nov. 17, 1775.
Ibid., leg. 2504, Nov. 20, 1771; March 20, 1772.
Ibid., leg. 2505, May 27, 1773; Sept. 30, 1773.
Ibid., leg. 2503, Nov. 30, 1769; Dec. 29, 1769; May 30, 1770.
Ibid., leg. 2505, May 27, 1773.
GS, Secretaría de Marina [Marina], leg. 695, May 24, 1765; AHNM, Alcaldes de Casa y Corte, leg. 4954, year 1779, fol. 516v; Sevilla y Solanas, Historia penitenciaria española, p. 213.
AGI, Santo Domingo, leg. 2505, July 28, 1774; Oct. 25, 1774; leg. 2503, Oct. 25, 1774; AGS, Guerra Moderna, leg. 4950, March 25, 1779. As early as 1769, O’Reilly had suggested resettling presidiarios on the island of Puerto Rico so as to increase its population. AGI, Santo Domingo, leg. 2503, Feb. 25, 1769.
At the end of the fifteenth century some thought was given to using the newly discovered islands of the Caribbean for transportation purposes and a law was decreed, but the idea was abandoned quickly. From the practical point of view, the continuing demand for rowers on the galleys made transportation overseas to the New World of criminals and “undesirables” unnecessary until the second half of the eighteenth century when the galleys were abolished.
Biblioteca Nacional (Madrid), Sala de Manuscritos, Raros, 14.090, year 1566; Nueva Recopilación, book VIII, title XXIV, law 13, March 12, 1771; AHNM, Alcaldes de Casa y Corte, year 1787, fols. 893-895; AGS; Secretaría de Hacienda, leg. 978; Guerra Moderna, leg. 4962.
AGI, Santo Domingo, leg. 2127, Feb. 8, 1771.
Ibid., leg. 2129, Nov. 9, 1773.
Ibid., leg. 2505, May 18, 1773.
AGS, Marina, leg. 696, Aug. 22, 1777; leg. 697, May 17, 1779.
Salillas, Evolución penitenciaria, II, 80-84; Francisco Tomás y Valiente, El derecho penal de la monarquía absoluta, siglos XVI-XVIII (Madrid, 1969) pp. 367-368, 252-254, 267-270.
AHNM, Alcaldes de Casa y Corte, year 1776, fols. 124-142; year 1795, fols. 552-556; Novísima Recopilación de las leyes de España (Madrid, 1850), book XII, title XL, law 12, Jan. 27, 1787. For Havana and Veracruz see AGN (México), Ramo de Presidios y Cárceles [Cárceles], 24, fols. 336-336v, March 14, 1786; fol. 287, Dec. 31, 1791 (documents from the AGN [México] facilitated by Dr. Sam Kagan).
AGI, Santo Domingo, leg. 2127, Feb. 27, 1771.
Ibid., leg. 2127, Dec. 11-14, 1770; AGI, Arribadas, leg. 287, May 2, 1788; April 16, 1784.
AGS, Gracia y Justicia, leg. 104. For accounts of deserters and their sentences see the sections Guerra Moderna and Marina of the AGS. For legislation on this subject see Novísima Recopilación, book XII, title XL, law 7, March 12, 1771.
The chain pumps, worked by the presidiarios twenty-four hours a day were used to remove water from the drydocks where ships were being constructed or repaired. AGS, Marina, leg. 699, Dec. 17, 1765; Feb. 1, 1769.
Novísima Recopilación, book XII, title XL, law 8, Nov. 24, 1782.
AGI, Santo Domingo, leg. 2509, Nov. 19, 1784; leg. 2128, July 7 1771
Ibid., leg. 2509, July 26, 1785.
AGS, Marina, leg. 697, Aug. 5, 1777; AGI, Santo Domingo, leg. 2505 May 23, 1773.
Novísima Recopilación, book XII, title XL, law 7, March 12, 1771; law 15, March 28, 1772; AGI, Santo Domingo, leg. 2128, Aug. 24, 1772.
AGI, Santo Domingo, leg. 2132.
Colin MacLachlan, Criminal Justice in Eighteenth Century Mexico: A Study of the Acordada (Berkeley, 1974), p. 81.
Ibid., pp. 80-81, 115-116; AGN (México), Cárceles, 1, fols. 13-16v, 20-25; 13, fols. 180-184, 206-207v, 208-212v, 214-216v; 24, fols. 6-7, 8-13. See also Christon I. Archer, “The Deportation of Barbarian Indians from the Internal Provinces of New Spain, 1789-1810,” The Americas, 29 (Jan. 1973), 376-385.
Conclusions based on a study of documents in the AGS, sections Marina and Guerra Moderna.
MacLachlan, Criminal Justice, p. 42.
AGN (México), Cárceles, 24, fols. 294-295.
Ibid., fols. 314-317.
Ibid., fols. 260-289, 336.
AGI, Santo Domingo, leg. 2509, April 3, 1789. For complaints by the Havana officials about desertion and releases see for example, AGN (México), Cárceles, 24, fols. 321-322.
Manuel de Lardizábal, Discurso sobre las penas, cited in José Antón Oneca, “Estudio preliminar: El derecho penal de la Ilustración y D. Manuel de Lardizábal,” Revista de la Escuela de Estudios Penitenciarios (Madrid, 1966), 591-746. See also Israel Drapkin, “Manuel Montesinos y Molina—An Almost Forgotten Precursor of Penal Reform in Spain,” in Marvin Wolfgang, ed., Crime and Culture (New York, 1968), pp. 321-322.
Lardizábal, Discurso sobre las penas, p. 710.
MacLachlan, Criminal Justice, pp. 78-80, 115-116; For the Sala de Alcaldes de Casa y Corte, see AHNM, Alcaldes de Casa y Corte, years 1780-1789.
Antonio Domínguez Ortiz, “La esclavitud en Castilla durante la Edad Moderna,” Carmelo Viñas Mey, ed., Estudios de historia social de España, 2 vols., II (1952), 404-405. For the prisoner exchanges see AGS, Marina, legs. 705-708.
Meijide Pardo, Los arsenales del Ferrol, p. 26; Gonzalo Anes, El antiguo régimen: Los Borbones (Madrid, 1975), pp. 23-28.
Author notes
The author is Professor of History at Hunter College of the City University of New York. This article is part of a larger projected study of crime and penal servitude in the Hispanic world in the sixteenth through eighteenth centuries. It is based on materials consulted in the following archives: Archivo General de Indias, Seville, Spain; Archivo General de Simancas, Valladolid, Spain; Archivo Histórico Nacional, Madrid, Spain; Archivo General de la Nación, México (abbreviated hereafter as AGI, AGS, AHN, AGN (México), respectively).
