Few books on an underdeveloped area in modern times have had the impact of Humboldt’s Political Essay on the Kingdom of New Spain. Its first volumes virtually coincided with the outbreak of colonial upheaval in Latin America; it presented a wealth of scarce data on colonial Mexico’s economy and society, in particular, its agricultural and mining resource base; its mining statistics and descriptions served as an investors’ handbook in the British investment boom of the 1820’s. Small wonder that the Essay, which revealed Mexico to Mexicans as well as non-Mexicans, rapidly became a best seller and a classic on both sides of the Atlantic basin.
In Humboldt y México the noted colonial historian, José Miranda, presents a suggestive but not definitive content analysis of Humboldt’s Mexican masterpiece, giving only summary treatment to the Tablas geográfico-políticas. It is prefaced by a summary analysis of the “renovation” of Spain and Mexico in the 18th century, briefly touching on the Enlightment and the role of the state in modernizing philosophy, science, administration, and economy. Miranda’s thesis is that 18th-century Mexico was not isolated and that the modernization of Mexico created a nucleus of bureaucrats and intellectuals capable of assisting the distinguished Prussian liberal scientist via interviews and the presentation of statistical data. It was a combination of Humboldt’s personality and well-directed flattery, gusto for research and travel, and Mexican authorities’ enthusiastic cooperation that allowed him to gather data in literally a fraction under one year—a performance that modern researchers can justifiably envy.
Miranda’s analysis is not concerned with the factual content of the Essay. Instead he seeks its underlying philosophy and conclusions. Underlying Humboldt’s approach Miranda finds the philosophy of an 18th-century scientist-humanist and physiocrat who saw order as the product of nature’s laws, who criticized the meddling and regulation of paternalistic government, who believed in progress and liberty, opportunity, and equality. In the content analysis of the Essay, Miranda gives most space to Humboldt on Mexican society, to what modern sociologists term social stratification. Humboldt saw Mexican society divided by shocking disparities of wealth and poverty, education and ignorance, privilege and “abjection.” It was in social inequality, the ruthless exploitation of the Indian, that Humboldt located the main impediment to “progress and wellbeing” in Mexico and Spanish America, “the inexhaustible fount of hatred.”
That Humboldt tempered his criticism of New Spain lest he offend Spanish authorities, that the Essay digresses excessively, that it often generalizes on fragile evidence—such criticism Miranda accepts. Yet he believes that other qualities of the Essay offset such drawbacks, namely, Humboldt’s “modern and varied approach, his overview, his penetrating probing of the future … his generous and elevated thought.
To the historian, to be sure, neither Miranda’s content analysis nor his treatment of the Essay as overblown advertisement of Mexico’s mineral potential to British investors (1822-1825) offer novelty. Miranda feels that other reports also exaggerated such potential by stressing the possibilities and profitability of technological innovation. Moreover, this optimism infected Mexicans too of the immediate postindependence years by offering a sense of national wealth and importance and contributing thereby to the “formation of a national conscience.” It is at this point that Miranda offers a facet of the Essay that historians of the post-independence period have generally overlooked, namely its impact upon Mexican politics after the Spanish edition of 1822. Miranda contests the assertion of Carlos Pereyra that the Essay “inspired” Zavala, Mora, and Alamán. Rather, he insists, they used the Essay very selectively. Zavala and Mora praised its comprehensive treatment; but Mora, while accepting the statistics, argued that the struggle for independence, by providing for equality before the law, outmoded some of Humboldt’s social strictures. In the penumbra of his life, Alamán decried the unwarranted optimism of the Essay, which had deluded Mexicans about their natural resources. In a very real sense, Humboldt became a common source of the venom that corroded Liberals and Conservatives in Mexico until the Reforma.
