Ismael Sánchez-Bella has succeeded in his announced purpose of describing the financial organization which “grew pari passu with the rapid expansion of Spanish territory in the Indies.” It would be wrong to criticize him for what he did not propose to attempt, namely, a financial history of Hispanic America in the sixteenth century. There are no continuous series of revenue and expenditure, which the economic historian demands, no analysis of cost-benefit and tax incidence or shifting, and no estimate of the relation of the tax burden to national income. As to the yield of various taxes, we learn that the royal quinto (which was not always one-fifth) was the most important tax; it produced 263,566 pesos one year in the 1550s, and increased to almost one million pesos annually in the 1590s.
Let it be noted, however, that financial organization is not without interest to economic historians. Administrative efficiency affects tax yields, and the evidence which Sánchez-Bella has amassed makes a convincing case for the Hapsburg rulers’ skill in choosing—most of the time—highly competent personnel. They were zealous and single-minded in pursuing the imperial policy of making the American mines supply the funds for war and conquest in Europe. Hamilton has recorded the receipts of treasure in Seville; Sánchez-Bella has probed the inner workings of the bureaucratic machinery which assured the transfer of this wealth from the mines of Potosí to the king’s purse.
Most impressive is the rapidity with which adequate institutions were developed to collect taxes and audit the records. Administrative reforms were numerous, which is hardly surprising in a century when trial and error had to substitute for previous experience. Direct treasury administration seemed to work better in America than the encabezamiento or arrendamiento, although in Spain repeated recommendations to abolish tax-farming were ineffective. I note the author’s omission of the asiento de negros, introduced by Charles V; perhaps he considers this a part of metropolitan finance.
The 12-page bibliography furnishes an ample list of printed works, including the documentos inéditos, but one has to consult the footnotes to verify the manuscript material consulted. Duke University Press will be interested to know that HAHR is published in Baltimore.
