Critique of Jacques A. Barbier’s “The Culmination of the Bourbon Reforms, 1787-1792”^*

Jacques Barbier argues forcefully in a recent article in the HAHR that the division of the Ministry of the Indies in 1787 and the abolition of separate colonial ministries in 1790 represented not, as previous commentators have assumed, a conservative reaction in Madrid against imperial reform, but the logical culmination of a process of ministerial and institutional reorganization which can be traced back to the reign of Philip V.¹ He suggests, moreover, on the basis of an analysis of the business of the newly-formed Junta de Estado, or cabinet, in 1788-1791 that the reform program continued to be pushed ahead vigorously, notably in areas such as the extension of “free trade” which were likely to produce economic benefits for Spain. Decisions which have been interpreted as contradictions rather than continuations of the work of José de Gálvez—for example, the abolition of independent superintendencias in the viceregal capitals in 1787-1788—are attributed not to reaction as such but to a determination to avoid provocation of both colonists and older vested interests. Focusing on Peru, he sees the recall in 1787 of superintendent (and former visitador general) Jorge de Escobedo, and the confirmation by the cabinet in 1788-1789 of administrative and personal changes in the city of Cuzco as indicative merely of “a policy of restraint in taxation and expenditures” and “more civil behavior towards colonists.”²

This brief essay is not designed to question Professor Barbier’s basic argument. On the contrary his article demonstrates persuasively that in Madrid, if not in Lima, the innovations which followed the death of Gálvez seemed to be logical and progressive. One is tempted to dispute the significance of the creation of the Audiencia of Cuzco, which might make more sense as a shrewd and—until 1814—successful attempt to repress rather than make concessions to local interests, but it seems more appropriate to take up the theme that after 1787 the Spanish government persisted with “the economic aspects of the reforms,” by commenting upon the significance of the administrative changes of that year for the mining industry in Peru.³ Silver mining, of course, remained the key to the economy of Peru in the late colonial period, despite attempts by officials and reformers to promote the export of agricultural goods from the viceroyalty. Plans for the modernization and stimulation of the industry came to a head precisely in 1787-1788 with the installation in Lima of a mining tribunal, modeled on that of Mexico, and the recruitment and departure for Peru of a team of German technical experts, led by the famous Thaddeus von Nordenflicht. The tribunal was to be given control over the judicial and financial administration of silver mining, while the Nordenflicht mission concerned itself with the introduction of modern European methods for mining and refining ores.

A detailed examination of the activities of the mining tribunal suggests that an immediate consequence of the transfer of authority over it from Escobedo to Viceroy Teodoro de Croix in December 1787 was persistent executive interference in its activities. Under both Croix and his successor, Fray Francisco Gil de Taboada, this intervention most commonly took the form of meddling in elections to the tribunal during the meetings of the triennial junta general de minería, but it also, and more seriously, gave rise to viceregal determination to prevent the mining community’s gaining a degree of financial independence from the powerful mercantile oligarchy of Lima. This latter trend was manifested most clearly, it is true, during the viceregency of Gil (1790-1796). In 1793-1794, for example, the viceroy ordered the closure of flourishing exchange banks run by the mining tribunal, and terminated plans for a general supply bank for miners, simply in order to protect the interests of Lima capitalists.⁴ But his intervention had been anticipated by certain actions of his predecessor such as the decision in December 1789 to suspend the forthcoming junta general de minería.⁵ Persistent viceregal interference of this kind was a major reason for the mining tribunal’s failure to improve the social and financial status of the members of the mining guild during the period after 1787.

The European mining experts who eventually reached Peru via Potosí in 1790 were also to suffer from viceregal ignorance and obstruction on many occasions over the next twenty years.⁶ A more serious factor in the failure of the Nordenflicht mission, however, was uncertainty about its role during its crucial early years, coupled with the reluctance of Antonio Valdés, the heir to half of the old Ministry of the Indies, to give it his wholehearted support. The Nordenflicht mission, like that of Fausto de Elhuyar to New Spain, was the product of Gálvez’ enthusiastic decision in 1786 to introduce the new method of amalgamation developed in Austria by Baron Inigo von Born to Spanish America.⁷ The recruitment of the necessary specialists, primarily in Saxony, was, in fact, being undertaken by Elhuyar throughout 1787. Valdés decided to continue with the program—Nordenflicht received his commission from him on April 1, 1788—but he did so without real commitment.⁸ According to Nordenflicht, for example, the minister promised that detailed instructions would be sent to him in Lima, but they never materialized, and it was thus left to the inexpert judgement of Croix and his successors to determine how the foreign experts were to be employed.⁹ The consequence was that their first task in Peru was to draw up plans for the restoration of the royal mercury mine at Huancavelica rather than introduce the new amalgamation process to the miners of Peru.¹⁰ Nordenflicht himself was then allowed to spend almost a year in Lima preparing a treatise on the state of the mining industry. Following its dispatch to Pedro López de Lerena, who emerged as Minister of Finance from the further ministerial reorganization of 1790, this document literally disappeared into the bureaucratic maze of Madrid until accidentally rediscovered in 1806.¹¹

Throughout their stay in Peru the rational, Protestant foreign experts were infuriated by the apparent indolence and unreliability of the viceroyalty’s miners, and the latter, in their turn, reacted strongly against the superciliousness of their advisers.¹² This mutual intolerance might have been lessened had Valdes stood firm in 1788 against the demands of the Spanish Inquisitor General for the return to the Peninsula of the mission’s sole American member, the Peruvian Isidro María de Abarca, who had been appointed one of four “first class” members mainly because of his scientific qualifications, but also in the hope that he would help Nordenflicht understand and communicate with his hosts.¹³ It is not clear why the Inquisition demanded Abarca’s recall to Spain—he was accused only of “impious” and “scandalous” behavior in Vergara, where he had lived and studied before his departure for Buenos Aires in April 1788—but what is certain is that Valdés cooperated with the ecclesiastical authorities, with the result that by the end of the year the young scientist found himself detained by the Inquisition in Santiago de Compostella. Following his release from three years of confinement in Ceuta, royal orders were sent to all Spanish ports in 1793 prohibiting any attempt on his behalf to sail to Peru to rejoin Nordenflicht.

It would be a pointless exercise, of course, to speculate on what might have happened to Escobedo, Nordenflicht and Abarca had Gálvez not died in 1787. The famous Minister of the Indies was certainly not immune from procrastination, inefficiency and compromise, despite the willingness of scholars to see his imperial policies in terms of a smooth, coherent reform program. It is difficult, however, to reconcile the impact in Lima of Escobedo’s recall in 1787, and the casual attitude of the ministers of Charles IV towards the Nordenflicht mission in 1788-1791 with the suggestion that in this period “the economic aspects of the reforms were pushed forward vigorously.”¹⁴ Perhaps they had more important things on their minds than the Peruvian economy, but it seems that, whatever the motives for the division of the Ministry of the Indies, its effect for the viceroyalty of Peru was to bring the Bourbon reform program to an abrupt halt.

Author notes