The editors divided this book into two parts. The first and larger part deals with Malaspina’s life (1754-1810) and expedition to the Spanish Empire overseas (1789-1794). with an analysis of his “Political Axioms” and the Bauzá Collection—since Felipe Bauzá was intimately linked to the publication of these papers, once quite dispersed but now preserved in the Spanish Museo Naval. The second part represents the original essay of the ten axioms, the result of Malaspina’s reflections on conditions in Spanish America as he perceived them at the time of his famous journey.
Malaspina’s political and scientific expedition ranks among the most important of the Spanish expeditions to America and the Pacific. It took as much time as Alexander von Humboldt’s five-year travel and residence in Spanish America ten years later, but it has received scant attention, if we omit the research by Eric Beerman, Dario Manfredi, and Juan Pimentel, coauthor of the present study. Thus this important book represents a welcome addition to the research on eighteenth-century European expeditions overseas, such as those of Cook, Bougainville and La Pérouse, Juan and Ulloa, and especially the studies dealing with the Spanish and Portuguese empires.
Malaspina’s expedition is especially significant not only in view of his scientific achievements, which were many, but in view of his ten axioms, as he called his observations. In them he stressed five key points: the importance of religion for the conservation of Spanish power; the different and opposing interests of the Spanish monarchy (Spaniards, Spanish Americans, and Indians); the trading system between the peninsula and the Indies, which, badly managed, was leading to reciprocal destruction; the Spanish civil administration and its defects; and the conflict with foreign interests and the real threat to the Spanish Empire, especially in the Pacific. The trading system in turn led him to studies of the exploitation of precious metals, no longer of any use in the peninsula; the export of Spanish fruits and industrial products, no longer sufficient to supply the American market; and internal American trading routes and the development of Spanish American industry.
The implication of Malaspina’s reflections was that Spain’s financial situation could not be isolated and had to be dealt with in combination with that of the Spanish viceroyalties. Furthermore, any political reforms had to be preceded by commercial reforms, and taxes on the American trade could not be arbitrary but had to be subject to the European trade balance. Finally, in the face of a possible revolution, instead of waiting for it to happen as a kind of internal blood poisoning, the country should learn from the errors committed in the past in order to find the necessary solutions.
The editors of this small but fine book have given us an excellent analysis of Malaspina’s expedition with the Descubierta and Atrevida, which focused on the different aspects of the American, Atlantic, and Pacific realities. They have successfully dealt with all relevant issues in a scholarly manner. It is hoped that the book will get a wide audience including, possibly, an English translation.