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Transatlantic Networks and Merchant Guild Rivalry in Colonial Trade with Peru, 1729 – 1780: A New Interpretation Xabier Lamikiz

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fter more than a century marked by crisis upon crisis, official commerce between Spain and its American colonies grew significantly during the second half of the eighteenth century. Historiography attributes this growth almost entirely to reforms implemented by a succession of Bourbon administrations. First, the outbreak of war with Great Britain in 1739 resulted in the need to replace the system of fleets and galleons with a much more flexible system of independent ships (navíos sueltos). (These changes were temporary for trade with New Spain but permanent for the route to Tierra Firme and the Isthmus of Panama.)1 Another catalyst to growth came from a series of new regulations for free trade promulgated in 1765 and 1778.2 Although economic and political Translated by Jane Ramírez. — eds. Research in Spain, Peru, and the United Kingdom for this article was made possible by a postdoctoral grant conferred by the Department of Education, Universities, and Research of the Basque Government. I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to the History Department of University College London for its kind hospitality. I also wish to thank Penelope J. Corfield, María Rosario Porres, Julian Hoppit, Jeremy Black, Cristina Mazzeo, Uriel Heyd, Olatz Ormazabal, Sara Lickey, and the two anonymous readers at HAHR for their valuable comments and suggestions. — au. 1. In the years 1717 – 38 a yearly average of 10,483 tons of merchandise was shipped to the Americas. In 1739 – 54 the average was 13,893 tons, and that figure rose to 25,132 tons in 1755 – 78. Antonio García-Baquero, Cádiz y el Atlántico, 1717 – 1778: El comercio colonial español bajo el monopolio gaditano, 2 vols. (Seville: Escuela de Estudios Hispano-Americanos, 1976), 1:172 – 73. 2. Contrasting interpretations have been published regarding the effects of free trade. In his work Commercial Relations between Spain and Spanish America in the Era of Free Trade, 1778 – 1796 (Liverpool: Centre for Latin-American Studies, Univ. of Liverpool, 1985), John R. Fisher uses 1778 as his base year and affirms that the annual average of exports to the Americas quadrupled in 1782 – 96. Antonio García-Baquero, however, responds that exports in 1778 were much greater than those declared by Fisher, and that exports actually fell by Hispanic American Historical Review 91:2 doi 10.1215/00182168-1165226 Copyright 2011 by Duke University Press

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aspects of the recovery of trade have been studied in depth, little is yet known of it from the individual points of view of the merchants who carried it out. This article explores the experiences of these protagonists in order to decipher the intricacies of the organization of Spanish colonial trade, which was based essentially on the exportation of European textiles in exchange for American silver. Bourbon reforms aimed at regulating transatlantic traffic stirred up continuous three-way disputes among the colonial merchant guilds (consulados) of Mexico City and Lima, the Consulado of Cádiz, and the Spanish Crown, each determined to defend its own interests or the interests of those they represented. These power struggles have been thoroughly analyzed.3 The resulting image of antagonism contrasts vividly with the integration described by historians who have studied trade relations between Great Britain and North America during the eighteenth century.4 Kenneth Morgan, for example, states regarding Anglo-American trade that “product diversification and a high turnover of goods [were] stimulated by the growth of transatlantic business networks.”5 In the case of Spain, the increase in transatlantic commerce seems to have come about owing more to an obstinate government than to merchants setting up 16 percent during that same period. Antonio García-Baquero, “Los resultados del libre comercio y ‘El punto de vista’: Una revisión desde la estadística,” Manuscrits (Barcelona) 15 (1997): 303 – 22. The two authors agree that imports coming from the Americas increased notably under the free trade policy, although they differ as to the amount of that increase. 3. See for example Guillermo Céspedes del Castillo, “Lima y Buenos Aires: Repercusiones económicas y políticas de la creación del Virreinato del Plata,” Anuario de Estudios Americanos 3 (1946): 669 – 874; Brian R. Hamnett, “Mercantile Rivalry and Peninsular Division: The Consulados of New Spain and the Impact of the Bourbon Reforms, 1789 – 1824,” Ibero-Amerikanisches Archiv 2, no. 4 (1976): 273 – 305; Geoffrey J. Walker, Spanish Politics and Imperial Trade, 1700 – 1789 (London: Macmillan, 1979); Pedro Pérez Herrero, “Actitudes del Consulado de México ante las reformas comerciales borbónicas, 1718 – 1765,” Revista de Indias 43 (1983): 97 – 182; Stanley J. Stein and Barbara H. Stein, Apogee of Empire: Spain and New Spain in the Age of Charles III, 1759 – 1789 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 2003), 119 – 42; Patricia H. Marks, “Confronting a Mercantile Elite: Bourbon Reforms and the Merchants of Lima, 1765 – 1796,” The Americas 60, no. 4 (2004): 519 – 58; and Josep María Delgado Ribas, Dinámicas imperiales, 1650 – 1796: España, América y Europa en el cambio institucional del sistema colonial español (Barcelona: Bellaterra, 2007), 105 – 40. 4. See for example David Hancock, Citizens of the World: London Merchants and the Integration of the British Atlantic Community, 1735 – 1785 (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1995); and Kenneth Morgan, “Business Networks in the British Export Trade to Northern America, 1750 – 1800,” in The Early Modern Atlantic Economy, ed. John McCusker and Kenneth Morgan (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2001), 36 – 62. 5. Morgan, “Business Networks,” 61.

Transatlantic Networks and Merchant Guild Rivalry

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trade networks. Using as justification the monopolistic corporate discourse of their respective guilds, the merchants of Cádiz and those of Mexico City and Lima devoted their energies to preserving whatever portion of the transatlantic commerce they considered to be theirs by rights. Thus, certain key aspects of long-distance commerce such as collaboration or mutual understanding seem to have been relegated to a lower plane; in any case, they would have prospered only within each guild. This article will examine transatlantic trade — always a source of risk and uncertainty — from the perspective of collaboration, analyzing a theme that historians have given only scant attention: the role of interpersonal trust (confianza) in the configuration of trade networks (understood as informal collaborations among merchants for the purpose of mobilizing capital and merchandise). The study of these networks allows us to reevaluate the role played by the merchant guilds in the Atlantic region and to take a closer look at the efficacy of the restrictive measures imposed by the Spanish Crown. Certainly, contrasting the mechanisms of collaboration among merchants with the limits of inclusion and exclusion set forth in the law contributes to a better understanding of the very nature of commerce between the metropolis and its American colonies. Specifically, this study analyzes the experiences of a significant number of merchants who took part in direct trade between Cádiz and Lima. A variety of documentation found in the archives of Seville, Lima, and London (including hundreds of private letters from Peru that were intercepted by British privateers) illuminates the practice of mutual consignments (recíprocas consignaciones) between Spanish and Peruvian merchants, a source of institutional antagonism and bitter debate during the period from 1729 to 1780. The markedly informal nature of these transatlantic relations demonstrates that the organization of commerce was held together by bonds of trust born of blood relationships, friendships, and common geographical origins among the merchants and nourished by an increasing flow of information. The Debate over Mutual Consignments

On November 23, 1729, José Patiño, a powerful minister of the Spanish government, approved new ordinances, brief but draconian, for the Consulado de Cargadores a Indias de Cádiz, the guild of merchants trading with the colonies in the Americas.6 The Royal Project of 1720, an attempt to revive colonial trade 6. Archivo General de Indias, Seville (hereafter cited as AGI), Indiferente General, leg. 2301. The full text of the ordinances of 1729 is found in Julián Bautista Ruiz Rivera, “Patiño y la reforma del Consulado de Cádiz en 1729,” Temas Americanistas (Seville) 5 (1985): 19 – 21.

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using the traditional system of fleets and galleons, had not produced the desired results. The trade fairs in Jalapa (halfway between Veracruz and Mexico City) and Portobelo (in the Isthmus of Panama, the first stop on the long route to Peru) had been dismal failures, and it was the merchants of Cádiz, the gaditanos, who had sustained the greatest losses.7 Foreign contraband had had a disastrous effect on their business, but the new ordinances of 1729 were designed to provoke them into participating more aggressively in trade. In fact, the ordinances required all transatlantic commerce to be in the hands of merchants who were “native Spaniards” registered with the Cádiz consulado. For the first time, jenízaros (Spaniards of mixed parentage) were excluded, as well as all American-based merchants.8 Article 13 of the ordinances states that “no one who ships . . . to the Indies may designate, as a first or second consignee, any resident of New Spain, Tierra Firme, Peru, or Buenos Aires, but rather must designate specifically the agents [encomenderos] who travel in the fleets and galleons and other ships.”9 The provisions of the 1729 ordinances were ratified in January 1735. This time, however, the merchants of Mexico City and Lima (the two great centers of commerce in Hispanic America) received assurances that the gaditanos would have the right only to sell their merchandise in the fairs at Jalapa and Portobelo. Once these fairs ended, they would have to return to Spain and not prolong their stay in the colonies to peddle their unsold wares.10 Nevertheless, the Mexico City and Lima consulados kept up their bitter litany of complaints to the crown. Their pleas were partially addressed on November 20, 1738, when the king granted them permission to send funds to Spain to purchase merchandise that would be sent with the following fleet. There were, however, two strict conditions: the Americans had to direct their merchandise orders exclusively to members of the Cádiz consulado, and they could not receive goods from Spain that had not been purchased with their own money. The ordinances of the Cádiz consulado were revoked in April 1742, but 7. Walker, Spanish Politics and Imperial Trade, 159 – 73; Delgado Ribas, Dinámicas imperiales, 105 – 40; and Stanley J. Stein and Barbara H. Stein, Silver, Trade, and War: Spain and America in the Making of Early Modern Europe (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 2000), 180 – 91. 8. The exclusion of the jenízaros generated a prolonged dispute between merchants of foreign parentage living in Cádiz and the consulado. See Margarita García-Mauriño, La pugna entre el Consulado de Cádiz y los jenízaros por las exportaciones a Indias, 1720 – 1765 (Seville: Univ. de Sevilla, 1992). 9. Ruiz Rivera, “Patiño,” 20. 10. Rafael Antúnez Acevedo, Memorias históricas sobre la legislación y gobierno del comercio de los españoles con sus colonias en las Indias Occidentales (Madrid, 1797), appendix 20, xxxiii – xciii.


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the two conditions of 1738 remained in effect until the Real Cédula of June 20, 1749, annulled the restrictions imposed on the Americans. This decision opened the door to mutual trade between Cádiz and America, but it was not put into practice. The Casa de la Contratación (House of Trade), which supervised the shipping of merchandise to America, continued to require that everything shipped to the colonies that did not already belong to the Americans be consigned exclusively to members of the Cádiz consulado who were traveling with the goods. A petition (memorial) sent to the king in 1776 by the Lima consulado’s representative in Madrid asserted that despite the 1749 revocation, Peruvian merchants were still suffering discrimination.11 The consulado’s discontent endured even after January 18, 1777, when a new real cédula was promulgated in defense of the Americans’ freedom of consignment.12 When the accusations made against them by the limeños (the merchants from Lima) were reported to the Cádiz consulado, the Cádiz merchants protested that it was not their job to enforce the law; that was the responsibility of the Casa de la Contratación.13 The Casa’s directors then responded that their “only” requirement of the Cádiz shippers was that they swear an oath that the goods delivered to the Americans had been “purchased . . . with their own money remitted to Spain for that purpose.”14 Both the Cádiz consulado and the Casa de la Contratación interpreted “mutual trade” to mean that the Americans could send their funds to whomever they wished in Spain, but not that they could receive merchandise that they had not bought with their own money. The practice of swearing an oath had been established precisely in order to ensure that commissions for sales in the Indies would go to the long-suffering agents who risked their lives traveling to the colonies. Naturally, the representative in Madrid of the Lima consulado expressed his profound disagreement with the gaditanos’ idea of “reciprocity” and insisted that the oath should be aimed only at “preventing the shipment of effects of foreigners to the Indies under Spanish cover,” and that the Cádiz consulado, contrary to the provisions of the Real Cédula of 1749, was using that oath to exclude Peruvians from selling on commission.15 In the end, the Coun11. José de Azofra to the king, memorial, Madrid, 7 Sep. 1776, AGI, Lima, leg. 890, no. 79. 12. Consulado de Lima to José de Azofra, Lima, 12 Mar. 1778, Archivo General de la Nación, Lima (hereafter cited as AGN), H3, ms. 975, fols. 13v – 15r. 13. Consulado de Cádiz to Consejo de Indias, Cádiz, 15 Feb. 1777, AGI, Lima, leg. 890, no. 79. 14. Casa de la Contratación to Consejo de Indias, Cádiz, 7 Mar. 1777, AGI, Lima, leg. 890, no. 79. 15. “. . . evitar no vayan a Yndias efectos de estrangeros a la sombra de españoles.” José de Azofra to the King, memorial, Madrid, 20 Feb. 1779, AGI, Lima, leg. 1548.

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cil of the Indies, in accordance with the Reglamento para el Comercio Libre (free trade regulations) of 1778, found in favor of the Peruvians and ruled that commerce between Spain and America should be fully reciprocal. This decision resulted in the Real Cédula of July 15, 1780. From Lima, the Peruvian consulado sent thanks to their representative in Madrid and at last, after decades of protests, they congratulated themselves on the “favorable state . . . of the matter of mutual consignments.”16 Despite the light that the topic of mutual consignments shines on the subject of transatlantic trade, it has inspired only brief discussion on the occasional page of historiography.17 But far-reaching conclusions can be drawn from the fact that Americans were unable to do business with full freedom during a large part of the eighteenth century, particularly with respect to Peru. Historiography tells us that problems for the limeño merchants intensified in the 1740s with the adoption of direct trade via Cape Horn and the arrival in Lima of a large number of merchants from Cádiz. With such an avalanche of new competitors, the limeños feared the loss of the control that they had exercised until then in the Peruvian domain. Basing their arguments on sources from the crown and from the Lima consulado (similar to the ones we have used above), historians Carmen Parrón, Alfonso Quiroz, and Patricia Marks conclude that in the second half of the eighteenth century the gaditanos controlled both poles of transatlantic commerce. From Cádiz, they affirm, consignments were given only to those merchants who were registered with the Cádiz consulado and had traveled to Lima, or to agents of the Cinco Gremios Mayores (the five great guilds) of Madrid or the Royal Company of the Philippines, the two large Spanish stock corporations that had set out, around 1783, to corner the Peruvian market.18 16. Consulado de Lima to José de Azofra, Lima, 23 Aug. 1780, AGN, H3, ms. 975, fol. 103r. In October 1783 the Consulado of Mexico City requested the same favor, which was granted via Real Cédula on 23 Sep.1784. “Dispatch in which HM declares that the Consulados and Trade Companies of Peru and Mexico should make their consignments or commissions of their funds freely to subjects of these Kingdoms,” AGI, Lima, leg. 1546. 17. Antúnez, Memorias históricas, 297 – 305; John H. Parry, The Spanish Seaborne Empire (London: Hutchinson, 1966), 287; Antonio-Miguel Bernal, La financiación de la Carrera de Indias: Dinero y crédito en el comercio colonial español con América (Seville: Fundación el Monte, 1992), 312 – 13; Valentín Vázquez de Prada, “Las rutas comerciales entre España y América en el siglo XVIII,” Anuario de Estudios Americanos 25 (1968): 207 – 8; García-Baquero, Cádiz y el Atlántico, 1:125 – 32; Céspedes del Castillo, “Lima y Buenos Aires,” 705; José Joaquín Real Díaz, Las ferias de Jalapa (Seville: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, 1959), 87 – 88; Stein and Stein, Apogee of Empire, 129 – 30; Walker, Spanish Politics and Imperial Trade, 168 – 69; and Pérez Herrero, “Actitudes del Consulado de México,” 130, 139. 18. Carmen Parrón Salas, De las reformas borbónicas a la República: El Consulado y el comercio marítimo de Lima, 1778 – 1821 (Murcia: Academia de la Aviación, 1995), 165 – 72;


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Referring to the period from 1765 to 1796, Marks states that “although commercial activity at Lima continued and indeed increased, it by-passed succeeding generations of limeño consulado merchants. Commerce, firmly in the hands of new (and constantly renewed) cadres of metropolitan merchants, had been reduced to something resembling an extractive industry.”19 The Real Cédula of 1749 in fact records the complaint of American merchants that, under the 1738 restrictions, they were obliged to send their money to “certain fellows [the members of the Cádiz consulado] of whose good faith, practices, and conduct they had no knowledge, nor did they know of the permanence or mutability of their fortunes; being subjected to the danger of encountering some who, through ignorance or other vices, would not act in accordance with the wishes and hopes of the owners.”20 In 1749 the king had granted American merchants freedom of consignment in the hopes that bonds of trust would gradually be established between his subjects on both sides of the Atlantic, and that those connections would, in turn, create conditions favorable to increasing official commerce to the detriment of foreign contraband.21 However, the complaints coming from America 30 years later suggest that those bonds were never formed. In two petitions, dated 1776 and 1779, members of the Lima consulado would again assert their mistrust of their counterparts in Cádiz, and the royal decrees of January 1777 and July 1780, giving credence to those grievances, would again emphasize that the Peruvian merchants had been granted “the full liberty that they must have to send their funds and bring back their effects by means of such fellows as may be to their trust and satisfaction.”22 Up to this point, all interpretations agree that the metropolitan merchants exercised control of transatlantic networks to the exclusion of Peruvians. Historians specializing in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries also talk at length about disagreements between the metropolitan and American merchant communities. During the greater part of the sixteenth century, the American merchants were actually agents of the merchants of Seville. (The consulado of Alfonso W. Quiroz, Deudas olvidadas: Instrumentos de crédito en la economía colonial peruana, 1750 – 1820 (Lima: Pontificia Univ. Católica, 1993), 103 – 6; and Patricia H. Marks, Deconstructing Legitimacy: Viceroys, Merchants, and the Military in Late Colonial Peru (University Park: Pennsylvania State Univ. Press, 2007), 17, 55 – 105. 19. Marks, “Confronting a Mercantile Elite,” 557. 20. Antúnez, Memorias históricas, appendix 22, c. 21. Ibid., ci. 22. José de Azofra to the king, memorial, Madrid, 7 Sep. 1776, AGI, Lima, leg. 890, no. 79; and José de Azofra to the king, memorial, Madrid, 20 Feb. 1779, AGI, Lima, leg. 1548; Real Cédula of 18 Jan. 1777, AGI, Lima, leg. 890, no. 79; “Expediente en que declara SM . . .,” AGI, Lima, leg. 1546.

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Seville, which monopolized colonial trade, was founded in 1543 and moved to Cádiz in 1717.) Gradually, the development of the colonial economy and the problems inherent in great distances and unreliable communications resulted in the emergence in the colonies of communities of merchants who were independent of their colleagues in Seville. A clear indication of their growing independence was the creation of the consulados of Mexico City (1592) and Lima (1613).23 The consulados had multiple functions: they served as commercial courts with both original and appellate jurisdiction; they also collected taxes, enforced trade regulations, and improved the infrastructure (roads and docks). Their membership was composed of local merchants who met certain requirements of age, property ownership, and occupation. The prior and two consuls who made up the board were elected every one, two, or three years from among all the members.24 During the colonial period, the consulados of America and of Seville/Cádiz were important sources of income for the crown through loans and donations. As a result, they wielded considerable power as pressure groups defending the interests of the communities they represented. Almost from the start, the discord between Iberian and American consulados was centered mainly on the organization of the system of fleets and galleons. Although by law shipments were to be made annually, the consulados never seemed to reach an agreement regarding departure dates. Once the two fleets had finally been dispatched and the merchants came together, in either Jalapa or Portobelo, representatives from each consulado would begin the arduous process of negotiating prices for the merchandise brought over from Spain.25 This type of organization, which governed exchanges between Spain and the two American viceroyalties for more than two centuries, does not appear to have encouraged the formation of transatlantic networks at the consulado level. A 23. María Encarnación Rodríguez Vicente, El Tribunal del Consulado de Lima en la primera mitad del siglo XVII (Madrid: Ediciones Cultura Hispánica, 1960), 19 – 24; and Daviken Studnicki-Gizbert, “From Agents to Consulado: Commercial Networks in Colonial Mexico, 1520 – 1590 and Beyond,” Anuario de Estudios Americanos 57, no. 1 (2000): 41 – 68. 24. See Robert S. Smith, The Spanish Guild Merchant: A History of the Consulado, 1250 – 1700 (Durham, NC: Duke Univ. Press, 1940); and Héctor Noejovich, “La institución consular y el derecho comercial: conceptos, evolución y pervivencias,” in Comercio y poder en América colonial: Los consulados de comerciantes, siglos XVII – XVIII, ed. Bernd Hausberger and Antonio Ibarra (Madrid: Iberoamericana, 2003), 15 – 40. Other places in the Americas, such as Caracas, Guatemala, Havana, Buenos Aires, Veracruz, and Cartagena, were not permitted to create consulados until the 1790s. 25. Allyn C. Loosley, “The Puerto Bello Fairs,” Hispanic American Historical Review 13, no. 3 (1933): 322.


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picture emerges of a Spanish colonial trade system compartmentalized into two spheres of influence: that of the merchants who belonged to the consulado of Seville/Cádiz, on the one hand, and that of consulado members based in Mexico City and Lima, on the other. Although prior to the eighteenth century there was nothing to prevent either of these groups from encroaching on the other’s territory, there was a sort of tacit agreement that the Atlantic sphere belonged to the Iberian merchants, and the Indies to the Americans. Not really a monopoly, colonial trade functioned more as a duopoly.26 In reality, the situation was much more complex. There were members of both communities who were not content to assemble every few years at some fair held on American soil. There were gaditanos who penetrated into the colonies, and Americans who traveled to Spain, purchasing merchandise to be shipped with the next fleet. These infiltrations appear to have attracted particular attention in the first half of the seventeenth century, with the arrival in Seville of numerous so-called peruleros (agents of Peruvian merchants) who had traveled aboard the returning galleons.27 Their presence inspired repeated complaints from consulado members in Seville, who saw them as formidable rivals. Echoing these protests, historians interested in the activities of the peruleros have maintained the image of a colonial trade system divided into two parallel worlds, under the assumption that the Americans were choosing to do business with members of their own corporation operating in Spain, circumventing their Spanish counterparts. Studies on commerce between Spain and Peru in the seventeenth century indicate a lower incidence of transatlantic networks than they seem to suggest, due to three limitations. First, almost everything that is known corresponds to the first half of the century. The years after 1640, when the Portobelo fairs were becoming less frequent, have been largely ignored.28 Furthermore, questions about the durability and nature of the transatlantic connections have 26. Stein and Stein, Apogee of Empire, 127 – 35. 27. See Lutgardo García Fuentes, Los peruleros y el comercio de Sevilla con las Indias, 1580 – 1630 (Seville: Univ. de Sevilla, 1997); and Margarita Suárez, Desafíos transatlánticos: Mercaderes, banqueros y el estado en el Perú virreinal, 1600 – 1700 (Lima: Pontificia Univ. Católica, 2001), 317 – 97. Enriqueta Vila describes the peruleros as a “distortional element within the established regime.” Enriqueta Vila Vilar, “La feria de Portobelo: Apariencia y realidad del comercio con Indias,” Anuario de Estudios Americanos 39 (1982): 295. 28. Peru was increasingly supplied by contraband via Buenos Aires. Zacarías Moutoukias, “Power, Corruption, and Commerce: The Making of the Local Administrative Structure in Seventeenth-Century Buenos Aires,” Hispanic American Historical Review 68, no. 4 (1988): 771 – 801.

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scarcely been raised. How integrated were these networks and how frequent were contacts and exchanges? Many peruleros arriving in Seville were simply Spaniards who, after years of trading in Peru, had decided to come back home to retire. Finally, though historians such as Daviken Studnicki-Gizbert and Margarita Suárez emphasize the importance of the transatlantic networks of the limeño merchants in the seventeenth century, their examples, though enormously interesting, are not representative enough. Studnicki-Gizbert focuses almost exclusively on the contacts of one wealthy Portuguese merchant, Manuel Bautista Pérez; Suárez does the same with the great merchant and banker Juan de la Cueva.29 Studies on the eighteenth century give no greater attention to the functioning of the transatlantic networks. The numerous works on American and Iberian merchant communities, in addition to ignoring most controversies between and within the consulados, say surprisingly little about transoceanic connections.30 Studies on specific families or individuals also show little interest in the topic.31 29. Daviken Studnicki-Gizbert, A Nation upon the Ocean Sea: Portugal’s Atlantic Diaspora and the Crisis of the Spanish Empire, 1492 – 1640 (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 2007), 98 – 99; and Suárez, Desafíos transatlánticos, 108 – 9. 30. On merchants established in Cádiz, see for example Manuel Bustos Rodríguez, Los comerciantes de la Carrera de Indias en el Cádiz del Siglo XVIII, 1713 – 1775 (Cádiz: Univ. de Cádiz, 1995); and Antonio García-Baquero, ed., Comercio y burguesía mercantil en el Cádiz de la Carrera de Indias (Cádiz: Diputación de Cádiz, 1989). On merchants established in Hispanic America, see David A. Brading, Miners and Merchants in Bourbon Mexico, 1763 – 1810 (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1971); John E. Kicza, Colonial Entrepreneurs, Families and Business in Bourbon Mexico City (Albuquerque: Univ. of New Mexico Press, 1983); Christiana R. Borchart de Moreno, Los mercaderes y el capitalismo en la ciudad de México, 1759 – 1778 (Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1984); Susan M. Socolow, The Merchants of Buenos Aires, 1778 – 1810: Family and Commerce (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1978); Cristina A. Mazzeo, ed., Los comerciantes limeños a fines del siglo XVIII: Capacidad y cohesión de una élite, 1750 – 1825 (Lima: Pontificia Univ. Católica, 2000); and Jesús Turiso Sebastián, Comerciantes españoles en la Lima borbónica: Anatomía de una élite de poder, 1701 – 1761 (Valladolid: Univ. de Valladolid, 2002). 31. See for example María Cristina Torales Pacheco, ed., La compañía de comercio de Francisco Ignacio de Yraeta, 1767 – 1797, 2 vols. (Mexico City: Instituto Mexicano de Comercio Exterior, 1982); Richmond F. Brown, Juan Fermín de Aycinena: Central American Colonial Entrepreneur, 1729 – 1796 (Norman: Univ. of Okla. Press, 1997); Cristina A. Mazzeo, El comercio libre en el Perú: Las estrategias de un comerciante peruano, José Antonio de Lavalle y Cortés, 1777 – 1815 (Lima: Pontificia Univ. Católica, 1994); José Garmendia Arruebarrena, Tomás Ruiz de Apodaca: Un comerciante alavés con Indias, 1709 – 1767 (VitoriaGasteiz: Diputación de Álava, 1990); Manuel Bustos Rodríguez, Burguesía de negocios y capitalismo en Cádiz: Los Colarte, 1650 – 1750 (Cádiz: Diputación de Cádiz, 1991); and Bernd Hausberger, “La red social del alavés Tomás Ruiz de Apodaca, comerciante en Cádiz,” in La Casa de Contratación y navegación entre España y las Indias, ed. A. Acosta Rodríguez,


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They all arrive at the general conclusion that the merchants, using the criterion of trust, preferred to employ their relatives and fellow countrymen as overseas agents. Details of how such networks functioned or failed to function remain unknown for the most part, as does their relationship with changing modes of transoceanic trade. Existing studies rely on documentation originating with the consulados to explain transatlantic trade relations. This is understandable, since the petitions and reports sent to the crown by the consulados, and the replies that they received, are such substantial documents. In addition, since institutions are a means of managing conflicts of collective interests, the analysis of the consulados’ institutional discourse fits well with the study of power that is much in vogue in recent historiography.32 The problem with this focus, however, is that it analyzes transatlantic relationships while scarcely taking into account the individual experiences of the merchants. To be properly understood, the topic of mutual consignments needs to be placed in the context of transformations in the forms of overseas trade. In the case of commerce between Spain and Peru, the catalyst in these transformations was the shift, in 1739, from a system of galleons and periodic fairs via the Isthmus of Panama (indirect trade) to one of registered ships traveling via Cape Horn (direct trade). The opening of the new route not only facilitated the arrival in Lima of members of the Cádiz consulado, but also, and even more importantly, contributed to the genesis of a new, direct trade pattern that was to have a notable effect on the level of interpersonal trust. This transformation did not result in the systematic marginalization of the limeños, as historiog raphy indicates. On the contrary, despite restrictions, the enormous challenge of direct trade served to help merchants from Lima and Cádiz get to know one another better and collaborate on an equal footing. Consequences of the New Trade Pattern on the Cádiz-Lima Route

The outbreak of war between Spain and Great Britain in late October 1739 (followed, a few weeks later, by the British attack on Portobelo) compelled the Spanish government to suspend temporarily the system of fleets and galleons. In its place, colonial trade began to be accomplished by navíos de registro or registros

A. L. González Rodríguez, and E. Vila Vilar (Seville: Escuela de Estudios HispanoAmericanos, 2003), 885 – 909. 32. See Hausberger and Ibarra, Comercio y poder en América colonial; and Enriqueta Vila Vilar and Allan J. Kuethe, eds., Relaciones de poder y comercio colonial: Nuevas perspectivas (Seville: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, 1999).

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sueltos, registered merchant ships that crossed the Atlantic singly with no fixed schedule. In the case of Peru, the new system also involved the opening of a direct route via Cape Horn. That route had often been used by French contrabandists during the period from 1698 to 1725, but the Spanish considered it too dangerous. When the war ended in October 1748, a debate arose over the desirability of restoring the fleet and galleon system. Merchants on both sides of the Atlantic, especially the wealthier ones, pressed for a return to the old system, arguing that the frequent and unannounced arrival of ships had made commerce disorganized and unpredictable, leading to many disastrous dealings and business failures.33 However, direct trade had yielded clearly positive results for both the volume of traffic and the coffers of the crown. Tax revenues to the Spanish Crown more than doubled in terms of general income from customs during the war years, from an index of 100 in 1740 to 216 in 1753, with no increase in the tax burden.34 With the rise to power of Ricardo Wall (secretary of state) and Julián de Arriaga (secretary of the Indies), who replaced the Marquis of Ensenada and José de Carvajal, respectively, in 1754, and with continued pressure from the gaditano merchants and from foreign powers with interests in Cádiz, a partial return to the old system was made. New Spain would once again be supplied by regularly scheduled fleets (the first of which did not leave port until 1757), while trade between Cádiz and Lima would continue by means of independent ships via Cape Horn. Nevertheless, the reinstatement of the fleets did not represent a return to the past for trade with New Spain. The changes that had occurred during 20 years of independent shipping were not forgotten; instead, they coexisted with the old system. Between 1754 and 1778 only six fleets departed en route to Veracruz, transporting a total of 43,918 tons of cargo. Much has been made of these fleets, but what is often forgotten is that that amount represented only 13.32 percent of the total cargo shipped from Cádiz to American ports.35 In the intervals between fleets (especially from 1765 on), registered ships continued to be sent to the Caribbean, where the reexportation business to New Spain, according to certain contemporary observers, was both regular and voluminous.36 33. On the usefulness of a system of scheduled fleets as a mechanism for reducing uncertainty and risk in transatlantic trade, see Jeremy Baskes, “Risky Ventures: Reconsidering Mexico’s Colonial Trade System,” Colonial Latin American Historical Review 14, no. 1 (2005): 27 – 54. 34. Tomás García-Cuenca, “Las rentas generales de Aduanas de 1740 a 1774,” in Historia económica y pensamiento social: Estudios en homenaje a Diego Mateo del Peral, ed. G. Anes, L. A. Rojo, and P. Tedde (Madrid: Alianza, 1983), 260. 35. García-Baquero, Cádiz y el Atlántico, 1:173 – 74. 36. Stein and Stein, Apogee of Empire, 149.


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The reasons for not going back to the galleons and the Portobelo fairs was clearly expounded by Armada officers Jorge Juan and Antonio de Ulloa in a report commissioned by the Marquis of Ensenada in 1747.37 In 1742, these two officers had witnessed the arrival in Peru of the first registered ships from Cádiz. Juan and Ulloa realized almost immediately that this new system was the perfect antidote to the scourge of contraband — first, because the direct route lowered the costs of legal trade, and second, because direct trade eliminated the need for the elaborate preparations required to coordinate a meeting of gaditanos and limeños on the Isthmus of Panama. As was to be expected, the majority of the merchants took a dim view of the permanent adoption of direct trade. They were particularly concerned about the increased frequency of the exchanges and the more than five months of hazardous sailing that separated Cádiz and Lima. A report written in 1750 by the gaditano merchant Andrés de Loyo at the request of the Marquis of Ensenada demonstrated that concern. Loyo’s arguments against the permanent adoption of the new system — increased prices, the monopolization of trade by a handful of merchants, the excessively difficult voyage, and so forth — would prove invalid, for the most part. One of his predictions, however, turned out to be correct. Loyo affirmed that, with the regular arrival of ships in Peru, it will follow perforce that the merchants of Lima, not wanting to buy large inventories, having at their own doorsteps what is required for their needs, the merchants of Spain will find themselves obliged to retail and sell on credit Inland (which is wide extended and remote), where it corresponds they will experience considerable delays and losses, the merchants thus being required to remain in the Viceroyalty, and their considerable debts and delays will cause further delays and bankruptcies [for their principals and creditors] back in Spain.38 Loyo’s words reveal the enormous amount of trust that merchants living in Cádiz necessarily placed in the agents who were to sell their wares in Peru. It was no longer a matter of sending merchandise to Portobelo every four or five years (or of financing merchants who attended the fairs). At the Portobelo fairs, goods were purchased wholesale and paid for in full, not in installments, and official prices were negotiated before the fair opened. All of this ended with 37. Jorge Juan and Antonio de Ulloa, Noticias secretas de América (London: David Barry, 1826), 219 – 20. Although the report was completed in 1749, it was not published until 1826. 38. Loyo to Ensenada, Madrid, 26 Sep. 1750, British Library, London (hereafter cited as BL), Add. ms. 13,976, fol. 272r – v.

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direct trade. Sales were now made with no official fixed prices, at a distance of half a year, and under much more competitive conditions. The risks of direct trade to the Pacific coast had already been shown by foreign contraband trade at the turn of the previous century. From 1698 to 1725, when French smugglers abandoned the route, 148 vessels from France arrived on the coasts of Chile and Peru.39 As one of those contrabandists wrote in his memoirs, the French were not transporting goods that the Peruvians had requested. Their ships arrived filled with a wide assortment of merchandise that the smugglers hoped to sell along the coast, in fierce competition with their own compatriots.40 It is hardly surprising that this contraband commerce, with all the risks on the French side, did little to promote stable transatlantic connections between Peruvians and Frenchmen, and that European manufacturers heard little news about the market in which their products were finally sold. Something similar was to occur with the first registered ships sent to Peru in the 1740s.41 Owing to this contraband competition, galleons sailed from Spain en route to Tierra Firme only seven times from 1690 to 1739. In striking contrast, in the 1740s and 1750s, one to three registered ships from Cádiz arrived each year at Callao. Although exchanges were officially limited to the number of licenses granted by the crown, they continued to increase significantly in both frequency and monetary value, resulting in a decrease in foreign contraband. In May 1767 the viceroy of Peru, Manuel de Amat, rejoiced in that fact, pointing out that the number of ships and the value of the precious metals sent to Spain had risen from 11 shipments (2.2 per year) and 16,640,875 pesos in the period from 1757 to 1761 to 15 shipments (3 per year) and 27,488,341 pesos in 1763 – 67.42 In the period from 1768 to 1776 the average was 4.5 shipments annually. The frequency of this commerce brought about important changes in trade patterns.43 Under the galleon system, the intervals of several years from one fair to the next, combined with the substantial cost of traveling from Lima to Portobelo, had enabled a 39. See Carlos Malamud Rikles, Cádiz y Saint Maló en el comercio colonial peruano, 1698 – 1725 (Cádiz: Diputación Provincial de Cádiz, 1986). 40. La Barbinais le Gentil, Nouveau voyage autour du monde, 3 vols. (Paris, 1728), 2:40 – 41. 41. Xabier Lamikiz, “Patrones de comercio y flujo de información comercial entre España y América durante el siglo XVIII,” Revista de Historia Económica: Journal of Iberian and Latin American Economic History 25, no. 2 (2007): 249 – 50. 42. Amat to Julián de Arriaga, Lima, 8 May 1767, AGI, Lima, leg. 1524. 43. For a detailed study of the changes that took place in trade patterns, see Lamikiz, “Patrones de comercio,” 231 – 58.


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handful of prosperous limeño merchants to monopolize the exchanges in the isthmus by purchasing in large quantities. In contrast, with the frequent arrival of registered ships and the consequent risk of sudden drops in prices, trans atlantic trade began to take on a distinctly retail character. Individual inventories of goods shipped to Peru began to consist of lesser quantities than in the time of the galleons, thus opening up transatlantic trade to the smaller merchants.44 With increased competition, profit margins shrank, and more and more purchases began to be paid for in installments. These changes brought with them more changes. The increase in credit sales obliged the gaditano merchants to remain in the colonies for several years to collect payments. At the same time, the gaditanos wanted to stay longer in Peru due to the need, brought on by greater competition, to acquire a deeper understanding of the colonial market and its fashions and peculiarities. As a result, sales on consignment came to represent the greater part of the transatlantic trade, with no need for merchants to cross the ocean every time they shipped merchandise. Of course, they still had the option of traveling personally to the other side of the Atlantic and carry ing out their own negotiations, rather than trusting another, but the terrors of the voyage did much to discourage such intrepid action. It was the younger merchants of fewer means who ventured to sail, not the veterans. Experienced merchants communicated with their agents and debtors by post. Replies to their letters never arrived in less than a year. Transformations in the pattern of trade directly affected the nature of the risks of transatlantic commerce. Prior to 1739, risk had been associated primarily with how well the system of galleons and fairs was functioning, conditioned by French contraband and the ever-present problems of coordination. In contrast, after 1739, risk had more to do with competition and intermediaries. Relations with agents were then significantly affected by what economists call “the principal-agent problem.” Owing to vast distances and slow communications, agents had at their disposal information that their principals lacked — a situation known as “asymmetric information.” Agents thus possessed an ample margin for opportunistic behavior, and their principals had the same margin for

44. According to a report submitted to the Cinco Gremios Mayores of Madrid in 1784, individual inventories of clothing shipped to Peru in the second half of the eighteenth century rarely surpassed 100,000 pesos in value. BL, Add. ms. 13,981, fol. 24r. In contrast, in shipments by galleons early in that century, rich limeño merchants had habitually arrived in Portobelo with quantities ranging from 300,000 to 800,000 pesos. George R. Dilg, “The Collapse of the Portobelo Fairs: A Study in Spanish Commercial Reform, 1720 – 1740” (PhD diss., Indiana Univ., 1975), 318 – 19.

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distrust.45 It was this very fact that caused the matter of mutual consignments to take an unexpected turn: while the consulados were still immersed in their bitter disputes, merchants on both sides of the Atlantic, out of sheer necessity, began to become better acquainted with one another and to collaborate equitably among themselves, making the consulados’ discourse largely irrelevant to the day-to-day operations of transatlantic trade. As a result, part of that trade went underground. Official Trade vs. Covert Trade

The participation of Peruvian merchants in transatlantic trade did not diminish in the second half of the eighteenth century; proof of that may be found in the cargo manifests of ships sailing from Cádiz to Callao. In February 1756 the frigate Nuestra Señora del Carmen, alias La Galga, departed Cádiz with 200 tons of clothing and textiles (ropas) and 50 of other goods (paper, iron bars, hardware, cinnamon, and china). The cargo was divided into 291 registries (individual shipments) belonging to 158 persons, of which at least 60 resided in Peru and Chile. The Americans were to receive 88 of the 291 registries (30 percent), corresponding to merchandise bought with their money and shipped from Cádiz after the loaders had sworn an oath.46 In February 1768 the frigate La Ventura, alias La Amistad, transported a cargo of 350 tons divided into 360 registries, of which 165 (46 percent) belonged to Americans; this cargo was also shipped from Cádiz under the sworn oath of the loaders.47 Likewise, the Nuestra Señora de la Concepción left Cádiz in February 1776 with 883 tons of merchandise; on this occasion 210 of the 448 registries (47 percent) were consigned to Peruvians, under the mandatory oath.48 This small sampling indicates that Peruvian participation in transatlantic trade tended to be on a par with that of the gaditanos. Furthermore, the principal merchants of Spain who shipped merchandise belonging to Peruvians were members of the Cádiz consulado, prominent men such as Matías de Landaburu, Domingo de Vea Murguía, and Juan Agustín de Uztáriz. 45. On the “principal-agent problem,” see for example Ann M. Carlos and Stephen Nicholas, “Agency Problems in the Early Chartered Companies: The Case of the Hudson’s Bay Company,” Journal of Economic History 50, no. 4 (1990): 853 – 75; and David Hancock, “ ‘A World of Business to Do’: William Freeman and the Foundations of England’s Commercial Empire, 1645 – 1707,” William and Mary Quarterly 57, no. 1 (2000): 3 – 34. 46. AGI, Contratación, leg. 1748. 47. AGI, Contratación, leg. 1762. 48. AGI, Contratación, leg. 1780.


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All of this refers to official trade; the Peruvians were able to receive this merchandise only because it had been purchased with their money. But Peruvians received other merchandise covertly, to be sold on commission. Although it would be impossible to determine the precise extent of trade, there is sufficient evidence to justify the statement that the practice was quite widespread. In speaking of covert trade, foreigners residing in Cádiz must inevitably be mentioned. Despite being legally excluded from Spanish colonial trade, they appear to have participated significantly through official channels during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.49 In order to bypass legal barriers, foreigners would resort to a Spanish front or “straw man” willing to lend his name as the (fictitious) owner of merchandise to be shipped. Not even the requirement of swearing an oath was sufficient to eradicate the use of straw men. One very revealing example is the appeal made in October 1743 by the French merchant Leon Brethous to the Spanish merchant Francisco Ortiz. Brethous asked Ortiz to be his front man, adding, “If you make a false oath you will obtain the commission as customary.”50 In 1780, Pedro de Rada, member of the Council of the Indies and opponent of full freedom of consignment for the Americans, conceded that the oath, as a measure of prevention, was of very dubious efficacy.51 The obvious question arises, if gaditanos were willing to lend their names to protect foreign traders, why would they not be willing to do the same for the Americans? A variety of documentary sources suggests that many gaditanos consigned their merchandise to Peruvians by means of “endorsement,” a stratagem to avoid swearing a false oath. All that was needed was to consign the goods to an agent or a crew member who was traveling to Callao (the ship’s officers, particularly the ship’s master, were often members of the Cádiz consulado). Upon arrival in Lima, that person would then endorse, or sign over, the merchandise to the limeño merchant who, in theory, was not allowed to receive it. Far from charging for their endorsement, the agents and shipmasters usually provided their services as a favor, for the dual purpose of proving their trustworthiness and forming closer bonds with the merchants they assisted. The good understanding between gaditanos and limeños can be ascribed in part to the fact that gaditanos, after residing for several years in Lima, often became limeños themselves. Gaditanos arrived in Peru with a permit allowing 49. Jacques Savary, Le Parfait negociant (Paris: J. Guignard, 1675), 76 – 80; and Stein and Stein, Apogee of Empire, 14 – 15. 50. Brethous to Ortiz, Bayonne, 28 Oct. 1743, The National Archives, London (hereafter cited as TNA), High Court of Admiralty (hereafter cited as HCA) 30/250/1. 51. Rada to the Consejo de Indias, report, Madrid, 11 May 1780, AGI, Lima, leg. 1548, fol. 3r – v.

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them to remain in the colonies for a maximum of three years. The problem was that, with the new trade pattern that grew out of the changeover to direct shipping, many merchants exceeded that limit. Although a few contrived to renew their licenses, after three years most of the gaditanos lost their consignee privileges and were forced to choose between returning to Cádiz or becoming legal residents of Peru. What is of consequence here is that those who decided to remain in Lima continued to make use of their contacts in Spain, eluding the restrictions imposed by the Casa de la Contratación. One very candid example is that of the merchant Andrés Ramírez de Arellano, who arrived in Lima as master of the San Martín in December 1757. In 1761, Ramírez de Arellano was still in Lima, due in part to physical problems that made it difficult for him to return to Spain, and in part to the fact that he had not yet concluded his business affairs in Peru. Ever since his arrival in Lima, Ramírez de Arellano had been receiving consignments from his friends in Cádiz. In January 1761, now that more than three years had passed since his arrival in Lima, one of those friends, Roque Aguado, informed Ramírez that the only way he could continue to ship consignments to him would be to obtain endorsements from third parties. “In this way,” Aguado wrote, “we escape having to swear the obligatory oath.”52 Documentary evidence from the period testifies to the considerable frequency of undercover consignments. One such testimony is from Manuel de Gato, a Cádiz agent operating in Lima who was accused in April 1764 of being a straw man for foreigners. When it was discovered that he had lent his name not to foreigners but to limeños, Gato declared with more than a hint of sarcasm that he would like to be “accused and sentenced by some merchant who is innocent of this crime.”53 Revealingly, Gato called his part in the covert consignments “entrusting [hacer confianza]” and indicated that the practice was “very frequent and practiced every day not only by merchants but also even by other persons” in Spain as well as in America. Correspondence from Lima intercepted by the British in 1779 corroborates Gato’s claim that gaditanos who had lost the right of consignment were not the only ones who benefited from covert trade. Between 1739 and 1783, the British Royal Navy captured at least 363 Spanish ships (merchant ships, corsairs, warships, dispatch boats, and others), many of which were crossing 52. Roque Aguado to Andrés Ramírez de Arellano, Cádiz, 24 Jan. 1761, Instituto Riva Agüero, Lima, Archivo Ramírez Arellano, Epistolario (hereafter cited as IRA and Arellano, respectively). 53. AGN, TC-GR2, caja 127, doc. 731, fols. 34v – 35r.


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the Atlantic when they were seized.54 Among them all, one in particular stands out: the frigate San Francisco Xavier or La Perla, which left the port of Callao on May 12, 1779, en route to Cádiz. Five months later, when it had reached the Azores on the final leg of its voyage, La Perla had the misfortune of crossing paths with two English privateers. On that occasion, the English took possession of 1,529 franked envelopes of private correspondence.55 The value of such a synchronic documentary source — almost all the documents and letters were written between late March and early May 1779 — lies as much in their quantity as it does in their quality. The franked envelopes were sent by 540 persons (188 of them merchants) to 926 recipients (293 of them merchants). La Perla offers access to the transatlantic networks of a very substantial proportion of the merchants of Cádiz and Lima. La Perla confirms Manuel de Gato’s statement: covert trade practices were being used continually by the merchants, and not always as a mechanism for evading restrictions; there were other motives not always revealed in the correspondence. For example, Silvestre de Amenábar, a member of the Cádiz consulado temporarily located in Lima, sent six sacks of vicuña wool on La Perla for his brother Xavier Ignacio, using the names of the Amándarro brothers. Officially, Manuel José de Amándarro was the consignor in Lima and his brother Juan Antonio the consignee in Cádiz. Manuel José himself revealed the true nature of the transaction in his letter of order (carta orden). Silvestre de Amenábar explained the entire operation to his brother, telling him that Juan Antonio Amándarro “will turn them [the sacks of wool] over to you by virtue of 54. The British captured at least 131 Spanish vessels during the war of 1739 – 48, 92 during that of 1761 – 63, and 140 during that of 1779 – 83. It is very difficult to determine the number of ships captured at the beginning and at the end of the eighteenth century. It should be mentioned that the usual custom was for Spanish captains to cast the mail into the sea before their vessels were captured. As a result, the quantity of documents preserved is quite inconsistent from one case to another. The intercepted correspondence is kept in the National Archives of London. 55. In addition to numerous official documents sent by colonial authorities, correspondence from La Perla included 1,529 franked envelopes that in turn contained another 402 hidden envelopes, 2,269 letters, 470 bills of lading, 308 sales accounts and invoices, 87 notarized documents (contracts, powers of attorney, wills, etc.), 54 merchandise orders, 44 letters of exchange, 23 current accounts, and 14 fabric samples. Correspondence from La Perla is distributed among eight boxes: TNA, HCA 30/275, 30/276, 30/311, 30/312, 30/313, 30/314, 30/315, and 30/316. For a more detailed description, see Xabier Lamikiz, Trade and Trust in the Eighteenth-Century Atlantic World: Spanish Merchants and Their Overseas Networks (Woodbridge: Boydell Press / Royal Historical Society, 2010), 100 – 107.

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the attached letter of order from the former in which he declares that said wool belongs to me, despite having been shipped in his name.”56 Many similar examples can be found among the correspondence from La Perla; some refer to transactions of foreign merchants and others to those of limeños who had not been registered previously in Cádiz. One significant case is that of Joaquín José de Arrese, who had been head of the Lima consulado during the triennium of 1775 – 77. In autumn of 1778, his primary contact in the metropolis, Nicolás de Rojas of the Cádiz consulado, had requested from him a copy of the accounts of all transactions between the two from 1773 onwards. The extensive accounts written up by Arrese, covering transactions with a total value of 247,380 pesos, show that most of the merchandise he received in Lima was to be sold at a 6 percent commission, and that all of it was shipped under third-party endorsements. These accounts included Rojas’s current account with Arrese and 11 sales accounts, listing in detail not only the amounts due and amounts paid but also the names of those who had endorsed the merchandise to Arrese.57 The La Perla letters bring to light the excellent relations that existed among a large number of gaditanos and limeños, who dealt with each other on an equal footing and even formed companies that included members of both communities.58 Some gaditanos viewed with alarm the growing participation of Peruvians in transatlantic commerce, a tendency that had spread to Mexican merchants and the trade between Cádiz and New Spain. In a fascinating 31-page report written in Mexico City in March 1773, one of the three deputies of the fleet of 1772 (representing gaditanos in New Spain who traded via the fleets), José de Echea, asserted to the Secretary of the Indies that the recent Jalapa fair had been a farce, with endorsements and false oaths galore. He emphasized that a large part of the merchandise had been purchased previously by Mexicans through their correspondents in Spain, and that another large part had been handed over to Mexicans by the Cádiz agents using “simulated commissions.” Echea warned that unless preventive measures were taken, trade with New Spain “would be 56. Amenábar to Amenábar, Lima, 8 May 1779, TNA, HCA 30/312/2, no. 1070. 57. Arrese to Rojas, Lima, 8 May 1779, TNA, HCA 30/316/18, no. 1851. For further examples of endorsements, see Manuel de Jauregui to Juan Miguel de Aguerrebere, Lima, 2 Apr. 1779, TNA, HCA 30/314/7, no. 625; Antonio de Elizalde to Juan Martín de Aguirre, Lima, 8 May 1779, TNA, HCA 30/315/2, no. 1587; and José de Moya to Juan Antonio Herrero, Lima, 7 May 1779, TNA, HCA 30/312/1, no. 493. 58. A contract for a “compañía particular” (trade company set up without the intervention of an escribano or notary public) between limeños and gaditanos in Vicente to Corcuera and Sarralde, Lima, 5 May 1779, TNA, HCA 30/316/1, no. 830.


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reduced like that in Peru, where more than three-quarters of trade is in the hands of merchants of Lima and its Sierra.”59 Evidence from La Perla appears to indicate that this estimate was an exaggeration. What cannot be disputed is that, restrictions and consulado squabbles notwithstanding, a reality existed in which limeños and gaditanos trusted one another and worked very well together. Transatlantic Networks and Trust

Merely stating that the pattern of trade that began to emerge in 1739 required a high level of trust between merchants means nothing without concrete examples. In 1774, having left his wife and children in Cádiz, the agent encomendero Ignacio de Torres y Mato set off for Peru with the intention of selling clothing and textiles. His brother Francisco accompanied him. Five years later, in May 1779, the two brothers still had not concluded their business, so an exasperated Ignacio began to consider the possibility of bringing his family over to Lima. His other option, returning to Cádiz, was not feasible because if his brother Francisco were to die in Peru there would be no one to collect the payments from their customers who had bought on credit. However, Ignacio was well aware of the problems that might arise if his family were to leave Cádiz. He wrote to ask advice of his compadre (godfather of a child of his), the Cádiz merchant Agustín de Amenábar: “If you should consider that these thoughts of mine might be to the detriment of my work in the future (I mean) that I might lose my reputation for honesty with the residents there, and that they may not wish to risk their money with me believing that because I do not have my family there I will not pay them on time . . . in that case you . . . will determine what you consider most advantageous.”60 The case of Ignacio Torres is that of a man of limited means who probably had not yet been able to earn a reputation that would inspire the necessary degree of trust; he would therefore need to find another way to establish his credit. Many years of acquaintance and experience, however, did not always guarantee a merchant’s utter trustworthiness. In fact, the importance of trust can be seen just as clearly when its veneer has cracked and distrust begins to loom. It was for such a cause that Juan de Eguino, a veteran merchant from Cádiz, decided to travel to Lima in November 1778. A year or two prior to that date, Eguino had begun to be suspicious of Domingo de Larrea, his old cor59. Echea to Julián de Arriaga, Mexico City, 18 Mar. 1773, AGI, México, leg. 2492, fol. 4r. 60. Torres to Amenábar, Lima, 10 May 1779, TNA, HCA 30/312/2, no. 622.

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respondent and friend in Lima, whom he had met on a trip to Lima 25 years earlier. The two had formed several companies following Eguino’s return to Cádiz in 1757, but their most recent venture, joining with two other partners in 1774 to sell large quantities of clothing and textiles in Peru, had been disastrous. At least, that was what Larrea claimed in his letters. Importuned by the French creditors who had financed the deal and dubious of Larrea’s excuses, Eguino set sail for Lima to set the matter straight. After five months and one week of anguish at sea, Eguino finally came face to face with Larrea and learned that his fears had been justified. Days later he related the details of that encounter to his other partner in Cádiz: “[Larrea] has denied nothing, indeed has confessed it to me, so that I gave myself free rein to say to him all the things that you may imagine, although softly and with courtesy, and I found him perturbed and unable to answer the charges that I made to him.”61 Examples such as these illustrate the degree to which merchants relied upon the integrity of their correspondents on the Cádiz-Lima route. Naturally, this had been no less true during the seventeenth century. The difference, however, lies in the much greater number of merchants with regular transatlantic contacts and in the increasingly heavy commercial traffic on the Atlantic route, obliging eighteenth-century businessmen to transmit and demand information at an accelerated pace. This sort of trust had to be tended and nurtured, and its roots were embedded in social and cultural considerations. In order to understand the genesis and the durability of the bonds of trust, it will be necessary first to identify those gaditano and limeño merchants, since most of them were only adopted sons of Cádiz and Lima. Regarding the decision of 1729 to exclude “American” merchants from transatlantic trade, Geoffrey Walker states, incorrectly, that “for the first time in the history of Spain’s American commerce a distinction was drawn between peninsular-born and American-born Spaniards.”62 The truth is that the distinction between peninsular and American merchants had nothing to do with their place of birth and everything to do with their place of residence and their consulado affiliation. Who were these “gaditanos”? Where did they come from? Thanks to the membership registry of the Cádiz consulado, with its merchant listings showing name and place of birth, we know that of the 3,252 individuals registered from 1743 to 1823, only 31 percent were originally from the Province of Cádiz, while 45 percent came from northern Spain (particularly from the Basque Country,

61. Eguino to Blas Antonio Jiménez, Lima, 5 May 1779, TNA, HCA 30/313/2, no. 921. 62. Walker, Spanish Politics and Imperial Trade, 169.


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Navarre, and Cantabria/La Montaña).63 The data recovered from La Perla show an even greater percentage of northerners based in Cádiz and trading with Peru. Addressees of the correspondence aboard La Perla included 293 merchants residing in Cádiz. Of these, 179 were members of the Cádiz consulado: 157 native Spaniards, 7 naturalized foreigners, 3 Peruvians, and 12 whose origin could not be determined. Of the 157 Spaniards, only 38 were originally from the Province of Cádiz, while 97 were from the north, including 49 Basque-Navarrese. Among the addressees there were also 67 Spanish merchants who were never listed in the membership registry (at least 25 of them were Basque-Navarrese) and 46 foreigners or foreign companies (40 French, 5 Irish, and 1 Genovese).64 These figures are probably representative of the entire community, given that the annual numbers of merchants shipping goods to the colonies ranged from 250 to 430 during the 1770s.65 The lack of a membership registry for Lima like that of Cádiz is an enormous impediment to discovering the origins of the limeño merchants. Where were they from? The answer to this question is closely related to a hypothesis that was advanced by David Brading 40 years ago and confirmed by later historiography. In his influential work on miners and merchants in Mexico during the late colonial period, Brading suggests that Spanish colonial commerce cannot be understood without first analyzing the “unusual sociology” that was its foundation. According to Brading, “All our evidence suggests that generation by generation, from the Conquest until Independence, immigrant Spaniards dominated colonial trade.”66 Although no existing work catalogs all the merchants of Lima by name and birthplace, a recent study by Jesús Turiso shows that 80 percent of the directorship of the Lima consulado from 1688 to 1764 (one prior and two consuls, elected every two or three years) had been born in Spain, and that almost half of these were Basque-Navarrese. Only 7 percent of these positions 63. See the complete list of names in Julián Bautista Ruiz Rivera, El Consulado de Cádiz: Matrícula de comerciantes, 1730 – 1823 (Cádiz: Diputación Provincial de Cádiz, 1988), 113 – 216. 64. Lamikiz, Trade and Trust, 116 – 21. 65. Antonio García-Baquero, “Permanencia y renovación en la matrícula mercantil gaditana del siglo XVIII: El componente español (1749 – 1773),” in García-Baquero, Comercio y burguesía, 69 – 101; and Bernal, Financiación de la Carrera de Indias, 430. 66. Brading, Miners and Merchants, 104. See also David A. Brading, “Los españoles en México hacia 1792,” Historia Mexicana 23, no. 1 (1973): 126 – 44; Christiana Borchart de Moreno, “Los miembros del Consulado de la ciudad de México en la época de Carlos III,” Jahrbuch für Geschichte Lateinamerikas 14 (1977): 134 – 60; Félix E. Converso, “Españoles y Americanos, agentes de un mercado regional,” Anuario de Estudios Americanos 47 (1990): 279 – 306; Socolow, Merchants of Buenos Aires, 16 – 18; and Kicza, Colonial Entrepreneurs, 235.

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were held by criollos.67 La Perla gives us access to a more representative portion of the mercantile community of Lima. The only extant list of the members of the Lima consulado in the second half of the eighteenth century is that of the 160 persons in attendance at the consulado elections in January 1779.68 This list, it should be noted, was created only four months prior to the departure of La Perla. Combined with information gleaned from documents aboard the ship, the list enables us to identify a major portion of the limeño merchants who had dealings with Spain. No fewer than 108 of the 160 present at the elections sent letters with commercial content via La Perla. Along with them, 80 additional merchants who appear in the correspondence have no known connection to the Lima consulado; only a few of these had been registered in Cádiz. Of the total of 188 merchants who sent letters aboard La Perla, it has been possible to determine the geographic origins of 126. The numbers speak for themselves: 114 were born in Spain, 9 in Peru, 2 in Lisbon, and 1 in Genoa. Of the 114 Spaniards, 98 were from the north (61 of them Basque-Navarrese). Even supposing (and this is highly unlikely) that all of the 62 merchants of unknown origin were born in the Americas, this would still mean that nearly two-thirds of all “limeños” were in fact Spaniards by birth.69 In short, 86 percent of all the merchants named in the correspondence from La Perla (both senders and recipients) were born neither in Lima nor in Cádiz, and no less than 69 percent of them came from the north of Spain, from small towns such as Irurita in Navarre, Elorrio in Vizcaya, Vinuesa in Soria, or Limpias in Cantabria. The majority of these emigrants had been born into peasant families and sent as adolescents to live under the care of a relative (often an uncle) or other fellow countryman already established in Cádiz or in America. This pattern of emigration, motivated by a dense population and by a system that favored a single heir per family, thus obliging parents to seek other means of providing for younger sons, soon became a firmly rooted practice in the early modern period. On La Perla, the number of merchants who contemplated bringing over a nephew or other young relative from their hometowns is surprising, to say the least. Even more important, these merchants paid little heed to consulado affiliations when seeking employment for their relatives. In May 1779, the Navarrese Juan Bautista de Gárate (member of the Lima consulado, never registered in Cádiz) requested the aid of the Basque José Antonio de Mada riaga (member of the Cádiz consulado) in securing a place in some house of 67. Turiso Sebastián, Comerciantes españoles, 96 – 100. 68. AGN, TC-GO2, caja 6, leg. 10, cuaderno 145. 69. Lamikiz, Trade and Trust, 121 – 26.


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trade for a nephew of his who was due to arrive in Cádiz from Navarre. Gárate emphasized, “My intentions are aimed merely at aiding some to leave the valley, in order that, when they have turned out to be fine, respectable men, they may follow our example and help those who come after them.”70 In the second half of the eighteenth century, the influx in America from the distinct “nations” of Spain (particularly the Basque-Navarrese and La Montaña groups) was a greater factor in determining the organization of transatlantic commerce than were the legal provisions and institutions that regulated it. These diasporas were not strictly commercial phenomena. Their commercial facet was one aspect of a broader process of continuous emigration to Madrid, Cádiz, and the colonies. Unlike the emigrants from Portugal prior to 1640, merchants from the various regions of Spain had the advantage of having relatives and compatriots throughout the spectrum of the elite and the government in the colonies, including every sort of office and position ranging from the church to the army and all points in-between.71 Furthermore, the first generation of emigrants consisted almost exclusively of men, who in many cases ended up marrying the daughters of criollo families. Their integration into new communities did not conflict with the preservation of their ethnic and regional identity, as evidenced by the numerous Basque-Navarrese and Cantabrian congregations founded both in Cádiz and in America. Shared regional and ethnic origins facilitated sociability, which in turn was the seed of interpersonal trust.72 Numerous studies on the colonial period have highlighted cohesion among emigrants who share the same geographical and ethnic origins. The most significant contemporary testimony, however, is probably that found in the Cartas marruecas (Moroccan Letters) written in the 1770s by the son of a Basque merchant, José Cadalso. Referring to “all who speak the Basque language” or Euskera (that is, the Vizcayan, Guipuzcoan, Alavese, and Navarrese peoples), Cadalso declared that “they have such a unity among themselves, that the best recommendation that one may receive from another is the simple fact of being Basque.”73 To historians Stanley and Barbara Stein, this unity did not transcend consulado rivalry; they claim that in New Spain “a shared birthplace [patria chica] in the peninsula did not avert intense rivalry between the ‘comercio de

70. Gárate to Madariaga, Lima, 9 May 1779, TNA, HCA 30/314/2, no. 589. 71. On emigration from Portugal, see Studnicki-Gizbert, A Nation Upon the Ocean Sea, 9 – 10. 72. On the mechanisms of cohesion within the group of Basque-Navarrese merchants, see Lamikiz, Trade and Trust, 121 – 26. 73. José Cadalso, Cartas marruecas (1793; Tarragona: Tárraco, 1984), letter xxvi, 138.

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México’ and the ‘comercio de España.’ ” 74 In contrast, the correspondence from La Perla tells a very different tale. During the second half of the eigh teenth century, rivalry among merchants went no further than normal professional competition, and that competition was not structured on membership in one guild or another. In transatlantic trade, relations based on friendship and geographic or ethnic origins ( paisanaje) prevailed over considerations of consulado affiliation. It is true that merchants did not limit themselves to doing business only with compatriots; in particular, the most solidly established ones had many contacts who were simply friends. Among their most trusted correspondents, however, the majority were paisanos or fellow countrymen. In addition, the correspondence shows that the merchants actively encouraged and championed their younger paisanos. Vizcayan Juan Bautista de Orobiogoitia (member of the Lima consulado, never registered in Cádiz) wrote to the important Cádiz merchant Matías de Landaburu to calm his concerns over delays in the sale of certain merchandise that Landaburu had sent to Lima. Endeavoring to be as persuasive as possible, Orobiogoitia did not hesitate to mention in his letter Landaburu’s “praiseworthy inclination” to “show favor to immediate Paysanos.”75 Since many peninsular merchants had originally come from the same town or the same valley, strong blood ties also tended to proliferate among them. While the correspondence shows that a good number of merchants had siblings, cousins, uncles, and nephews on the other side of the Atlantic, it can also be seen that very few fathers and sons were separated by that voyage of more than five months. The letters reveal, in addition, the existence of groups of friends and countrymen who provided and enjoyed mutual support. These groups were led by experienced businessmen such as Matías de Landaburu, Simón Babil de Úriz, Juan Ignacio Alcalde, Juan Miguel de Aguerrebere, and Juan Agustín de Uztáriz. The Navarrese Juan Bautista de Gárate, for example, addressed his paisano Aguerrebere, who had previously spent 17 years in Peru, as “my patrón and esteemed friend.”76 Aguerrebere was even privileged to choose which of his younger countrymen was to be awarded the coveted opportunity to sell merchandise on commission in Peru.77 Those same transatlantic ties had doubtless existed in the seventeenth 74. Stein and Stein, Silver, Trade, and War, 188. 75. Orobiogoitia to Landaburu, Lima, 30 Mar. 1779, TNA, HCA 30/313/1, no. 485. 76. Gárate to Aguerrebere, Lima, 30 Mar. 1779, TNA, HCA 30/314/7, no. 1300. 77. Gárate to Fermín Ramón de Barrera, Lima, 9 May 1779, TNA, HCA 30/313/2, no. 50.


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century as well, as Studnicki-Gizbert has demonstrated in the case of the Portuguese nation within the Spanish Empire. With the advent of direct trade, however, their role became much more important to commerce on the SpainPeru route. In the time of the galleons, Iberian merchants had had the option of selling their goods in Panama instead of making the long journey to Lima. Moreover, the precarious functioning of the system after 1640, with its long gaps between fairs, had not contributed to the creation of stable transatlantic networks. In contrast, under the system of direct trade, the only way to participate in regular exchanges was to establish enduring links with colleagues on the other side of the Atlantic. It was, in fact, the configuration of these networks that made possible the gradual emergence of the pattern of trade described above. Indeed, many of the merchants whose names appear on La Perla had made several Atlantic crossings before finally settling in Cádiz or in Lima, and 69 percent of all members of the Cádiz consulado mentioned in the correspondence had been registered in Cádiz before 1770.78 Thus they already had a great deal of experience under their belts. For example, Simón Babil de Úriz and Juan Francisco de Micheo, both from Navarre, were registered in Cádiz during the 1740s. Until the mid-1750s both had served as shipmasters on the Cádiz-Veracruz and Cádiz-Lima routes. After making several crossings, Micheo opted for marriage in Peru and became a resident of Lima, where he remained until his death just a few days before La Perla set sail. Úriz, on the other hand, decided to return to Spain and set himself up for business in Cádiz. In 1779 he was maintaining cordial business relations with “limeños” who were old friends of his. Members of the Lima consulado who corresponded with Úriz included his cousin José Joaquín de Sos, Antonio de Elizalde (originally from Navarre), Isidro de Adana (from La Rioja), and Ignacio de Elola (from Guipúzcoa in the Basque Country), who had been prior of the Lima consulado during the 1756 – 58 term. It was far easier for merchants to create trust when they had already met face-to-face and formed a friendship. The decision to settle permanently was, therefore, easier for those who had succeeded in establishing bonds of trust with their correspondents overseas. “I am most pleased that you are setting up to do business in that city,” wrote Basque merchant Domingo de Lasquívar to his compatriot José Antonio de Madariaga, “and it seems to me a prudent and astute idea, for with your knowledge of this business and your friends from here you may do more to increase your fortune without bestirring yourself from home than by exposing yourself to the hazards of the voyage.”79 In fact, in the lat78. Lamikiz, Trade and Trust, 129. 79. Lasquívar to Madariaga, Lima, 6 May 1779, TNA, HCA 30/312/6, no. 125.

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ter half of the eighteenth century, the term perulero was employed in reference not only to merchants who were established in Peru but also to merchants of Cádiz who had spent a number of years overseas and had obtained an ample understanding of the Peruvian market. A perulero might be Peruvian by birth, like Juan Manuel de Sarría (a resident of Cádiz since 1765 and a member of the Cádiz consulado since 1772), but he was more likely to be of Spanish origin, like Fermín Ramón de Barrera of Navarre (a member of the Cádiz consulado since 1775).80 Common regional origin and transatlantic travel were important generators of trust between merchants, but trade on consignment required more. The need to improve the hitherto precarious system of communication between Spain and its colonies increased beginning in the eighteenth century.81 The regular crossing of registered ships contributed to communications, but it was the creation of the Maritime Mail system in 1764 that changed the transatlantic stream of information to a flood. Dispatch boats (avisos) began to make monthly crossings to Havana, where correspondence was separated and reshipped to New Spain via Veracruz and to Peru via Cartagena de Indias. A second, bimonthly mail route was opened between Spain and Buenos Aires in 1767. Merchants quickly became accustomed to writing frequent letters to their contacts on the other side of the Atlantic, a habit that could have been indulged only occasionally and with difficulty in the seventeenth century. Aside from business-related information, the Cádiz merchants also clamored for news about their correspondents and their debtors. Whenever a ship prepared for departure to Spain, hundreds of Lima residents would scurry to write their letters and get them aboard. This correspondence was a gigantic wave of information cutting across the Atlantic to crash on the shores of Cádiz. The merchants in Lima knew that the contents of their letters would be discussed wherever people gathered in Cádiz, and that their daily activities — social and religious as well as financial — would be avidly scrutinized by their correspondents. For example, Alfonso de Losada had good news for his friend José de Ramos: “Your brother is maintaining his good reputation among the people, and he is married to a very sensible young lady.”82 On the other hand, José Joaquín de Sos gave Simón Babil de Úriz a negative report on Xavier de Huizi, 80. Sarría is referred to as a perulero in Roque Aguado to Andrés Ramirez de Arellano, Cádiz, 24 Jan. 1765, IRA, Arellano. Likewise Barrera in Manuel José de Amándarro to Pedro Antonio de Ibarrola, Lima, 8 May 1779, TNA, HCA 30/313/2, no. 1071. 81. Lamikiz, “Patrones de comercio,” 241 – 44. 82. Losada to Ramos, Lima, 8 May 1779, TNA, HCA 30/316/12, no. 1065.


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one of Úriz’s debtors in Lima, highlighting his “disorderly conduct.”83 Logically, it was helpful for Cádiz merchants to have several correspondents in Lima, in order to compare information from different sources. The correspondence from La Perla is evidence that, in the system of trade on consignment facilitated by registered ships, relations of trust were maintained, in great measure, thanks to the written word. Trust, inspired by personal acquaintance and the bonds between compatriots and nourished by the flow of information, was the framework that sustained the transatlantic networks. Only on this basis can we explain the proliferation of covert trade and understand the functioning of colonial commerce during the latter half of the eighteenth century. Yet all merchants did not turn to covert activity to equal degrees. The correspondence shows that foreign houses of trade in Cádiz participated in Spanish colonial trade far less frequently than is commonly believed. In the 1770s, foreigners (communities with special jurisdiction and a low level of local integration) represented 40 percent of the community of merchants established in Cádiz, but on La Perla they appear as a mere 15 percent (46 out of 293 addressees). Foreigners also had a reputation for being much wealthier than the Spanish, yet the La Perla correspondence shows that the value of their transactions was in no way superior.84 The low number of foreigners was not due to fear that their correspondence might be intercepted by the Spanish authorities; the correspondence enables us to confirm that foreigners in Cádiz received silver using Spanish straw men, but that the letters of notification were sent directly to the foreigners themselves, with no need for devious methods.85 The reason for their limited participation appears to be related to their lack of compatriots in Lima, as they had been gradually expelled from Peru from 1750 onward.86 In fact, the letters addressed to foreigners were written by a relatively small number of authors. Only six Spanish merchants sent 40 of the 60 envelopes addressed to 40 French firms established in Cádiz. No French person or company was to receive more than two envelopes. In stark contrast, many Spaniards in Cádiz had between 10 and 20 envelopes apiece of correspondence addressed to them. This fact would seem to indicate that the

83. Sos to Úriz, Lima, 5 Mar. 1779, TNA, HCA 30/314/7, no. 146. 84. Bustos Rodríguez, Comerciantes de la Carrera de Indias, 197 – 201. 85. See for example Domingo de Larrea to Lecture and Gastambide, Lima, 31 Mar. 1779, TNA, HCA 30/315/5, no. 1564. 86. Carmen Parrón, “El nacionalismo emergente y el comercio: La expulsión de extranjeros de América (Perú), 1750 – 1778,” in Actas del XI Congreso de la AHILA, 4 vols. (Liverpool: Univ. of Liverpool, 1998), 1:200 – 218.

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limited participation of foreigners was a direct consequence of their limited access to information from America. It would likewise point to some degree of reticence on the part of foreigners toward placing their trust in Spanish agents. Historian Francesca Trivellato has shown that merchants from different ethnic and religious groups were able to collaborate in long-distance trade even when they had never met face-to-face.87 The La Perla correspondence confirms this fact but also shows that such collaborations had their limitations. From Lima, merchants sent notas de efectos aparentes (lists of articles in demand, or purchase orders) to Cádiz. The merchandise (usually ropas, a wide variety of textiles and clothing) might be sent in the name of the Lima-based merchant or his correspondent in Cádiz. In either case, the limeños insisted that their orders and instructions be followed in every detail. For example, a criollo merchant, José Antonio de Lavalle, warned Lorenzo de Asunsolo that if he wanted to send him ropas again, they would have to be “a good variety and more carefully purchased, approximating as closely as possible the lists [de efectos aparentes] that I am sending you.”88 A limeño by adoption named Juan Bautista de Irigoyen ordered ropas on his own account from Sebastián de Zumaran. “See that this order comes exactly as I ask,” Irigoyen insisted, “without the least deviation from the list, or I will be vexed.”89 To prevent misunderstandings, the instructions needed to be as precise as possible. Even so, the merchants in Lima were perfectly aware that the final decision was in the hands of the correspon dent in Cádiz. He had not only to select the correct articles, but also to buy them at the lowest price. How much should he spend for the requested merchandise? The merchant in Lima would usually give an approximate budget. Manuel José de Amándarro, for example, wanted Pedro de Ibarrola to spend 30 to 40 thousand pesos on his list, “reducing the quantities proportionately in each of the lines.”90 These transatlantic networks prevailed even over the restrictions imposed on American shipping companies, who did not obtain permission to participate in transatlantic trade until 1796. For example, in the company formed by José Antonio de Lavalle, Vicente de Corcuera, Miguel Francisco de Corcuera, and Miguel de Sarralde, it was the limeño partners — Lavalle and Vicente de Corcu87. Francesca Trivellato, “Jews of Leghorn, Italians of Lisbon, and Hindus of Goa: Merchant Networks and Cross-Cultural Trade in the Early Modern Period,” in Commercial Networks in the Early Modern World, ed. Diogo Ramada Curto and Anthony Molho (Florence: European Univ. Institute, 2002), 59 – 89. 88. Lavalle to Asunsolo, Lima, 7 May 1779, TNA, HCA 30/314/1, no. 278. 89. Irigoyen to Zumaran, Lima, 3 Apr. 1779, TNA, HCA 30/315/1, no. 162. 90. Amándarro to Ibarrola, Lima, 8 May 1779, TNA, HCA 30/313/2, no. 1072.


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era — who ordered their Cádiz partners to buy a 450-ton ship in Bilbao.91 Rather than being a barrier between the two communities, the transatlantic transport issue actually brought them into closer contact with each other, because the preponderance of a few shipping companies in Cádiz, especially the firm of Uztáriz, San Ginés y Cía, inspired a shared hostility.92 Transatlantic networks were also used to collect on sea loans (préstamos a riesgo de mar) granted in Cádiz, to be cancelled in Lima after a term of one year.93 In order to collect on these loans, merchants in Lima received powers of attorney from their contacts in Cádiz, authorizing them to act in their contacts’ names and even, if necessary, to take legal action against the debtors. However, contrary to general belief, limeños played a very active role in financing the Carrera de Indias, or transatlantic colonial trade. This reciprocity between gaditanos and limeños suggests that important economic consequences have not yet been explored. Historian Antonio-Miguel Bernal affirms that, in the latter half of the eighteenth century, French firms established in Cádiz were the major moneylenders involved in financing colonial trade.94 Nevertheless, Bernal acknowledges the unlikelihood of finding empirical evidence to confirm his hypothesis, since, due to the practice of using Spanish straw men, the names of foreign investors do not appear in the thousands of loan contracts (escrituras de riesgo) preserved in the Spanish archives (including no fewer than 65,000 such documents from the eighteenth century). There is no reason to doubt the participation of foreigners. However, the La Perla evidence reveals the existence of a source of complementary financing that Bernal does not consider. Just as José de Echea stated in 1773, merchants established in the colonies, so often celebrated in historiography for their enormous wealth, loaned money via correspondents in Cádiz to the agents traveling to Peru. The gaditanos were entrusted with the important mission of finding “persons or houses of moral security.”95

91. Corcuera to Sarralde and Corcuera, Lima, 5 May 1779, TNA, HCA 30/316/1, no. 830. 92. Joaquín Manuel de Azcona to Juan Martín de Aguirre, Lima, 30 Mar. 1779, TNA, HCA 30/315/2, no. 279. 93. For the technical aspects of sea loans (préstamos a riesgo de mar), see María Dolores Herrero Gil, “¿De la confusión a la negociación? Reflexiones sobre la utilidad asegurodora del contrato de riesgo,” Espacio, Tiempo y Forma: Historia Moderna (Madrid) 18 – 19 (2005 – 6): 133 – 54. 94. Bernal, Financiación de la Carrera de Indias, 449 – 62. 95. Jacinto de los Santos to Istúriz and Albizu, Lima, 8 May 1779, TNA, HCA 30/312/1, no. 612.

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Conclusion

In his government memoir for 1761, the viceroy of Peru and Count of Superunda declared that, thanks to direct shipments, “[we] are now wearing exquisite silks, which it would otherwise be impossible to obtain.”96 In a 1791 article published in the Mercurio Peruano, José de Baquíjano y Carrillo, a criollo, also gave a very positive assessment of the half-century that had elapsed since trade with Spain began to be carried out via Cape Horn. According to Baquíjano, the ships had extended “the useful, desirable, and convenient items that may be received from Europe”; in addition, there had been a notable reduction in prices, “a family now being able to dress in the most exquisite fabrics for the same quantity [of money] that was previously [in the galleon era] insufficient even to buy the crude products manufactured locally.”97 The words of Superunda and Baquíjano go beyond mere confirmation of the growth in colonial trade; they tell of the gradual creation in America of a typical eighteenth-century consumer society.98 They also speak of a phenomenon of integration within the Spanish Atlantic in which mercantile networks played a role that was as crucial as it is unknown. This article has attempted to approach these networks and to delve into the experiences of these merchants from a less rigid perspective than is suggested by the multiplicity of regulations imposed on colonial trade and by the protectionist discourse of the consulados. The consulados undoubtedly pursued the interests of their respective members but, as is so often the case, collective and individual benefits did not always coincide. Indeed, the merchants placed their personal needs ahead of the directives issued by their own consulados and the regulations imposed by the crown, even when such regulations had been designed for their benefit. The reason for this is as simple as it is powerful: the day-to-day operations of commerce took place at a personal rather than institutional level, between individuals who needed to trust one another in an informal manner. This does not mean that the consulado disputes were fictitious or unimportant, nor does it mean that the contrast between individual experience and institutional discourse is in all ways contradictory. Merchants used their respective consulados to defend 96. Alfredo Moreno Cebrián, ed., Relación y documentos de gobierno del virrey del Perú, José A. Manso de Velasco, Conde de Superunda, 1745 – 1761 (Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, 1983), 284. 97. José Baquíjano y Carrillo, “Disertación histórica y Política sobre el comercio del Perú,” in Mercurio Peruano, 12 vols. (1791 – 94; Lima: Biblioteca Nacional del Perú, 1964 – 66), 1:246. 98. Lamikiz, “Patrones de comercio,” 254 – 55.


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their interests and to channel their discontent over any threats to their position. It was both logical and inevitable that they would become entangled in disputes and resort to claims of victimization with every tremor of the economy. In the 1770s the tremor came in the form of saturation of the Peruvian market. However, what determined in the end whether Lima merchants would continue to receive consignments was neither the law, nor restrictions imposed by the Casa de la Contratación, but their capacity to create bonds of trust that spanned the Atlantic. Similar observations may be made regarding the Cádiz merchants. Therefore, giving attention to such particulars as the identity of each merchant, his mobility, his reputation, and his geographic and social origins provides a closer and more genuine view of colonial commerce and transatlantic relations. The resulting perspective contributes to a better knowledge of the role played by the consulados. The good understanding between many limeños and gaditanos related in these pages should serve as a starting point for a reexamination of the convulsive period leading up to Peruvian independence. Rivalry with Buenos Aires, the creation of the viceroyalty of Río de la Plata, the effects of the introduction of free trade, the establishment in Peru of the Cinco Gremios Mayores of Madrid and the Royal Company of the Philippines, and the role played by limeño merchants in the War of Independence can all be better understood by taking into consideration the close ties created between Spain and Peru in the central decades of the eighteenth century.