Bourbon Finances and Military Policy in New Spain, 1759-1812

Abstract

In an age of fiscal and administrative reform, the army of New Spain stood out as an irredeemable drain on the treasury as well as a nightmare for bureaucrats and military planners. No knowledgeable observer could possibly advocate a continuation of the haphazard defenses of previous decades, but there were very few other points of agreement. From the perspective of the mother country, Mexicans had to recognize the need to defend themselves. The British conquests of Canada, the Floridas, and the temporary occupation of Havana, underscored the dangers and the possibilities of Mexicans losing their possessions and liberties. Naturally, the full burden of military finance and service would fall upon the residents of the viceroyalty, not to mention the growing costs of the annual subsidies (situados) sent to help pay for the defense of less advantaged possessions in the Caribbean, Central America, and the Philippines. The problem was how to prevent the army of New Spain from becoming a voracious consumer of money without offering much in the way of a standing defense force. In 1762 for example, Viceroy Marqués de Cruillas spent 3,398,471 pesos extraordinary funds without managing to get the fortifications at Vercruz into a state of readiness or a proper force to defend them. Most viceroys, inspectors general, and senior staff officers confronted with the task of having to inspect Mexican units catalogued a long list of failures. They described a history of constnatly changing military policies that achieved little other than to waste hundreds of thousands of pesos each decade while entrenching numerous chronic defects.

When State Building Backfires: Elite Coordination and Popular Grievance in Rebellion

“…In addition to forming the backbone of the commercial economy, they played an important role in maintaining control of the territory. With little direct military presence on the continent, the central government depended on local elites to finance and organize militias and other repressive institutions to respond to unrest (Archer 1987). Rioting, looting, and violence by peasants often directly impacted elites' person or property.…”