Bourbon Reforms Tighten Colonial Control
The Bourbon Reforms were a systematic attempt by the Spanish crown, at its most intense from the 1760s under Charles III, to make its American empire pay for itself. The occasion was the Seven Years' War, in which Britain took Havana and Manila in 1762 and returned them at the peace. The lesson Madrid drew was that the empire was undefended, under-taxed and administered by people whose loyalties were local. José de Gálvez was sent to New Spain in 1765 as visitor-general with sweeping powers, and became Minister of the Indies in 1776. The measures were coherent and unpopular. The intendancy system replaced the old patchwork of local offices with salaried officials appointed from Spain, and creoles — American-born Spaniards — were progressively excluded from the higher posts they had bought and held for generations. Tax collection was taken from contractors into direct state hands, and the alcabala sales tax was raised and enforced. Trade was liberalised within the empire by the comercio libre decrees, ending the Cadiz monopoly and the fleet system, which raised revenue substantially. The Jesuits were expelled from all Spanish territories in 1767, removing the largest educational network in the Americas overnight. Colonial militias were expanded and given military privileges. Revenue rose sharply and so did resentment. The Túpac Amaru rebellion in Peru in 1780 and the Comunero revolt in New Granada in 1781 were direct responses. The reforms strengthened the state and detached the creole elite that led independence a generation later. Napoleon's deposition of the Spanish king in 1808 removed the legitimacy that had held the arrangement together. The reforms are the standard example of a state modernising itself into a revolution.
- Year: 1765 CE
- Category: Political
