Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Tables and illustrations
- Acknowledgments
- List of money and measures
- List of abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 Foundations
- PART I ECONOMY AND SOCIETY IN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY NEW GRANADA
- PART II THE ECONOMICS OF BOURBON COLONIALISM: NEW GRANADA AND THE ATLANTIC ECONOMY
- 4 New Granada and the Spanish mercantile system, 1700–1778
- 5 Commerce and economy in the age of imperial free trade, 1778–1796
- 6 Merchants and monopoly
- PART III THE POLITICS OF BOURBON COLONIALISM: RECONSTRUCTING THE COLONIAL STATE
- PART IV GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS
- PART V CRISIS IN THE COLONIAL ORDER
- Epilogue
- Appendix A The population of New Granada
- Appendix B Gold production
- Appendix C Shipping and commerce
- Bibliography
- Index
- CAMBRIDGE LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES
4 - New Granada and the Spanish mercantile system, 1700–1778
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 September 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Tables and illustrations
- Acknowledgments
- List of money and measures
- List of abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 Foundations
- PART I ECONOMY AND SOCIETY IN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY NEW GRANADA
- PART II THE ECONOMICS OF BOURBON COLONIALISM: NEW GRANADA AND THE ATLANTIC ECONOMY
- 4 New Granada and the Spanish mercantile system, 1700–1778
- 5 Commerce and economy in the age of imperial free trade, 1778–1796
- 6 Merchants and monopoly
- PART III THE POLITICS OF BOURBON COLONIALISM: RECONSTRUCTING THE COLONIAL STATE
- PART IV GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS
- PART V CRISIS IN THE COLONIAL ORDER
- Epilogue
- Appendix A The population of New Granada
- Appendix B Gold production
- Appendix C Shipping and commerce
- Bibliography
- Index
- CAMBRIDGE LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES
Summary
So far, we have examined the structures of settlement, society, and economy in eighteenth-century New Granada and have seen something of the economic links that bound the colony to Spain. However, by focusing on the character of New Granada's social and economic structures, the foregoing chapters have tended to emphasize elements of continuity and evolution within the colony, without paying much attention to the external factors that affected its development. And yet, of course, the eighteenth century saw important changes in relations between Spain and her colonies, as the Bourbon kings who inherited the Hapsburg throne sought to reverse the seemingly inexorable process of decline that Spain had suffered during the seventeenth century. Not only did the new dynasty establish a more centralized and absolutist authority within the metropolis, but, by political, military, and economic reform, it also sought to bring about what has been called the “second conquest of America.”
This was not a process that began immediately or proceeded smoothly. The first reforms were hesitant in tone and uneven in application, and the great age of reform did not arrive until the reign of Charles III. New Granada, however, felt the repercussions of change at the metropolitan center early in the century, when its trade and administration were touched by Madrid's earliest efforts to reassert control over the resources of its empire.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Colombia before IndependenceEconomy, Society, and Politics under Bourbon Rule, pp. 99 - 125Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1993