Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of tables and figures
- Acknowledgements
- Viceroys of New Spain, 1688–1766
- Map of the viceroyalty of New Spain in 1740
- Introduction
- 1 Spies, interlopers, and the famous foreign merchant
- 2 Entering the viceroyalty: immigrants by accident and by design
- 3 Religion: the essential requirement
- 4 Other hurdles to acceptance
- 5 The burden of wealth
- Conclusion
- Appendices
- List of abbreviations and conventions
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
1 - Spies, interlopers, and the famous foreign merchant
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 May 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of tables and figures
- Acknowledgements
- Viceroys of New Spain, 1688–1766
- Map of the viceroyalty of New Spain in 1740
- Introduction
- 1 Spies, interlopers, and the famous foreign merchant
- 2 Entering the viceroyalty: immigrants by accident and by design
- 3 Religion: the essential requirement
- 4 Other hurdles to acceptance
- 5 The burden of wealth
- Conclusion
- Appendices
- List of abbreviations and conventions
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
‘That no foreigner or excluded person be allowed to trade in the Indies, or go to them.’
So said the Laws of the Indies in 1681. Yet the Catholic Kings had said it much earlier. The instructions of Ferdinand and Isabella to their governor in Hispaniola in 1501, less than a decade after the discovery, forbade him to permit foreigners, Moors, Jews, or non-reconciled heretics to remain in America. Even after the publication of the Laws, the kings of Spain frequently and regularly repeated the dictum of their ancestors against foreigners being in the Indies. A cédula of Ferdinand VI issued in 1750 recognized the antiquity and importance of this position. In this decree the king said, ‘Since the conquest of the Indies it has always been one of the primary principles of their governance and protection that foreigners be forbidden to go there or reside there.’ Ferdinand threatened his colonial officials with disciplinary action should they be remiss in rounding up and sending to Spain any foreigners within their jurisdictions. The constant repetition of this theme by all the Spanish monarchs until after their American colonies achieved independence suggests at the very least that foreigners were constantly trying to enter the forbidden Spanish American empire, and that the kings wanted all of their officials to remain vigilant. Yet the kings and their advisers for colonial affairs, the minister and Council of the Indies, were not irrational xenophobes.
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- Information
- Foreign Immigrants in Early Bourbon Mexico, 1700–1760 , pp. 11 - 29Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1979