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The Appropriation of Mexican Church Wealth by the Spanish Bourbon Government—The ‘Consolidación de Vales Reales’, 1805–1809

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2009

Brian R. Hamnett
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Extract

Between the years 1805 and 1809, the Spanish Metropolitan Government secured an estimated total of between 10,500,000 and 12,750,000 pesos by the appropriation of the capital and sale of landed properties belonging to Pious Foundations and Chantries. The present article deals with (i) the nature and functions of these Foundations; (ii) why Spain was forced to order their appropriation; (iii) the course of the implementation of the appropriation, known as the ‘Consolidación de vales reales’; (iv) the persons and institutions affected, and adjacent incomes of the Ramo de Consolidación; (v) the effects in New Spain. Secondary sources concede the importance of the appropriation, but rarely offer more than rudimentary details. Through the use of primary sources, the present article attempts to remedy in a small measure that dearth of information.

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Articles
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Journal of Latin American Studies , Volume 1 , Issue 2 , November 1969 , pp. 85 - 113
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1969

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References

1 The only work which goes beyond mere mention of the Pious Funds and their Consolidation after 1805, and which makes a pioneering attempt to explain the nature and functions of the body which administered the Funds, is Costeloe, Michael P., Church Wealth in Mexico —A Study of the ‘Juzgado de Capellanías’ in the Archbishopric of Mexico, 1800–1856 (Cambridge, 1967).Google Scholar The Consolidación is specifically referred to briefly on pp. 111–16.

Mention is also made in Farriss, N. M., Crown and Clergy in Colonial Mexico, 1759–1821 (London, 1968), pp. 164–5, 171.Google Scholar

Ferrari, E. Lafuente, El Virrey Iturrigaray y los Orígenes de la Independencia de Méjico (Madrid, 1941), pp. 41–4.Google Scholar described the Consolidación as ‘una verdadera desamortización eclesiástica realizada no en tiempos de liberalismos audaces, sino bajo el piadoso monarca, D. Carlos IV’.

The older secondary works, more general in scope, nevertheless, offered some brief explanation of what the Consolidación was.

E.g. de Zamacois, N., Historia de Méjico (21 vols., Barcelona, 1888–1901), VI, 16–19.Google Scholar

Alamán, Lucas, Historia de Méjico desde los Primeros Movimientos que prepararon su Independencia en el año de 1808 hasta la época presente (5 vols., Mexico, 1883–1885), 1, 140.Google Scholar

de Bustamante, Carlos María, Suplemento a la Historia de los Tres Siglos de México durante el Gobierno Español (3 vols., Mexico, 1836), III, 250.Google Scholar

Cancelada, J. López, El Telégrafo Mexicano, No. 1, p. 29 (Cadiz, 28 02 1813).Google Scholar

de Mier, Fray Servando Teresa, Historia de la Revolución de Nueva España, antiguamente Anáhuac (London, 1813), p. 27.Google Scholar

2 See Costeloe, , Church Wealth, op. cit., chs. ii and iii.Google Scholar

For a highly critical view of the financial activities of the Pious Funds, see the work of the Liberal anti-clerical Mora, in particular, Mora, J. M. L., México y sus Revoluciones (3 vols., 2nd ed., Mexico, 1965), 1, 443–56Google Scholar, ‘Estado Actual de la Propiedad Territorial en México’.

Costeloe offers a lucid refutation of Mora's more extreme statements on the detrimental economic role of the Mexican Church: op. cit., pp. 94–107.

3 Mora, J. M. L., Obras Sueltas (2nd ed., Mexico, 1963).Google Scholar Second section: Queipo, D. Manuel Abad y, Representación a nombre de los Labradores y Comerciantes de Michoacán, para. 13, pp. 212–14.Google Scholar

4 ibid.Queipo, Abad y, Escrito presentado a D. Manuel Sixto Espinosa, para. 1–12, pp. 231–41.Google Scholar

5 A.G.I. Mexico, 3170 (Archivo General de Indias, Seville). Representation of the City Council of Mexico against the Consolidation, dated 28 March 1806, and directed to Viceroy Iturrigaray.

6 B.M. (British Museum, London), Add. MSS 13,978. Papeles Varios de Indias, 1784–1816; file 28, ff. 159–62. Calculo de las Obras Pías en Nueva España. The document is signed simply A. J. A., which were the initials of Antonio José Arrangoiz.

7 The scope of this present articel is largely confined to the Obras Pías and Capellanías. However, it was not solely these funds which acted as a source of investment capital for entrepreneurs engaged in economic development. Convents also leased their funds to potential investors at the usual interest rate of 5 per cent per annum. These funds were not included under the Consolidation, which referred only to funds of Pious Foundations and Chantries. Funds of convents and indeed their entire properties, including real estate, were to fall under the axe of subsequent Liberal Governments after Mexico's Independence.

For details of convent lending activities, see: Muriel, Josefina, Conventos de Monjas en la Nueva España (Mexico, 1946), in particular, pp. 81–4, 91, 104, 393, 426.Google Scholar

See also Lavrín, Asunción, ‘The Role of the Nunneries in the Economy of New Spain in the Eighteenth Century’, Hispanic American Historical Review (HAHR), 46, 4 (11 1966), 371–94.Google Scholar

Abad y Queipo distributed the capital on loan from ecclesiastical sources in the following way (op. cit., Espinosa, p. 231): Pious Funds: Archbishopric of Mexico: 9,000,000 pesos Bishopric of Puebla: 6,500,000 Michoacán: 4,500,000 Guadalajara: 3,000,000 Oaxaca and Yucatán: 2,000,000 Sonora, Durango, Monterrey: 1,000,000 Private Pious Works in churches of Religious Orders: 2,500,000 Capital on loan from Pious Funds of churches and Religious Orders: 16,000,000 44,500,000

8 A.G.I. Mexico, 1840. Expedientes Inventariados (1820–21), ff. 11–15v. of the Expediente ‘sobre repartimiento de Tierras hecho por el Señor Coronel D. Franciso de Orrantia’, 1819, enclosed in the letter, no. 200: Viceroy Conde del Venadito to Minister of Grace and Justice, Mexico, 31 July 1819.

9 Gay, Padre J. A., Historia de Oaxaca (2 vols., Mexico, 1881), 11, 245, 253–4.Google ScholarPortillo, Andrés, Oaxaca en el Centenario de la Independencia Nacional (Oaxaca, 1910), pp. 36, 130–9.Google Scholar

10 Archivo de Notarías, Oaxaca (Protocolos), Leg. 19, f. 5 (1786). The ‘fiadores’ were D. Alonso Magro, Regidor Honorario of the Ayuntamiento of Oaxaca, and D. Felipe Ordóñez Díaz, merchant of Oaxaca. Both Magro and the Alcalde Mayor, Ortega, were at the same time acting as the ‘fiadores’ of Ordóñez, in concert with others, for the sum of 37,500 pesos, of which 22,800 had been borrowed in 1784 from the Obra Pia founded by Captain Fiallo, and the other 14,500 pesos from the same College.

11 A.G.I. Mexico, 1976. Duplicados de Varios Intendentes, 1785–92. Duplicados del Gobernador-Intendente de la Puebla, 1788–92.

12 A.G.I.—Indiferente General, 2438. Años de 1794 y 1795: Cinco Expedientes del Cuerpo de Labradores de la Villa de Atlixco.

13 A.G.N. (Archivo General de la Nación, Mexico City). Consolidación, 1, Exp. 9, Mexico. Año de 1805.

14 A.G.N. Consolidación, 5. Cuenta General de Cargo y Data de los caudales introducidos en la Tesorería General de esta capital en todo el año: 1805; 1806; 1807; 1808.

15 A.G.N. Bandos, 24, no. 28, ff. 47–607.

16 Hamilton, E. J., ‘Monetary Problems in Spain and Spanish America, 1751–1800’ in Journal of Economic History, 4, 1 (05 1944), 21–48. See p. 46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

17 A.G.I. Indiferente General, 666. Aranjuez, 19 June 1805. See also: Fugier, A., Napoléon et L'Espagne, 1799–1908 (Paris 1930), p. 342.Google Scholar Military expenditure in Spain had risen to 600 million reales (150 million francs) during the course of the previous five years. Ouvrard, the Paris banker, went in person to Madrid, and under the Treaties of 26 Nov. lent 40,000,000 reales to the Caja de Consolidación. He offered the Caja credit of 3 million reales per month for five months, dating from 1 Jan. 1806. These loans were, of course, in anticipation of repayment by the Caja in receipts from the Consolidación in Spain, begun in 1798.

According to Geoffroy de Grandmaison, L'Espagne et Napoléon, 1804–1809 (Paris, 1908), p. 4, n. 1, the Spanish Government, at the declaration of war on 12 Dec. 1804, faced a deficit for that year alone of a peak.figure of 1,180,000,000 reales de vellón.

18 A.G.I. Indiferente General, 666.

19 Coronado, J. M. Zamora y, Biblioteca de Legislación Ultramarina en forma de Diccionario Alfabético (6 vols., Madrid, 1844–1849), 11, 419–20: Consolidación, Caja de.Google Scholar

20 Bancroft, H. H., History of Mexico (6 vols., San Francisco, 1883–1888), IV, 28.Google Scholar

21 Mora, J. M. L., Obras Sueltas (2nd ed., Mexico, 1963).Google Scholar Section II: Queipo, Abad y, Representación a nombre de los Labradores y Comerciantes de Michoacan (1805), pp. 214–30.Google Scholar As in the case of the Spanish Peninsula, an interest rate of 3 per cent per annum was to be paid to the Obras Pías on the principal consolidated. Equally, the measure enacted for the Indies was intended to be temporary.

22 A.G.I. Indiferente General, 666. Real Cédula de Consolidación, 26 Dec. 1804.

Queipo, Abad y, Espinosa … op. cit. 231Google Scholar states, ‘No hay inconveniente en la enajenación de los bienes raíces pertenecientes a capellanías y obras pías … el valor de los bienes raíces de estos piadosos destinos se puede estimar prudencialmente en dos y medio o tres millones de pesos.’

23 A.G.I. Mexico, 3170. The Tribunal members who signed the protest included José Mariano de Fagoaga, the Marqués de Apartado, who, with his brother, Juan Bautista Fagoaga, was engaged in exploiting the Minas del Pabellón in the Real de Sombrerete. The Casa de Fagoaga had invested capital in mines in Fresnillo, Sultepec, Zaqualpa, Zacatecas (Veta Grande), Guanajuato (Animas), and Sombrerete (Quebradilla; Santa Catarina; San Nicolás; Pabellón; and Veta Negra). See A.G.I. Mexico, 1815. Expedientes Inventariados (1807).

The Tribunal explained the role of the Pious Funds as thus: ‘Un rescatador, dueño de Hacienda de beneficiar metales, para concluirla, para ampliarla, para proveerse de los ingredientes necesarios, y ponerse en corriente giro, va a la Obras Pías, y ellas le facilitan dinero, con que, puesto en útil movimiento, logra por este medio su felicidad y la de su familia.’

24 A.G.I. Mexico, 1150. Minutas de Cédulas y Consultas Seculares y Eclesiasticas (1801–12). See also: Ferrari, Lafuente, Virrey Iturrigaray … op. cit., p. 55, n. 2.Google Scholar A brief account of Domínguez's subsequent political role is found in Hamill, Hugh M., The Hidalgo Revolt. Prelude to Mexican Independence (Gainesville, Univ. of Florida, 1966), pp. 105–6, 118.Google Scholar Domínguez was a Creole. His wife, the celebrated Corregidora, and he were implicated in Hidalgo's plot for Independence in 1810.

25 Mora/Abad y Queipo, op. cit., loc. cit.

26 B.N. (Biblioteca Nacional), Madrid. MSS Folio 19709. 34 (copia). 13 hojas en folio. ‘Memorial de los Hacendados de México, dirigido a la Real Junta sobre la venta de bienes y fincas de Obras Pías en Nueva España.’

27 A.G.I. Mexico, 3170.

28 A.G.I. Mexico, 3170.

29 B.M. London. Add. MSS 13,978, no. 28, ff. 159–62.

30 von Humboldt, Baron Alexander, Essai Politique sur le Royaume de la Nouvelle Espagne (5 vols., Paris, 1811), ii, 447.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

* A list of some important persons affected by the Consolidation of the Pious Funds may be found in Appendix IV at the end of this paper.

31 See Quijano, J. A. Calderón, El Banco de San Carlos y las Comunidades de Indios en Nueva España (Seville, 1963), pp. 49–68.Google Scholar

32 A.G.N. Consolidación, 5. Receipts and Costs: Bishopric of Oaxaca, 1806 and 1808. The figure 161,924:6:10 represents 161,924 pesos 6 reales 10 granos. The above form of abbreviation is maintained throughout the rest of the text and Appendices.

33 A.G.N. Consolidación, 20. Acuerdo de la Junta Superior de Consolidación, 28 July 1806. Also see A.G.N. Consolidación, 5. Accounts for 1806, item 629. Further details on the Indian Community contributions are in A.G.N. Consolidación, 10.

34 A.G.N. Consolidación, 5. Accounts for 1806, item 4628; and Accounts for 1808; 30 March.

35 ibid. Accounts for 1806: 13 Aug.; 26 Sept.; 30 Oct. (Michoacán). Accounts for 1808: 25 May; 11 June.

36 Boletín de la Sociedad Mexicana de Geografía y Estadística: I época., 1 (1863), 486–95.— Documentos para la Historia: ‘La Desamortización eclesiástica en tiempo de Carlos IV’. Permission was granted for the measure in Spain (Real Cédula of 26 Feb. 1802) and the Indies in the Papal Brief of Pius VII of 10 Feb. 1801.

37 A.G.N. Consolidación, 20. 14 July 1806. Arrangoiz instructed that the new ninth was to be deducted from the tithe revenue of every diocese. On 22 July, the issue was discussed as to whether the new tax was a process of ‘borrowing’ like the calling-in of the Pious Funds at loan, or a Royal tax proper. The Fiscal de Real Hacienda, Borbón, insisted on the latter interpretation, which was finally held to be the correct one. As a result, the collectors were not entitled to pay themselves from a percentage of its yield. Details of the yield ‘of these taxes are stated in the Appendices.

38 de Zamacois, Niceto, Historia de Méjico, vi, 16–19.Google Scholar

39 ibid. p 19. de Toreno, Conde, Historia del Levantamiento, Guerra, y Revolución de España (Madrid, 1835), 1, 6.Google Scholar

40 As no research has been done on the Consolidation in any other part of the Spanish Indies and Philippines, the total amount secured from the entire dominions of the Spanish Crown is unknown. Hence, the proportion that 5 million pesos represents out of the total receipts of the consolidation is also unknown.

41 Queipo, Abad y, Espinosa … op. cit., pp. 230–1.Google Scholar The Escrito presentado 2 D. Manuel Sixto Espinosa was the fruit of Abad y Queipo's attempts to persuade the Spanish Ministry of the harm done by the appropriation.

42 A.G.I. Mexico, 3170. Real Palacio, 25 May 1808.

43 Queipo, Abad y, op. cit., loc. cit.Google Scholar

The Consolidation was finally suspended by Iturrigaray on 9 Aug. 1808, without reference to Spain, at the first meeting of the New Spain Junta summoned on receipt of the news of the collapse of the Spanish Government in the Motín de Aranjuez, and the events that followed it. See Alamán, , op. cit., 1, 198.Google Scholar

44 A.G.I. Mexico, 2373. Expedientes de Real Hacienda (1805–6), No. 93. Tribunal de Cuentas —Cayetano Soler: 29 Jan. 1806.

45 A.G.I. Mexico, 2374. Expedientes de Real Hacienda (1807–10), No. 102, loc. cit. 4 march 1807.

46 ibid. 2 Jan. 1808.

47 A.G.I. Mexico, 2023. Duplicados del Tribunal de Cuentas (1809–18), No. 2. Tribunal de Cuentas, 13 May 1809.

48 ibid. No. 2. de Cuentas, Tribunal, 29 03 1811.Google Scholar

49 A.G.I. Mexico, 1145. Consultas, Decretos, y Reales Ordenes (1810). Estado de Valores de la Tesorería General … 19 Jan. 1814.

50 A.G.I. Mexico, 1638. Duplicados del Virrey Calleja (1813–16), No. 18. de Hacienda, Calleja—Min., 15 03 1813.Google Scholar

51 A.G.I. Mexico, 1145. Consultas, Decretos, y Reales Ordenes (1810). Bk. i. ‘Memorias presentadas a la Comisión de Arbitrios por su Vocal Secretario, D. Antonio de Medina, Ministro de Hacienda Pública y Secretario Contador del Préstamo Patriótico’, f. 29. No. 2. Estado aproximado de la deuda nacional hasta fin de Junio de 1813.

52 A.G.I. Mexico, 1638. ibid.

53 Farriss, , Crown and Clergy …, op. cit., pp. 243–4Google Scholar, and see list of clergy in the Independence movement, Appendix, pp. 254–65.

54 A.G.I. Mexico, 2386. Expedientes de Real Hacienda y Partes (1819–20), No. 831. Venadito —Min. de Hacienda, 31 Aug. 1819.

55 B.M. (London), Add. MSS 13,978, no. 28, ff. 159–62.

56 Cancelada, J. López, El Telégrafo Mexicano, 28 02 1813, no. 1, p. 29.Google Scholar

57 Alamán, , Historia de Méjico, op. cit., 1, 140.Google ScholarBustamante, , Tres Siglos de México, op. cit., 111, 250.Google Scholar

58 Mexico. Secretaría de Estado y del Despacho de Hacienda y Crédito Público. Memoria de Hacienda (1872). Documento no. 20. Sección Sexta: ‘Cantidades que constan enteradas en la Tesorería general de la Nación, pertenecientes al ramo de consolidación, y aparecen en la cuenta particular que se llevó de est ramo’ (copy, 16 Sept. 1873).

The same document may be also found in Boletín de la Sociedad Mexicana de Geografía y Estadística, 1 (1863), 495 (Ia época).

59 A.G.N. Consolidación, 5. Cuenta General de Cargo y Data de los Cargos Introducidos en la Tesorería General de esta capital en todo el año de 1805.

60 ibid. 1806.

61 ibid. 1807.

62 ibid. 1808.

63 ibid. 1809.

64 ibid. Mexico, 16 May 1810. Existencias que quedaron en las Reales Caxas Principales foráneas procedentes de Censos y Depósitos Irregulares, el 30 de abril de 1809.

65 ibid. Sum total of the previous statements.

66 A.G.N. Consolidación, 5. Cargo General de las Cantidades colectadas de Principales de Capellanías, Obras Pías y Censos para la Real Caxa de Consolidación. 1805 and 1806: entries numbers 142, 143, 144, 1085 and 1086.

The Conde de Regla was owner of the silver mines in the Vizcaina vein in the Real de Monte, in Pachucha, which he had been operating since 1762. He was a Peninsular Spaniard. He also owned the Mina de Greta in the Real de Zimapan. The founder of the Regla title, D. Pedro Romero de Terreros, secured in 1766, the right to found three Mayorazgos (entailed estates) for his sons in order to keep the mines in the family. Details of the vicissitudes of these foundations may be found in A.G.I. Mexico, 1862 (Expedientes é Instancias de Parte, 1777). The Conde also had bought the Haciendas of the Jesuit Colleges of Tepozotlan, and S. Pedro and S. Pablo, for the sum of 1,020,000 pesos, after the expulsion of the Jesuits in 1767. See A.G.I. Mexico, 1814 (Expedientes Inventariado, 1807).

67 A.G.N. Consolidación, 5, ibid., item 702. See also note 23 of this article.

68 Ibid., item no. 1,020. This title had been founded by the Spanish Peninsular merchant, Pedro Alonso de Alles, under the Royal Cédulas of 20 and 25 March 1792. He had died in 1802, leaving his nephew as heir. (See A.G.N. Vinculos, 56, f. 240.) One of the founder's chief interests had been the financing of the cotton and cochineal crops of Jicayan, on the Pacific Coast of Oaxaca, sending the cotton under contract to the textile industry in Puebla, and the cochineal for shipment from Veracruz to Spain. (See A.G.N. General de Parte, 69, f. 4. v.)

69 ibid. item no not given. The Count, a Creole, was the owner of the Valenciana mine in Guanajuato.

70 Ibid., item nos. 526, 527 and 528. The father of the present Marqués had, in 1779, bought the confiscated Jesuit lands of the Hacienda de San Gerónimo, adjacent to the village of Songólica, in the province of Veracruz. The lands had been possessed by the Jesuit College of S. Pedro and S. Pablo in Mexico City, and later by the Jesuit College of Espíritu Santo, in Puebla. (See A.G.N. Historia, Tome 49. Escrito del Marqués de Selva Nevada al Virrey. 5 Sept 1803.)

71 Ibid., items nos. 467 and 1082.

72 ibid. item number 548.

73 A.G.N. Consolidación, 1. Exp. 9.

74 A.G.N. Consolidación, 1. Cargo and Data for 1805, item number 701.

75 A.G.N. Consolidación, 5, loc. cit., items nos. 524, 775, 1083 and 1373.

76 ibid., loc. cit., items nos. 343, 439 and 465. Gabriel de Yermo was the leader of the Peninsular coup against Viceroy Iturrigaray on 16 Sept. 1808. He was a Basque, born in Bilbao in 1757, and had married in Mexico, inheriting his wife's father's rich sugar Haciendas. These were situated in the Valley of Cuernavaca, and were held under lease from the Marquesado del Valle de Oaxaca. In 1797, Yermo bought the ex-Jesuit property, the Hacienda of Jalmolonga, which brought his total number of holdings to 200. According to Alamán, , Historia de Mexico, op. cit., 239–43Google Scholar, and Bancroft, , History of Mexico, op. cit., IV, 52–3, n. 27Google Scholar, he had borrowed a full total of 400,000 pesos from the Pious Funds and Chantries This laid him open to the charge that he had a personal interest-in securing the abrogation of the appropriation, but he was defended by Alamán, Bustamante, on the other hand, took a harsher view, Cuadro Histórico, op. cit., 1, 14.