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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2009
A prominent feature of Spain's response to the rebellions of its Latin American colonies, both during the constitutional régime of 1810–1814 and the absolutist system of Ferdinand VII from 1814–1820, was wide-spread bureaucratic confusion. When José García de Léon y Pizarro became Secretary of State in 1816, he found the whole question of the pacification of America in a deplorable state which had reached ‘un punto de exasperación increíble’1 In a Council of State session of December 1816, the Navy Minister, José Vázquez de Figueroa, angrily denounced the red tape and inefficient administrative system in which decisions were lost in ‘una verdadera lucha de papeles’.2
1 García de León y Pizarro, J., Memorias (ed. Alonso-Castrillo, A.Madrid, , 1954), Vol. I, p. 263.Google Scholar
2 Actas del Consejo de Estado, 11 12 1816, Archivo Histórico Nacional, Madrid (henceforth AHN), Estado, lib. 17d.Google Scholar
3 See, for example, the reports of José Fernández de Castro and Francisco Elío in Archivo General de Indias, Seville (henceforth AGI), Buenos Aires, 522, 317 respectively, and a curious, unsigned document entitled ‘Memoria fiel de las turbulencias que las Provincias de Venezuela han sufrido por la ambición e inquietud de cuatro familias de su capital Caracas empeñadas en dominar aquel distrito …’ Archivo de las Cortes, Madrid, leg. 22, exp. 3.
4 A long-time and well-known former resident of New Spain; for biographical details, see Diccionario Porrúa (3rd ed., Mexico, 1970), Vol. I, p. 1204.Google Scholar
5 López Cancelada published details of his various memoranda in his own newspaper, El Telégrafo Americano, 15 01 1812.Google Scholar
6 Representation to the Cortes, dated 29 March 1811, published in ibid.
7 See, for example, his articles in El Redactor General, 21 08, 4 September 1811. In the latter, he made this impassioned appeal: ‘ayudadnos a extinguir estos monstruos, oprobio de la humanidad, cuya existencia deseamos todos desaparezca para siempre de entre nosotros.’Google Scholar
8 El Redactor General, 7, 19 09 1811.Google Scholar
9 For example, Informe dirigido a S.M. por el Consulado y Comercio de esta plaza en 24 de julio sobre los perjuicios que se originarian de la concesión del comercio libre de los extranjeros con nuestras Américas (Cádiz, 1811).Google Scholar
10 Details of the trade reform proposals are in Benson, N. L. (ed.), Mexico and the Spanish Cortes, 1810–1822 (Austin, 1966), pp. 183–5.Google Scholar
11 Garía-Baquero González, A., Comercio colonial y guerras revolucionarias (Seville, 1972), pp. 203–7.Google Scholar
12 José Vázquez de Figueroa, ‘Memorias’, Archivo del Museo Naval, Madrid (henceforth MN), Ms. 430, fols. 72ff. Figueroa, then the Navy Minister, states that his talks were with three merchants, Luis Gargollo, Ildefonso Ruíz del Río and Francisco Bustamante. There are other versions of how the Comisión originated. In 1814, Antonio Joaquín Pérez, future bishop of Puebla, Mexico, stated that the initiative came from the merchants, for an expedition to New Spain: AGI, Estado, 40. Writing to the Secretary of State in 1818, Migual de Lastarría said he passed on to the Regency an offer of financial help from various merchants for an expedition to the River Plate; AGI, Estado, 78, no. 47. These and other versions are mentioned in Heredia, E. A., Planes españoles para reconquistar hispano-américa, 1810–1818 (Buenos Aires, 1974), p. 47.Google Scholar
13 The names of the members of the working party and its recommendations were published in El Redactor General, 15 09 1811.Google Scholar
14 Actas de las sesiones secretas (Madrid, 1874), 8 09 1811.Google Scholar
15 The report is entitled ‘Memoria sobre las operaciones de la Comisión de Reemplazos de América, formada de orden del Rey N.S., por la de Corte, Año de 1832.’ The attached section of tables is dated 1831. The manuscript is in the library of the Ministry of Hacienda, Madrid. The date of its delivery to the king, 13 December 1831, is given by Matilla Tascón, A., 'Las expediciones o reemplazos militares enviados desde Cádiz a reprimir el movimiento de independencia de Hispanoamérica, Revista de Archivos, Bibliotecas y Museos, LVII (Madrid, 1951), pp. 37–52. This article provides an excellent summary of the statistical data.Google Scholar
16 ‘Memoria de Reemplazos’, fols. 26ff.;Google ScholarEl Redactor General, 21 09 1811. Volunteers were to register at the home of Capt. Agustín Brun but were to remain in their employment until required to embark.Google Scholar
17 El Redactor General, 11 10 1811.Google Scholar
18 El Telégrafo Americano, 13 11 1811.Google Scholar
19 All the figures given henceforth are compiled from throughout the ‘Memoria de Reemplazos’ and from the article by Matilla Tascón, and are to the nearest real. Unfortunately, there is no way of verifying the committee's figures as the mass of documentation which it must have consulted, the contemporary account books of the Comisión etc., are not available.
20 Heredia, , op. cit., p. 53, no. 89.Google Scholar
21 Representation to Secretary of State, Madrid, 3 October 1814, AGI, Estado 98, no. 6: La Comisión de Reemplazos representa a la Regencia del Reyno (Cádiz, 1814).Google Scholar
22 The reasons for the reluctance of Spanish soldiers to serve in America and the low morale, desertion and insubordination among those who were sent, are discussed in Woodward, M. L., ‘The Spanish army and the loss of America, 1810–1824’, Hispanic American Historical Review, Vol. 48, No. 4 (1968), pp. 586–607.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
23 ‘Memoria de Reemplazos’, fol. 53.
24 Ibid., fols. 94ff.
25 Ibid., fols. 96ff.
26 Ibid., fols. 101ff.; de Balmaseda, F. M., Decretos del Rey Don Fernando VII (Madrid, 1819), Vol. II, pp. 494–5.Google Scholar
27 Ibid., fols. 133 ff.; Balmaseda, , II, 533–5. The amount of each of these taxes given in the 1831 report differs slightly from the figures given in Balmaseda.Google Scholar
28 ‘Memoria de Reemplazos’, fols. 120ff. The following details of the Málaga reaction are taken from the Actas del Consulado, Archivo de la Cámara de Comercio, Málaga, Vol. 15.
29 For example, see ‘Memoria de la Junta de diputados de los consulados’ (1817), MN, 444.Google Scholar
30 ‘Memoria de Reemplazos’, fols. IIIff.Google Scholar
31 Ibid., fols. 107 ff.
32 Ibid., fols. 140 ff.
33 Ibid., fols. 142 ff.; Balmaseda, , III, 413–15.Google Scholar
34 Following details from ‘Memoria de Reemplazos’, fols. 112–37.
35 The Bilbao information is from a report on the dispute by the Council of State, dated 12 August 1820, in AHN, Estado, leg. 133, exp. 32.
36 On 19 June 1820, the intendant Ramón Aldazoro was instructed to begin disposing of the supplies; ‘Memoria de Reemplazos’, fol. 44.
37 The documents on this case, including the final report, dated 23 August 1828, are in AHN, Estado, Leg. 220, No. 19.
38 A recent outline of the well-known affair of the Russian ships is in Fontana, J., La quiebra de la monarquía absoluta, 1814–1820 (Barcelona, 1971), pp. 223–5.Google Scholar
39 de Lazaro, J. F., ‘La proyectada expedición de Cádiz (1813–1820)’, Apartado de Labor de Los Centros de Estudios, Vol. XXI, No. 10 (La Plata, 1938), p. 142:Google ScholarTorre Revello, J., ‘El fracaso de la expedición espanola preparada contra el Río de la Plata (1818–1820) ’, Boletín de la Academia Nacional de la Historia (Buenos Aires, 1963), Vol. XXXIII, 425–8.Google Scholar
40 Matilla, Tascón, op. cit., 50–2.Google Scholar