Bureaucracy and Business in the Spanish Empire, 1759-1804: Failure of a Bourbon Beform in Mexico and Peru

Abstract

S INCE publication of Herbert I. Priestley's pioneer study of Jose de Galvez, analyses of Spaniards' efforts in the eighteenth century to or modernize colonial administration, finance, trade policy, and military posture testify to the conceptual boldness of the reformers. Some, relying heavily on legislation and the literature of eulogy, have perceived the outcome in a rosy light. Others have noted the resourcefulness and power of resistance to reform, and concluded that failure crowned the reformers' work. Rarely, until recently, have the recurrent surges of Bourbon reform been examined at the grass-roots level. And yet it is precisely here that the origin and implications of change and of opposition to change can be most clearly discerned. This article, in correlating some old and new studies, printed and archival resources, presents one aspect of the Bourbon intendancy system in America, the reform of the local administrative unit known as corregimiento in Peru and alcaldia mayor in New Spain. It focuses particularly on the attempt to curtail collusion between bureaucrat and mer-