Critique of Stanley J. Stein’s “Bureaucracy and Business in the Spanish Empire, 1759-1804: Failure of a Bourbon Reform in Mexico and Peru”*

Abstract

The study of Spanish America's Bourbon reforms has flowered in the last quarter century, yet the field remains underdeveloped. Despite the outpouring of monographs, the historiography lacks many basic reference tools. Spotty coverage of Spain tends to obscure the context of reform; and, when examined regionally, the literature is so uneven as to make intercolonial comparisons extremely difficult. Conversely, the mass of archival sources makes in-depth research on more than one area unusually time consuming. Given such circumstances, it was courageous of Stanley J. Stein to write Bureaucracy and Business in the Spanish Empire, 1759-1804: Failure of a Bourbon Reform in Mexico and Peru. Nonetheless, recognizing that argument may advance the state of the art, questions must be raised about the methods used and the conclusions drawn in the article. In his study, Professor Stanley J. Stein attempts to clarify the conflict between interest-group pressures and imperial imperatives during the last half-century of colonial rule. His chosen instrument is an examination of policy concerning the repartimiento de mercancias, an institution that linked office-holders and merchants in exploitation of the Indians. As