Government Revenue and Economic Trends in Central America, 1787-1819

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IN September, 1821, Central America peacefully separated itself from Spanish rule and became independent. The traditional view of the causes of this event stresses two factors: 1) The Creole reaction to the oppressive regime of the Captain General, Jose de Bustamante (1811-1817), and the weakness of his successor, Carlos Urrutia y Montoya (1817-1821); and 2) the effect of the Mexican movement for independence led by Augustln de Iturbide, which strengthened the hand of those who favored a similar move for Central America. Although these factors undoubtedly influenced the independence movement, they were not the sole important causes of separation from Spain. A political explanation that ignores economic conditions is never complete. Unfortunately, the economic historiography of the period is deficient. Although the structure of Central American trade has been established, there exists no detailed examination of economic fluctuations in this epoch. Yet, the conditions of Central America in the period previous to independence are critical to an understanding of some of the causes for that movement. One of the reasons for this gap in Central American history is the lack of sufficient data. Central America was a backwater colony. Its lack of great resources and population, and its distant geographical position from established trade routes, explain its abandonment by not only most commercial houses, but by the Crown itself. With the Napoleonic Wars and the Spanish-American Wars of Liberation, the condition of the Central American colony became even less important to Spain. Thus, for this turbulent period continuous economic reports were either never prepared or were lost. Without detailed economic