“The Honor of the Spanish Nation”: Military Officers, Mediterranean Campaigns and American Government under Felipe V

Abstract

This chapter shows that the initial militarization of Spanish American viceregal appointments, alluded to earlier, remained a characteristic of nominations to these and other governmental offices in the late 1730s and 1740s. Combination of the crown's preference for appointing military officers to governmental posts in the Indies and the Mediterranean location of the main theatres of war during the period might have had important repercussions for the way in which Spanish America was governed and the role which local elites (either native or naturalized) were able to play in it. The rationalization of American administration would have revitalized the flow of silver from the Indies to Spain; there some of the money would have been channeled to Italy and the Mediterranean in the form of arms, uniforms, provisions and salaries necessary to fund Spanish campaigns in the region. Keywords: American government; Felipe V; Indies; Italy; Mediterranean campaigns; military officers; Spanish nation