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Agriculture, commerce, and mining were the engines that drove New Spain, and past historians have treated these economic categories as sociological phenomena as well. For these historians, society in eighteenth-century New Spain was comprised, on the one hand, of creoles, feudalistic land barons who were natives of the New World, and, on the other, of peninsulars, progressive, urban merchants born on the Iberian peninsula. In their view, creole-peninsular resentment ultimately led to the wars for independence that took place in the American hemisphere in the early nineteenth century.
Richard B. Lindley's study of Guadalajara's wealthy citizens on the eve of independence contradicts this view, clearly demonstrating that landowners, merchants, creoles, and peninsulars, through intermarriage, formed large family enterprises with mixed agricultural, commercial, and mining interests. These family enterprises subdued potential conflicts of interest between Spaniards and Americans, making partners of potential competitors.
When the wars for national independence began in 1810, Spain's ability to protect its colonies from outside influence was destroyed. The resultant influx of British trade goods and finance shook the structure of colonial society, as abundant British capital quickly reduced the capital shortage that had been the main reason for large-scale, diversified family businesses.
Elite family enterprises survived, but became less traditional and more specialized institutions. This transformation from traditional, personalized community relations to modern, anonymous corporations, with all that it implied for government and productivity, constitutes the real revolution that began in 1810.
Contents
Acknowledgments
A Note on Sources and Dates
Introduction
1. City and Countryside
The City
Guadalajara's Beginnings and Growth
The City's Agrarian Base
Commerce and Mining
The Eighteenth-Century Boom
Manufactures and Other Businesses
Neighborhood Race and Class Patterns
The Oligarchy's Size and Wealth
The Oligarchy's Economic Base
The Countryside
Products of Guadalajara's Local Economy
The Hacienda as Microcosm of the Regional Economy
The Hacienda: Economically Isolated or Integrated?
The Hacienda and the Rural Community
The Boundaries of the Local Economy
Relationship of City and Countryside
2. Credit and Kinship
Credit
The Local Economy's Dependence on Credit
Sources of Credit
Lack of Liquidity in Personal Estates
Types of Credit Transactions
Security to Underwrite Credit Transactions
Marriage Alliances
Kinship
Wealth and Privilege
Proof of Elite Status
Kinship, Credit, and the Elite Family Enterprise
3. Four Elite Family Enterprises
The VillaseÑor Entail
The Porres Baranda Entail
The Portillo Family Enterprise
The del RÍo-Pacheco Family Enterprise
4. Effects of Independence
Independence in Guadalajara
Foreign Merchants
New Sources of Capital
Introduction of Business Corporations
Decline of Traditional Credit Sources
Changes in Credit Availability
Creation of an Open Land Market
Survival and Adaptation of Family Enterprises
Conclusion
Notes
Appendix: Genealogies of Four Family Enterprises
Index
