The Land We Live In | Page 7

coffers of
Spain. The mines were not operated by the crown, but by individual
enterprise, the crown receiving a share of the proceeds, and alloting a
certain number of Indians to the mine-owners as laborers. These
Indians did all the work of the mine without the aid of machinery, and
with very little assistance from horse-power. Their industry enriched
Spain and her colonies to a degree unexampled in the previous
experience of mankind.
* * *
Silver and gold, however, did not bring lasting prosperity. Already in
the early part of the seventeenth century Spain showed signs of decay.
Her manufactures and commerce began to decline; men could not be
recruited to keep up her fleets and armies, and even agriculture felt the
blight of national degeneracy. The great emigration to the colonies
drained off the energetic element of the population and the immense
riches which the colonies showered upon Spain intoxicated the people
and led them to desert the accustomed paths of industry.
Nineteen-twentieths of the commodities exported to the Spanish
colonies were foreign fabrics, paid for by the products of the mines, so
that the gold and silver no sooner entered Spain than they passed away

into the hands of foreigners, and the country was left without sufficient
of the precious metals for a circulating medium.
Although wholly unable to supply the wants of her colonies Spain did
not relax in the smallest degree the rigor of her colonial system, the
controlling principle of which was that the whole commerce of the
colonies should be a monopoly in the hands of the crown. The
regulation of this commerce was entrusted to the Board of Trade,
established at Seville.
This board granted a license to any vessel bound to America, and
inspected its cargo. The entire commerce with the colonies centred in
Seville, and continued there until 1720. It was carried on in a uniform
manner for more than two centuries. A fleet with a strong convoy sailed
annually for America. The fleet consisted of two divisions, one
destined for Carthagena and Porto Bello, the other for Vera Cruz. At
those points all the trade and treasure of Spanish America from
California to the Straits of Magellan, was concentrated, the products of
Peru and Chili being conveyed annually by sea to Panama, and from
thence across the isthmus to Porto Bello, part of the way on mules, and
part of the way down the Chagres river. The storehouses of Porto Bello,
now a decayed and miserable town, retaining no shadow of former
greatness, were filled with merchandise, and its streets thronged with
opulent merchants drawn from distant provinces. Upon the arrival of
the fleet a fair was opened, continuing for forty days, during which the
most extensive commercial transactions took place, and the rich
cargoes of the galleons were all marketed, and the specie and staples of
the colonies received in payment to be conveyed to Spain. The same
exchange occurred at Vera Cruz, and both squadrons having taken in
their return cargoes, rendezvoused at Havana, and sailed from thence to
Europe. Such was the stinted, fettered and restricted commerce which
subsisted between Spain and her possessions in America for more than
two centuries and a half, and such were the swaddling clothes which
bound the youthful limbs of the Spanish colonies, retarding their
growth and keeping them in a condition of abject dependence. The
effect was most injurious to Spain as well as to the colonies. The naval
superiority of the English and Dutch enabled them in time of war to cut

off intercourse between Spain and America, and thereby deprive
Spanish-Americans of the necessaries as well as the luxuries for which
they depended upon Spain, and an extensive smuggling trade grew up
which no efforts on the part of the authorities could repress. Monopoly
was starved out through the very rigor exerted to make it exclusive, and
the markets were so glutted with contraband goods that the galleons
could scarcely dispose of their cargoes.
The restrictions upon the domestic intercourse and commerce of the
Spanish colonies were, if possible, more grievous and pernicious in
their consequences than those upon traffic with Europe. Inter-colonial
commerce was prohibited under the severest penalties, the crown
insisting that all trade should be carried on through Spain and made
tributary to the oppressive duties exacted by the government. While
Spain received a considerable revenue from her colonies,
notwithstanding the contraband trade, the expenses of the system were
very great, and absorbed much of the revenue. Corruption was
widespread, and colonial officers looked upon their positions chiefly
with a view to their own enrichment. They had no patriotic interest in
the welfare of the colonies, and conducted themselves like a garrison
quartered upon the inhabitants. Although salaries were high the
expenses of living were great,