‘It Is Like a Contagion’: The Spanish Atlantic Debate on Free Ports of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries

ABSTRACT

This article reconstructs the Ibero-American debate on free ports by looking both at the circulation of ideas and news in the Atlantic, and at the political and institutional changes that the debate generated, focusing on the cases of Veracruz and Cadiz. It aims to show how the discourse on free ports permeated both sides of the Atlantic and became a pervasive political, economic, and intellectual aspect of the desire for reform and independence.

KEYWORDS:

• Free ports
• Atlantic
• Spain
• Latin America
• Political debate

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Delogu, ‘What is a free port?’. See also the introductory article in this issue by Stapelbroek and Tazzara.

2 On the Napoleonic project, see Delogu, ‘Il pensiero di Gioia, la politica di Napoleone’. For an up-to-date account of the Continental System, see: Aalestad and Joor (eds.), Revisiting Napoleon’s Continental System.

3 On Napoleon’s influence in Latin America, see Centeno and Ferraro, ‘Republics of the Possible’, 4. A particularly revealing example is that provided by Simón Bolivar. Aware of the fact that Napoleon was disliked by most people due to the negative image of the colonies conveyed by Spain for over a decade, Bolivar always avoided public references to Bonaparte, but professed great admiration for him in private. See Collier, ‘Nationality, Nationalism, and Supranationalism in the Writings of Simón Bolívar’, 37–64. On Napoleon’s black legend in Latin America, see De Gori, La República patriota, 13–73; Rinke, ‘Perfidies, Robberies and Cruelties’, 128-141. Furthermore, the impact of Napoleon is clear in the use of the Code Napoléon as the legislative system in the new-born Latin American republics, on which see Andrés Santos, ‘Napoleon in America?’, 297–313; Mirow, ‘The Power of Codification in Latin America’, 83-116; Mirow, Latin America Law, 152-8.

4 On the monopoly system of the fleets see García-Baquero González, La Carrera de Indias.

5 For an overview of the political debate in nineteenth-century Latin America, see Chiaramonte, Nación y estado en Iberoamérica.

6 The major contributions to the debate have been collected in Controversia sobre la libertad de comercio en Nueva España.

7 The consulados (merchant guilds) were meant to represent the interests of the merchant class in negotiation with those of the Crown. The first in Spanish America was established in Mexico City in 1592.

8 Márquez, ‘Commercial Monopolies and External Trade’, 409-14.

9 Archivo General de la Nación México, Archivo Histórico de Hacienda, l. 1869: La influencia que tienen las Américas españoles sobre su metrópoli, ms, 1805. The text was published in Controversia sobre la libertad de comercio, from which the quote is taken, 77–8.

10 Cancelada was born in the kingdom of Léon in 1765 and moved to Cadiz to engage in mercantile activity. From there he decided to seek greater fortunes in the colonies, continuing to do business while also collaborating with the viceregal authorities. In 1805 he became the main editor of the Gaceta de México, to which he gave a political and engaged tone. In 1810, after having criticised Francisco Javier de Lizana y Beaumont, Archbishop of Mexico, he was expelled from New Spain and returned to Cadiz where he continued his journalistic work with El Comercio de Ambos Mundos and embraced liberal ideas. See Zarate Toscano, ‘Juan López Cancelada: escritor publico en ambos mundos’, 116–24.

11 Cancelada, Ruina de la Nueva España si se declara el comercio libre con lo extranjeros, 66.

12 Lecciones de comercio ó Bien de economía civil del abate Antonio Genovesi traducidas del italiano por Victorian de Villava. See Lluch Martin, ‘El cameralismo en España’, 721-28. On Genovesi and Villava see also De Gori, La República patriota, 117-141; Astigarraga and Usoz, ‘From the Neapolitan A. Genovesi’, 293-326; Astigarraga and Usoz, ‘The Enlightenment in Translation. Antonio Genovesi ́s Political Economy in Spain’, 24-45.

13 Genovesi, Delle lezioni di commercio, 570–1.

14 Quirós was born in Cadiz in 1750. He held the post of secretary at the consulado from 1805 until his death in 1824.

15 The Veracruz consulado was established in 1795 by Charles IV.

16 Quirós, Voz imperiosa de la verdad. See Lluch Martin, ‘El cameralismo en España’, 728; Almenar Palau, ‘Las aportaciones de Robert Sidney Smith’, 344.

17 Quirós, Memoria de instituto, republished in Controversia sobre la libertad de comercio, vol. 2, 147.

18 Quirós, Memoria de instituto

19 Bonialian, La América española, ch. 3. See also Permanyer-Ugartemendia, ‘The Collapse of Mercantilism’, 212-39.

20 Quirós, Memoria de estatuto: idea de la riqueza, republished in Controversia sobre la libertad de comercio, vol. 2, 78.

21 Quirós took up some data on the decline of the Spanish navy that had been published in the Centinela, a newspaper in Havana, on 8 January 1814. La Centinela had in turn taken the information from Sesma, Memoria sobre los diferentes estados de la Marina.

22 Quirós, Memoria de estatuto, 178.

23 Quirós, Memoria de estatuto, 178–9.

24 After graduating in medicine in Cadiz, Perez y Comoto moved to America (living in New Spain, Guatemala, and Cuba), where he devoted himself not so much to medicine as to a career as a public official in various bodies that oversaw the economy of the colonies. Alongside this he pursued journalistic work, always adhering to royalist positions.

25 On the topos of Iberian decadence, see, above all among the English authors, Pagden, Lords of All the World; Elliott, Empires of the Atlantic World.

26 Representación que en favor del libre comercio, escrita por el Dr. D. Florencio Pérez Y Comoto, 5, 7 and 15.

27 Representación que en favor del libre comercio, 32.

28 Representación que en favor del libre comercio, 8.

29 Representación que en favor del libre comercio, 8.

30 Representación que en favor del libre comercio, Advertencia. On eighteenth-century reforms, see Stein and Stein, Apogee of Empire; Josep M. Delgado Ribas, Dinámicas imperiales; Kuethe and Andrien, The Spanish Atlantic world in eighteenth century.

31 Informe. A copy of the text is preserved in the Archivo General des Indias of Seville (hereafter AGIS), Consulados, 61a.

32 El Peruano was a gazette compiled in Lima by the merchant and journalist Gaspar Rico y Angulo between 1811 and 1812 for the publisher Guillermo del Río. It was in competition with the Gaceta del Gobierno de Lima, which instead propagated strictly loyalist ideas. See Guerra (ed.), Les espacios publicos en Iberoamerica.

33 El Peruano, no. 20, 11 December 1811, 186. In Arillaga’s text incorrectly quoted as no. 29, 11 December 1812. In the 1800s to the 1810s the gazettes of Buenos Aires (Correo de Comercio and Télegrafo mercantil) also contained a wide-reaching discussion on the issue of the liberalisation of the ports in the Viceroyalty of Río de La Plata.

34 Herrenschwand, De l’économie politique moderne, 94.

35 Herrenschwand, Principios de economía política, 104.

36 Informe, 1.

37 Informe, 1: ‘It was to be feared that the contagion would be spread violently with the same speed with which that publication had been circulated through all the commercial centres of this kingdom, and perhaps through those of Europe’.

38 Iglesias Rodríguez, ‘Las infrastructuras portuarias de la bahía de Cádiz el reto del monopolio americano’, 185–219. Torrejón Chaves, El puerto franco de Cádiz.

39 On the importance of the AGIS, see Rahn Phillips, ‘Empire as a framework for research’, 183.

40 Torrejón Chaves, ‘La creación del puerto franco de Cádiz’, 6–7.

41 AGIS, Consulados, 1651.

42 AGIS, Consulados, 1651: D. J. De San Pelayo, Apuntes que pueden servir a la extensión de una bien ordenada Memoria que tenga por objeto evitar el trato clandestino de nuestras Indias, por medio de Puertos Francos, ms, 29 February 1812.

43 AGIS, Consulados, 1651: D. J. De San Pelayo, Apuntes.

44 AGIS, Consulados, 1651: Entre los varios expedients, ms, 10 March 1813. The document is signed by Francisco Escudero de Hassi, Feliciano Puyades, Juan Francisco de Urzainquín, Josef de Santiago y Rotalde and Isidoro de Angulo.

45 Simonde de Sismondi, De la richesse commerciale, vol. 2, 419 and 438–9.

46 de la Cruz y Bahamonde, Viage de España, Francia, è Italia, vol. 13, ch. 5.

47 Flórez Estrada, Examen imparcial; Román Martínez de Montáos, Incompatibilidad de la Constitución española. See López Castellano, Edición y estudio preliminar a El pensamiento hacendístico liberal en las Cortes de Cádiz.

48 Archivo Histórico Municipal de Cádiz (AHMC), Actas Capitulares, 175, 235-6.

49 AHMC, Actas Capitulares, 176, 1258-9.

50 AHMC, Actas Capitulares, 194, 1370-87.

51 Discurso sobre las variaciones que exige el régimen comercial.

52 The dispute is summarised by the anonymous author of the Discurso in AGIS, Consulados, 1652: Respuesta que da el autor del Discurso sobre las variaciones, ms, 31 December 1821.

53 AGIS, Consulados, 1652: Sobre Puerto Franco en la Plaza de Cádiz. Discurso de Rafael Ferry y Ferry, ms, 14 November 1821.

54 AGIS, Consulados, 1652: Sobre Puerto Franco en la Plaza de Cádiz.

55 AGIS, Consulados, 1651: this is a group of letters written between 11 March 1814 and 25 November 1825.

56 AGIS, Consulados, 1651: letter of 4 June 1824.

57 AGIS, Consulados, 1651: letter of 24 May 1824.

58 AGIS, Consulados, 1651: letter of 24 May 1824.

59 AGIS, Consulados, 61a: Petición al Rey para que se le otorgue la franquicia a Cádiz, 23 December 1828. The petition was signed by Miguel López, Pablo del Valle y Llera, José de Vea-Murguía, Juan José Murillo, Manuel Micheo, Clemente Fernández de Elías, Prudencio Hernández Santa Cruz. All were members of the Real Sociedad Económica Gaditana de Amigos del País, which had been founded in 1781.

60 AGIS, Consulados, 61a: Petición al Rey.

61 See Trujillo Bolio, ‘El puerto de Cádiz y el Atlántico americano,’ 207–220.

62 AGIS, Consulados, 61a: Letter by the Ministerio de Hacienda de España, 21 February 1829.

63 AGIS, Consulados, 61a: Regolamento de Puerto Franco, art. 28, 14 March 1829.

64 All the works recited on that occasion are collected in AGIS, Consulados, 1652.

65 Yanguas y Soria, Oración gratulatoria, 7 and 14.

66 Yanguas y Soria, Oración gratulatoria, 14.

67 Noticia sobre el comercio que se puede entablar entre Odessa, 6 and 1. Other projects were promoted by the Real Sociedad Económica Gaditana, such as the creation of an acclimatisation garden as part of a larger plan to revive local agriculture and manufacture, see AHMC, Socieded Económica Gaditana, 3395. The Sociedad encouraged also a public competition collecting proposals for the development of the free port in 1830, see AHMC, Socieded Económica Gaditana, 3399 and 3422.

68 Pita Pizarro, Memoria sobre la libertad de comercio; Gutiérrez, Nuevas consideraciones sobre libertad absoluta de comercio. On Gutiérrez see Aglietti, ‘The evils of “beguiling Liberty”’.

69 Chérade Montbrion, Dictionnaire universel du commerce, vol. 1, 67.

70 Bulmer-Thomas, The Economic History of Latin America since Independence, 28–45; Prados de la Escosura, ‘The Economic Consequences of Independence in Latina America’, 463-504.

71 Battur, Question des entrepôts et ports francs.

72 The Napoleonic economic vision and its legacy are analysed in greater depth in G. Delogu, ‘Free Ports, Free Trade, Freedom’.

73 Fuentes Quintana, Economía y economistas españoles, vol. 1, 172–3.

74 ^. Almenar Palau, ‘El desarrollo del pensamiento económico clásico en España’, 33. Almenar Palau (44) also underlines the influence of Gioia on Eusebio María del Valle (1799–1867), the author of the influential Curso de economía política (1842), who was active in the University of Madrid, in the Sociedad Económica and in the Universidad Complutense, of which he became rector.

75 Gioia, Nuovo prospetto delle scienze economiche, vol. 5, 219–22.

76 Lluch Martin and Almenar Palau, ‘Difusión e influencia de los economistas clásicos en España’, 125–70; Portela, ‘Cuba’.