REFORM AND RECOVERY 141
Although Spain adopted mercantilist legisla-
tion designed to restrict colonial manufacturing—
especially of fi ne textiles—this legislation seems to
have been only a small deterrent to the growth of
large-scale manufacturing. More important deter-
rents were lack of investment capital, the charac-
teristic preference of Spaniards for land and mining
as fi elds of investment, and a semiservile system of
labor that was equally harmful to the workers and
to productivity. Humboldt, who visited the woolen
workshops of Querétaro in 1803, was disagreeably
impressed
not only with the great imperfection of the
technical process in the preparation for dye-
ing, but in a particular manner also with theunhealthiness of the situation, and the bad
treatment to which the workers are exposed.
Free men, Indians, and people of color are
confounded with the criminals distributed by
justice among the manufactories, in order to
be compelled to work. All appear half naked,
covered with rags, meager, and deformed.
Every workshop resembles a dark prison. The
doors, which are double, remain constantly
shut, and the workmen are not permitted to
quit the house. Those who are married are
only allowed to see their families on Sunday.
All are unmercifully fl ogged, if they commit
the smallest trespass on the order established
in the manufactory.
One of the few large-scale lines of industry was
the manufacture of cigars and cigarettes. In the
same town of Querétaro, Humboldt visited a to-
bacco factory that employed three thousand work-
ers, including nineteen hundred women.LABOR SYSTEMS IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
Humboldt’s comments testify to the persistence of
servitude and coercion as essential elements of the
labor system from the beginning to the end of the
colonial period. Despite the Bourbons’ theoretical
dislike of forced labor, they sought to tighten legal
enforcement of debt peonage in the Indies. Con-
cerned with more effi cient collection of tribute, José
de Gálvez, the reforming minister of Charles III, tried
to attach the natives more fi rmly to their pueblos
and haciendas. In 1769 he introduced in New Spain
the system of clearance certifi cates, documents
that certifi ed that peons had no outstanding debts
and could seek employment with other landown-
ers. The mobility of peons who lacked these papers
could be restricted. Debt peonage was authorized
by the Mining Ordinances of New Spain and was
also practiced in the gold and silver mines of Chile,
where a system of clearance certifi cates like that
used in Mexico was employed. A study by James D.
Riley notes a trend in Bourbon policy to make debts
“considerably less coercive” in Mexico after 1785,
but he also notes that there was little offi cial reluc-
tance to pursue debtors and force them to pay up orWomen, especially indigenous women like this
Otavalo worker in Ecuador, often worked in
unsanitary conditions in textile obrajes, where
they spun wool into thread and used rudimentary
looms to weave it into cloth. [Corbis]