146 CHAPTER 7 THE BOURBON REFORMS AND SPANISH AMERICA
STRENGTHENING THE DEFENSES
Increased revenue was a major objective of the
Bourbon commercial and political reforms. A ma-
jor purpose to which that revenue was applied was
the strengthening of the sea and land defenses of
the empire. Before the eighteenth century, primary
dependence for defense had been placed on naval
power: convoy escorts and cruiser squadrons. Be-
fore the middle of the eighteenth century, standing
armed forces in the colonies were negligible, and
authorities relied on local forces raised for particu-
lar emergencies. The disasters of the Seven Years’
War and the loss of Havana and Manila (1762) to
the English, in particular, resulted in a decision to
correct the shortcomings in the defense system of
the colonies. Fortifi cations of important American
ports were strengthened, and colonial armies were
created. These included regular units, which were
stationed permanently in the colonies or rotated
between peninsular and overseas service, and co-
lonial militia whose ranks were fi lled by volunteers
or drafted recruits.
To make military service attractive to the cre-
ole upper class, which provided the offi cer corps
of the new force, the crown granted extensive
privileges and exemptions to creole youths who
accepted commissions. To the lure of prestige and
honors, the grant of the fuero militar added protec-
tion from civil legal jurisdiction and liability, ex-
cept for certain specifi ed offenses. The special legal
and social position thus accorded to the colonial of-
fi cer class helped form a tradition that has survived
to the present in Latin America: the armed forces
as a special caste with its own set of interests, not
subject to the civil power, that acts as the arbiter of
political life, usually in the interests of conservative
ruling classes. Under the Bourbons, however, the
power of the colonial military was held in check by
such competing groups as the church and the civil
bureaucracy.
Although the expansion of the colonial mili-
tary establishment under the Bourbons offered
some opportunities and advantages to upper-class
creole youth, it did nothing to allay the longstand-
ing resentment creoles felt about their virtual ex-
clusion from the higher offi ces of state and church
and from large-scale commerce. Bourbon policy in
regard to the problem went through two phases.
In the fi rst half of the eighteenth century, wealthy
creoles could sometimes purchase high offi cial
posts, and for a time they dominated the presti-
gious audiencias of Mexico City and Lima. But in
the second half of the century, an anti-creole reac-
tion took place. José de Gálvez, Charles III’s colonial
minister, was the very embodiment of the spirit of
enlightened despotism that characterized his reign.
Gálvez distrusted creole capacity and integrity and
removed high-ranking creoles from positions in
the imperial administration. The new upper bu-
reaucracy, such as the intendants who took over
much of the authority of viceroys and governors,
was mostly Spanish-born.
Other Bourbon policies injured creole vested
interests or wounded their sensibilities and tra-
ditions. In 1804 the Spanish crown enacted an
emergency revenue measure—the Consolidación de
Vales Reales—that ordered church institutions in
the colonies to call in all their outstanding capital,
the liens and mortgages whose interest supported
the charitable and pious works of the church. The
proceeds were to be loaned to the crown, which
would pay annual interest to the church to fund
its ecclesiastical activities. Although the primary
motive of the Consolidation was to relieve the
crown’s urgent fi nancial needs, it had the second-
ary reformist aim of freeing the colonial economy
from the burden of mortmain and thus promote a
greater circulation of property.
The measure, however, struck hard at two
bulwarks of the colonial order: the church and the
propertied elite. The numerous hacendados, mer-
chants, and mine owners who had borrowed large
sums from church institutions now had to repay
those sums in full or face loss of property or bank-
ruptcy. Many elite families had also assigned part
of the value of their estates to the church to found
a chaplaincy, paying annual interest to provide the
stipend of the chaplain, often a family member. Al-
though the church had not loaned this capital, offi -
cials in charge of the Consolidation demanded that
the families involved immediately turn over the
value of these endowments, in cash. Many small
and medium landowners and other middle-class