mita. In the 17th century, this system
gradually declined in importance com-
pared with free wage labor, in which
hacendados, owners of haciendas, or
large estates, contracted directly with
laborers. Wages were so low that the
peasants, who were not free to leave until
their debts were paid off, were often
forced into perpetual debt to their
employers, a condition of servitude
known as debt peonage.
Another way the Spanish exploited
Native American communities was to
require them by law to buy goods at fixed
high prices, even if the goods were not
wanted, a system that (confusingly) was
also called repartimiento or reparto de
bienes. The most abject form of servitude
was found in the enslavement of Africans,
who were bought and sold as chattel,
chiefly to work on the plantations of the
Caribbean, or to work in mines or as arti-
sans and domestic servants throughout
the colonies. But Native American labor
was cheaper, and the Spanish colonists
preferred to use that where available.
The most valuable exports from the
colonies were gold and silver. In the mid-
16th century, Honduras and Guatemala
enjoyed a boom from gold strikes,
Mexico and Bolivia from silver strikes. In
1591–1595, the port of Lima, the exit
point for Bolivian metals, alone shipped
23.9 million pesos of silver. Second in
importance were agricultural goods:
tobacco, sugar, hides, cacao, and cascaril-
la, used as a flavoring and fragrance.
Imports included slaves, iron, textiles,
wine, brandy, olive oil, spices, and miscel-
laneous luxury goods, such as furniture
and books.
Following mercantilist theory, which
regarded possession of precious metals
and control of trade as the basis for a
nation’s wealth, the Spanish crown
excluded foreign competitors from colo-
nial trade, closely supervising commerce
through the Casa de Contratación,
“House of Trade.” Overseas trade con-
sisted mainly of approved annual sailings
of fleets, or convoys, to and from a few
ports in Europe and the New World.
From the 1570s Spanish America also
traded with Spain’s Asian colony of the
Philippines. In the 18th century, trade
was increasingly carried out by single,
licensed ships, or register ships, less vul-
nerable than fleets were to naval attack
during the century’s many wars. Despite
these attempts to control trade, smug-
gling of contraband to and from foreign
merchants was rampant.Race and Class
Despite the influx of Spanish people dur-
ing the colonial period, Hispanic America
by the end of that era was predominantly
Native American and mestizo, a mix of
white and Native American. In the
Caribbean, the Native American popula-
tion was virtually exterminated, and Native
Americans in other areas of the New
World also suffered precipitous population
declines as a result of Spanish cruelty and
European diseases. But in most places,
the populations of Native Americans had
stabilized by the late 17th century and
begun to recover in the 18th century.
One set of estimates puts it this way:
by the end of the colonial period, out of an
estimated Spanish-American population
of 17 million, Native Americans were the
single largest ethnic group, about 7 million
or 41 percent. About 5.8 million more
people, or 34 percent, were of mixed
ancestry, predominantly mestizo—blends
of white and Native American. There were
also some mulattoes, blends of white and
black, particularly in slave plantation areas.
In addition, there were about 1 million
people (6 percent) of entirely African
descent, about half of them slaves, working
as laborers on plantations and as artisans
and domestics in cities, and another half
freedpersons. Finally, there were the
españoles, or Spanish, people of entirely
Spanish descent: about 3.2 million, or 19
percent. English philosopher Francis
Bacon remarked, “I have marvelled some-
times at Spain, how they clasp and contain
so large dominions with so few natural
Spaniards.”
Despite the many variations of mixed
ethnicity in the Spanish colonies, the
Spanish were far from color-blind. On
the contrary, they made fine class distinc-
tions among the types of racial blends. At
the top of the social ladder were
españoles, themselves divided between
peninsulares, or colonists born in Spain
(by 1800, only 5 percent of españoles),
and criollos, or Creoles—those born in
the Americas but of full Spanish descent
(the remaining 95 percent). Below them
were mestizos and mulattoes, and below
them were those with entirely NativeSPAIN IN THE AMERICAS 43