THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY

Without labor, private landholding had limited value, and the accumulation of wealth, based on the utilization of economic resources, would be unlikely. The Europeans moved aggressively to establish both the concept of private property and its corollary, wage labor.

Colin MacLachlan, 19888

After the fall of Tenochtitlan, Spain began shaping the Mexican economy. The transition from feudalism to capitalism occurring in Europe and Spain’s increasing insertion into the international market influenced this transformation. Spaniards set economic policy at all levels. The king set guidelines for the general course of the empire. Municipal governments allocated land, set prices, monitored markets, enforced guild regulations, and administered common land and public works.9

Sixteenth-century Mexico saw sweeping changes in technology. The long list of newly introduced items includes maps, the compass, pulleys, screws, the wheel for transport, and tools for black-smithing and carpentry. Spaniards introduced some simple items, such as the nail. Others, such as ships used in transoceanic commerce, involved a complex combination of devices.10

The replacement of the digging stick with the plow led to increased productivity and to more erosion, as the plow loosened the entire surface of the earth. Plow-induced erosion led to the abandonment of entire estates. For example, the Jesuit-owned Jesus del Monte estate once produced 272,445 liters of wheat annually. Plow cultivation led to its fertile soil being washed away, leaving only bare rock. The Jesuits then converted the property from a wheat farm to a spiritual retreat.11

The introduction of European plants and animals produced a profound biological revolution. Plants intentionally introduced from the Old World include oranges, wheat, bananas, sugar cane, and mulberry trees for raising silk worms. Animals the Spaniards brought included chickens, pigs, donkeys, goats, sheep, cattle, and horses.12

European weeds proliferated and crowded out indigenous plants after Spaniards inadvertently introduced their seeds in cattle feed, horses’ hooves, and cattle dung. These weeds thrived on plowed and overgrazed land. By 1600, many New World plants had become extinct, replaced by dandelions, nettles, and a host of grasses.13

A biological exchange in the opposite direction benefited the Old World. Corn and the potato were native to the New World and unknown in the Old World before Columbus. Other important plants introduced from the New World include sweet potatoes, peanuts, pineapples, vanilla, chiles, tomatoes, tobacco, long-stemmed cotton, and cacao (the source of chocolate).14

The Spaniards who came to Mexico during the sixteenth century had more experience with plunder, tribute, and slavery than they had with wages and market economies. The economy that emerged after the Conquest reflected this. It would be centuries before the labor force freely chose jobs based on working conditions and the wages received. In the period immediately after the Conquest, Spaniards demanded that Indians provided them with goods and that they performed certain tasks with little or no compensation.

In the decade after the Conquest, the Spanish enslaved many Indians. However, due to their high death rate, high initial purchase costs, and the availability of Indian labor through the encomienda and the repartimiento, Indian slavery soon diminished in importance.

The Crown had a financial interest in abolishing Indian slavery, since slaves did not pay tribute. This financial interest and humanistic concern resulted in the New Laws of 1542, which categorically prohibited Indian slavery. After this date, Indian slavery gradually disappeared in most areas. Exceptions, however, persisted. In 1643, Indians were still being bought and sold for work in the mines of Oaxaca.15

Indians not living within an encomienda paid tribute directly to the Spanish king. Such payments reflected the presumption that “discovered” lands belonged to the Crown. The king required the original inhabitants to pay him tribute to compensate him for generously allowing them to use his land. In 1570, roughly 800,000 Indians made such tribute payments.16

Tribute collection had a much greater impact than Indian slavery. In 1523, Carlos V wrote Cortes, “It is just and reasonable that the said Indians of the said land should serve us and pay tribute in recognition of the duty and service which, as our subjects and vassals, they owe us.”17 The Emperor’s suggestion could easily be implemented since, as Rodrigo de Albornoz, the King’s auditor in Mexico, wrote in 1525, “Indians here are very reasonable and orderly and accustomed to work for their living and contribute to Montezuma and his lords just like Spanish peasants.”18 The Crown’s guaranteeing the survival of the Indian community by protecting its land from appropriation by Spaniards increased the Indians’ willingness to pay tribute.19

Each head of a household in an Indian republic paid roughly two pesos a year tribute to the Spanish Crown. Non-Indians were exempt from this tax burden. As the Indian population declined more rapidly than the total amount of tribute demanded, per capita payments increased. This created a circular effect: more overwork, more population decline, and still more tribute per capita.20

Initially, Indians paid tribute in the form of food and clothing. Tribute payments in kind, such as corn, were generally sold at public auction to convert them into cash. However, most Indian-produced goods could not be readily converted to cash. As a result, treasury officials increasingly required Indians to pay tribute in cash. As this pressure increased, Indians became more integrated into the market economy, selling either their goods or their labor to raise the cash needed for tribute payments. To meet the Spaniards’ cash demands, Indians produced and marketed silk, wheat, sheep, cattle, and pigs. The Spanish economy had little to offer the Indians that their own communities could not provide. The tribute requirement thus forced Indians to work for wages. In the absence of tribute, many would have produced to meet their own needs and avoided the cash economy.21

Rather than being consumed by local princes and lords, post-Conquest tribute embarked on a much more circuitous journey. In-kind tribute payments were sold for cash. The corn paid in tribute often nourished animals working in silver mines. Treasury officials sent the silver from the mines and cash tribute to Europe, where it circulated widely. The Spanish reexported some silver to the Orient in exchange for spices and other exotic imports.22

Given the lack of currency, the lack of Spanish-run enterprises, and the lack of European goods Indians desired, the Spaniards could not rely on wage labor. When Indians did receive wages, as in the case of repartimiento workers, they did not have the choice of rejecting employment. Luis de Velasco, who became viceroy in 1550, commented, “Indians must be forced to work for wages in the fields or in the towns to stop them from becoming vagrants.”23

The Spaniards claimed Indians would not work voluntarily and that their lack of interest in consuming deprived them of interest in producing for the market. However, they did not test their assumption that Indians would not work for wages by offering them employment at wages that would attract voluntary workers. Rather, through the repartimiento, they forced Indians to work at wages well below those paid to voluntary workers.24

At the end of the sixteenth century, each of the major ethnic groups specialized in certain economic activities. The Indians produced corn, beans, chile, and the agave (maguey). They planted with the digging stick, and the same individuals produced crops and engaged in artisanal activity. The Spanish managed silver mines and estates producing wheat, cattle, and sugar cane. Fields were plowed, and mules and wagons carried goods. Most Spanish artisans did not engage in agriculture. These two groups were linked economically through tribute, the encomienda, and repartimiento labor.25