Survey of Primary Sources
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APPENDIX A Survey of Primary Sources This appendix describes the main primary sources referred to when writing the text. [1] Ship Registers. Several sets of sources were used to study the diffusion of Asian goods across the Spanish Empire. There are no official reports or lists of merchandise trans- ported in the Manila galleons. For trans- Pacific trade, the monarchy did not gather lists of merchandise, as it did for trade passing through the Atlantic ports of Veracruz, Nombre de Dios- Portobelo, and Seville. With respect to ships sailing across the Pacific Ocean, the monarchy simply collected the avería tax and the almojarifazgo tax. Collec- tion of the former tax was soon managed by the merchant guild of Mexico. Documents related to the latter tax, although managed by royal servants in collaboration with the merchants of Acapulco, do not contain detailed lists of merchandise – only totals of the tax sums collected. For this reason I used private merchant reports of merchandise, which the commercial agents of Manila sent to Mexico City’s wholesalers along with the merchandise itself, to analyse the exporting and diffusion of Asian goods from the Philippines to Castile. These private merchant reports of merchandise are guarded in the Archivo General de la Nación (agn) of Mexico. The export of Asian goods from New Spain to Castile (figure 2) and the prices of silk in Veracruz (figure 3) were analysed using more well-known sources: the so- called inward registers to Seville from New Spain (registros de venida de la Nueva España) and the reg- isters of the avería tax. I ruled out other mercantile sources – for instance, the catalogue of ship registers (catálogo de registros de barcos), which shows only the dates of entry in the Americas and of return to Seville for the ships along with their main characteristics (tonnage, captains and masters, ports of reference, etc.). Also excluded were the outward registers to New Spain (registros de ida a la Nueva España) because they are not relevant to the issues discussed in this book. The two sources that were used (i.e., the inward reg- isters to Seville and the registers of the avería tax) are both located in the Archivo General de Indias (agi) of Seville and do not contain exactly the same information. The inward registers have been used previously as a reference by other authors – including Pierre and Huguette Chaunu, Antonio Garcia- Baquero, and Lutgardo García Fuentes – who have described the sources in detail, especially Pierre and Hu- guette Chaunu.1 These registers of ships returning to Seville from New Spain are the 1 Pierre and Huguette Chaunu, Seville et l’Atlantique (1504- 1650), 8 vols. (Paris: sevpen, 1955– 1960); Lutgardo García Fuentes, El Comercio Español con América, 1650– 1700 (Sevil- la: Diputación Provincial de Sevilla, 1980); Antonio García- Baquero González, Cádiz y el At- lántico (1717– 1778), 2 vols. (Cádiz: csic, 1988). García Fuentes has in other work used as a © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2019 | DOI:10.1163/9789004383616_009 José L. Gasch-Tomás - 9789004383616 Downloaded from Brill.com09/24/2021 12:34:52PM via free access 204 APPENDIX A individual registers of each ship of every fleet that sailed annually from Veracruz to Seville with a stopover in Havana. The fleets consisted of one to three warships (naos capitanas y almirantas) and several smaller vessels. The warships were larger than the rest and, despite their defensive function, carried most of the merchandise. The registers of each ship are organised into three parts. The first part contains all the information regarding the administrative proceedings that the ship’s officials need- ed to complete before sailing: the license requested by the ship’s master to load the merchandise, a declaration of the ship’s stowage, and the certification issued by the relevant royal office to allow the journey. Note that, unlike the outward registers from Seville to the Americas, the inward registers contain no description of the ship(s). The second part of the document contains the registers of the merchandise, which were made by the ship’s master in the presence of a notary and witnesses; this list ran to hundreds and sometimes thousands of pages for each load and included the type and quantity of merchandise, the name of the merchants who shipped and received the goods, and the avería tax paid for transportation. The margin of each register contains the avería tax to be paid and the sums made to calculate it, along with the type and quantity of the merchandise; from these figures one can infer the total val- ue of the merchandise. The document was written in the Americas. However, some corrections were made in Seville by the civil servants of the House of Trade (Casa de Contratación) with regard to the quantity and value of the merchandise (and hence to the avería tax due). These corrections probably reflect anti-fraud efforts, given that the bales and boxes were rarely opened by agents of the House of Trade. When these corrections have appeared, I recorded the highest quantity and value. Finally, the third part of a ship’s register contains a declaration listing the passengers as well as the names of those who died during the journey. I processed only the information contained in the second part of the inward reg- isters, which describe the merchandise loaded and the avería tax paid, for the years 1587– 1641; these registers are located in the Contratación section of the Archivo General de Indias, files 1793 to 1929B. Processing of all data in each register would have been impracticable – and also unnecessary, given the aim of this research. Silver was pre- eminent among the merchandise transported from New Spain to Seville. Most regis- ters describe mainly silver shipments. The second leading export from New Spain was cochineal dye, the intense red dye made in New Spain from a small insect raised in prickly pears and for which European demand was great. Other products imported from New Spain included other dyes, such as indigo (añil), Brazil wood (palo de Brasil main reference source the registers of the outward journey to Tierra Firme: Lutgardo García Fuentes, Los Peruleros y el Comercio de Sevilla con las Indias, 1580–1630 (Sevilla: Universidad de Sevilla, 1997). José L. Gasch-Tomás - 9789004383616 Downloaded from Brill.com09/24/2021 12:34:52PM via free access Survey of Primary Sources 205 or Brasilete), and Campeche wood (palo de Campeche). Less frequently shipped were products like chocolate. I processed the data from only three types of registers: regis- ters of silk (whether raw or semi- manufactured, whether Chinese or non- Chinese), registers of the rest of Asian manufactures, and registers of gifts. In some cases, these three items constitute the entire inward register. For each shipment entry, I record- ed the merchants involved in the transaction and the product: its precise description, quantity, and value. The “registers of the avería tax” record the payments of this tax, which was used by the Crown to finance its defence of the trans- Atlantic fleets from pirates and enemies of the monarchy. Each entry in these registers includes information on merchandise shipments and also records the merchant owner, quantity of the loaded merchandise, and tax payment.2 I analysed all the avería tax registers that contained data on silk imports and other Asian products to Seville from New Spain for the period 1600–1642 (agi, Contratación section, files 4408 to 4467). These documents are less complex than the inward registers. For instance, the avería tax registers do not record all merchants involved in the shipment of merchandise but only the lading merchant; neither do they detail the types of product inside the bales or boxes. The registers of the avería simply group the merchandise into such categories as “silver,” “cochineal dye,” “Chi- nese silk,” and so forth; they do not specify, for instance, the precise type of silk. These registers are concentrated in only a few books; this makes them easier to analyse be- cause data on exports are more simplified and more reliable than those of the inward registers, which consist of hundreds of books (some of which have disappeared). Both types of sources refer solely to legal commercial operations; for obvious reasons, fraud and smuggling are not recorded. [2] Private Reports of Merchandise. Mexican merchants usually received merchandise from their commercial agents in Manila along with business letters and reports of the merchandise consigned to them. I consulted documents of this type for the years be- tween (approximately) 1600 and 1640.3 These reports, which are guarded in the Archi- vo General de la Nación of Mexico, are patchy and so do not allow for the construction 2 An analysis of the avería tax from a legal perspective can be found in Guillermo Céspedes del Castillo, “La Avería en el Comercio de Indias,” Anuario de Estudios Americanos 2 (1945): 515– 698. An economic analysis of this tax that includes references to the registers housed in the agi is provided by Pierre and Huguette Chaunu, Séville et l’Atlantique (1504– 1650). Tome Pre- mier: Introduction Méthodologique (Paris: sevpen, 1955), 169– 238. 3 Agn, Indiferente Virreinal, caja- exp.: 2111- 020, Consulado, 3– 4; agn, Indiferente Virreinal, caja- exp.: 2926- 008, Consulado, 5; agn, Indiferente Virreinal, caja- exp.: 0535- 014, Filipinas, 20– 21; agn, Indiferente Virreinal, caja- exp.: 4259- 026, Filipinas, 5; agn, Indiferente Virrein- al, caja- exp.: 0535- 014, Filipinas, 28– 30; agn, Indiferente Virreinal, caja- exp.: 0535- 014, Fili- pinas, 32– 39; agn, Indiferente Virreinal, caja- exp.: 4976- 006, Filipinas; agn, Indiferente Vir- reinal, caja- exp.: 3465- 012, Consulado, 1– 4; agn, Indiferente Virreinal, caja- exp.: 0535- 014, José L.