Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
directions only during the rainy season. Freight rates therefore were
high and could not be avoided, and the merchants passed on the cost
of transport to all consumers. Even commoners saved a few reales (a
common coin equal to one-eighth of a silver peso) by avoiding what
few taxes they could, but corruption and large-scale tax evasion became
the privilege of the rich and powerful.
The tradition of tax evasion became well established during the colo-
nial period for two reasons. First, the king of Spain had outlawed direct
international trade between Europe and the Río de la Plata. Second, the
king's officials in the Río de la Plata, not to mention his subjects there,
could only make a living by ignoring the restrictions on trade.
The royal court in the 16th century had concluded that silver was
not only its most precious import from the Americas but also the basis
of Spanish power in Europe. Moreover, the silver trade earned large
tax revenues for the Crown in terms of mining concessions, mint-
ing charges, sales taxes, and port duties. Spain therefore attempted to
protect silver shipments from foreigners and decided that the port of
Buenos Aires was too vulnerable to the Portuguese from nearby Brazil
and to Dutch and British maritime power. The Crown ruled that the
silver of Bolivia was to be exported not from Buenos Aires but from
Lima.
In the mid-16th century, the Crown decreed that all South American
trade was to be carried on the
flota,
or fleet, system. Mule trains trans-
ferred silver bullion from Potosí over the Andean cordillera to Lima.
The silver then moved by ship to Panama City and overland through
the Isthmian jungles to merchant vessels in the Caribbean. The illogic
did not end there. All Spanish merchant ships were to meet once per
year at the port of Havana and be escorted by warships in a fleet forma-
tion across the Atlantic Ocean to Spain. European merchandise, much
prized among settlers in the Americas, was to return along the same
route in fleet formation, also once a year.
Furthermore, the king's loyal subjects in the Río de la Plata could
carry on import and export commerce with Spain only through Lima!
Direct Atlantic trade from Buenos Aires was not permitted. So, if the
governor of Córdoba wished to purchase the best Spanish wine for a
dinner party, he had to pay the transport cost and taxes of its travel
overland from Lima. If a mule merchant wished to dress his wife in
the latest European fashions in order to attend the governor's party, he
had to ship the cloth across the Andes from the import houses of Lima.
Spanish officials and merchants at the Atlantic port of Buenos Aires
