Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
and the subsequent Seven Years' War (1756-63), the European powers
continued to involve the indigenous peoples of the Americas in their
disagreements. The Spaniards mobilized the Guaraní militias from the
Jesuit missions to defend Buenos Aires. The Spanish raid on Colônia
in 1762 surprised 27 English merchant vessels, which were trading
in illegal Spanish silver. But the peace treaty ending this war returned
Colônia do Sacramento to Portugal anyway.
The Spanish and French gained some revenge, however, in the war
of independence in British North America (1775-83). French and
Spanish troops both helped the American colonists in their struggle for
freedom from Great Britain, despite the irony that Spain and France still
retained their own colonial empires in the Americas. Spain also recap-
tured Colônia. These rising international contests increasingly involved
South America in European conflicts. For these reasons, the Spanish
monarch felt compelled to tighten imperial control in the increasingly
valuable Southern Cone, but a problem arose. The colonial subjects in
the Río de la Plata had become accustomed to their independence and
autonomy. Each imperial reform thus seemed to them to be an assault
on their loyalty and their privileges.
The Bourbon Reforms
The Spanish kings decided to strengthen their empire through a series
of administrative and economic reforms. In Spanish America, these
became known as the Bourbon reforms, after the name of Spain's royal
family. The reforms came gradually, one at a time in piecemeal fashion,
and sometimes contradicting and countermanding previous reforms.
The basic long-term objectives of these reforms fell under several
categories. First, the Bourbons sought to strengthen the administra-
tion of their colonial possessions, then they sought to capture control
over trade and commerce. Part of these economic and administrative
reforms involved rationalizing the collection of taxes and closing
tax loopholes. Moreover, the Crown wanted their American subjects
to participate more in the defense of the empire, through territorial
expansion into the frontiers and also by serving in colonial militias.
Finally, the reforms struck at the autonomy of colonial society. Plans
were devised to curb the power of the local elites and to manage more
effectively the volatile social resentments that might ruin the entire
colonial enterprise. Because so many Iberian soldiers and officials
were dispatched to reinforce royal authority, the Bourbon reforms
have been termed the “Reconquest of the Americas.”
