Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
and efficiency. While not a student of the Enlightenment, he was pre-
pared to employ enlightened despotism. Devout, although not to the
extreme lengths of some of his predecessors, he was prepared to curb
what he regarded as the excessive power and tendency to meddle in the
business of government displayed by some of the clergy. Among the
earliest targets of his housecleaning were the Jesuits who had been
implicated in the attacks on his ministers. By 1767 he had expelled
them from Spain and all her dominions, and a few years later he joined
together with other Catholic monarchs who resented the intrigues of
the Society of Jesus to bring about its dissolution. Thus the most formi-
dable of modern Catholic religious orders, founded by a Spaniard and
long identified in a special way with Spain, was the victim of Bourbon
authoritarianism and jealousy, not to be reestablished until 1814.
Charles III also crushed the power of the Spanish Inquisition, guar-
anteeing its subservience to the state, a subordinate role that had been
laid down at its foundation in the 15th century but sometimes evaded
in more recent generations. In addition, the king tightened his govern-
ment's control on the Spanish hierarchy so as to make the bishops and
priests of the Spanish church more reliable instruments of state
power.
Addressing the long-neglected internal economy of Spain, Charles III
undertook measures to develop domestic industry, import new tech-
niques and technology in agriculture, and exploit the country's mineral
resources. Particularly in this last sphere, the king drew upon the exper-
tise of mining specialists from northern Europe and mineralogists who
could assess Spain's hidden wealth. Local administrators were encour-
aged to work for the development of trade and commerce and to apply
incentives to overcome apathy.
The program of reform was extended to Spain's American colonies.
Rationalization of territorial boundaries and jurisdiction led to the cre-
ation of two new viceroyalties in South America, in the areas of mod-
ern-day Venezuela and Argentina. These and other modifications of
boundaries laid down during the first decades of colonization reduced
the burdens of overextended central administrators and aided the
development of new projects on what had hitherto been the outer
fringes of the Viceroyalty of Peru. Periodic border wars with the Portu-
guese over the region known as Colonia were ended (at least for a
time), leaving an area between Brazil and the Buenos Aires Province
that would ultimately become Uruguay. Transatlantic trade was reorga-
nized, easing the grip of Spanish metropolitan bankers and merchants
over colonial shipping. These experiments in greater flexibility and
responsibility came too late, however, to satisfy the long-accumulated
Search WWH ::
Custom Search