Abstract
‘All European nations have improved themselves through reciprocal imitation; each one carefully keeps watch over the actions taken by the others. All of them take advantage of the utility of foreign inventions’.1
‘I saw at Coruña a translation of Adam Smith on the Wealth of Nations. What mutilations it may have undergone I know not, but surely no mutilation can prevent such a work from producing good in Spain’.2
In his farewell 1796 relación from New Granada, the departing viceroy, José de Ezpeleta, lamented that the deplorable state of Spain’s colonies was attributable, in ‘no small measure, to the ignorance of governors in political and economic affairs’. Guided by ‘the military spirit’, they treated their subjects with ‘more harshness than they would have handled a regiment’. Instead, he argued, future cadres of colonial bureaucrats should be selected from the diplomatic corps, which was composed of men who were ‘perspicacious in matters commerce and navigation’. Ezpeleta contended that a diplomat’s exposure to ‘advanced and industrious nations’ would ensure that he would ‘undoubtedly attempt to encourage the same ideas in America’. Furthermore, having observed firsthand the ‘methods by which these nations extract great riches from their colonies’, this new breed of administrator could ‘raise Spain’s empire to the same level of opulence’ as its rivals. Men accustomed to ‘observing usable roads, well-managed ports, easy navigation and flourishing agriculture’, the viceroy argued, would pursue equivalent projects in the colonies which they governed.3
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Notes
Sebastião José de Carvalho e Melo [later Marquis of Pombal], Escritos Económicos de Londres (1741–1742) (Lisbon, 1986), 158.
Rodrigo de Souza Coutinho, ‘Reflexões Políticas sobre os Motivos da Prosperidade da Agricultura deste País, que Servem a Fazer Praticamente as Vantajosas Consequências dos Sábios Princípios Adoptados (1789)’, in Souza Coutinho, Textos Políticos, Económicos e Financeiros (1783–1811), vol. I (Lisbon, 1993), 141; Souza Coutinho held the post of Secretary for the Navy and Colonial Dominions until 1801. He later served as Secretary of State for War and Foreign Affairs, following the Portuguese Monarchy’s forced relocation to Rio de Janeiro from 1808 until his death in 1812.
G.W. Pigman, ‘Versions of Imitation in the Renaissance’, Renaissance Quarterly 33, no. 1 (1980): 4, 22, 25, 32.
Daisy Ripodas Ardanaz, Refracción de Ideas en Hispanoamérica Colonial (Buenos Aires, 1983), 35;
for treatment of this phenomenon in another national context, see Sophus A. Reinert, ‘Blaming the Medici: Footnotes, Falsification, and the Fate of the “English Model” in eighteenth-century Italy’, History of European Ideas 32, no. 4 (2006): 430–55.
Emma Rothschild, ‘The English Kopf’, in Donald Winch and Patrick O’Brien (eds), The Political Economy of the British Historical Experience, 1688–1914 (Oxford, 2002), 31.
Eliga Gould, ‘Entangled Histories, Entangled Worlds: The English-Speaking Atlantic as a Spanish Periphery’, American Historical Review 112, no. 3 (2007): 764–86 passim.
For classic overviews of the Bourbon reforms for peninsular Spain, see Richard Herr, The Eighteenth Century Revolution in Spain (Princeton, 1958)
and Charles Noel, ‘Charles III of Spain’, in H. M. Scott (ed.), Enlightened Absolutism: Reform and Reformers in Later Eighteenth-Century Europe (London, 1990);
for Spanish America, see D.A. Brading, ‘Bourbon Spain and its American Empire’, in Leslie Bethell (ed.), Cambridge History of Latin America, vol. I (Cambridge, 1984)
and Stanley Stein and Barbara Stein, Apogee of Empire: Spain and New Spain in the Age of Charles III (Baltimore and London, 2003).
J. H. Elliott, ‘A Europe of Composite Monarchies’, Past and Present 137 (1992): 48–71 passim.
J. H. Elliott, Empires of the Atlantic World: Britain and Spain in America1492–1830 (New Haven and London, 2006), 307–8.
Kenneth Maxwell, Pombal: Paradox of the Enlightenment (Cambridge, 1995), 24.
For an overview of the Pombaline and post-Pombaline periods, in addition to the studies by Maxwell already cited, see Francisco José Calazans Falcon, A Época Pombalina (Política, Econômia e Monarquia Ilustrada) (São Paulo, 1982);
for an intellectual history of the period in transatlantic perspective, see Maria de Lourdes Viana Lyra, A Utopia do Poderoso Império: Portugal e Brasil, Bastidores da Política 1798–1822 (Rio de Janeiro, 1994), esp. 42–133.
This framework is adapted from contemporary political science. Kurt Weyland, ‘Introduction’, in Weyland (ed.), Learning from Foreign Models in Latin American Policy Reform (Washington D.C., 2004), 21; as Weyland indicates, imitation of foreign models is not without pitfalls: the ‘desire to copy promising practices in order not to fall behind … can expose policy makers to untested “fads and fashions” that hurt the quality of policy outputs’; see Weyland, ‘Introduction’, 5.
Some scholars choose to distinguish between emulation and other types of policy or ideological diffusion mechanisms, including ‘coercion’, ‘learning’ and ‘competition’. For an overview of the most recent political science literature, see Beth Simmons, Frank Dobbin and Geoffrey Garrett, ‘Introduction: The International Diffusion of Liberal Ideas’, International Organisation 60 (2006): 781–810.
A modification of the framework proposed by Colin Bennett, ‘What is Policy Convergence and What Causes it?’ British Journal of Political Science 21, no. 2 (1991): 215–22 passim.
Istvan Hont, Jealousy of Trade: International Competition and the Nation-State in Historical Perspective (Cambridge, MA, 2005), 120–1.
Gerónimo de Uztariz, The Theory and Practice of Commerce and Maritime Affairs, vol. II (London, 1751), 423; the impact of French mercantilist writers in Spain is treated in Stein and Stein, Silver, Trade and War: Spain and America in the Making of Early Modern Europe (Baltimore and London, 2000).
Pedro Rodríguez de Campomanes, Discurso Sobre la Educación Popular de los Artesanos y su Fomento (Madrid, 1775), 79. On Campomanes’s life and thought, see Vicent Llombart, Campomanes, Economista y Político de Carlos III (Madrid, 1992).
Ivan Valdez Bubnov, Naval Power and State Modernization: Spanish Shipbuilding Policy in the Eighteenth Century (Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Cambridge, 2005), 158–60.
Antonio Domínguez Ortiz, Sociedad y Estado en el Siglo XVIII Español (Barcelona, 1990), 53.
Francisco Álvarez, Noticia del Establecimiento y Población de las Colonias Inglesas en la América Septentrional [1778] (Madrid, 2000), 3.
Antonio de Ulloa, La Marina: Fuerzas Navales de la Europa y Costas de Berberia (Cádiz, 1995).
John Reeder, ‘Bibliografía de Traducciones, al Castellano y Catalán, durante el Siglo XVIII, de Obras de Pensamiento Económico’, Moneda y Crédito 126 (1973): 57–78 passim.
Francisco Sánchez-Blanco, El Absolutismo y las Luces en el Reinado de Carlos III (Madrid, 2003), 24.
On Campomanes’s economic thought, see Manuel Bustos Rodríguez, El Pensamiento Socio-Economico de Campomanes (Oviedo, 1982);
Laura Rodríguez Díaz, Reforma e Ilustración en la España del Siglo XVIII (Madrid, 1975).
Pedro Rodríguez Campomanes, Reflexiones sobre el comercio español a Indias (Madrid, 1988), 233.
Concepción de Castro, Campomanes: Estado y Reformismo Ilustrado (Madrid, 1996), 69–70; also in the Archivo del Conde de Campomanes (Madrid), 20–4, 31–1.
Campomanes, Itinerario de las Carreras de Posta de Dentro, y Fuera del Reyno [1761] (Madrid, 2002), 1.
Pedro Francisco Jiménez de Góngora y Luján (1727–1796), later elevated to title of the Duke of Almodóvar, was director of the Royal Academy of History from 1791 until 1796. Almodóvar previously had served as a diplomat in the courts of various European states. For an overview of Almodóvar’s work, see Ovidio García Regueiro’s, Ilustracióne Intereses Estamentales: Antagonismo entre Sociedad Tradicional y Corrientes Innovadoras en la Versión Española de la Historia de Raynal (Madrid, 1982).
On the Black Legend, see J. H. Elliott, The Old World and the New 1492–1650 (Cambridge, 1970), 94–7;
Ricardo García Cárcel, La Leyenda Negra: Historia y Opinión (Madrid, 1992);
Anthony Pagden, Lords of All the World: Ideologies of Empire in Spain, Britain and France c. 1500–1800 (New Haven, 1995), 87;
on the Spanish contestation of these images through the writing of ‘official history’, see Richard L. Kagan, Clio and the Crown: The Politics of History in Medieval and Early Modern Spain (Baltimore, 2009).
Pablo de Olavide, ‘Informe Sobre la Ley Agraria’, Obras Selectas (Lima, 1987), 488–9; Olavide was a great admirer of English literature, ranking Samuel Richardson, Henry Fielding and Daniel DeFoe among his favourite authors. See Luís Perdices de Blas, Pablo de Olavide (1725–1803): El Ilustrado (Madrid, 1993), 45.
The secondary literature on Spanish economic debates is vast. Among the best treatments in Spanish include: Marcelo Bitar Letayf, Economistas Españoles del Siglo XVIII: Sus Ideas sobre la Libertad del Comercio con Indias (Madrid, 1968);
Enrique Fuentes Quintana (ed.), Economía y Economistas Españoles, Volume 3: La Ilustración (Barcelona, 2000);
Mariano García Ruiperez, ‘El Pensamiento Económico Ilustrado y las Compañías de Comercio’, Revista de Historia Económica 4, no. 3 (1986): 521–48;
more generally, Lars Magnusson, Mercantilism: The Shaping of an Economic Language (London and New York, 1994).
BPR II/2819, Alejandro O’Reilly, ‘Descripción de la Isla de Cuba (1764)’, fo. 334 v.; on O’Reilly’s report and its impact, see Eduardo Torres-Cuevas, ‘El Grupo de Aranda en Cuba y los Inicios de una Nueva Época’, in Benimelli (ed.), El Conde de Aranda y su Tiempo (Zaragoza, 2000), esp. 330–1; and also Stein and Stein, Apogee of Empire, 57.
BPR II/2827, Agustín Crame, ‘Discurso Político Sobre la Necesidad de Fomentar la Isla de Cuba (1768)’, fos. 237–8; Manuel Moreno Fraginals, El Ingenio: Complejo Económico-Social Cubano del Azúcar (Havana, 1978), 35.
Francisco Arango y Parreño, ‘Discurso Sobre la Agricultura de la Habana y Medios de Fomentarla’, Obras, vol. I (Havana, 1952), 117–8.
Arango y Parreño, ‘Reflexiones Sobre la Mejor Organización del Consulado de la Habana, Considerado como Tribunal’, Obras (Havana, 1888), vol. I, 209.
These policies are described in detail in Kenneth Maxwell’s, Conflicts and Conspiracies: Brazil and Portugal, 1750–1808 (Cambridge, 1973).
José Ferreira Carrato, ‘The Enlightenment in Portugal and the Educational Reforms of the Marquis of Pombal’, Studies in Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century 168 (1977): 369.
Carvalho e Melo, Escritos Económicos, 136; for a positive appraisal of the impact of the Pombaline companies, see LME Shaw, ‘The Marquês de Pombal (1699–1782): How he Broke Britain’s Commercial Ascendancy in Portugal’, Journal of European Economic History 27, no. 3 (1998): 537–54; for a more critical view, see Francisco Ribeiro da Silva, ‘Pombal e os Ingleses (Incidências Económicas e Relacões Internacionais)’, Actas do Congresso o Marquês do Pombal e a sua Época (Oeiras, 2001).
It must be conceded that not all of these developments can be attributed directly to commercial rivalry with Britain; some were a direct response to new exigencies provoked by declining mineral yields in Brazil, plunging gold prices on the world market and the escalating costs of securing the southern frontier with Spanish America. See Dauril Alden, Royal Government in Colonial Brazil: With Special Reference to the Administration of the Marquis of Lavradio, Viceroy, 1769–1779 (Berkeley, CA, 1968), 353.
On the Pombaline companies in Brazil, see Antonio Carreira, As Companhias Pombalinas de Grão Pará e Maranhão e Pernambuco e Paraíba (Lisbon, 1983); the abolition of the companies did not result from anti-Pombal sentiment alone, but also from their underperformance: in 1776–1777, less than one-quarter of shipments to the colonies was composed on national manufactures and Portuguese-made textiles amounted to a mere 30 per cent of the total dispatched to the colonies.
See Jorge Pedreira, ‘From Growth to Collapse: Portugal, Brazil and the Breakdown of the Old Colonial System (1760–1830)’, Hispanic American Historical Review 80, no. 4 (2000): 844.
Conde de Oeiras [Pombal] to Marquês do Lavradio, 14 April 1769, Marcos Carneiro do Mendonça, O Marquês de Pombal e o Brasil (São Paulo, 1960), 36.
Souza Coutinho (1791), quoted in Pedro Miguel Carvalho Alves da Silva, ‘O Dispotismo Luminozo: Introdução ao Pensamento de Dom Rodrigo de Sousa Coutinho’ (MA thesis, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, 1997), 86; due to the necessarily limited scope of this essay, I cannot discuss Souza Coutinho’s general vision of colonies. For a full discussion, see José Luís Cardoso, ‘Nas Malhas do Império: A Economia Política e a Política Colonial de D. Rodrigo de Souza Coutinho’, in Cardoso (ed.), A Economia Política e os Dilemas do Império Luso-Brasileiro1790–1822 (Lisbon, 2001).
Domingos Vandelli, ‘Memória sobre a pública instrução agrária (1788)’, in J. V. Serrão (ed.), Domingos Vandelli: Aritmética Política, Economia e Finanças (Lisbon, 1994), 131.
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Paquette, G. (2013). Views from the South: Images of Britain and Its Empire in Portuguese and Spanish Political Economic Discourse, ca. 1740–1810. In: Reinert, S.A., Røge, P. (eds) The Political Economy of Empire in the Early Modern World. Cambridge Imperial and Post-Colonial Studies Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137315557_5
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