Eighteenth-century enlightenment

The Bourbon Reforms of the eighteenth century attempted to adjust and adapt to an emerging capitalist world order. By the eighteenth century, Guatemalan cacao merchants were selling their products to overseas markets, which were subject to price, supply, and demand fluctuations inherent in a global economy. As the global price of cacao dropped, Spain’s Venezuelan colony replaced Guatemala as a world supplier. Guatemalan indigo growers faced the same danger, and by the end of the eighteenth century, they faced competition from producers in the British East Indies and Cuba (Paquette Reference Paquette2007, 293; Rodriguez Reference Rodriguez1978, 14).

Since native peoples made up over 70 percent of Guatemala’s population, any reforms would impact Guatemala’s indigenous communities. It was indigenous labor that tended the farms, ranches, and haciendas; indigenous tribute that kept the royal coffers full; and indigenous tithing that kept the clergy fed, housed, and clothed (Brockmann Reference Brockmann2020, 169–172; Few Reference Few2015, 32–34). Tribute was often paid in kind, and the wheat, corn, cotton, wool, cacao, and thread collected by both Spanish and creole elites were then sold at profit in local and foreign markets (Wortman Reference Wortman1982, 26). While tribute extracted from indigenous communities decreased in the eighteenth century, this decline was made up for with monies raised through taxes on liquor and tobacco levied on the indigenous population (Brockmann Reference Brockmann2020, 48–49).

A letter from Don Thomas Ortiz de Landaruri to the Audiencia of Guatemala underscored the crucial role played by indigenous labor and indigenous tribute. In 1774, a plague of locusts caused indigenous workers to flee the pueblo of Tuxtla and its environs in the intendency of Chiapas (part of the kingdom of Guatemala). This exodus prevented the seasonal planting in twenty indigenous pueblos. The failure to plant that year brought both economic disaster and famine. As a result, Landaruri requested that tribute payments be reduced by two-thirds due to death and the absenteeism of the tributarios.Footnote ⁵ That same year, Landaruri also wrote the Audiencia that tribute payments from indigenous labor were crucial to the defense and very survival of the kingdom.Footnote ⁶ Three years later, in 1777, tribute was reinstituted, underscoring the importance of indigenous tribute payers in financing the kingdom.Footnote ⁷

A visita to the Intendency of Chiapas, kingdom of Guatemala, in 1793 revealed that the Guatemalan economy had changed little since the sixteenth century. Cattle and agriculture tended and cultivated by the indigenous population made up the vast majority of labor output. Yet, of the fourteen pueblos surveyed, in only five pueblos was the indigenous population even counted: Comitán, San Bartolomé, Acala, Chiapa, and Tuxtla, where they numbered, according to the visita, at least fifty thousand. In the visita, greater attention was paid to the European and Creole population, which numbered less than two hundred and was spread out over the fourteen pueblos. The visita revealed that outside of the capital of Ciudad Real (now San Cristóbal de las Casas), the region was entirely dependent on indigenous labor, and the cattle fincas were mostly controlled by the indigenous community. Tribute labor was noted, as were labores, (Native Americans and mestizos not associated with the indigenous community), who were assigned to the few Spaniards and creoles living in the area.Footnote ⁸ In addition to cattle, the region produced sugar, vegetables, maize, horses, mules, cotton, frijoles, wax for candles, mahogany, and cedar. Chiapas’s economy, like all of Guatemala, was dependent on indigenous labor to produce commodities for local consumption and to sell outside the local economy for cash. The visita mentions that commodities produced locally were carted to Tabasco in the Viceroyalty of New Spain for sale in more distant markets. Despite the importance of native labor, the visita described the indigenous population as “lazy” and “uncivilized,” who, according to the report, spent their time drinking excessively.Footnote ⁹

While Chiapas’ indigenous population controlled the cattle ranches, and the sugar and wheat farms described in the visita, final processing was controlled either by Spaniards or creoles who operated the few trapiches (primitive mills) in the region. Trapiches were driven by animal or human labor, and the visita noted that labor was often unpaid, despite the fact that cash payment for labor was official policy going back to the earliest years of Spanish rule. The visita also noted that physically punishing the indigenous population was common, and included whippings. The visita suggested that schools should be established in order to educate the indigenous population, which, on the eve of the establishment of the Economic Society, was overwhelmingly illiterate.Footnote ¹⁰

In Guatemala, commodity export producers found it difficult to sell their products outside of the local economy. This was due both to the restrictions imposed by the colonial administration and to the established merchant guilds, which controlled the best overland routes to Guatemala’s ports. Merchant guilds were also major financiers of the indigo industry. These guilds manipulated both the price of indigo and the interest on loans. In addition, established merchant houses exercised considerable influence within the governments of both Guatemala and Spain (Rodriguez Reference Rodriguez1978, 15).

In an attempt to modernize Spain’s imperial economy, the Bourbon Reforms were instituted, and a new office, the minister of the Indies, was created, while the power of the old governing board, the Council of the Indies, was diminished. The viceroyalties of New Granada and Río de la Plata were created, and the military administrative system of captaincies was given greater power in economic and administrative affairs. In 1764, the intendancy system sought to centralize government functions and improve the empire’s defenses against its European rivals. Intendancies were expected to stimulate economic development, increase the volume of tax collection, and reform the judiciary. In 1778, the Crown formally abolished the flota, the fleet system, which had ceased to function anyway, and trade was permitted between the Spanish colonies of Chile and Peru, which had long carried out a robust trade with English, French, and Dutch merchants. (Haring Reference Haring1947, 335).

With the Bourbon Reforms, the Crown increased tax revenues through both forced and voluntary loans and taxes related to ongoing wars. Most economic reforms rarely got beyond the theoretical stage, because to do so would have meant challenging the power of both the colonial bureaucracy and the Catholic Church. Despite a systematic and widespread effort to increase taxes on the royal bureaucracy and the church, income from these two sources changed little over time (Barbier and Klein Reference Barbier and Klein1981, 315–339). From its inception, the Bourbon Reforms presented a challenge and a threat to long-established interests of the Spanish colonial system (Pinto Soria Reference Pinto Soria1986, 18–22). With the indigo boom of the late eighteenth century, the Crown recognized the need to loosen trade restrictions in order to compete on the world market (Patch Reference Patch1994, 95–99). To this end, the Crown granted favorable tax rates to the ports of Omoa and Trujillo in the Intendancy of Comayagua, Kingdom of Guatemala (now Honduras). Established commercial ties existed between Santo Tomás, Guatemala, and Cádiz, Spain. Most of the ships in the Santo Tomás harbor were registered in Cádiz, while Cádiz merchants spent so much time in Guatemala buying indigo and selling merchandise that they established residency there. In addition to indigo, Cádiz merchants bought cattle and served as bankers to indigo growers from the profits they made from their European sales. In addition to the annual purchase of fifty thousand head of cattle, by the latter half of the eighteenth century, Cádiz merchants were loaning over one million pesos a year to Guatemalan indigo growers. Given the long-standing influence that Cádiz and Guatemalan merchants exerted over local officials, any effort to break up this alliance would have been met with strong resistance: “In short, the Guatemalan merchants who dominated foreign commerce likewise controlled the domestic economy” (Floyd Reference Floyd1961, 97–99; Barbier Reference Barbier1980, 29). In Spain, Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos was a leading advocate of relaxing trade restrictions, and his fame spread to Central America, where he was admired within elite circles. As a member of the Society of Madrid, Jovellanos argued that the nonuse of lands and the control of lands by special interests prevented the realization of the full economic potential of colonial Spanish America (Fernández Reference Fernández1999, 27, 36).

Work of the Economic Society of Guatemala

Jovellanos’s counterpart in Guatemala was Fray José Antonio de Liendo y Goicoechea, a native of Costa Rica. With a doctorate in theology and morals, Goicoechea worked at the University of San Carlos in Guatemala, where he taught the latest knowledge on geometry, optics, geography, and astronomy. Many of Goicoechea’s students, including society member José del Valle, would later hold prominent positions in postindependence Central American politics. Along with Jacobo Villaurrutia, the founder and first president of the Economic Society of Guatemala, the two were leading proponents of the Enlightenment in colonial Central America (Cal-Montoya Reference Cal-Montoya2004, 90–93; Rubio Sánchez Reference Rubio-Sánchez1981, 1–10; Luque Alcaide Reference Luque Alcaide1962, 41). The goals of the society included the introduction of agro-export crops to raise foreign revenue and to stimulate economic development within the colony. The society also wanted to improve the level and quality of education and to create incentives for greater productivity among the mestizo and indigenous laboring classes. The society additionally sought to stimulate discussion on the latest scientific and philosophical questions of the day and to propose viable solutions to the vagabondage and crime so rampant in the colony (Brockmann 6–13, Reference Brockmann2020; Dym 2009, 103–104). Standing in the way of these plans, however, were the established interests of colonial Guatemala. Benefiting from centuries of the system’s cultivation of power, most merchants and large landowners took a dim view of any attempts at economic and social reforms. As noted by society member Antonio Juarros, the society “advanced too quickly, and as we became more determined, we were cut short. The imbecility of the Crown could not bear the American Enlightenment” (Bonilla-Bonilla Reference Bonilla-Bonilla1999, 153–154).

The society sought to reduce economic dependence on Spain by increasing Guatemala’s trade and commerce. Ideally, Spanish imports were to be paid either with money or goods produced in Guatemala, and since payments in cash were difficult, the alternative was to develop an export industry to pay for Spanish products (Paquette Reference Paquette2007, 274, 291; Barbier and Klein Reference Barbier and Klein1981, 315–339; MacLeod Reference MacLeod1973, 280–287). While such a proposition was appealing, it also represented a challenge to Spain’s traditional economy. This was especially true for the indigenous community, since the development of a dynamic export economy would threaten the established tribute-paying system that was the backbone of the colonial economy (Haring Reference Haring1947, 282–283; Graf and Irigoin Reference Grafe and Irigoin2021, 613–616). Both indigenous lands and labor were threatened by the society’s proposed reforms, since workers would be needed to plant, tend, and harvest these new crops, which in turn would take native labor away from subsistence food production and hence their tribute requirements.

The society singled out established “interests” that it believed were responsible for the poor state of Guatemala’s economy.Footnote ¹¹ In particular, the society blamed the colonial bureaucracy, the artisan guilds, and the region’s hacendados for Guatemala’s existing poverty despite its potential wealth. In an article presented at the third public meeting of the society in 1797, Fray Luis García attacked Guatemala’s guild system as an obstacle to economic reform.Footnote ¹² In another article, Antonio García Redondo argued that corrupt alcaldes mayores (head administrators in colonial territories) were the main reason for the failure of the cacao industry, which the society claimed was protected by “ancient interests.” García Redondo further noted that, “only through a great effort by the alcaldes mayores will we be able to rectify this situation.” In remarks to the fifth meeting of the society in 1798, Villaurrutia attacked the “egoism” that plagued Guatemala’s elites, which served only to retard Guatemala’s economic growth.Footnote ¹³ It was the nature of the society’s reforms that drew the Crown’s suspicion, for, as Belzunegui Ormazábal (Reference Belzunegui Ormazábal1992, 236) notes, the society’s proposed reforms would necessitate an agrarian law that would potentially modify existing systems of land tenure, especially those lands controlled by indigenous communities.

The contradiction between the economic depression of Guatemala and its potential riches is a dominant theme in the correspondence of society members. In testimony to the Crown, for example, the society argued that its suggested reforms would not only help combat the “decadence and total ruin” of Guatemala but also make the colony a “land of abundance and happiness.” Correspondence by society members argued that measures should be taken to eliminate the alarming ignorance of the colony, “which, without doing an injustice to anyone,” noted a society member, “it could be said that this constitutes just about everyone.”Footnote ¹⁴ Villaurrutia noted that despite the abundant wealth of Guatemala, a “great part of its subjects are not able to subsist, there is immense poverty, and commerce has not progressed at all.”Footnote ¹⁵

While elites repeatedly criticized Native Americans and poor Ladinos for their alleged laziness and lack of initiative, the fault, according to the society, rested with the backward mentality of those same elites. One society member argued that Native Americans were directionless and subject to vice precisely because of the failure of colonial leaders to improve productive techniques and increase output, and one member asked, “Why is it that the Indian, a hard worker (indeed, as the only group that does work), had fallen into a state of laziness?” The member responded, “It is the failure of consumption, not laziness, that has put the Indian in such straits.”Footnote ¹⁶ Recognizing the crucial role of indigenous labor, Fray Antonio García Redondo argued that “the Indian has been the unique agricultural worker in America. The Spaniard neither can, nor needs to work under the present circumstances.… The Indian possess the abilities for agricultural work; born in the country, with the soul of a cultivator, content with little … all of our efforts must be directed toward the improvement of the Indians, and to put the Ladino on the same road.”Footnote ¹⁷

By associating low consumption with the weak state of the economy, the society was aware of arguments popular with European political economists. If the poor state of the economy was not the fault of the indigenous population, blame must rest with the bureaucrats and landowners who controlled and managed the Guatemalan economy. In this context, the Spanish Crown was correct in suspecting that the reforms suggested by the society may have been an even greater threat than any benefits the Crown might enjoy from said reforms.

There was a naive optimism among society members who wanted to cure the ills of colonial Guatemala, and their idealism stretched from the mundane to the grandiose. The society regarded the dissemination of “useful knowledge” as a cure to the illiteracy, vice, backwardness, idleness, and general malaise that prevailed within the colony. Even the society’s symbol, a pair of hands holding a cornucopia overflowing with fruits and vegetables, with the volcano Agua towering in the background, and their motto, “United Zeal Produces Abundance,” conveyed a dreamer’s vision for Guatemala’s future (Rubio Sánchez Reference Rubio-Sánchez1981, 2).Footnote ¹⁸ The society held discussions, presented papers, organized demonstrations, arranged activities, and awarded prizes on a wide range of subjects. The society sponsored activities that included establishing schools of weaving and mathematics, as well as schools for painting, architecture, and sculpture (Rubio Sánchez, Reference Rubio-Sánchez1981, 1–11).Footnote ¹⁹ In true Enlightenment fashion, emphasis was placed on the “practical over theory and speculation” (Rubio Sánchez Reference Rubio-Sánchez1981, 5).

Meetings of the society included reports on the corn harvest, the quantity of gold received by the society, and the quality of cacao plants in Trujillo (present-day Honduras).Footnote ²⁰ For the brief life of the society, it was involved in almost every social and economic activity of the kingdom. The society established a school with courses in arithmetic, algebra, geometry, machinery, hydraulics, statistics, optics, civil architecture, astronomy, and geography. Indigo production was promoted by the society in an effort to revive this once major source of revenue, and prizes were offered to the best students in the kingdom (Rubio Sánchez Reference Rubio-Sánchez1981, 5–8; Luque Alcaide Reference Luque Alcaide1962, 99–100).Footnote ²¹ A scientific expedition was sponsored by the society, and Villaurrutia presented his plan for the organization of a school for indigenous students, with the revolutionary stipulation that once educated, they must return to their villages to educate others.Footnote ²²

By the mid-1790s, the Gazeta de Guatemala had become the mouthpiece of both the society and its enlightened ideology (Liss Reference Liss1983, 175; Dym 2009, 104) and published articles on history, political science, mathematics, and geography. The Gazeta supported the principle of comercio libre (free trade) as a way to break the power of the established merchant houses and the consulados de comercios. The Gazeta frequently attacked the economic backwardness of the kingdom (Rodriguez Reference Rodriguez1978, 21–23; Lanning Reference Lanning1956, 136–137), and Jacobo Villaurrutia, a founding member of the society, was a strong supporter of the Gazeta, which espoused Villaurrutia’s views on free trade, his opposition to both corruption and the monopolies that Villaurrutia believed hurt the Guatemalan economy. The Gazeta’s reach was long, with subscribers in Mexico City and Spain. The Gazeta shared the society’s belief that the abuse of indigenous labor harmed the economy and that the artisan guilds required a major overhaul. The forced labor system, the repartimiento, which the Gazeta and the society believed abused indigenous workers, was still widely practiced. Thus, any challenge to repartimiento was also a challenge to the trade and merchant monopolies that relied on this forced labor system to generate their profits (Belzunegui Ormazábal Reference Belzunegui Ormazábal1992, 82–85).

The society’s call to reform the merchant guilds triggered a negative reaction from opponents of free trade, the Ayuntamiento (town council), and the Council of the Indies (Belzunegui Ormazábal Reference Belzunegui Ormazábal1992, 220–222). Both the Gazeta and the society, two proponents of free trade, challenged the interests of the merchant guilds and the consulados de comercios controlled by colonial bureaucrats and the merchants of both Spain and Guatemala. Principal among the opponents of comercio libre was the Guatemalan merchant guild presided over by the colony’s wealthiest inhabitant, Juan Fermín Aycinena (Brown Reference Brown1997, 34–35).

At its first public meeting, the society focused on agriculture, and in particular on how to increase cacao production.Footnote ²³ The society awarded a thirty-peso prize to the Native American of Chiquimula, Zacapa, Gualán, Soconusco, or Suchitepéquez who planted more than five hundred cacao trees. Prizes were also awarded for the best weaver and the best weaving innovations (Rubio Sánchez Reference Rubio-Sánchez1981, 7). Robert Shafer (Reference Shafer1958, 201) notes that the society promoted the development of “industrial” crops, especially cacao and indigo, while ignoring the production of foodstuffs.

The society maintained that if Guatemala was to emerge from its economic backwardness, revenue from abroad would be crucial to the colony’s economic growth. In 1797, Villaurrutia publicly gushed over this new trend in an address to the society in which he declared, “This is the first time that the useful knowledge of the political economists has been publicly promoted in America.”Footnote ²⁴ The society presented papers that expressed a knowledge of the latest in scientific discoveries and thinking, as, for example, with an article on the indigo industry written by José Mariano Mociño. The article was highly technical and displayed, to quote Goicoechea, “a mind clearly versed in the sciences.”Footnote ²⁵ Not satisfied with Mociño’s scientific analysis, Goicoechea took the opportunity to attack the indigo industry’s failure to keep up with the latest techniques in production, thereby exposing Guatemala’s cacao industry to foreign domination. The article by Mociño was often referred to in royal correspondence as an example of the good works of the society. The Crown was silent, however, on Goicoechea’s comments on the elites that controlled that industry.

Among its more controversial positions, the society called for trade between Spain and “neutral” countries, a clear challenge to Spain’s mercantilist policies.Footnote ²⁶ At one meeting, the society presented a paper concerning the “utility of allowing neutral parties to engage in direct commerce with our ports.” The paper denounced opponents of free trade and claimed that they were more interested in personal benefit than the well-being of the colony.Footnote ²⁷ At another public meeting, the society member Luis García argued that without the help of foreign “masters,” the products of Guatemala would continue to be ignored in Europe, and, García wondered, if it would be harmful if the manufacturers of Guatemala had teachers “more organized and competent?”—suggesting that experts from outside the Spanish world be brought in to educate Guatemalans on the latest techniques in farming.Footnote ²⁸

The society’s call to reform the system of land use and distribution was also a threat to the established tenurial practices and laws of the colony (Belzunegui Ormazábal Reference Belzunegui Ormazábal1992, 206–233). In an article on the cacao industry, García Redondo argued that to increase cacao production, authorities must acquire indigenous lands and make them available to all.Footnote ²⁹ The revolutionary nature of this suggestion is clear: From the initial conquest in the sixteenth century, the Crown prohibited (in theory, if not always in practice) Spanish and Ladino encroachment on indigenous lands, and the society’s challenge to centuries-old tenurial patterns hit at the heart of Spain’s empire.

The final nail in the society’s coffin came when an award was presented to Antonio Muró for his article on the “utility of the Indian and Ladino to wear Spanish clothing” (Bonilla-Bonilla Reference Bonilla-Bonilla1999, 124–125n225; Shafer Reference Shafer1958, 215) Muró’s paper, together with the society’s other positions, provided the Crown with the ammunition it needed to suppress the society. If the need to increase royal revenues was the original reason for the creation of the society, then after five years of operation, the Crown believed that the society had failed in its task. Ironically, in its attempt to transform Guatemala’s economy, the society also challenged the entrenched interests of both Spain and Guatemala, and so was ordered closed by the Crown. Muró’s work was not limited to his infamous paper that brought down the society, as Muró had written articles earlier on the “vices” of government officials. According to Villaurrutia, Muró’s papers, “opposed those motivated more from self-interest than from the public good.”Footnote ³⁰

Suppression of the society

Scholars of the period generally agree on the circumstances that led to the society’s formation and its activities before it was shuttered. What scholars do not agree on is why the society was suppressed by the Spanish Crown. For example, Manuel Rubio Sánchez (Reference Rubio-Sánchez1981, 8) points to Muró’s article, which argued that Indians should be allowed to wear European clothing as the reason for the suppression of the society. Rubio Sánchez is not alone, and many scholars cite Muró’s article as at least one reason for the society’s suppression. Sophie Brockmann (Reference Brockmann2020, 21–22) admits that the reasons for the suspension are not clear but acknowledges that the publication of a number of articles that “may have rankled Crown authorities” was at least part of the reason for the suspension. For Adolfo Bonilla-Bonilla (Reference Bonilla-Bonilla1999, 153), the Crown was disturbed because the society “advocated an ideology that was potentially egalitarian and perhaps would lead to discussions calling for a constitution.”

Both Bonilla-Bonilla (Reference Bonilla-Bonilla1999, 153) and José Luis Reyes-Monroy (Reference Reyes-Monroy1964, 61–63) point out that Muró was not the first to argue that Indians and Ladinos should wear Spanish clothing. Earlier that year, Fray Matías de Córdoba published a similar article highlighting the benefits of Indians and Ladinos wearing European clothes. Robert Shafer (Reference Shafer1958, 210–217) noted that the society was suppressed because Muró resided in Mexico, which, the Crown feared, might suggest the beginnings of a Pan-American movement. Shafer also notes that Muró’s article was not the first time the society had challenged established law, and that the article was only the society’s latest act that motivated the Crown to suspend the society.Footnote ³¹

Two years after it was shuttered, the Council of the Indies presented its findings on the society and why the Crown ordered the society closed. The council praised some of the society’s work, in particular its paper on the indigo industry, but the council report noted that Muró’s article, which called for Indians to wear European clothing, represented a threat to the “good customs” of the indigenous community. The council’s findings also noted that the society’s article calling for Spaniards and Ladinos to occupy indigenous lands would harm indigenous communities, which the Crown, in theory, was sworn to protect (Herzog, Reference Herzog2013, 303; 319). While the council accepted that the society never intended to subvert the colonial system, it was nonetheless motivated by an “overzealous member wishing to see the improvement of the Guatemalan economy,” and that the actions of the society were “incompatible with the good laws which govern the Indians.”Footnote ³²

While the council made it clear that the work of the society was increasingly at odds with the interests of the Crown, the fundamental reason the society was shut down was that it had violated a number of laws as set down in the Recopilación de Leyes de los Reynos de las Indias, (the Book of the Indies), a compilation of laws that regulated Spain’s colonies (Recopilación, 1943). The most complete version of the Recopilación was published in Spain in 1681, and it indexed and categorized thousands of laws going back to Roman Spain. The Recopilación consists of over 6,400 laws derived from over 400,000 royal cedulas, or royal orders, organized into nine books. Printed copies of the Recopilación were sent to the viceroys, presidents, and governors of Spain’s overseas colonies, which were in turn sent to the cabildos of each province. The Recopilación was intended to guide royal officials on how to govern Spain’s vast colonial holdings (Herzog Reference Herzog2013, 303; Haring Reference Haring1947, 110–111). In perhaps the most forceful document explaining the reasons for the suppression of the society, the council identified the numerous laws in the Recopilación that were violated by the society. Commenting on García Redondo’s article on cacao, which called for greater access to indigenous land, the council declared that “the propositions to authorize the purchase of land and indigenous holdings by the Ladinos, violated laws 21 and 22, title 3, book 6 of the Recopilación, which prohibits the purchase of indigenous land or the right of Spaniards, Negroes, or Ladinos to live in indigenous villages, this being the principal cause of despair for the indigenous communities.”Footnote ³³

The council also charged that the society had violated the laws regulating reform within the guild system under the authority of the Council of the Indies, as well as violating laws legislating against the fraudulent treatment of indigenous communities.Footnote ³⁴ The council further charged that the society had violated the laws that protected the poor and downtrodden, the law that respected indigenous land rights, and the laws prohibiting the alienation of indigenous lands.Footnote ³⁵ For good measure, the council cited article 61 of the “Instructions to the Intendents of New Spain,” requiring intendents to take care in their treatment of the indigenous population. Finally, the Crown noted that all efforts at the cultivation of indigenous lands must conform to the laws in the Recopilación.Footnote ³⁶

Since many of the laws cited concerned the protection of indigenous lands against speculating Spaniards and Ladinos, the Crown viewed the society as a threat to the stability of the indigenous community, an integral part of the political economy of the Spanish colonial system. As one scholar notes, the reforms suggested by the society “attacked both the fundamental basis of an agrarian system protected by the law of the Indies as well as the economic base of the indigenous community” (Belzunegui Ormazábal Reference Belzunegui Ormazábal1992, 249). While the Crown believed its role was to protect the well-being of indigenous communities, the society challenged laws that were an integral part of the colonial system from which both Spaniards and Creoles benefited (Patch Reference Patch1985, 21–49).Footnote ³⁷

The existence of strong merchant and trade guilds, along with a closed port system and a tribute-paying indigenous population, accounted for more than 80 percent of the revenues collected by the Audiencia and guaranteed Guatemalan elites that they had little to fear from outsiders encroaching on their economic interests (Wortman Reference Wortman1982, 145). As declared reformers, the society threatened this system, and suspicions only increased as the work of the society became clear to colonial officials. By the late eighteenth century, laws protecting indigenous lands and properties were well established, and the society’s efforts to restructure Guatemala’s economy would necessarily disrupt established systems of land tenure, especially concerning the indigenous population (Mata-Gavidia Reference Mata-Gavidia1981, 47–54). The laws violated by the society and cited by the Crown show that the society was suspended because it sought to transform any number of economic and social institutions and practices that were the backbone of colonial Guatemala.Footnote ³⁸

The argument that the society was motivated to help the indigenous population dates to the establishment of the society in 1795. In the nineteenth century, Antonio Batres Jáuregui made this claim and argued that it was the goal of the society to “civilize” the indigenous population (Batres Jáuregui Reference Batres Jáuregui1893, 168–171). John Tate Lanning also claimed that the society favored indigenous peoples, and based his argument on a document found in the Archivo General de Central America (AGCA), in Guatemala City, in which a cover page describing a document cited by Lanning reads “la supresión de la Sociedad económica por sus tendencias en favor de los indios” (Lanning Reference Lanning1956, 86n25).Footnote ³⁹ The document quoted by Lanning is in fact a cover document written by a later archivist and was intended to explain the contents of the actual document dated November 23, 1799. While this cover document claims that the society was suppressed due to its pro-indigenous stance, the actual document is much vaguer, noting simply that the society had been closed due to Antonio Muró’s article on non-Europeans wearing European clothing (see Appendix 1 in the document for the transcription of the text cited by Lanning). While Lanning and others believed the society’s actions favored the indigenous community, colonial officials argued that the society’s work threatened Guatemala’s indigenous community, as spelled out in its order of suppression (see Appendix 2 for the Crown’s justification for the suppression of the society).

Many elites considered the suppression of the society unfair and arbitrary. After all, the Havana Society continued operation, as did any number of societies in Spain (Shafer Reference Shafer1958, 217–218). The suppression did not go unanswered, and one disillusioned member declared that “If Economic Societies are useful in Spain, where there is a high level of education … then they are needed even more in America, where, generally speaking, educated individuals are scarce.”Footnote ⁴⁰

Calls for greater autonomy would also be regarded as an expression of nascent nationalism and therefore a threat to the Crown. Crown officials also reviewed a paper presented by the society concerning “the administration of the tobacco monopoly of New Spain and the Royal factory that produces cigars and cigarettes in Mexico.”Footnote ⁴¹ The society’s interest in the Mexican tobacco monopoly suggests that meddling in the colonial economy extended even outside the borders of the kingdom of Guatemala. In addition, the church derived considerable revenue from the tobacco-smuggling immunity it enjoyed. Thus, the society’s inquiry into the administration of the tobacco trade would also attract the suspicions of the church as well (Stein and Stein Reference Stein and Stein2004, 4).

At the time of the society’s suppression in 1800, the viceroy of Mexico, Marquis de Branciforte (brother-in-law of the Spanish prime minister and captain-general Manuel Godoy), cited foreign influences as instrumental in the suppression of the society (Woodward Reference Woodward1966 37–38).Footnote ⁴² Branciforte distrusted French influence in Spain’s colonies, and the viceroy both prohibited foreigners from entering the colony and expelled Spaniards and Creoles suspected of pro-French ideas. In 1795, Branciforte further ordered the detention of French citizens and Spanish subjects suspected of entertaining republican ideas, and the viceroy had twenty-one French nationals deported to prisons in Spain (Stein and Stein Reference Stein and Stein2004, 9–13). Despite Branciforte’s honorary membership in the society, both Branciforte and Godoy were later cited as the principal advocates of suppression (Powelson Reference Powelson1988, 87–90).

Spanish officials also objected to the society’s views on the laws regulating artisans. The society was criticized by the Crown for its effort to reform the artisan guilds (Bonilla-Bonilla Reference Bonilla-Bonilla1999, 118–119; Powelson Reference Powelson1988, 90–92; Carrera Stampa Reference Carrera Stampa1954). Gremios (guilds) in colonial Latin America mirrored those in Spain. Rooted in feudal traditions, colonial guilds were concerned as much with maintaining economic dominance and social stratification as they were with training their members and producing high-quality products. Guild membership was closely guarded, mired in nepotism, and based on race and class considerations rather than a craftsman’s ability or current demands for labor (Pérez-Toledo Reference Pérez-Toledo2021, 800–801; Carrera Stampa Reference Carrera Stampa1954, 226–229). The society questioned the efficiency of these guilds and, following the lead of both Jovellanos and Ward in Spain (both of whom attacked the Spanish guild system), the society demanded reforms to the laws that governed artisan guilds. The Crown at first approved these efforts, and the same royal order that established the society in 1795 also instructed it to reorganize the guild system (Carrera Stampa Reference Carrera Stampa1954, 271–273). Yet when confronted with the society’s rewriting of artisan guild laws, colonial administrators objected. A letter from the society and printed in the Gazeta de Guatemala attacking monopolies and the guild system so outraged Guatemala’s municipal government that it began working to close down the society (Bonilla-Bonilla Reference Bonilla-Bonilla1999, 143–154; Samayoa Guevara Reference Samayoa Guevara1962, 41–42).Footnote ⁴³ Royal disapproval of reforming the guild system was further underscored in the hearings in 1802, which reviewed the suppression of the society.

While the society argued that it represented the interests of indigenous workers, and some modern scholars have accepted this argument (e.g., Lanning Reference Lanning1956, 86), the Crown argued that the society’s proposals threatened the survival of indigenous communities. Where the society believed that opening up indigenous lands for commercial use would improve the well-being of indigenous communities, the Crown viewed such reforms as a threat to indigenous peoples. Where the society regarded education as essential to improving the indigenous community, the Crown viewed educational reform as both a danger to the status quo and a threat to the indigenous community. And where the society believed that uniform clothing for Indians, Ladinos, Creoles, and Spaniards would help indigenous peoples to integrate into the colonial society and economy, the Crown viewed this as another effort to drive indigenous peoples from their lands, which in turn would negatively affect the tribute payments and the entire system of consumption, production, and distribution.

Whether from an economic, bureaucratic, or societal perspective, the three-century experience of Spain in the New World proved an unmovable force against the society’s proposed reforms. The goals of the Economic Society were not to engage in a radical transformation of colonial Guatemala. Yet the society and its supporters were forced to consider that even mild reforms were regarded by the Crown as both a disruption to colonial society and in violation of any number of colonial laws (Paquette Reference Paquette2007, 269). As a result, future Central American leaders would argue for a complete break with Spain rather than reform from within. By 1821, the Central American provinces, including the kingdom of Guatemala, declared full independence.