Enrique Requero

What was the impact of the Enlightenment on Iberian America?

Word count: 2,628

Western Europe witnessed during the eighteenth-century the development and spread of a new intellectual movement that came to be known as the Enlightenment. This age of reason claimed to replace superstition and other irrational methods that had dominated European thought throughout the previous centuries, especially during the Middle Ages, with reason. Rationalist theories of English, French and German enlightened authors gained protagonists within intellectual circles and rapidly spread to cultural, economic, social and political life. Some monarchs saw the new enlightened ideas as tools to rationalise their rule, to back up their legitimacy and to make their power absolute. Louis XIV of France, Frederick the Great of Prussia and Catherine the Great of Russia are all examples of eighteenth-century enlightened absolutist monarchs. Intellectuals have, ever since, discussed the apparent contradiction. Was it possible for a monarch to be enlightened and absolutist at the same time? In truth, it would appear that most European monarchs at the time were genuinely interested in the new emerging ideas and were in direct contact with intellectuals. At the same time, these same monarchs were convinced of the necessity of increasing their own authority and building up a state bureaucracy to reinforce the structures that constituted the Ancien Rgime. In the case of Spain and Portugal, though, there were some particularities. Both were declining empires that saw the need to introduce all sorts of administrative reforms, not just to reinforce the structures of the Ancient Regime within their borders, but also to enable them to catch up with the European emerging powers (mainly France and England) which were leaving the old Iberian empires behind. Moreover, historians have referred to the specific type of Enlightenment that emerged in the Peninsula as Catholic Enlightenment.1 There, the new ideas were the result of influences from the mainstream Enlightenment of England, France and Germany, but also from that of Italian intellectuals. Enlightened ideas in Iberia at least those condoned by the state did not confront the established Catholic religion (although as it will be shown, they did challenge the temporal power and influence enjoyed by the Church) as happened

Monteiro (2009), p.322.

What was the impact of the Enlightenment on Iberian America?

Enrique Requero

elsewhere, but were limited to creating new institutions, bourgeois practices of sociability and a new public sphere.2 This essay will look at the significantly different ways in which enlightened ideas influenced reforms in mainland Spain and Portugal. It will also analyse how this process was extended to the American colonies. The Enlightenment expressed itself in the Spanish and Portuguese Americas in dissimilar ways, not least because it had come about in each metropolis, with varying degrees of absolutism and enlightenment interplaying with each of the countries reformers. Finally, it will also be argued that contrary to what has been argued over the years, and more in line with contemporary revisionists of the Enlightenment in Latin America such as Paquette; Portuguese and Spanish creoles actively engaged with enlightened ideas, willingly involved themselves in the formulation and implementation of reforms in their areas, and that hence it is difficult to maintain that the Enlightenment prompted the emergence of movements towards independence.3 The Enlightenment period in Spain coincided with the installation of the Bourbon dynasty and removal of the Habsburgs, which followed with the coronation of Philip V in 1700 after the War of Succession.4 For this reason, enlightened reforms in Spain are commonly known as the Bourbon Reforms. Most of these reforms though, were introduced during the reign of Charles III (1759-88), especially after the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1763 which brought the Seven Years War to its close.5 Due to the humiliation suffered by the Spaniards during this war, it was seen as urgent to initiate a series of reforms which would seek to modernize and centralize the bureaucratic structures of the state in order to strengthen it.6 Enlightened ideas coming from Europe were admired in Spain, especially by the authorities. They were seen as a way to expand the state into all areas of political and economic life, encouraged by the link which enlightened political arithmetic suggested between national advancement and developments in population, industry and agriculture.7 The ideas inspired reforms in an active and critical way political writers analysed them prior their rejection or acceptance and served as instruments for revitalizing Spain and its colonies.8 Moreover, the state encouraged the introduction of these ideas into Spain via publications and the creation of learned academies.9

2 3

Caizares-Esguerra (2009), p.33. Paquette (2008), p.150. 4 Ibid., p.2. 5 Kuethe and Douglas Inglis (1985), p.118. 6 Paquette, pp.1-4. 7 Idid., p.41. 8 Ibid., pp.30-5. 9 Ibid., pp.32,40.

What was the impact of the Enlightenment on Iberian America?

Enrique Requero

The ideology behind the Caroline reforms, however, was not just based on a cosmopolitanistic emulation of pan-European enlightened ideas. It also had an element of chauvinism which drew ideas from the Spanish arbitristas of previous centuries.10 It is for this reason that Paquette has suggested that the Bourbon Reforms should be better referred to as Caroline regalism rather than just an application of the Enlightenment. He has shown how regalism initially sought to increase the power of the monarch and diminish the influence of the Church. From there, it developed hostility towards any form of corporate privilege (elites, chartered companies, etc.) in favour of a centralization and enhancement of state authority. Finally, regalism widened to become a flexible ideology which combined elements of patriotism11 with other areas of state responsibility for public welfare or felicidad pblica. This enabled the regalists to increase state intervention and reforms in a variety of fields.12 In post-war Spanish America, Bourbon Reforms were driven by a desire to improve the efficiency of bureaucratic and financial structures so as to cover the huge costs of the war, improve defences and more competently exploit the vast natural resources available so as to enable Spanish America to catch up and over-take other Atlantic powers. Although the regalists were initially suspicious of privileged companies, Creole involvement in local government or any other device which could diminish the central authoritys grip on all colonial affairs,13 the threat imposed by other imperial powers plus the identification of mutual interests with the colonial elites eventually softened this attitude.14 A reform of colonial trade for the benefit of both the elites and the metropolis was initiated through the comericio libre decrees, which envisaged the creation of additional peninsular ports to encourage freer trade with the colonies.15 Development of peripheral areas was sought too through schemes to increase population levels, focusing more on agricultural developments and delegating responsibility to monopoly companies.16 Additionally, Creole involvement in the formulation and implementation of reforms was seen as beneficial from Madrid.17 Kuethe and Douglas Inglis refer to the case of the reforms implemented in Cuba to show instances of Creole active participation in reforms. Cuba had experienced significant economic developments under its brief British domination during the war.18 But so great were Creole fears
10 11

Ibid., p.56. The colours of the current Spanish flag were chosen by Charles III in the 1760s. 12 Paquette, pp.56-92. 13 Ibid., pp.99-101. 14 Ibid., p.130. 15 Ibid., pp.102-6. 16 Ibid., pp.112-7. 17 Kuethe, p.119. 18 Ibid.

What was the impact of the Enlightenment on Iberian America?

Enrique Requero

of an economic slowdown with the reintroduction of Spanish rule that administrators from Madrid decided to involve the local elites in planning reforms aimed at raising revenues from the island to pay for its defence. The most influential Creole families were consulted not just about the establishment of the alcabala (sales tax), but also about how to further develop the Cuban economy to enable them to cope with the increase of exactions. The results of these consultations were positive. In the military field too, the consultation process was adopted successfully and the benefits were made manifest by the reformed Cuban armys remarkable performance against the British in Florida in 1781.19 Nonetheless, Andrien has shown how in other instances such as with Jos Glvez in New Spain or with Garca de Len y Pizarro in Quito, the Spaniards also implemented reforms in America in a more absolutistic way, seeking to increase revenues for the Crown regardless of how detrimental these reforms would be to the long-term development of the colonies economies.20 These examples show how enlightened reforms were applied in a variety of ways across the empire, suggesting that reformers lacked a coherent unified plan.21 Nonetheless, it could also be argued that there was a coherent plan and that that plan was to centralize and reinforce metropolitan power, but in different ways throughout Spanish America depending on the specific conditions of each colony. This argument is supported by the fact that in most cases reformers encouraged the involvement of Creole elites in policy formulation, who in their turn sought to make sure that the reforms served their local needs. The comercio libre decree of 1785 envisaged the creation of a multiplicity of new Consulados (maritime tribunals and guilds) across the empire.22 These enabled Creoles to challenge reforms they found disadvantageous to their local interests. A certain degree of lobbying, petitioning, compromise and constructive criticism was allowed in absolutist Spain.23 The Consulados were also a tool for the enlightenment of the colonial population. It was reported how Creoles had enlightened greatly in a short time, apparently making the Enlightenment significantly more successful in America than in the Peninsula.24 Through the Consulados, public enlightenment was promoted with the creation of Sociedades Econmicas, schools of commerce and libraries with enlightened books. In this way, the Consulados sought to encourage best practice, innovation and the application of new knowledge to improve the needs

19 20

Ibid., pp.120-43. Andrien (2009) 21 Ibid., p.642 22 Paquette, p.131. 23 Ibid., p.59. 24 Ibid., p.130.

What was the impact of the Enlightenment on Iberian America?

Enrique Requero

of the day.25 Infrastructures were upgraded and with the assistance of crown financing, a public sphere was developed with the creation of newspapers which sought to popularize useful knowledge. All in all, revisionist historians of the period have made plain that although problems of contraband and corruption persisted, Bourbon enlightened reforms led to a modernization of bureaucratic structures in Spanish America. Far from being the seed of independentist tendencies, enlightenment ideas were welcomed by Creole elites, who saw these ideas as beneficial to their societies and economies but at the same time still sought licensed privilege within the structures of the Old Regime.26 Paquette and others have suggested that the seeds of movements for independence in Spanish America may be found elsewhere, for example in contingencies surrounding the period (isolation from Madrid during the war against Britain) and Fernando Vs inefficiencies.27 Enlightened reform in Portugal was of a completely different character. Most reforms were introduced during the reign of Jos I of Portugal (1750-77) by his valido, the Marquis of Pombal. Some of his reforms have been seen as enlightened, such as the introduction of natural law and empirical sciences into the university curriculum, the program concerning the rights of oppressed ethnicities and the specialization of government.28 However, many others could be seen as regalist along Paquettes lines, such as the increase of state intervention or the taking over of the authority of the Church. Most of them, nonetheless, tend to be seen more as absolutist than anything. Through institutions like the Regia Oficina Tipogrfica or the Arcdia Luzitana, Pombal attempted to promote a particular kind of culture which looked enlightened, with elements of classicism influenced by the French culture of Louis XIVs time and a rejection of Portuguese traditional millennialism and sebastianism mentalities.29 Nonetheless, in Pombals Portugal there was no room for dissent. Periodical publications were banned in 1762, censorship was high and the state had no difficulty controlling Portugals macro-cephalic society, which concentrated 60-80% of its elites in Lisbon.30 Enlightened and libertine ideas were persecuted and enlightened works like Montesquieus Persian Letters had to be smuggled into the country or transmitted orally.31 Many doubt that Pombal was enlightened at all. He is seen as lacking a coherent ideology and plan or reforms. Monteiro argues that this was due to the peculiarity of his position. In the
25 26

Ibid., pp.142-6. Ibid., p.145. 27 Ibid., p.150. 28 Bethencourt (2009), p.41. 29 Villalta (2009), pp.136-9. 30 Monteiro, p.334. 31 Villalta, pp.119-41.

What was the impact of the Enlightenment on Iberian America?

Enrique Requero

eighteenth-century the position of valido was unusual, and Pombal could be seen as trying to imitate the seventeenth-century validos at the same time as trying to cope with the problems of the time as they arose.32 This lack of Enlightenment in Pombal could explain the apparent lack of structural changes in Brazil.33 Changes like the introduction into Brazil of new financial and fiscal institutions such as the juntas da fazenza, or the establishment of a Supreme Court in Rio in 1751, have been seen by historians as practical responses to the effects of war rather than implementations of enlightened reforms.34 For Bethencourt, the barrier for Enlightenment in Brazil was the absence of a university and a printing press. The introduction of factories was impeded by the government and the elites had to go to the University of Coimbra for education. Brazilian students, though, were among the first to engage with enlightened ideas in the Portuguese empire. They smuggled books and the impact of the new ideas was evident by the revolts triggered by the Inconfidncia Mineira of 1789. Nonetheless, a major hindrance to the spread of enlightened ideas in Brazil was the maintenance of slavery until 1850, severely limiting the expansion of liberal reasoning.35 The transferring of the Portuguese royal court in 1807-08 to Brazil made the colony the new centre of the empire. It encouraged the creation of new ports, as well as the establishment of the main organisms of state, printed culture, industry and colleges. 36 It could be argued that what encouraged significant reforms in Brazil was not the Enlightenment as such but the necessity to keep the empire running once the Tropical Versailles was established there. However, contrary to the opinion that enlightened reform never affected Brazil, Paquette has proposed postindependence Brazilian senator Jos da Silva Lisboa as an example of an enlightened reformer in Brazil.37 Silva Lisboa promoted commercial treaties, economic growth, state increase and involvement, emulation of foreign ideas and reforms in education to enlighten the masses. Nonetheless, he could also be perceived as absolutist for his support of slavery and his intolerant attitudes in a variety of other matters.38 By proposing Silva Lisboa as an enlightened reformer, Paquette is highlighting some of the main problems and contradictions which arise in the historiography of the Enlightenment in the Iberian empires. There is first a problem with the periodisation of these studies, which leave post-independence reformers like Silva Lisboa out of the Enlightenment period. Current
32 33

Monteiro, p.327,332. Ibid., p.337. 34 Ibid.338. 35 Bethencourt, p.43 36 Ibid. 37 Paquette (2009), pp.362-88. 38 Ibid.

What was the impact of the Enlightenment on Iberian America?

Enrique Requero

historiography also finds it difficult to reconcile the fact that both in the Enlightened Portuguese and Spanish empires there was a simultaneous retention and shattering of elements of the Old Regime, and that enlightened reform more than often came hand in hand with its absolutist implementation. It is difficult to assess the actual impact of the Enlightenment in Iberian America. It could be said that it was completely different in the Spanish and Portuguese colonies, because in the former the state actively promoted the spread of its ideas and in the latter they were subjected to intense censorship. On the other hand, the whole of Iberian America saw in the period an increase of the state and an active engagement of the intelligentsia with the new ideas, constituting what were to become active political societies in each of the colonies after the withdrawal of European domination. Finally, what current research shows is that the spread of Enlightenment theories in Iberian America during the eighteenth-century cannot be blamed for the later processes of independence that in the early nineteenth-century rid each and all of the colonies of any domination from either Portugal or Spain. Creole elites actively engaged with enlightened reforms, formulating and implementing policies, but their main goal was to renovate imperial structures and ensure their privileges within them. The independence of Brazil and Spanish America resulted from specific contingent circumstances at the time.

Bibliography
-G.B. PAQUETTE - Enlightenment, Governance, and Reform in Spain and its Empire, 1759-1808 (2008). - Jos da Silva Lisboa and the Vicissitudes of Enlightened Reform in Brazil, 17981824, in GB Paquette (ed), Enlightened Reform in Southern Europe and its Atlantic Colonies 1750-1830 (2009). -A.J. KUETHE & G. DOUGLAS INGLIS, Absolutism and Enlightened Reform: Charles III, the Establishment of the Alcabala, andCommercial Reorganization in Cuba, Past and Present, 109 (1985), pp. 118-143. -K.J. ANDRIEN, The Politics of Reform in Spains Atlantic Empire during the Late Bourbon Period: The Visita of Jos Garca de Len y Pizarro in Quito, Journal of Latin American Studies, 41 (2009), pp.637-662.

What was the impact of the Enlightenment on Iberian America?

Enrique Requero

-J. CAIZARES-ESGUERRA, Enlightened Reform in the Spanish Empire: An Overview, in GB Paquette (ed), Enlightened Reform in Southern Europe and its Atlantic Colonies 1750-1830 (2009). -F. BETHENCOURT, Enlightened Reform in Portugal and Brazil, in GB Paquette (ed), Enlightened Reform in Southern Europe and its Atlantic Colonies 1750-1830 (2009). -L.C. VILLALTA, Montesquieus Persian Letters and Reading Practices in the Luso-Brazilian World 1750-1802, in GB Paquette (ed), Enlightened Reform in Southern Europe and its Atlantic Colonies 1750-1830 (2009). -N.G. MONTEIRO, Pombals Government: Between Seventeenth-century Valido and Enlightened Models, in GB Paquette (ed), Enlightened Reform in Southern Europe and its Atlantic Colonies 1750-1830 (2009).