The Mexico City silver merchants and their credit networks in the royal mining of New Spain at the end of the 17th century – Prof. Guillermina del Valle Pavón (Instituto de Investigaciones Dr. José María Luis Mora)

3 February 2022, 17.00 CET, via Zoom

Organised by Regina Grafe and Íñigo Ena Sanjuán (EUI)

Lecture in the framework of the project “Colonial legacies, invisible institutions and financial markets in Latin America (and beyond)”

Languages: Spanish, English

The merchants of Mexico City concentrated most of the silver that was produced in the Viceroyalty of New Spain. Due to the fact that the white metal was the main means of exchange at the international level, these actors monopolized the exchanges that were carried out inside and outside of New Spain. The study that I carried out delves into the way in which these merchants concentrated most of the metal produced in the Viceroyalty, as of 1670, as a consequence of the regularization of the supply of quicksilver due to the participation of the Consulate in its financing. For this, I study the trajectories of a small number of bankers or silver buyers, who were the largest lenders of the Viceroyalty, as well as the credit relationships they established with the merchants-aviators of the main silver production nuclei, who acquired the metal in “pasta” in large quantities and enabled the miners with money and merchandise. Likewise, I analyze the credit instruments used to finance them.

Should you wish to participate, please register on the event webpage.

Should you have any question, please contact Íñigo Ena Sanjuán (inigo.enasanjuan@eui.eu) or Fabrizio Borchi (fabrizio.borchi@eui.eu)

About the project:

Colonial legacies, invisible institutions, and financial markets in Latin America (and beyond) tries to offer a general picture of the organisation and functioning of the financial systems in Colonial Spanish America from a non-Eurocentric perspective. By bringing together scholars who have devoted attention to the alternative financial mechanisms and institutions in the Spanish Empire, the project is intended to question the assumption of financial systems with little sophistication and poor performance compared to North-Western European ones.