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Emigrants and Society: An Approach to the Background of Colonial Spanish America

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 June 2009

Ida Altman
Ida Altman
Affiliation:
University of New Orleans
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Comparative Studies in Society and History , Volume 30 , Issue 1 , January 1988 , pp. 170 - 190
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Copyright © Society for the Comparative Study of Society and History 1988

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References

1 See bibliographical note following text.

2 There are some notable exceptions. Chiappelli, Fredi, ed., First Images of America: The Impact of the New World on the Old, 2 vols. (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1976), II, 707–804Google Scholar, contains excellent articles on aspects of migration and return migration in the Spanish world by Peter Boyd-Bowman, Woodrow Borah, James Lockhart, and Magnus Momer, who also compiled a bibliography of relevant works. Another recent addition to the literature, Martínez, Jose Luis, Pasajeros de Indias: Viajes transatldnticos en el siglo XVI (Madrid, 1983)Google Scholar, also summarizes a great deal of material from printed and published sources on the subject. Unfortu- nately, Martínez's book and the articles in Chiappelli are mainly works of synthesis and do not reflect much new research in the field.

3 See bibliographical note following text.

4 Again, there are outstanding exceptions to this generalization, and fortunately the list is growing. Vives, Jaime Vicens, ed., Historia de Espana y Amèrica, 5 vols. (Barcelona, 1961)Google Scholar, is still important. An excellent account of the late middle ages is Mackay, Angus, Spain in the Middle Ages: From Frontier to Empire (London, 1977).CrossRefGoogle Scholar Antonio Domínguez Ortiz has made substantial contributions to the field of social and economic history, although the bulk of his work lies in the seventeenth rather than the sixteenth century. See, for example, La sociedad española del siglo XVII, 2 vols. (Madrid, 1963, 1970)Google Scholar, and The Golden Age of Spain (London, 1971).Google Scholar Some of the key works relevant to sixteenth-century Spanish social history include, for cities, Ruth Pike, Aristocrats and Traders: Sevillian Society in the Sixteenth Century (Ithaca, N.Y., 1972)Google Scholar, and Bennassar, Bartolome, Valladolid et ses campagnes au XVI siecle (Paris, 1967)Google Scholar; for the countryside, Weisser, Michael, The Peasants of the Montes (Chicago, 1976)Google Scholar, Salomon, Noel, La vida rural castellana en tiempos de Felipe II (Barcelona, 1982; French ed., Paris, 1964)Google Scholar, and Vassberg, David E., Land and Society in Golden Age Castile (Cambridge, 1984)Google Scholar; on universities, Kagan, Richard, Students and Society in Early Modern Spain (Baltimore, 1974)Google Scholar; on army life, Parker, Geoffrey, The Army of Flanders and the Spanish Road (Cambridge, 1972)Google Scholar; on the nobility, Nader, Helen, The Mendoza Family in the Spanish Renaissance (New Brunswick, N.J., 1979)Google Scholar, and Gerbet, Marie-Claude, La noblesse dans le royaume de Castille: Etudes sur ses structures sociales en Estrèmadure (1454–1516) (Paris, 1979)Google Scholar; and on popular religion, Christian, William, Local Religion in Sixteenth-Century Spain (Princeton, 1981)Google Scholar, and Bennassar, Bartolomè et al. , Inquisiciòn española: Poder politico y control social (Barcelona, 1981).Google Scholar

5 Letters in particular, both public and private, reflect a complex of concerns that were closely related to the individual's experience and points of reference in both the New World and Old. See, for example, Otte, Enrique, “Cartas privadas de Puebla del siglo XVI,” Jahrbuch für Geschichte von Statt, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft Lateineamerikas, 3(1966), 10–87Google Scholar; and Lockhart, James and Otte, Enrique, eds., Letters and People of the Spanish Indies (New York, 1976).Google Scholar

6 While in proportion to its population, Extremadura made a large contribution of emigrants, over-all it lagged well behind Andalusia and Castile in absolute numbers; see Martinez, , Pasajeros de Indias, 174.Google Scholar

7 Emigrants refers both to those individuals who intended to leave and those who actually left Spain in the sixteenth century. In many cases only the intention to emigrate can be verified, not actual departure or arrival in the Indies. The 410 emigrants were identified using both archival and secondary sources. The most important secondary sources used were Boyd-Bowman, Peter, Indice geobiógrafico de cuarenta mil pobladores espanoles de America en el siglo XVI (Bogotá, 1964Google Scholar; Mexico City, 1968), Vols. I, II; Catálogo de pasajeros a Indias durante los siglos XVI, XVII y XVIII, vols. I-V (Seville, 1940–1946, 1980)Google Scholar; and Castillo, Vicente Navarro del, La epopeya de la raza extremena en Indias (Merida, 1978).Google Scholar Materials in the following archives in Spain were consulted: Archivo Histórico Provincial de Cáceres, Archivo Municipal de Cáceres, Archivo General de Indias, and Archivo del Conde de Canilleros (hereinafter cited as AHPC, AMC, AGI, and ACC, respectively). For further discussion of the compilation of figures, see Altaian, Ida, “Emigrants, Returnees, and Society in Sixteenth-Century Cáceres” (Ph.D. diss., Johns Hopkins University, 1981), 223–24.Google Scholar There are a number of reasons for thinking that the figures for emigrants probably are low. The published volumes of the Catálogo de pasajeros cover only through 1577, and for a number of years the passenger lists are missing or incomplete. Notarial records for Cáceres were consulted only for the years 1534–80. Notarial records in any case tend to be biased toward the upper classes, which had the means and necessity of conducting transac- tions before notaries, and therefore are less revealing of other groups.

8 Population figures are based on material in the following: Iglesias, Jose Luis Pereira, “Atraso económico, régimen senorial y económico deficitaria en Cáceres durante el siglo XVI” (M.A. thesis, Universidad de Extremadura, 1977), 148Google Scholar; Sánchez, Angel Rodríguez, Cáceres: Población y comportamientos demográficos en el siglo XVI (Cáceres, 1977), 53, 55Google Scholar; and LeFlem, Jean-Paul, “Cáceres, Plasencia y Trujillo en la segunda mitad del siglo XVI (1557–1596),” Cuadernos de historia de Espana, 45–46 (1967), 254–55.Google Scholar

9 The probable impact of Ovando's departure for and governorship of Hispaniola can be seen in comparison of emigration from Cáceres and the neighboring city of Trujillo by decade. Despite the over-all much higher rate of emigration from Trujillo in the sixteenth century (921 emigrants), in the first two decades of the century emigrants from Cáceres outnumbered those from Trujillo nearly two to one.

10 See Hirschberg, Julia, “Transients in Early Colonial Society: Puebla de los Angeles, 1531–1560,” Biblioteca Americana, 1 (01 1983), 3–30.Google Scholar She notes that “Puebla's transients were overwhelmingly male, adult and European” (p. 8).Google Scholar

11 AHPC, Diego Pacheco, leg. 4113.

12 Cacereno merchants active in local or regional commerce do not appear to have moved into the Indies trade. There were, however, several young men who went off to the Indies as merchants or merchants' factors, although not until the 1560s (see Catálogo de pasajeros, IV, nos. 679, 3213, 3327). The activities of certain emigrants point clearly to entrepreneurial in-volvements, although they were never called merchants.

13 AHPC, Pedro González, leg. 3828.

14 AGI, Indiferente General, leg. 2049.

15 AGI, Contratación, leg. 5221.

16 Rodríquez Sánchez, Cáceres, 198–209.

17 Parker, , Army of Flanders, 35–43Google Scholar, describes recruitment procedures in the sixteenth century. He states that “the system was, in the sixteenth century at least, entirely voluntary” (p. 37).Google Scholar Parker's description of military recruiting does not include the levies of infantrymen and cavalry that municipalities were required to furnish, however. The king requested 200 infantrymen from Cáceres for the war with France in 1552 and 1556, and the same number for the revolt in Granada in 1569. There were other levies in the 1570s and 1580s. See Sánchez, Rodríguez, Cáceres, 88–89Google Scholar; AMC, Libros de Acuerdo, 1569, 1575, 1580; and AHPC, Alonso Pacheco, leg. 4103. Although possibly this kind of military service was voluntary also, the fact that men hired substitutes suggests there might have been some conscription. See AHPC, Pedro González, legs. 3827 (1570), 3828 (1580).

18 AHPC, Alonso Pacheco, leg. 4102 (1571).

19 Parker, , Army of Flanders, 42–43Google Scholar, notes that since men with military skills for single combat were still needed in the sixteenth century, captains made an effort to recruit hidalgos to serve as common soldiers. These hidalgos received bonus pay, and they probably expected to rise in position rather quickly because of their skills, status, or connections (such soldiers might be relatives or dependents of commanding officers). There are no figures for how many Cacerenos entered the army in the sixteenth century. The impression that more hidalgos than commoners joined the military may result from the nature of notarial and other sources, which tend to reveal more about the upper classes.

20 Sometimes, of course, emigrants themselves had prior military experience. Diego García de Parades, a younger son in one of the leading noble families of Cáceres (the so-called Golfines de Arriba) had a ten-year military career in North Africa, Italy, Sicily, Spain, and Flanders before going to Peru in 1546. In the 1530s he was a captain of infantry serving under his first cousin on his mother's side, don Alvaro de Sande, who was maestre de campo; Sande later became captain-general and a governor of Milan in the 1570s. See de San Pedro, Miguel Munoz, “Aventuras y desventuras del tercer Diego Garcfa de Paredes,” Revista de estudios extremenos, 13 (01 06 1957), 17–32Google Scholar; and idem, “de Sande, Don Alvaro, cronista del desastre de los Gelves,” Revista de estudios extremenos, 10 (01–12 1954), 468, 473.Google Scholar Don Alvaro de Sande had two brothers who were military officers (one a captain, who died in Italy) and four nephews who served in the military. Two of these nephews died in the Gelves campaign and another in Italy. The fourth, don Juan de Sande, served as the captain for the 200 infantrymen sent from Cáceres to Granada in 1569; see AGI, Contratación, 13g. 5234A, testimony for don Juan de Sande's illegitimate son don Jerónimo de Sande. For other military careers, see the discussion below of Dr. Francisco de Sande and his brothers.

21 In 1554 Sancho de Paredes Holguín gave his brother Jerónimo de la Cerda 75,000 maravedis when he went to serve in the army in Italy (AHPC, Pedro Grajos, leg. 3924). Antonio Cano received 26,000 maravedis, clothing, and other items from his mother's legacy when he went to Italy in 1567 (AHPC, Pedro González, leg. 3827). Cano's paternal uncle was Juan Cano, an early emigrant to the Indies, an associate of Cortés who married a daughter of Moctezuma and became a wealthy encomendero (see note 30 below).

22 Juan de la Rocha, a comendador of the order of Santiago, was the heir to the entail his father created in 1527, but by 1549 he had still failed to return to Cáceres and was missing and presumed dead in Italy. AHPC, Pedro Grajos, legs. 3923 (1546), 3924 (1549).

23 Certain hidalgo families seem to have had traditions of higher education and bureaucratic service; see Altman, Ida, “Spanish Hidalgos and America: The Ovandos of Caceres,” The Americas, 43:3 (1987), 323–344.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

24 For discussion of professionals and clerics in Cáceres, see Altaian, , “Emigrants, Returnees, and Society,” 196–207.Google Scholar There were perhaps fifty or more secular priests in Cáceres in the second half of the sixteenth century (LeFlem, , “Cáceres, Plasencia y Trujillo,” 280).Google Scholar They frequently purchased lands and rents and collected ecclesiastical and other rents.

25 Alonso Téllez de Holguín, a royal treasury official, made his will in Vienna in 1561, leaving all his possessions in Cáceres to an illegitimate son there. Juan de Paredes de la Rocha lived in Rome from the late 1570s until his death in 1593. See AHPC, Pedro de Grajos, leg. 3926, and Pedro González, leg. 3830; ACC, Casa de Hernando de Ovando, leg. 1, no. 20.

26 Inheritance patterns among the hidalgos favored the eldest son, who usually received the major portion of the estate—the “tercio y quinto” (third and fifth)—or the entail. Equal division among heirs was not unknown, however, especially if there were few surviving children; Francisco de Ovando (“el rico”), for example, actually established entails for each of his three sons at his death in 1534 (see ACC, Casa de Hernando de Ovando, leg. 1, no. 21). Some provision was always made for every child, including illegitimate children who had been recognized. Women as well as men could create and inherit entails. A woman might designate a second or younger son or a daughter to succeed to her entail if her eldest son was in line to succeed to his father's entail. Women also sometimes joined their legacies or entails with those of their husbands, at least if these were retained in the direct line; if the husband's entail passed outside the direct line, however, women frequently named their own relatives as subsequent choices. This was the case for the joint entail created by Francisco de Soli's and his wife, dona Juana de Hinojosa, in the 1550s; her relatives in Trujillo were to succeed to her properties there in default of the direct line of succession (see AHPC, Pedro de Grajos, leg. 3924). Entails ordinarily barred inheritance by illegitimate or adopted children, but daughters usually received preference over other relatives. The increase in entails in the sixteenth century often restricted the choices an individual had in disposing of his or her property.

27 Many noble families reflect this pattern. Diego García de Paredes, mentioned in note 20, was the younger brother of Pedro Alonso Golfin, who inherited the family entail and served as a regidor (councilman). de Ulloa, Antonio, a captain and encomendero in Chile and PeruGoogle Scholar, was a second son whose older brother (the family heir) died while Ulloa was in the Indies, making Ulloa successor to the entail. Ulloa had a younger brother who entered the Caballeros de San Juan and a sister who entered a convent. See de Mayoralgo, J. M. Lodo, Viejos linajes de Cáceres (Cáceres, 1971), 138, 296Google Scholar; virtually every genealogy in this study shows similar patterns. See also the discussion of the Ovando Paredes family in Altman, “Spanish Hidalgos and America.” Cosme and Cristóbal de Ovando Paredes were two of a number of younger sons of Cosme de Ovando (one of the heirs of Francisco de Ovando “el rico”) and dona Beatriz de Paredes. Both men went to Peru in the 1550s, and several of their brothers joined religious orders. Their oldest brother, Francisco de Ovando Paredes, inherited the entail but died without heirs, so that first Cosme and then Cristóbal inherited the entail.

28 One of the most successful returnees was Francisco de Godoy, who returned to Cáceres from Peru around 1S43. Although his family was prominent and well connected and Francisco succeeded to his father's entail, his inheritance might have been fairly modest. His sojourn in the Indies made him one of Cáceres's wealthiest men. On his return he built a huge house near the parish church of Santiago. An example of another individual who took good advantage of opportunities in the New World was Juan de Hinojosa. A younger son of Francisco de Solis and dona Juana de Hinojosa (see note 26), Hinojosa became an encomendero and wealthy entrepreneur in Peru. He made a marriage that was advantageous but would have been impossible at home in Cáceres, since his wife was a commoner, the widow of a conqueror and encomendero.

29 Apparently, an individual who wanted to sell private property in Cáceres was required to give relatives or future heirs to the property the first option to buy. See Floriano, Antonio C., “Cáceres ante la historia: El problema medieval de la propiedad de la tierra,” Revista de estudios extremenos, 5(03–06 1949), 11.Google Scholar

30 Naturally all these transactions could take place outside the network of relationship as well, but they frequently were realized within it; it would be safe to say that in the conduct of most of these activities, a relative by blood or marriage was the preferred choice. The strength and number of these multiple social and economic ties formed within and among related hidalgo families were striking at times; and this is seen clearly in the case of several interrelated hidalgo families, the Moragas, Canos, Vitas, and Pérez, all of whom sent members to the Indies. Diego Pérez de Vita, whose brother and heir Andrés Vega was in the Indies, made his cousin by marriage Pedro Cano the executor of his will in 1547. He designated his first cousin Macías de Vita (Cano's brother-in-law) the patron of a capellania (chantry) to be established if Andrés Vega did not return from the Indies. Juan Cano, the husband of Dona Isabel Moctezuma and brother of Pedro Cano, in the 1550s bought extensive properties from Macias de Vita's wife and brother. Vita looked after the affairs of his brother-in-law in Peru, Hernando de Moraga. Macias de Vita also had a brother and a son who went to Peru. See AHPC, Pedro de Grajos, leg. 3923; and Ursua, Luis de Roa y, El reyno de Chile, 1535–1810 (Valladolid, 1945), 167.Google Scholar

31 The basic Spanish pattern of inheritance was equal division among all heirs. The inheritance practices that were becoming common among the nobility, discussed above in note 26, represented a modification and departure from partible inheritance. Heirs meant children; hence spouses were not considered to be heirs, although some provision could be made for them. Under Spanish law a wife retained her dowry, which was quite substantial in the case of noble marriages. Commoners were more likely to make spouses coequal heirs with children or even the sole heir.

32 For example, the merchant Diego Martín Sotoval, who died in 1554, had a brother (by then deceased) who was a priest, and his son Aparicio Martin was a priest. The merchant's wife, Benita Jiménez, also had a brother who was a priest (AHPC, Pedro de Grajos, legs. 3924, 3925). When a clérigo presbítero named Alonso Durán made his will in 1535 establishing a capellania, he named one nephew patron and another nephew capellán (AHPC, Hemando Conde, leg. 3712).

33 Archivo del Monasterio de Guadalupe, Fondo Barrantes MS. B/3.

34 Examples from the sixteenth century of Spaniards in the Indies sending for nephews can be found in Lockhart, and Otte, , Letters and People, 66–67, 116, 128–31, 144–46.Google Scholar For a discussion of the convention among merchants in the Indies, see Lockhart, James and Schwartz, Stuart, Early Latin America: A History of Colonial Spanish America and Brazil (Cambridge, 1983), 324–25.Google Scholar

35 AGI, Indiferente General, leg. 2089.

36 Officials are not always considered to be emigrants, yet many married and pursued uninterrupted careers in the Indies, returning to Spain only briefly if at all. The behavior and activities of career officials corresponded to those of other individuals who emigrated on a private basis; officials took with them entourages of relatives and employees, sent back to Spain for family and friends, and sent home money to invest or to support their families. Tilly, Charles discusses career migration in his article, “Migration in Modern European History,” Human Migration, McNeill, William H. and Adams, Ruth S., eds. (Bloomington, 1978), 51–57. “Career” emigrants are often omitted from migration studies.Google Scholar

37 Dr. Francisco de Sande's father, Pedro de Sande, initiated a suit to prove his hidalguia in 1551, and two of Dr. Sande's brothers pursued the suit in the 1570s. See Archivo de la Real Chancillerfa de Granada, Hidalguía 301–181–153, and 301–55–21. Much of the proof of the family's claim to being hidalgos hinged on establishing their relationship with the illustrious Sande family of Cáceres and Plasencia, which included a number of church dignitaries and military officers (see note 20). For Dr. Sande, see also Castillo, Navarro del, La epopeya, 167–68.Google Scholar

38 In the 1570s, the closest associate and agent of the widowed Francisca Picón was Bach. Antonio Picón, a man of modest status, who probably was a relative. In her will of 1580 Francisca Picón named as her heirs her surviving sons, all of them bearing the title don; but when her son Antonio de Sande witnessed a document for his mother in 1578, he did not use don (this document and his mother's will are both in AHPC, Alonso Pacheco, leg. 4104).

39 Catálogo de pasajeros, VGoogle Scholar, nos. 671–74, 762. Information on Sande's career can also be found in Schäfer, Ernesto, El consejo real y supremo de las Indias, 2 vols. (Seville, 1947), II, 114, 452, 463, 473.Google Scholar For Sande's activities in frontier administration in New Spain, see Powell, Philip Wayne, Soldiers, Indians and Silver (Tempe, 1972), 36, 116, 188.Google Scholar

40 See Catálogo de pasajeros, IVGoogle Scholar, no. 4506; AHPC, Pedro Gonzaléz, leg. 3830, and Alonso Pacheco, leg. 4103. Apparently Hernando departed for the Indies in 1565 as one of several criados of a Dr. Juan de Torres Vera. whose destination was Peru or Chile, but it is not known if he actually reached Peru.

41 AHPC, Alonso Pacheco, leg. 4104; Blair, Emma Helen and Robertson, James A., eds., The Philippine Islands, 55 vols. (Cleveland, 1903–1909), III, 304ff., 312–14; IV, 132–33, 147, 306–22.Google Scholar

42 Castillo, Navarro del, La epopeya, 168.Google Scholar

43 This phenomenon accounts for the substantial number of working artisans identified in the Spanish group in the early years. See Lockhart, James, Spanish Peru, 1532–1560 (Madison, Wis., 1968), 97Google Scholar; Hirschberg, Julia, “A Social History of Puebla de los Angeles, 1531–1560” (Ph.D. diss., University of Michigan, 1976), 116, 320.Google Scholar

44 In his entail of 1546, Diego de la Rocha referred to the “Conde de Benalcacar, Marqués de Gibraleón, Duque de Béjar que espera ser” as his lord and said that he was a “criado” of that house, from which he had received “good treatment and many favors” (AHPC, Pedro de Grajos, leg. 3923). For a discussion of criados in Cáceres, see Altman, , “Emigrants, Returnees, and Society,” 182–87.Google Scholar

45 Catálogo de pasajeros, V, nos. 2826–28, 2830, 2831; AGI, Indiferente General, legs. 2048, 2091.Google Scholar

46 AHPC, Pedro González, legs. 2048, 2091.

47 Catálogo de pasajeros, IIIGoogle Scholar, no. 3632; Castillo, Navarro del, La epopeya, 152.Google Scholar Valverde also took as his criados two other men from Cáceres, a man from Madrid, two female relatives, and a woman from Valladolid.

48 Catálogo de pasajeros, V, no. 1693; AGI, Indiferente General, leg. 2086; AHPC, Pedro Gonzalez, legs. 3830, 3831. Cotrina apparently became an entrepreneur, taking up residence in Seville in the 1570s, where he had frequent dealings with the Casa de Contratacion and Cacerenos at home and in the Indies.Google Scholar

49 AGI, Justicia, leg. 215, no. 1.

50 See Pike, , Aristocrats and Traders, 170–92.Google Scholar

51 AHPC, Pedro de Grajos, leg. 3925, and Pedro González, leg. 3828; see Altman, , “Emigrants, Returnees, and Society,” 187–93 for a discussion of slaves in Cáceres.Google Scholar

52 Vincent, Bernard, “L'expulsion des morisques du royaume de Grenade et leur repartition en Castile (1570–1571),” Mélanges de la casa de Velázquez, 6(1970), 224–26. For actions taken by the city council after the arrival of the moriscos, see AMC, Libros de Acuerdo, 1571.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

53 For entails in Mexico, see Ladd, Doris M., The Mexican Nobility at Independence, 1780–1826 (Austin, 1976), 71–88.Google Scholar