The social and economic bases of Cabildo membership in seventeenth-century Santiago de Guatemala
Description
Earlier studies of the cabildo (town council) in the Spanish colonial empire emphasized the legislation which governed it, its ceremonial and ideological role in the community, and the day-to-day complexities of local administration. Without denying the importance of these matters, this study of the cabildo of Santiago de Guatemala in the seventeenth centuryy approaches the problem instead from the perspective of the cabildo's role as an institutional redoubt of local interests in a political system otherwise designed to communicate to the periphery policies and decisions arrived at at the center The study is based primarily upon manuscript sources found in the Archivo General de Indias, Seville, Spain, and the Archivo General de Centro America, Guatemala City. Particularly valuable were cabildo minute books, natarial registers, official correspondence, and petitions for confirmation of salable offices Chapter I presents the study and the sources upon which it is based Chapter II acquaints the reader with the peculiarities of the institutional evolution of the Guatemalan town council as essential background for the discussion to follow Chapter III is devoted to the sale of municipal offices in Guatemala. Introduced in the late sixteenth century throughout the Indies, this practice had a profound effect on the development of the seventeenth-century town council by determining its size and the nature of its membership Chapters IV and V, which form the core of the discussion, deal with the council members themselves, an aspect of cabildo history until recently neglected in favor of assumptions and generalizations based upon formal legislation and statements in the traditional literature. Chapter IV examines the family background of a group of regidores who served in the second half of the seventeenth century. Chapter V represents an inquiry into members' economic activities and interests Chapter VI turns to the question of the activity of the cabildo in imperial politics and attempts, with reference to several specific issues current in the seventeenth century, to suggest the relationship between dominant economic interests and the cabildo's position on certain questions, as well as the degree of effectiveness of cabildo intervention on imperial policymaking Finally, Chapter VII states conclusions and suggests problems for future research The principal conclusion of the study is that cabildo membership in seventeenth-century Santiago de Guatemala was dominated by, and represented the interests of, the city's peninsula-born merchant community. Landed, creole elements, while not excluded, had less influence than traditionally supposed. In fact, the study indicates, at least for seventeenth-century Guatemala, that there was no necessary relationship between landownership and political and economic power