The Execution of the Law of Consolidación in New Spain: Economic Aims and Results

Abstract

WL THEN THE Ley de Consolidacio'n de Vales Reales was published in New Spain in 1805, it provoked consternation and fear among thousands of property owners. A note handwritten at the margin of a copy of the law by some irate person expressed the feelings stirred in many: Toda esta trapala del malvado Godoy, Soler y sus secuaces . . .I The private reaction of the clerical corporations, the direct target of thie law of Consolidaci6n, is not known to us, but it was probably quite similar. The law provoked such strong feelings because its enforcement disrupted a long and well established socio-economic relationship between the Church and the laity in New Spain. As enacted for the empire in 1804, the law was based on one existing in Spain since 1798, decreeing the forced sale of clerical property. In the American possessions, a provision for the repayment and consolidation of clerical debts was added. This point affected the most influential social !groups in New Spain, which throughout the colonial period had become accustomed to borrowing money from the funds of clerical corporations. The law established that the capital of those clerical loans and mortgages which were then overdue was to be returmed by the borrowers to the Caja de Consolidaci6n, the royal agency in charge of collecting them. The Crown would continue to collect pious debts as they fell due, and would pay the clerical corporations affected 5 percent on the value of the property sales and the capital funds taken over by the Caja de Consolidacion.2 The majority of the

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