Number: 02 Date: 04/09/2009 Category: Economic, social and legal sciences Contact: Juan Marchena Fernández Telephone: 954349118 Email: jmarfern@upo.es

SEVILLIAN RESEARCHERS LOOK INTO THE INEFFICIENT EXPENSE IN THE SPANISH ARMY IN THE 17TH CENTURY AND ITS CONSEQUENCES

A team of international researchers, led by Juan Marchena of Pablo de Olavide University (Seville, Spain), are working on a project whose aim is to find out the reasons why the Spanish Real Hacienda managed so inefficiently the money (particularly that from America) that was used to set up the Spanish Armada in the 17th and 18th centuries to keep the hegemony and control over the Spanish colonies in America. This management brought about certain consequences such as the fiscal asphyxiation of America or the little use capacity of the ships that were built. With this work, titled Apogeo y crisis de la Real Armada. 1750-1820 (Height and crisis of the Spanish Royal Armada 1750-1820), naval construction until daily life in the Spanish Army at the end of the 18th century will be discussed, as well as the logbook, the formation of the crew, the situation of the stations in America, and the techniques Developer by the Spanish navy until the War of Independence. ’Since 1750, the monarchy’s most important investment was to create such a great navy force that could fight the British and the French ones. To do so, tens of millions of pesos were used in a process that ended with the construction of over two hundred ships and frigates in a record time, as well as highly technified arsenals and shipyards’, the researcher underlined. Such expense, together with the money allocated for the army, was almost 70% of the expense of the monarchy that was at its best financial period, according to estimations of the study, mainly due to the income from America. However, this investment –which allowed Spain to keep its position in America, despite the successful little ambitious attempts of Britain to conquer important enclaves such as Havana- did not guaranteed Spain her dominion of the sea. According to Marchena, the enormous cost of the ships kept the different Ministries of the Marine from moving the fleet frequently, most of the ships being moored most of the time. Moored at the port A proof of this can be found in the information that the logbooks consulted by Marchena so far provide, such as where each ship was, how many days it sailed, who steered it, … In addition to this, certain details can be obtained from that too: whilst ships that had officially been operative for 30 years had only sailed for 200 days, generally very short distances, there were a few ships that were overexploited during the American War of Independence, which crossed the Atlantic Ocean on many occasions. ’When you see the number of casualties of those ships per year, you realise that the investment made by the monarchy was not very useful, and even less if you realise how all that affected the situation in the Spanish colonial America’ Marchena says. According to the researcher, between 1780 and 1790, the American continent was stirred up by the tremendous rise of the taxes caused by the formation, construction and maintenance of the Armada. ’That huge amount of money that had been obtained as a result of an enormous tax rise was not used to develop or build infrastructures in America, but was used for the Armada which was not even operative’ he stated. After 1814, as a result of the king’s decision to military suppress the colonial America, that Armada ‘could not almost transport Spanish soldiers to the new continent’ Marchena underlined. This work, funded with 368,000 euros by the Andalusian Ministry of Innovation as a Project of Excellence, is carried out by a multidisciplinary team led by Marchena and made up by 20 researchers from the universities of Murcia, Politécnica de Madrid, Santiago de Compostela, UNED, Texas Tech, Pablo de Olavide, Queen’s University of Montreal, and other research centres in Ecuador, Mexico, Venezuela and Uruguay, with the business collaboration of Mapfre and Navantia.