SECTION IV.
SPANISH COLONIAL SYSTEM.
Under this head, it is my intention to give some account of the mode in which the Internal government of the former Spanish Colonies was carried on, before the year 1810, and to add a sketch of those prohibitory laws with regard to foreign trade, which formed so marked a feature in the policy of the Mother country. It is true, that these laws have ceased to exist, but an acquaintance with them, as well as a knowledge of the political institutions by which they were supported, are essential to a right understanding of the events that have since taken place; for it is in the complication of abuses, to which the old system gave rise, that we must seek the causes of that Revolution, which has changed the face of the New World. With the exception of Brazil, Dutch and French Guiana, and our present colonies of Demerara and Esequibo, the Spanish possessions occupied the whole of South America, the Isthmus of Pănămā, and a portion of the Northern continent, extending to the confines of the United States. This vast territory was divided into four Vice-royalties,[1] Mexico, Peru, Rio de la Plata, (Buenos Ayres,) and New Granada; and five Captain-general-ships, which comprised
- ↑ Originally, there were only two Vice-royalties, (those of Mexico and Peru,) on which all the other colonial establishments depended. The abuses to which this system gave rise, led to the establishment of a separate government in New Granada in 1718; in Venezuela in 1731; in Chile in 1734; and in Buenos Ayres in 1778.
