The war between Spain and Napoleon caused enormous decrease in customs revenue of Buenos Aires, the main source of resources for the viceregal administration.
To alleviate the deficit, Viceroy Baltasar Cisneros, who had been deaf in the Battle of Trafalgar, listened to the requests of distinguished Buenos Aires merchants, who requested that he be authorized to trade with ships of friendly and neutral nationswhich in practice meant doing it with the English and, to a lesser extent, with the Brazilian Portuguese and North Americans.
The news made everyone scream official representative of the commercial houses of Cádiz in Buenos Aires, which sought to simply maintain the monopoly.
A young lawyer, advisor to the Cabildo, presented an argument against the Spanish commercial monopoly, in his capacity as “agent of the landowners of the Río de la Plata campaigns.”
In writing the Representation of the landowners, Mariano Moreno took up the ideas of Manuel Belgrano de promote agriculture and manufacturing and on direct trade with Great Britain, prudent distance. His arguments were difficult to refute:
“Since the English expedition of 1806 to the Río de la Plata appeared on our beaches, it has not been lost sight of in the speculations of the merchants of that nation; a continuous series of expeditions have followed one another; they have almost entirely caused the country’s consumption; and its enormous importation, practiced against laws and repeated prohibitionshas had no other obstacles than those necessary to deprive the treasury of the income of its respective rights, and the country of the promotion that it would have received with the exports of a free return.
The ranchers wanted to trade directly and freely with England because Spain was an inefficient intermediary.
We do not know if the viceroy read Moreno’s text, but faced with the desperate shortage of resources, he took an extreme measure, even against the opposition of the Consulate: on November 6, 1809 approved a provisional free trade regulation which put an end to centuries of Spanish monopoly and authorized trade with the English, who had to do so through a Spanish commercial agent.
This transitional regime had an expiration date, which was set for May 19, 1810.
Manuel Moreno, Mariano’s brother, says that “The Treasury of Buenos Aires needed the amount of two hundred and fifty thousand pesos for its monthly expenses in 1809; That is, he had to pay three million pesos a year; of this sum he could not raise, in the exhausted state where he was, but one hundred thousand pesos a month; After opening the trade, he has not only paid his debts, but there has been a residue of two hundred thousand pesos each month. (1)
These economic data speak for themselves about the limited margin of action left to the monopolistic sector., embodied in the Spanish merchants who they wanted to maintain the privilege of being the only ones authorized to introduce and sell foreign products that arrived from Spain and export those produced here.
The imported items were very expensive because Spain bought them from France and England and then resold them in America.
The ranchers wanted to trade directly and freely with England and other countries that were the most important clients and suppliers of products from this region. Spain had become an expensive, inefficient and unnecessary intermediary.
This livestock and mercantile sector, made up of Creoles and some Spaniards not linked to the monopoly, was interested in extending the deadline given by Cisneros for the exercise of free trade with England beyond May 19, 1810.
Citations: 1. Manuel Moreno, Life and memoirs of Dr. Mariano Moreno, Eudeba, Buenos Aires, 1974.
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