Colonial Institutions and Cross-Cultural Trade: Repartimiento Credit and Indigenous Production of Cochineal in Eighteenth-Century Oaxaca, Mexico

Colonial Institutions and Cross-Cultural Trade: Repartimiento Credit and Indigenous Production of Cochineal in Eighteenth-Century Oaxaca, Mexico

Colonial societies exhibit peculiar institutions frequently attributed to the unequal and exploitative nature of the relations between colonizer and colonized. Repartimiento has been depicted as a coercive system of production and consumption designed by Spaniards to draw reluctant Amerindians into...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Journal of economic history 2005-03, Vol.65 (1), p.186-210
Main Author: BASKES, JEREMY
Format: Article
Language:eng
Subjects:
18th century
Agriculture
Colonialism
Contracts
Costs
Credit
Credit systems
Debt collection
Debtors
Economic analysis
Economic history
Historians
Historiography
Indigenous culture
Insect dyes
Institutions
Magistrates
Market prices
Market structure
Mayors
Merchants
Mexico
Oaxaca
Political power
Prices
Production systems
Trade
Transaction costs
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Summary:Colonial societies exhibit peculiar institutions frequently attributed to the unequal and exploitative nature of the relations between colonizer and colonized. Repartimiento has been depicted as a coercive system of production and consumption designed by Spaniards to draw reluctant Amerindians into the market. An examination of repartimiento through the lens of New Institutional Economics provides an alternative understanding of this credit system. Characteristics of the repartimiento most often identified as exploitative are better explained as institutional adaptations designed to facilitate contract enforcement and economize on transaction costs in this cross-cultural trade. Consequently, this peculiar colonial institution served to expand trade.
ISSN:0022-0507
1471-6372