Page 268 - Vol_2_Archaeology of Manila Galleon Seaport Trade

14 The Chinese Porcelain from the Port of San Blas, Mexico 241

hand, the authorities of New Spain and the merchants of the Consulate of
Merchants of Mexico argued that this arrival would lend itself to contraband,
especially with the main product of the northern regions, which was silver
(Cárdenas de la Peña 1968: 129).
In spite of all this, the certain thing was that this practice was nothing new. The
merchandises taken to the Jesuit missions in Baja California from the cities of
Guadalajara and Tepic (through Matanchel near San Blas) were basic products such
as food or necessary tools in California, Sonora, and Sinaloa, but gradually those
merchandises also included manufactured goods, establishing incipient exchanges
that often were not registered by the local authorities; these deals extended and
increased to Alta California after the founding of San Diego and Monterrey, set-
tlements that soon established regular deals with both foreigners who arrived in the
American Northwest as well as with the rest of the viceroyalty through San Blas.
The booming economy of western New Spain, besides sending more and more
cargoes by sea to the northern settlements, also led to a demand to receive Asian
goods directly and not have to wait for them to arrive by land from Acapulco; for
that reason, the merchants of Guadalajara pressed so that San Blas could work as a
commercial port and stop of the Manila Galleons (Trejo 1999: 54). On the other
hand, the presence of other European powers that was spreading throughout the
Paci!c, forced San Blas to also participate in the exchanges between New Spain
and the Philippines. When war broke out between Spain and England in 1779, some
ships of the Maritime Department were sent to accompany and protect the Manila
Galleon (1780) as well as to send correspondence to the Philippine authorities
(1779, 1783 and 1785). This situation generated the problem that the ships returned
loaded with Asian goods that the of!cers and crew were carrying; This situation
forced authorities to deal with these shipments, which theoretically should not be
traded in the Maritime Department, so in principle they were sent to Guadalajara
because there were customs of!cials; nevertheless, this growing practice forced to
regulate the situation in the port itself (Pinzón Ríos 2011a, b: 337–359). In addition
to the above, and in the framework of the commercial opening of various port of the
Spanish empire in 1789, it was ordered that all major and minor ports of New Spain
be open to long distance commerce, and thus, San Blas began to operate as a
commercial port (Olveda 2006: 143).
At the same time that these transformations were generated, the transpaci!c
route began to have competition because in 1765 direct commercial relations were
established between the Philippines and Spain through the Cape of Good Hope
which in 1785 allowed for the creation of the Philippine Trade Company, which
among its functions could bring Asian goods to different ports, of the American
territory with the exception of Acapulco, that remained the only place authorized to
receive the Manila Galleons (Olveda 2006: 143; Alfonso and Shaw 2013: 307–
339). This situation made it possible for San Blas to receive Asian goods more
frequently. These links gradually increased and were generally coordinated by the
merchants of Guadalajara and Tepic who received the shipments and distributed
them to the West and even to the Northern mining regions, whose money paid for
such shipments (Ibarra 2000: 117). During the occupation of Acapulco by the