Spanish Colonial Merchants In the Early Sixteenth Century
Who were these competitors who marginalized the astute pochteca? The wholesale merchants of New Spain have long been recognized as premier actors in the drama of New Spain's formation. It really can be said that without them, there would not have been a New Spain. Their capital and credit made possible not only the region's most important export, silver, but sugar production, silk and woolen textile manufacture, and some wheat and cattle raising, as well. They provided Europe's fine clothing, hardware, paper, glass, and books to the criollos and Hispanicized nonwhites. They transplanted Iberian and Asian material culture to New Spain.

This lifestyle was then selectively imitated by all in New Spain who could afford such purchases. Shared material aspirations integrated to some degree the diverse social groups of the viceroyalty, even as the Spaniards passed sumptuary laws that limited the extent to which mixed-race plebians could actually dress and eat like the white gentle- folk. Last but hardly least, merchant loans kept the government solvent, at least most of the time.

But this was not so apparent to aristocratic-minded Spanish society, Sixteenth-century Spanish values placed the merchant well below the gentleman and not much above the artisan. Because he was more likely than other immigrants to be of foreign origin—Italian, Flemish, or Portuguese—he was regarded with even more suspicion than other nongentlemen. His moneylending activities stigmatized him, even when the interest he charged was not excessive. During the Conquest, when settlers qualified for office and honors by their military prowess, merchants were excluded as noncombatants. Later, iln the 1520s and 1530s, merchants were more likely to be transients, lacking an interest in sinking roots in New Spain, concerned chiefly with making money and returning to the amenities of Seville. Of course, other migrants had precisely the same goal, but merchants typified this financial ambition.