Consolidation of Wholesalers and Markets: 1590-1630
By the 1590s the wealthy merchant community of New Spain presented a rather different picture. The viceroyalty had entered an expansive phase that saw silver production and trade reach unprecedented heights. Drawing on this success, the merchants of Mexico City finally incorporated as a guild in 1592. This legal rite of passage signified that they were now powerful enough to separate from the tutelage of the consulado of Seville. From the late sixteenth century to the mid-seventeenth their wealth and status grew, as did their involvement in New Spain. They financed or owned more productive enterprises. They built or remodeled mansions for "the great adornment and good order" of their beloved capital city. Now that many offices could be purchased, they might become public figures in local society. Some regularly coined silver for the Crown.

Although we no longer share the sixteenth-century Spaniards' disdain for the public practice of trade, scholars today are critical of merchants from a developmentalist standpoint. Their often successful efforts to monopolize any trade they entered, and their practice of restricting supply so as to charge high prices, limited New Spain's growth and gave a small group of wealthy men too much economic power. They even controlled the royal mint and the money supply. Furthermore, by shipping so much of their silver back to Spain, they contributed to starving New Spain of badly needed capital for investment.

The market structure that articulated this trade was based on the medieval view that the government or government-chartered corporations should determine what, where, and at which prices goods would be exchanged. In practice, there was much more flexibility, but the ideal did influence the way business was conducted. When the fleet came in, for example, New Spain's merchants purchased large lots of European goods from Spanish wholesalers or their factors at Veracruz. Prices were usually agreed upon by the major traders. There was some free dealing with lesser traders, but it was hard for an entrepreneur outside the consulado to break into the silver circle.

New Spain's cities established sites for markets and licensed vendors. Municipal councils determined prices of maize, wheat, flour, and meat on a routine basis. Alhóndigas (public grain exchanges) and pósitos (public storage facilities) were established throughout New Spain from the 1580s onwards. Although the government allowed free trade in items that were not necessary to survival, the municipal authorities also could in fact set the prices of imports, such as wine, much to the displeasure of the merchants. The intention was to protect the consumer from grain and meat speculators. Historians disagree about whether government regulation accomplished this goal. Some believe the large number of indigent urban residents made price ceilings essential but note that well-meaning regulations could not compensate for low wages and unemployment. Others assert that by holding down prices, the cities discouraged agricultural production, thereby aggravating shortages.