Shipbuilding administration under the Spanish Habsburg and Bourbon regimes (1590‒1834): A comparative perspective

Abstract

This article aims at understanding the evolution of the administrative methods devised by the Spanish monarchy to interact with regional private initiative for the production of warships. It also aims at understanding the practice of financing naval shipbuilding in the royal shipyards of Spain and Spanish America by public contribution, in the form of both credit and voluntary donations. These processes were largely influenced by the need of both political systems to perform efficiently in war. This article addresses the relationship between the state and local entrepreneurs and examines the reach and objectives of the Habsburg and Bourbon naval administrations, seen as variants of the ‘contractor state’.

Keywords:

• Spanish naval shipbuilding
• Spanish Habsburg monarchy
• Spanish Bourbon state
• contractor state
• credit and donations

Notes

1. Pool, Navy Board Contracts; Baker, Government and Contractors; Bannerman, Merchants and the Military; and Parrott, The Business of War.

2. Brewer, The Sinews of Power.

3. Rodger, “From the Military Revolution.”

4. Morriss, The Foundations; Knight and Wilcox, Sustaining the Fleet; Knight, Britain against Napoleon.

5. Bowen and González Enciso, Mobilising Resources; Conway and Torres Sánchez, The Spending of States; Harding and Solbes, The Contractor State; Harding, Seapower; Fynn-Paul, War, Entrepreneurs; Torres Sánchez, War, State and Development; Torres Sánchez, Constructing a Fiscal-Military State; Torres Sánchez, Military Entrepreneurs; Storrs, The Fiscal-Military State.

6. Thompson, Guerra y decadencia, 7‒14; Thompson, “Navies and State Formation,” 317‒51; Glete, War and the State, 138‒9; and Glete, “The Sea Power,” 853.

7. In the words of Thompson: ‘It cannot be said that institutional state formation was greatly advanced by the growth of a navy built, supplied and administered by private or corporate entrepreneurs’: Thompson, “Navies and State Formation,” 337.

8. Rahn Phillips, Six Galleons.

9. Storrs, The Resilience, 64‒81, 163‒5, 231.

10. Stradling, The Armada of Flanders; Alcalá Zamora, España, Flandes y el Mar; and Brujin, “States and their Navies.”

11. Torres Sánchez, El precio de la guerra, 25‒6.

12. Torrejón Cháves, “La construcción naval militar”; Cabrera de Aizpuru, Arquitectura naval; Ferreriro, Ships and Science; and Valdez-Bubnov, Poder Naval.

13. Vázquez Lijó, La matrícula del mar.

14. Morriss, The Foundations, 113‒7.

15. Thompson, “Navies and State Formation,” 325‒7.

16. González Enciso, “Asentistas y fabricantes,” 269‒303.

17. See Thompson, Guerra y Decadencia, 322.

18. Alcalá Zamora, España, Flandes y el Mar, 73‒106.

19. Glete, War and the State, 83‒91.

20. Vazquez Lijó, La matrícula del mar, 55‒7.

21. 't Hart, The Dutch Wars, 126‒47.

22. Brujin, The Dutch Navy, 72‒73; Glete, Navies and Nations, 183; Taylor, “Galleon into Ship,” 17; Palmer, “The Military Revolution Afloat,” 139; and Rodger, “The Development,” 259‒60.

23. Dull, The Age of the Ship, 10‒32.

24. Glete, Warfare at Sea, 17‒40.

25. Girard, La rivalité commerciale, 232.

26. Valdez-Bubnov, Poder naval, 99‒100.

27. Valdez-Bubnov, Poder naval, 99‒101.

28. Ibid., 63, 117‒25, 177‒83, 194, 357, 372, 384, 411, 428.

29. Dubet and Ibáñez, Las monarquías española y francesa, 213‒22.

30. Crespo, La Casa, 33; Valdez-Bubnov, War, 98; Valdez-Bubnov, Monségur, 68-90; Gaztañeta, Proporciones, 3‒40.

31. Gaztañeta, Proporciones, 1‒2.

32. Vazquez Lijó, La matrícula del mar, 241.

33. Cepeda Gómez, “La marina y el equilibrio,” 447‒82.

34. Madrid, Archivo Histórico Nacional, Sección Estado, 3208 Expediente 345.

35. Vazquez Lijó, La matrícula del mar, 95.

36. Torres Sánchez, “Administración o asiento,” 159‒99.

37. Torres Sánchez, “El negocio de la guerra,” 23‒32.

38. Torres Sánchez, El precio de la guerra, 26.

39. Madrid, Archivo Histórico Nacional, Sección Estado, 3208 Expediente 345.

40. Valdez-Bubnov, Poder naval, 225‒8, 233, 235, 237, 238, 247‒51, 258, 265, 268, 269, 272‒7, 284, 293‒6, 301, 318.

41. Rodger, “Form and Function,” 85‒97.

42. Vazquez Lijó, La matrícula del mar, 95, 257, 265, 266.

43. Serrano Álvarez, El astillero de La Habana, 15‒75.

44. Serrano Álvarez, “El poder y la gloria,” 269‒303.

45. Cabrera de Aizpuru, Arquitectura naval, 19‒111.

46. Vazquez Lijó, La matrícula del mar, 267. It is important to mention that the matrícula was not extended to the Basque provinces, where the maritime population continued to be ruled by local institutions.

47. González Enciso, “La política industrial,” 251‒70.

48. Maiso González, La difícil modernización, 242‒58.

49. Informe Legal.

50. Martín García, “La política de reconstrucción,” 747‒60.

51. Valladolid, Archivo General de Simancas, Sección Secretaría de Marina, 648.

52. Dull, The French Navy, 245‒8.

53. Vazquez Lijó, La matrícula del mar, 268.

54. Mestre Prat De Padua, “La construcción naval,” 320‒2.

55. Ordenanza de SM para el servicio, 162, 176, 177, 179, 182, 189.

56. Ordenanza de SM para el gobierno, 569.

57. Gárate Ojanguren, Comercio ultramarino, 21‒4.

58. Serrano Álvarez, “El poder y la gloria,” 121.

59. Valdez-Bubnov, Poder naval, 388‒93, 409.

60. Valladolid, Archivo General de Simancas, Sección Secretaría de Marina, 354.

61. Vazquez Lijó, La matrícula del mar, 412, 458.

62. Viso del Marqués, Archivo General de Marina, Arsenales 3779.

63. ibid.

64. Valdez-Bubnov, Poder naval, 391.

65. Fernandez Duro, Armada española, Vol. 8, 7.

66. Viso del Marqués, Archivo General de Marina, 3804.

67. Viso del Marqués, Archivo General de Marina, 3804; and “Cadiz, 20 de Marzo de 1792,” Archivo General de Marina, 3804.

68. Valdez-Bubnov, “Poder naval,” 405‒30.

69. Ordenanza de SM para el gobierno, 21.

70. Vazquez Lijó, La matrícula del mar, 301.

71. Exposición a las Cortes, 88‒9.

72. Pilar Castillo Manrubia has stated that a royal order imposing a total return to the shipbuilding asiento was issued in 1825. Unfortunately, no source is quoted. It is highly possible that this author confused the construction of dockyard buildings with the construction of ships, two themes that usually appear together in the late eighteenth century regulations that have been used for this work. Therefore, this supposed official return to the shipbuilding asiento could be an error. It was quoted and literally repeated by Roda Alcantud. See Castillo Manrubia, La Marina de Guerra, 106‒7; and Roda Alcantud, “La maestranza naval,” 324.

73. Exposición a las Cortes, 24.

74. Vazquez Lijó, La matrícula del mar, 554.