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1 introduction During the War against the French Convention (1793–1795), the merchants of Buenos Aires offered the crown 100,000 pesos in donativos. Their “loyalty” was amply rewarded as the king subsequently granted them the right to establish a consulado, a corporate body that represented their interests. The merchants of Buenos Aires had been petitioning for the establishment of a consulado in the viceregal capital for more than a decade. Atlantic warfare and the collection of donativos gave them the opportunity to provide an outstanding financial service to the crown that finally established the institution that gave them not only a corporate identity but also the right to collect taxes on behalf of the monarch. Some of the taxes collected by the consulado of Buenos Aires were earmarked to pay interest on the donativo the merchants had advanced to the crown, evidencing that, in this case, donativos referred to a lending operation that brought political and financial gains for both king and merchants.1 Throughout the military conflicts that dominated the Atlantic in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, individuals and groups provided financial support to the crown in the form of donativos. While the merchants of Buenos Aires advanced their corporate and financial interests at court, other prominent subjects sought alternative benefits in exchange for their donativos. In the early 1790s, doña Francisca del Risco, the widow of a wealthy attorney and entrepreneur from Charcas, tried to obtain from the Cámara de Indias a cédula de gracias al sacar to remove the “stain” of her adulterous birth. By then, the legitimation of adulterinos had become a difficult legal business as the cámara had increased the requirements as well as the fees for granting cédula petitions. Doña Francisca’s 15,000-peso donativo, advanced during the War against the French Convention, finally pushed her legal case through. In 1796 the crown granted her legitimation , a grant she passed on to her children as well. In contrast to those of the merchants of Buenos Aires, doña Francisca’s donativo initiated an individual bargain that yielded social and legal benefits instead of corporate and financial rewards.2 introduction 2 Another interesting case is that of Francisco de Ortega y Barrón, who in the 1790s filed several petitions at court claiming that his possession of a juro de heredad (right to inheritance held over an office) as well as other services rendered (including donativos periodically advanced to the crown by his ancestors) gave him the ownership of a profitable judicial appointment within the district of the audiencia of Charcas. Through his petitions, Ortega y Barrón argued that the creation of the Viceroyalty of Rio de la Plata in 1776 had diminished the profits generated by that office, a loss he estimated to be in the 50,000-peso range. To obtain a fair compensation from the crown, he requested his appointment to a lucrative position such as the intendancy of Cochabamba.3 Donativos provided by the Ortega y Barrón family were associated with the sale of offices, a practice that periodically resurfaced in tandem with international warfare and compensated donors financially as well as politically. In addition to prominent imperial players, Spanish subjects of lesser means also contributed donativos. Some were explicit about their expectations . Others utilized the language of gift giving and various euphemisms commonly fashioned to legitimately initiate bargains but simultaneously downplay their self-interest. In 1794 Idelfonso Pinto, the Indian lord of Sipaquí, contributed a significantly smaller donativo of 20 pesos. Although no war was being fought nearby, he additionally offered the king one-half of his annual income and substantial amounts of wheat “to sustain the army.” Pedro Casas, a Catalonian merchant residing in Potosí, contributed a donativo of 148 pesos annually on behalf of his eleven-yearold son who, despite his young age, “had already expressed an interest in serving the monarch.”4 Unlike the previous cases, these donors did not openly state but rather hinted to the crown what type of compensation they expected from their donativos. They voiced their expectations by utilizing expressions that within the Spanish political tradition were commonly associated with the sale of offices. Residents from the Guarani missions and Paraguay, Indians as well as Spaniards, and laymen and ecclesiastics also provided for the crown donativos in kind. The records refer to these donors as “very poor but loyal people, willing to express their love for their king by contributing donativos...

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