Overview:
This series of orders about the salt industry reveals another aspect to the economic priorities of the Spanish monarchy at this time. The reforms that Gálvez discusses here range from standardizing prices to punishing contraband. Each of those concerns was related to overall mission of improving efficiency that characterized the Bourbon monarchs. Within this context, Gálvez had a responsibility to identify ways that salt production, an important local industry, could become more profitable to the royal treasury, and therefore more useful to the Spanish Empire.
Spatial Context:
See the map below for a visualization of the salt mining under scrutiny in this report took place along the Pacific Coast of colonial Mexico
[map under construction]
Major Players:
Jose de Gálvez, Royal Inspector to New Spain 1765-1771