Papers presented by Amanda Ortiz Molina since 2019

2025 Atlanta, Georgia

"Indigenous Capital in Colonial Credit Markets: A Study of Indigenous Community Treasuries in Eighteenth-Century New Granada"

Abstract:

This paper examines the participation of non-elites in colonial credit practices of Spanish America in the eighteenth century. It focuses on community treasuries (cajas de comunidad) used by indigenous communities from Anolaima and Nemocón in the rural hinterlands of Santafé, the capital of the Viceroyalty of New Granada. The Spanish Crown forbade institutions of financial intermediation in the colonies. However, ecclesiastic institutions and community treasuries centralized capital, extended loans, and earned interest. The historiography has highlighted the central role of ecclesiastic organizations in colonial credit markets, while the study of community treasuries has been overlooked. Historians use community treasuries to study indigenous communities’ production and tax practices and social dynamics, but not as key financial institutions. This paper documents that indigenous communities sought the creation of these treasuries with the intent to participate in colonial credit markets. I examine how and why indigenous communities funded community treasuries. The Viceroyalty’s court records show that indigenous leaders from the town of Anolaima traveled to Santafé in 1793 to request the creation of a community treasury. Notarial records from Santafé show that residents acquired loans from the indigenous peoples of Nemocón. Both communities were ethnically different and relied on distinct economic activities. The Anolaima’s were more agriculturally oriented, while the indigenous people of Nemocón worked salt mines. The paper also studies how financial practices mediated social relations, providing elites and non-elites with pathways to negotiate, resist, and adapt to power dynamics. In the context of the Bourbon Reforms —Spain’s imperial modernizing efforts— authorities in Spain and Santafé sought to centralize the administration of indigenous community treasuries. I investigate why imperial authorities aspired to regulate community treasuries and their participation in colonial credit markets.

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