Marcy Norton
describes how tobacco and chocolate were used by Mesoamericans for religious
and social purposes. These two
substances were commonly used across different political groups speaking
different languages. When Spaniards
colonized these people they became aware of the many social meanings attached
to tobacco and chocolate. Norton insists
that by observing and increasingly interacting with Amerindians, Spaniards came
to appreciate the social aspects of using tobacco and chocolate: their ability
to enhance goodwill and cooperation; the honor and respect for others that offering
chocolate conferred; the use of chocolate as a prized gift and to further
romantic pursuits; and the comradery that smoking with others could
produce. Spaniards recognized that both
items had religious meanings for Mesoamericans and in time they also attached
significance to tobacco and chocolate beyond mere ingestible goods. Norton insists that Spaniards, creoles, and
mestizos learned to like the taste of chocolate and the physical experience of
smoking and snorting tobacco by experiencing them with native peoples, and they
copied many of the rituals associated with ingesting these subjects. Norton emphasizes that the ways tobacco and
chocolate were enjoyed and consumed were learned from Amerindians.
People who
had travelled and lived in Spanish America took tobacco and chocolate back to
Spain when they returned. By the last
two decades of the sixteenth century, Atlantic traders recognized that there
was a base of consumers living in Spain that would eagerly purchase imported
tobacco and chocolate. Chocolate had
been a traded commodity in Spanish America for over thousands of years. Members of the Church and other notables were
eager to continue consuming chocolate they had learned to value in New
Spain. Adding chocolate to ships’ cargo
returning to Spain with New World goods was a simple step to take at the end of
the sixteenth century. Tobacco was grown
throughout the Caribbean region. Because
it was so common it had not developed a significant trade network. The demand of the international community of
mariners in the Caribbean first turned tobacco into a trade commodity. Spanish settlers living along the Caribbean
coast learned they could trade the tobacco they grew for European imports from
Dutch, English, and French ships although they knew this was illegal trade. To stop rampant export violations the Crown banned
tobacco farming in Spanish colonies. At
this point indigenous people sold tobacco directly to European sailors in
exchange for weapons and metal items, and some Spanish colonials continued to
sell tobacco despite the ban.
In chapter
nine of Sacred Gifts, Profane Pleasures,
Norton describes the creation of the state-sanctioned tobacco monopoly in the
seventeenth century. The imperial goals
of the Spanish state required large amounts of revenue. Philip II defaulted on loans provided by
Genoese bankers four times in the second half of the sixteenth century. In 1590 the Cortes of Castile agreed to a tax
commonly called the millones that was to be in effect for six years only. After its initial term the millones was
permanently extended. This tax was
applied against basic foods: wine, meat, olive oil, and vinegar. It was very unpopular, and many thought it
unfairly jeopardized the poorest members of society. It also taxed the clergy and the nobles who
vehemently complained about this injustice.
Philip IV’s prime minister repealed the millones in 1631 hoping that he
could achieve the same fiscal effect with an increase in the price of
salt. This state revenue scheme failed
from the standpoint of inadequate receipts and because of strong public displeasure. The millones was reinstated in 1632, but this
time the items to be taxed were tobacco, chocolate, sugar, conserves, paper,
and fish. The state argued that these items
would not unfairly hurt the poor. Tobacco and chocolate were viewed as luxuries
or non-essential goods. To further the
impact of the revenue enhancing program the state declared a monopoly on
tobacco, and the procurement, distribution, and sale of tobacco was to be
auctioned off by the state to a concessionaire.
The concessionaire acted as a tax farmer who paid the Crown an agreed
upon amount twice a year. The tax farmer
estimated the profit he could make beyond the agreed remittance to the state
and bid accordingly. The monopoly
associated with tobacco provided a variety of opportunities for the
concessionaire to earn profits. The
tobacco monopoly was a vast organizational structure involving collection of
imports, distribution throughout Castile, supplying approved retail outlets, and
factories that processed the tobacco, added scents to snuff, produced cigars,
and maintained all the financial records of the organization as well as making
twice-yearly payments to the Crown.
Norton declares this was an industry in a pre-industrial age.
The
individuals who dominated this concession from 1637 to 1701 were predominantly
members of the Portuguese crypto-Jewish or New Christian community. When Jews were forced to leave Spain in 1492
many went to Portugal where they were accepted.
Eventually the king of Portugal bowed to Spanish pressure in 1497, but
his approach was to require that all Jews convert to Christianity after which
they could live peacefully in Portugal.
Many conversions occurred for outward appearances while in private
individuals practiced their traditional faith.
Norton is clear that this community was diverse and probably included
some sincere converts and families including both Jewish and Christian
members. In the popular imagination the
tobacco monopoly was controlled by Portuguese Jews. They were able to protect their community and
further their financial activities as long-distance traders, bankers to the
Crown, and tax farmers acting in the capacity of state administrators. Norton acknowledges that tax farming was a
common European practice during this period.
She states that the communities and individuals who aided the state in
collecting tax revenues derived benefits and privileges from doing so. Certainly the Portuguese New Christians were
able to maintain their community in a setting that was profoundly hostile to
them although the Inquisition never stopped pursuing them. Norton links this Jewish community, the imperial
state, and tobacco in a web that resulted in a more modern and intrusive
state. She also claims that by
authorizing a state monopoly on tobacco the state legitimated a substance they
had defined as a vice. At the same time the
tobacco monopoly placed the state in the position of being an accessory to a
vice.
I think
Norton is missing one important point.
The Spanish state in the seventeenth century was weak. It farmed out tax collection, as did France,
because it could not afford to maintain the administration to collect the taxes
it needed. States that have underdeveloped
and poor economies collect tax revenue from import duties and sales taxes. Developed economies collect the majority of their
tax revenues from income taxes. In the
seventeenth century most countries were underdeveloped and unable to collect
the revenues they needed to conduct their affairs, and certainly they were not
able to provide security or many useful facilities for their citizens. As Norton admits, the state authorized
tobacco monopoly was inefficient and led to continual attempts to circumvent
it, many of them successful. The
people who implemented the monopoly broke the rules about buying exclusively
from Spanish sources. Possibly the state
would never have gotten the promised and much needed tax revenues had the authorized
monopoly not bought and sold tobacco coming to Europe on Dutch, French, and
English ships or tobacco that originated in Virginia. This doesn’t seem to me to be a state with
impressive power, quite the contrary. The
monopoly best served the monopolists. Nor
do I think consumers worried over much about whether or not the state thought
tobacco was a vice.
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