Bourbon reforms or reconquest?
Imperial reconquest
- Appointments based on merit, connections, instead of purchase, 1750s-
- Consolidation of Vales Reales
Reformation of colonial rule, or deformation?
- Viceroy Revillagigedo, 1794: “It should not be forgotten that this is a colony which must depend on its mother country, Spain, and must yield her some benefit because of the protection it receives from her; and thus great skill is needed to cement this dependence and to make the interest mutual and reciprocal; for dependence would cease once European manufactures and products were not needed here.”