Catastro of Ensenada
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Since 1749 a great scale census and statistical investigation was hold in the Crown of Castile (15.000 places not including the basque provinces, exempt of taxes). It included population, territorial properties, buildings, cuttle, offices, all sort of revenues and trades, and even the geographical information of every place. It was encouraged by king Fernando VI of Spain and his minister the Marquis of Ensenada, and is known today as Catastro of Ensenada.
The general answers of each place to the 40 questions of the Catastro (that were studied carefully) produced a huge volume of documentation that give historians the possibility of analize economy, society, practics of señorío system (manorialism) and environmental data. It's with no doubt the better statistical register of the pre-statistical age of Ancien Régime in Europe.
The word catastro means in today Spanish “register of the properties”, but the etymology comes from “enquire”. In the XVIII century was a distinction between catastro, which was made by central officers that travel to the places to enquire, and amillaramiento, that was made by local authorities.
[edit] The only one tax
The Catastro came from the project of only one tax (única contribución), studied by 16 members of Counsels of Castile, Hacienda (Treasury), Indias (America), Military Orders, five intendentes (first provincial authorities) and the head of the Barcelona Court. After the negative inform of Counsels and positive inform of intendentes, the king saw convenient to begin the works in the interests of Crown and Vassals (October 10, 1749). With the royal order came a comprehensive Instruction for the correct implementation of Catastro by the enquirers and the public.
The number of officers in the Contadurías de Rentas Provinciales (Central Treasure burocracy) rise from no more than three till more than a hundred, now under the orders of the Real Junta de Única Contribución. The reform of Rentas Provinciales (a complex and heterogenic mixture of revenues of all origins including all sort of taxes, like alcabalas, millones, cientos, tercias reales...) was the key of the new system, that pretend only one tax proportional to the income of each one, to be known through the Catastro.
Since a very modern economic doctrine (nearest to the Physiocratic school than to mercantilism), old taxes was seen like anti-economic by the state himself, as long as high and unfair, because was only paid by the productive part of population: the common people. Nobility and clergy, exempts of other taxes by his privileged condition, was also out of these because of his access to his own grows, out of the regular markets where taxes was paid. Taxes like those made difficult the inexistent freedom of trade.
The goal of the bureaucratic effort of Catastro didn’t come to a substantial Treasury reform. It was made impossible by the resistance of the privileges. If France went to Revolution by a similar fact, while Spain made that silently (the only disturbs was the easily calmed Esquilache riots of 1766, only lightly connected with other reformist episode), means that the two countries was in unequal state of transition from feudalism to capitalism.
Joined with Catastro another documents was cumplimented, like the so called Census of Ensenada, that produced an accurate estimation of 9.400.000 inhabitants for the peninsular territory of Spain in 1756.
[edit] External links
Images and data from an exposition in Spanish Ministerio de Hacienda [[1]]
