The aggregate value of the church property, both secular and regular, in estates and mortgages, must have been, in the early part of the present century, not less than one half the total value of real estate in the country. As early as 1644 the ayuntamiento of Mexico petitioned King Felipe IV. to check the increase of convents and of investments for religious purposes.[1] The possessions of the church were considerably reduced in 1767 by the expulsion of the Jesuits, whose estates reverted to the royal treasury, though the rights of the benevolent establishments of which the Jesuits had been in charge were duly respected. Nevertheless, at the beginning of the nineteenth century the aggregate must have been as above stated, and represented a money value of about $44,500,000.[2]
In 1809, at which date it will be remembered war broke out with France, the Spanish government seeing no escape from impending bankruptcy, in consequence of an over-issue of royal vales, or treasury notes, attempted a very dangerous financial measure, by ordering on the 26th of December, not only the
- ↑ The greater portion of the landed property being in one shape or other in the hands of the church, it was feared that if left unchecked it would soon own all the land in the country. No more convents were needed; there were too many nuns and servants there already, and too little with which to support them. The number of friars and clergymen was also represented in the same memorial as excessive, and so was that of holidays, with which 'se acrecienta el caudal de la ociosidad, y daños que causa esta.' Gonzalez Dávila, Teatro Ecles., i. 16-17.
- ↑ Their investments bore the title of capitals de capellanías y obras de la jurisdiccion ordinaria. They were situated as follows: Archbishopric of Mexico, $9,080,000; bishropic of Puebla, $6,500,000; bishopric of Valladolid (very exact), $4,500,000; bishropic of Guadalajara $3,000,000; bishropics of Durango, Nuevo Leon, and Sonora, $1,000,000; bishoprics of Oajaca and Yucatan, $2,000,000; Obras pías, of the regular clergy, $2,500,000; Fondo dotal of churches and of male and female religious communities, $16,000,000. These figures were taken from a memorial of the citizens of Valladolid in Michoacan to Viceroy Iturrigaray, on the 24th of October, 1805. Humboldt, Essai Pol., ii. 475-7. Alaman, Hist. Méj., i. 66-8, claims that the aggregate must have been much larger, grounding his judgment both on the results of the assessments to collect the direct tax in later years, and on the fact that scarcely one single estate was not thus encumbered. Many of the estates were mortgaged for their full value, and some for even more, thus rendering it necessary in the course of time to require the proprietors to produce evidence that their lands were not mortgaged for more than two thirds of their value.
