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Copper Money in Mexico: The Transition from the Eighteenth to the Nineteenth Century

In: Mining, Money and Markets in the Early Modern Atlantic

Author

Listed:
  • José Enrique Covarrubias

    (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México)

Abstract

Colonial Mexico was an important producer of copper. Mining centres in Michoacán and other regions provided enough copper to satisfy local needs and, from the eighteenth century on, also to supply the military and sugar industries in Cuba and Spain. After an initial minting in the sixteenth century, ineffectual to provide minor coins for change, copper minting was resumed at the end of the Spanish colonial period. In the intervening centuries, the only means for local exchange were the tokens fabricated by local merchants and shopkeepers. The late colonial copper currency resolved some problems, but it produced many others, almost entirely passed on to the early national period. Excessive currency in circulation, continuous falsification and confusing views about the sense and usefulness of copper coinage figure among these problems, which damaged seriously the national treasury and the economy of the poorer classes and impeded the creation of a national monetary system.

Suggested Citation

  • José Enrique Covarrubias, 2019. "Copper Money in Mexico: The Transition from the Eighteenth to the Nineteenth Century," Palgrave Studies in Economic History, in: Renate Pieper & Claudia de Lozanne Jefferies & Markus Denzel (ed.), Mining, Money and Markets in the Early Modern Atlantic, chapter 0, pages 231-255, Palgrave Macmillan.
    • Handle: RePEc:pal:palscp:978-3-030-23894-0_10
    DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-23894-0_10
    as

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