Treasasury
T HE Spanish Habsburgs liked their treasure tangible, in bars of gold, heavy silver coins, precious stones, chunks of jewel amber, and strings of pearls. By their command, each regional branch of the royal treasury of the Indies (hacienda real de Indias), a part of their patrimony, had a heavily guarded room containing a coffer of solid wood, reinforced at the edges, bottom, and corners with iron, strongly barred, and bearing three or four locks the keys to which were held by different persons. The keepers of the keys, who had to meet to open the coffer, were the king's personal servants, with antecedents in the customs houses of Aragon and the conquests of Castile. They were called the royal officials of the treasury.
In the Indies, individual treasuries grew out of the fiscal arrangements for expeditions of conquest. The crown, as intent on collecting its legitimate revenues as on the propagation of the faith, required every conquistador to take along officers of the exchequer. A factor guarded the king's investment, if any, in weapons and supplies and disposed of tribute in kind. An overseer of barter and trade (veedor de rescates y contrataciones) saw to commercial contacts with the natives and in case of war claimed the king's share of booty. An accountant (contador) recorded income and outgo and was the guardian and interpreter of royal instructions. A treasurer (tesorero) was entrusted with monies and made payments in the king's name. If the expedition resulted in a permanent settlement these officials continued their duties there, protecting the interests of the crown in a new colony.
There was a strongly commercial side to these earliest treasuries, supervised after 1503 by the House of Trade (Casa de Contratación) in Seville. The factor in particular served as the House's representative, watching the movement of merchandise and seeing that the masters of ships enforced the rules against unlicensed passengers and prohibited...
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