Panel discussion

The creation of an administrative structure for the early Spanish empire meant the relocation of officials from one locale to another, a pattern that, like the migration and mobility of private individuals, both integrated networks that originated in Spain and expanded their reach and purpose. The movement of officials from one site to another in the Spanish empire provided the opportunity both to maintain and modify old loyalties and to chart varying paths of career advancement that nonetheless conformed to the bounds set by empire and crown. Although in such arenas as commerce (legal and illegal), maritime life, the various entities of the church (especially male religious orders), or acquisition of citizenship and rights to residency the permeability of the Spanish empire was manifest from an early time, office-holding and the composition of the bureaucracy remained conservative and limited. It was not until quite late that administration itself began to reflect areas of openness similar to that found in other aspects of imperial life, as seen during the Bourbon period with such developments as the integration of French citizens into municipal government in Louisiana and efforts to emphasize merit over birth and status in New Spain and elsewhere that allowed individuals partially of African and even indigenous descent to enter into bureaucratic positions, foreshadowing post-independence liberal policies regarding citizenship and broader political participation. I would suggest, then, that the question of permeability and entanglement in the Spanish empire needs to be considered both within and between particular sectors and sites that comprise a spectrum or rough progression, with commerce and port cities at one end (open, flexible, penetrable) and administration and bureaucracy at the other (relatively closed but internally fluid and performing similar functions of integration and change).