Investment strategies of the merchants of Mexico: The founding of chaplaincies at the end of the 18th Century

Abstract

This paper analyzes how Mexico city merchants used mass chaplaincies as a strategy for social reproduction
and to fund their business networks during the last decades of the 18th century. On the one hand, we investigate
how such pious establishments allowed prominent members of the Consulado (Merchant›s guild) to
sponsor ecclesiastical careers for their descendants and close relatives, and to keep the heritage within the lineage,
all of which rendered important benefits. On the other, it is examined how these merchants took advantage
of the chaplaincy endowment funds to finance their businesses and to provide credit at moderate rates to
business partners of their networks, as well as to favor their own political position in the mercantile corporation
and before royal authorities.