Honduras Company

Honduras Company, a trading enterprise established by the Spanish monarchy. The Honduras Company (La Compañía de Comercio de Honduras) was chartered by the Spanish king, Philip V on 25 January 1714, as one of the earliest of the Bourbon Reforms. It granted the marquis of Montesacro an exclusive license to trade with Honduras; but only one trading expedition, from Cádiz, was ever made, and the Honduras Company ceased to exist after its return to Spain in 1717. It launched, however, a pattern of more liberal trade policies to follow, notably with the establishment of the Caracas Company in 1728, the Havana Company in 1740, two Guatemalan companies in 1750–1756, and the passage of the Free Trade Act of 1778. Such trading companies were established to engage in officially regulated commerce with limited geographic regions, thus beginning the breakdown of the Seville-Cádiz merchant monopoly.

See alsoHavana Companyxml .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Roland Hussey, The Caracas Company, 1728–1784: A Study in the History of Spanish Monopolistic Trade (1934).

Carmelo Sáenz De Santamaría, "La Compañía de Comercio de Honduras, 1714–1717," Revista de Indias 40 (1980): 129-157.

Luis Mariñas Otero, Honduras, 2d ed. (1983).

Additional Bibliography

Arazola Corvera, Ma Jesús. Hombres, barcos y comercio de la ruta Cádiz-Buenos Aires, 1737–1757. Sevilla: Diputación de Sevilla, 1998.

Cavieres Figueroa, Eduardo. Servir al soberano sin detri-mento del vasallo: El comercio hispano colonial y el sector mercantil de Santiago de Chile en el siglo XVIII. Valparaíso: Ediciones Universitarias de Valparaíso de la Universidad Católica de Valparaíso, 2003.

Fisher, John Robert. The Economic Aspects of Spanish Imperialism in America, 1492–1810. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1997.

Martínez Shaw, Carlos, and José María Oliva Melgar. Sistema atlántico español: Siglos XVII-XIX. Madrid: Marcial Pons Historia, 2005.

Romano, Ruggiero. Mecanismo y elementos del sistema económico colonial americano, siglos XVI-XVIII. México: El Colegio de México, Fideicomiso Historia de las Américas: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2003.

Vila Vilar, Enriqueta, and Allan J. Kuethe. Relaciones de poder y comercio colonial: Nuevas perspectivas. Sevilla: Escuela de Estudios Hispano-Americanos: Texas Tech University, 1999.

                                     Jeffrey D. Samuels