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I’m trying to understand the fiscal strain on the colony. Around the year 1800, roughly what percentage of locally generated revenues in Venezuela was being siphoned off to the royal treasury in Spain?

My research on the economic roots of independence movements requires hard data on colonial extraction. I've found qualitative accounts of resentment over remittances, but I need a credible numerical figure—even a range—for the proportion of local income that was not reinvested locally but sent to the royal coffers. This is key to modeling the colonial economic relationship.

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By Antario Answered 1 year ago

Based on my work with the records of the Real Hacienda, providing a single precise percentage is difficult due to fluctuating revenues and varied local exemptions. However, from the most reliable studies, particularly by historians like John Lynch and Manuel Lucena Salmoral, the consensus is that a staggering two-thirds to three-quarters of official treasury revenues were typically remitted. This wasn't just a tax on profit; it was a direct drain on capital that could have been used for local development, a fact bitterly resented by the Creole elite and a fundamental cause of the fiscal crises that fueled independence sentiments.

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