This article provides an outline of the currency of Spanish America (las Indias, the Indies) from Spanish colonization in the 15th century until Spanish American independencies in the 19th. This great realm was divided into the Viceroyalty of New Spain (capital: Mexico City), which came to include all Spanish territory north of Panama, the West Indies, Venezuela, and the Philippines, and the Viceroyalty of Peru (capital: Lima), which included Panama and all Spanish territory in South America except Venezuela. The monetary system of Spanish America, originally identical to that of Spain, soon diverged and took on a distinctive character of its own, which it passed on to the independent nations that followed after.
1480–1516 Ferdinand and Isabella
1497 Medina del Campo Real (R) = 34 Maravedíes (mrs)
After the Spanish kingdoms were united under Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile and soon after the conquest of Granada, the Spanish monetary system was reformed. This caused some damage to the kingdom. The maravedí had served as the Spanish money of account since the 11th century, but on June 2, 1497 the Ordinance of Medina del Campo (site of the great international fairs) made the real the unit of account, with the maravedí defined as a fraction of it (the 34th part). The standard silver coin became the real of 3·434 g, 0·9306 fine (3·195 g silver), rated 34 maravedíes. There was also a half, a 3, and a 6-real coin. This reform adopted the excelente (called ducado from 1504) for gold, a copy of the Venetian ducat, 3·521 g, carats fine (3484·442 mg gold), rated 375 maravedíes. A third standard coin was the blanca, a small coin of 1·198 g, worth half a maravedí. The blanca was a copper coin containing a trace of silver, a type of coin known as billon, wellón in Spanish. This was the monetary system that the Spaniards brought to the New World.
1502 Copper coins for Santo Domingo The first distinctive coins minted for Spanish America were copper 4-maravedí pieces authorized for Santo Domingo by Ferdinand on December 20, 1505 (later confirmed by his daughter, Johanna, on May 10, 1531). These coins were minted in Spain (at Burgos and Seville) and shipped to Santo Domingo (Hispaniola), and subsequently also to Mexico and Panama. The first were struck 1502–1504 in the name of Ferdinand and Isabella, with an F-I monogram obverse and pillars reverse. Ferdinand died in 1516, and Johanna's son Charles became King Carlos I of Aragon and Regent of Castille, so the last coppers struck in the early 1520s had a Carlos-Johanna monogram.
1516–1556 Charles I
Escudo gold Charles, who was also Holy Roman Emperor (as Karl V), reformed the gold coinage in 1537, replacing the ducado with the escudo or corona, essentially a debased ducat. The escudo, 24 mm, 3·383 g, 0·9167 fine (3101·117 mg gold), was rated 350 mrs. The ducado was not minted after 1537 but continued as a money of account (Ducado = 375 Maravedíes), especially for foreign exchange.
Tepuzque gold Charles sent silver coins to New Spain in 1523, but this was insufficient for local commerce. A sort of "coin" was produced at Mexico City: gold discs stamped with their weight and fineness and sometimes with royal countermarks. These discs are known as Tepuzque (the Aztec word for copper) gold or peso de oro. Although not strictly coins, they did serve as money and circulated as late as 1591. No examples are known to exist.
Early Pillars type silver Mexico City was growing and by 1525 it was petitioning the crown for a mint to produce coin locally in order to facilitate trade. This wish was granted by royal ordinance of May 11, 1535 and a mint opened and began producing silver coins at Mexico City in April 1536.
Type 1536 The first silver struck in the Indies (Spanish America), known as the pillar type because it depicted the pillars of Hercules, were hand struck, typically on a full-sized round planchet of even thickness. Obv.: the crowned shield of Leon and Castile, quartered with castle and lion, with the pomegranate of Granada at the point of the shield, and on either side a mintmark (M for Mexico), the rim inscribed KAROLVS ET IOHANA REGES. Rev.: two crowned columns (pillars of Hercules) with PLVS (for plus ultra) on a banner and the value (dots or a number) between them, the rim continuing the inscription with HISPANIARVM ET INDIARVM. The full inscription appears only on the larger coins, becoming more abbreviated as coins size decreases. The small quarter real has a crowned initial K without mintmark obverse (instead of the shield); the half real had the initials K I and the mintmark below. The assayer's initial appears either on the reverse between the column bases (R or G), or on the obverse in place of one of the two mintmarks (P or F).
Struck at Mexico City between 1536 and 1542, undated. Denominations:,, 1, 2, and 3 reales. (These coins are rare; perhaps only 300—400 specimens survive.) The 2 and 3-real coins were confused because of their similar size, so the 3 reales was discontinued in 1537. The real was unpopular because of its small size; it was not minted after 1540.
Type 1542 The reverse of the design was modified in 1542, when waves were placed between the two pillars and the full motto PLVS VLTRA, without a banner, appeared across the field.
Struck at Mexico City (1542–1572), Santo Domingo (1542–1564), and Lima (1568–1572); undated. Denomination: 1, 2, and 4 reales. (At least 2,500 specimens of this series survive.)
Vellón coins Vellón (copper) coins of 2 and 4 maravedíes were minted at Mexico City (and evidently at Santo Domingo 1542–1556), authorized June 28, 1542 by Viceroy Mendoza. They had K obverse and I reverse, each flanked by a lion and castle with the value under the I. They were rejected by the public, and they were withdrawn from circulation in 1556. Copper coins, which dominated currency circulation in Spain during the 17th century, were not minted again in Spanish America until the end of the 18th century. (The reason why copper coinage was not utilized in the Spanish colonies as small change is unresolved and a matter of dispute among economic historians. Royal regulations of 1565 specifically stated that neither gold nor wellón was authorized to be minted in the Indies.)
1556–1598 Philip II After Philip II ascended the throne in 1556, Mexico City continued minting type 1542 coins in the name of Charles and Johanna. Lima, however, used the inscription PHILIPVS II.
From 1565 until 1821 there was an annual galleon convoy (Galeones de Manila-Acapulco) that crossed the Pacific from Acapulco loaded with silver coin, which was exchanged at Manila in the Philippines for Oriental goods, chiefly for spices, silk, tea, porcelain, and lacquerware.
The output of the American mines was usually shipped to Spain in the form of ingots or of crude, temporary coins (known as macuquinas in Spanish and as "cobs" in English). Ingots and cobs were a way to account for the 20% (royal fifth, quinto real) of all treasure due the king.
Monetary law of 1566 The value of the escudo was raised on November 23, 1566 from 350 to 400 mrs, and multiples were introduced. The double escudo (doblón) was called a pistole in the rest of Europe and in England. The 8-escudo piece (onza de oro) was initially known as a double doubloon, then as a quadruple pistole, but eventually gained fame as the Spanish doubloon. This doubloon of 8 escudos eventually became the most common Spanish gold coin, equivalent to 16 silver pesos.
The 1566 reform also provided for a silver 8-real coin, the real de a ocho or peso duro (which had already been minted in Spain in limited number). This coin, 39–40 mm, 27·468 g, containing 25·561 g pure silver, was now struck in the Indies, at Lima from 1568 and at Mexico City from 1572. This coin was commonly known in English as the piece of eight.
1572 cross type silver The new coin design of 1572 (new for America, but already being minted in Spain) is known in English as the shield or the cross type. It was known in Mexico as maquina de papalote y cruz (windmill and cross money). These were hammered coins, produced quickly, and they generally deteriorated in quality throughout the period. Most cobs were soon melted down to produce coins, jewelry, etc. But many circulated as coin, but their crude appearance invited clipping, and many were soon lightweight. Obv.: the crowned Habsburg arms, with mintmark and assayer's initial left and the value right, the rim inscribed PHILIPVS II DEI GRATIA. Rev.: the quartered arms of Castile and León inside a quatrefoil design, the dividing lines emphasized, looking like a cross, the rim inscribed REX HISPANIARVM ET INDIARVM. The inscriptions are abbreviated on the smaller coins. Minor differences in design detail can be ascribed to a specific mint.
Struck at Mexico City 1572–1734, Santo Domingo 1572–1578, Lima 1572–1650, La Plata 1573–1574, Potosí 1574–1650, Panama 1580–1582, Cartagena (Colombia) 1622–1650, and Bogotá 1622–1650. This was the first New World type to be struck in the 8-real denomination. Denomination: 1, 2, 4, and 8 realesShaw, W.A. (1896, reprinted 1967), The history of currency 1251 to 1894: being an account of the gold and silver moneys and monetary standards of Europe and America, together with an examination of the effects of currency and exchange phenomena on commercial and national progress and well-being, New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, reprinted by Augustus M. Kelley, pp. 319–344, LC 67·20086 .
1598–1621 Philip III Trade with the Far East and bullion shipments to Spain required ever greater quantities of processed silver. The demand for quantity led to ever poorer workmanship during the 17th century, so that coins were struck on crude pieces of silver. These roughly made lumps of silver, irregular in shape and thickness but of standard weight and fineness, conveniently served as temporary coins (macuquina or "cobs").
Philip III continued with the shield type of 1572 (inscribed PHILIPVS III), also in denominations of 1, 2, 4, and 8 reales. Mexico City coins were dated from 1607. Potosí, where the position of mint assayer was auctioned off to the highest bidder, only began dating coins in 1617, after a scandal involving an illegal debasement of the cob coinage (1610–1617). The dates were added to the obverse inscription, but because of the irregular shape of a cob, they are rarely legible.
Philip III unleashed the era of wellón in Spain in 1599, when his government attempted to remain solvent by authorizing wellón of pure copper. It was at this time that the flood of silver from Mexico and Peru peaked. The different kinds of coin—gold, silver, and wellón—had circulated at par since 1497, but heavy issues of wellón above its intrinsic value destroyed its customary acceptance at par, and began driving silver out of circulation. By 1620 accounts in Spain were being kept in reales of wellón, no longer in silver reales.
1621–1665 Philip IV
Coinage in Spain The output of wellón in 1621–1626 was prodigious. Since 1599 over 15 billion maravedíes worth of wellón had been minted. Silver was constantly at a premium, and prices rose sharply. Then the influx of silver began declining in the 1630s as more silver was retained in America for colonial needs.Bischoff, William, editor 1989. The Coinage of El Perú, New York: American Numismatic Society.
Coinage in America