Building the King's Highway

Building the King’s Highway is a welcome addition to the historical literature on colonial Mexico specifically and Latin America in general. Very little has been published in English concerning the construction and maintenance of Mexico’s caminos reales. Hence, this well-crafted study helps to fill this void and perhaps will lead others to build on this very important topic.According to his purposes and the available documentary sources, Castleman first pinpoints the two highway branches that connected Veracruz to the viceregal capital. One linked Jalapa and Perote to Mexico City, while the other did the same for Córdoba and Orizaba. Then the author surveys the history of the camino real extension from Mexico City to Toluca. Castleman soundly observes the increased importance of Mexico’s highway system to viceregal officials by the mid–eighteenth century. During this era, military concerns appeared at the forefront of this new emphasis on roads (especially those connected to Veracruz) and other public works. Remarkably, the author never mentions the importance of don José de Gálvez, who was alarmed by the deplorable condition of the road that led from Veracruz to the viceregal capital while he was an official visitador.Castleman nevertheless offers the reader a balanced and succinct analysis of the thoughts surrounding the Veracruz camino real among the military and civil authorities of colonial Mexico. Mexican colonial officials (especially viceroys), as time progressed beyond the mid–eighteenth century, increasingly emphasized the commercial rather than military aspects of the principal caminos reales. Such notable viceroys as Carlos Francisco de Croix, the second conde de Revillagiedo, the marqués de Branciforte, and Miguel José de Azanza all pushed for improvement of the roadway to Veracruz and to the “breadbasket of Mexico,” Toluca. Colonial authorities as well had to contend with a number of obstacles in the execution of these efforts: specifically, funding and labor shortages. Moreover, they had to deal with rivalries among various interest groups. In the case of the viceroy Branciforte, he had to select between two competing branches for the road leading from Mexico City to Veracruz. The Veracruz consulado supported a link through Jalapa, while their Mexico City counterparts pressed for a branch through Orizaba and Córdoba. In the end, Branciforte decided upon the proposal advocated by the Mexico City consulado. Even with pressure to complete both routes by later viceroys, neither one was completed by the end of Spanish rule.The real meat of this cogent study rests with those who designed, constructed, and maintained these caminos reales. Here Castleman introduces the saga of some of the “military engineers” who supervised these projects. In this arena, further amplification and clarity is needed; not all “military engineers” were the same. This point has been succinctly explored by Janet R. Fireman, The Spanish Royal Corps of Engineers in the Western Borderlands (Arthur H. Clark Co., 1977), and José Antonio Calderón Quijano, “Ingenieros militares en Nueva España,” Anuario de Estudios Americanos 6 (1949): 1 – 71. In this regard, Castleman should have consulted additional sources in the Servicio Histórico Militar Museo Naval and the Biblioteca Nacional de Madrid. While Manuel Agustín Mascaró (who was the director of the Toluca project) was a member of the elite Royal Corps of Engineers, Diego García Conde was an ingeniero voluntario and not a member of the corps.Clearly one of the highlights of this present volume is the author’s analysis of the lives of those who toiled on these roadways, and it is likely to spur further research. Castleman found in his research that the abandonment of labor drafts during the mid – eighteenth century and the use of a free wage system did not end recurrent labor shortages. While common road laborers seldom saw any construction project to completion, the opposite was true of skilled artisans. Castleman indicates in this arena, for instance, that stonemasons are listed more frequently in the weekly reports that he researched. Several arguments exist to explain this phenomena; however, the most important is that while rural workers might need a source of ready cash, craftsmen were integrated more fully into Mexico’s nascent capitalist economy.The last section of the book deals with the evolving social structure of Orizaba. We find, according to the author’s analysis, that occupation and wealth, rather than race, played the dominant role in social status and advancement in Orizaba by 1791. Many of those designated as mestizo in 1777 were labeled españoles in 1791. Did the road branch through Orizaba cause a change in the town’s social structure? Yet Castleman offers no answer to this question. To this reviewer, this section seems out of place, as it has little to do with caminos reales. Yet, this criticism aside, Castleman’s engaging work is likely to become an essential read for any scholar or student of Latin American history

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