Papel Sellado

Papel Sellado, a stamped government paper required for all legal and contractual transactions in the Spanish Indies. Initiated first in Spain in 1636, papel sellado appeared in the Indies soon after as a crown monopoly. Papel sellado needed for dispatches and edicts of viceroys and other royal officials cost twenty-four reales; contracts, wills, and deeds six reales; court documents one real; and legal instruments drawn up for the poor or Indians one-quarter real. The papel sellado not only generated income for the crown, but also, since no document was valid unless it had the proper governmental seal, provided the state a method for overseeing all legal activities and property transactions in the Indies. By 1800 sale of papel sellado produced an annual net income of approximately 40,000 pesos in Peru and 85,000 pesos in Mexico.

See alsoCurrency .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Recopilacíon de leyes de los Reynos de las Indias, 4 vols. (1681; repr. 1973), libro VIII, título XXIII, ley 18.

Fabían De Fonseca and Carlos De Urrutia, Historia general de Real Hacienda, vol. 3 (1850).

Additional Bibliography

Jáuregui, Luis. The American Finances of the Spanish Empire: Royal Income and Expenditures in Colonial Mexico, Peru, and Bolivia, 1680–1809. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1998.

Marichal, Carlos, and Carlos Rodríguez Venegas. La bancarrota del virreinato, Nueva España y las finanzas del imperio español, 1780–1810. México: El Colegio de México, Fideicomiso Historia de las Américas, Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1999.

                                         John Jay TePaske