An appetite for small change : cacao beans pieces of eight in New Spain

Abstract

In the 18th century, silver “pieces of eight,” mined and minted in New Spain under the authority of the Spanish crown, had become a universal currency in global transoceanic trade. However, enormous global demand for silver ensured that within New Spain itself, pesos were more likely to be exported than circulated locally. Instead, two alternative monies—cacao beans (the ancient currency of Mesoamerican trade) and tlacos (early modern shop tokens)—figured as “small change.” This article examines how the deployment of cacao beans as a food currency facilitated the interface of heterogeneous spheres of social and economic exchange in colonial New Spain. The economic importance of cacao to this first truly global economy thus goes far beyond its eventual consumption as a luxury commodity by European and Asian elites. Indeed, examining the use of cacao beans as “small change’ in New Spain helps to illuminate both the dual nature of money and its historical evolution as an institution of and beyond the reach of the state.