The flow of wealth out of New Spain to Spain

Meanwhile, back in Spain ....The Spanish government was seemingly unaware of colonial dissatisfaction. They had problems of their own. Spain was embroiled in the Napoleonic wars. To raise money to fight these wars, the Spanish government increasingly demanded more money from its colonies. Of all Spain's colonies, New Spain had the most wealth. From New Spain, Spain expected the most.

When the government of Spain found that raising taxes was not generating enough needed income to fund their wars, it decided upon a different course of action. In addition to raising taxes, the Spanish government passed the Consolidacion de Vales Reales, often called either the Consolidation decree or the Sequestration decree. The purpose of this decree was to appropriate the wealth of the Church in New Spain.

The middle class & the priesthood: What the Spanish government did not seem to realize was that the church did not have much actual money, but had its capital tied up in loans to the colonists. To pay the government of Spain, the church was forced to call in those debts.

The extremely wealthy could and did pay off their debt, but most people did not have enough capital to redeem their notes. This resulted in the seizure and forced sale at auction of many properties, the bulk of which belonged to the middle class, which was mostly made up of Criollos (Colonial born whites) and Mestizos (mixed blood Spanish/Indian). Many people lost fortunes.

Since the priests did not receive as much money from auctioned properties as they had loaned on those properties, they could not pay their debt. The priesthood was the hardest hit by the Consolidation decree. Many priests lost everything. In response, the priesthood began to act.

The priesthood had almost total control of the spread of information in the provinces. At this time, few people could read or write. Printed material was the jurisdiction of the priesthood. The local priest was usually the individual who read public announcements and governmental decrees to the population after the sermon. Therefore, the local priests could control how and when their congregations heard the news. The local priest could and did use his sermon itself to slant public opinion. The local priest was a powerful force in the community, anyway, due to caste assignment at baptismal. They were believed. Since many of these local priests had lost everything they owned, many were soon preaching the ills of the money grabbing Spaniards.

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Questions:

How did the Spanish anger the colonies in relation to the Napoleonic wars?

What did the Spanish do that angered the Church?

What class was hit the hardest by the collection of land debt? Why did the rich survive?

Why was it a mistake to anger the priests in the colonies? What did the Priests do?

Based on this information, give three reasons the colonists might be angry with the mother country (Spain).