Wealth inequality in colonial Hispanic-America: Montevideo in the late eighteenth century

There has recently been renewed interest among economic historians in preindustrial inequality, but there are still few case studies on wealth inequality in preindustrial Latin America, particularly involving colonial Spanish America before 1820. This paper presents a study of wealth inequality in Montevideo, an area of the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata, in the late colonial period. This work addresses the level of wealth inequality, the composition of wealth, and its relationship with social structure in Montevideo in the late eighteenth century. It uses a data set of probate inventories and population records as its main sources, estimating a Gini index, presenting a stylized picture of the social structure, and analysing the differences in wealth between social groups in 1772–3. The main finding is that wealth inequality in Montevideo was similar to that in the English colonies of North America in 1774 and was lower than that in preindustrial economies in Europe in the same time period. Although most of this society was made up of a relatively wealthy middle class, some important assets were strongly concentrated among the elite.