Abstract
The dominant view holds that Gamboa resisted the Bourbon reforms in order to shield the economic interests of his clients and friends, the merchants of Mexico City. It was his defence of the values, practices and institutions of Derecho Indiano, more than his advocacy of the consulado's economic interests, that explains his resolve in opposing the Bourbon reforms. This chapter argues important questions about how historians have treated the Bourbon reforms. David Brading, the first historian to underscore the jurist's political significance, noted that, despite the legal and technical brilliance of his commentaries, Gamboa emerged as the political advocate of the great import houses and silver banks of Mexico City. The legal system of Spanish America also inherited from Castile a complex jurisdictional matrix. The ambitious program has rarely been analysed in the context of the larger pattern of legal change in the Spanish world in the eighteenth century.