The Bourbon Reforms Worked

Bourbon policy almost always sided with the private landowner who was encroaching on the communal claims of a village. In some places, haciendas grew to absurd size. There was one down between mexico city and acapulco that grew to fully 500 thousand acres. The bourban administrators o did their best to actually start investing in roads and infa structure. But more importantly, they introduced the commercio libre which gave the principal ports of the spanish empire the right to trade directly with each other.