Mexico.
In the late eighteenth century the collection of provinces and territories that in 1821 would declare independence from Spain and become the Republic of Mexico began a long struggle to become a modern, liberal—racially, socially, and politically inclusive—nation. In the 1760s a new, enlightened dynasty, the Bourbon—which had replaced the distinctly unenlightened Habsburg dynasty in 1713—began to redesign the relationship between Spain and its colonies. In the liberalized mercantilism of the age, colonies were to be administered more efficiently and were to be understood as regions in which economic productivity should be encouraged and promoted so long as it complemented the mother country's own economic interests. To this end, in Mexico the Bourbon stimulated silver production by lowering taxes and promoted agricultural productivity by regularizing tax collection, improving transportation, and opening up commerce to virtually all merchants, rather than enforcing the mercantile monopolies of the past.... ...
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