The Gaditanian Accounting Practice and the Management Methods of a Commercial Firm in Cadiz between XVIII and XIX Centuries

Abstract

In the XVIII century, Cadiz, after having inherited from Seville the role of eminent Spanish commercial center - the main bridgehead between Europe and America -, entered into an age of remarkable prosperity (defined an authentic siglo de oro). This city, built at the extreme border of Spain, pointed out on the Atlantic shoreline and extended towards the most disparate broken off marine, has represented for a long period of time a center of world-wide traffics: it was a border between civilization and other worlds that through Cadiz entered in relation, creating a strong network of commercial relationships. Along the characteristics of the Gaditanian commercial affirmation one must consider the peculiarity of the experience of the mercantile enterprises (their organization and management, with their administrative and book-keeping techniques) that became part of an economic environment based on the activities of intermediation and the initiatives of small capacity, insufficient capitalized, but highly rimunerative. In particular, the analysis of the book-keeping activities and management has helped to widen a fundamental aspect of the commercial experience of the age. This surveying has been carried out through estimating, in general line, the evolution of the Gaditanian accounting between the XVIII and the XIX centuries; as a concrete case it is carefully examined, a company that has operated in Cadiz from the half of the 1700's: the 'Gonzalez de la Sierra' compania.