The South Sea Company and Spain's imperial cash shortage

Why did Spain grant the South Sea Company a monopoly contract to supply enslaved people to Spanish America?

Manufacturing weakness is accepted as part of the explanation, alongside Spain's shortage of spendable government revenue despite its apparently wealthy American empire.

Weak domestic manufacturing offers part of the explanation for Spain's contract with the South Sea Company. The reply also stresses a shortage of cash available to the Spanish central government. American possessions and silver fleets could make the empire look rich on paper while many claimants took shares of the proceeds. The distinction is between the wealth associated with an empire and the money its government could actually spend.