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Content Enable editor Use plain text Code entry Throughout the Habsburg period hard specie continued to be scarce in the provinces. In 1655 Auditor Santa Cruz estimated that in 20 years not 20,000 pesos in currency had entered the presidio. In place of money the creoles used such expediencies as yards of cloth or fractions of an ounce of amber. [Note 25: Pedro Beltran de Santa Cruz, Havana 11/20/1655; Manuel Solana to Gov. Zuniga y Cerda, San Luis, before 5/14/1703] Wages were paid either in imported goods at high prices, in obsolete or inappropriate things the governor wanted to be rid of, or in libranzas or wage certificates that declined drastically in value and were bought up by speculators with inside knowledge. [Note 26: Gov. Joseph de Cordova Ponce de Leon, Havana, 10/6/1683; Pedro Beltran de Santa Cruz, Havana, 11/20/1655] Although two resourceful Apalaches were caught passing homemade coins of tin, Indians ordinarily used no money, but bartered in beads, blankets, weapons, twists of tobacco, baskets, horses and other livestock, chickens, pelts and skins, and cloth. Great piles of belongings were gambled by the players and spectators at the native ball games. The Spanish governors begged for some kind of specie to be sent for small transactions and suggested 7,000 or 8,000 ducats in coins of silver and copper alloy (vellon) to circulate in the Florida provinces. Where there was no money, they explained, people were put to inconvenience. [Note 27: Summary of proceedings against two counterfeiters, in Pueyo visita of 1695; Gov. Quiroga y Losada 8/16/1689; Gov. Zuniga y Cerda 10/15/1701] (Bushnell KC)

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