This paper was presented February 14, 2004, at the 21st Annual CMSA Conference in San Luis Obispo, CA.

Part I - Linear Measurements
Part II - Area Measurements
Click for the preceding articles in this series on weights & measurements.

Part III in this four-part series is a discussion of medida de capacidades (cubic measures) used during colonial and mission times in California. The purpose of this article, like the previous two, is to provide charts for identification of Spanish measurements, in this case volumes or capacities, and tables for quick conversion of these measures into U.S. (SAE) and metric equivalents.

AN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE:

There was a great deal of variation and lack of standardization for the fanega, a fundamental volume measurement, as well as for all Spanish and Mexican measurements. Miguel Stampa concluded that for all of New Spain from colonial times until the late national period that "...it is foolhardy to speak of a metrological system." Examples of variations in the vara for length and fanega de sembradura for area are found in Parts I and II of this series.

Many attempts were made at establishing uniform measurements for over three centuries. (Part II, A Brief Standards History, pp. 114-16, in 2003 CMSA Proceedings.) Unfortunately, attempts by the crown and viceroys to eliminate nonconformity in the marketplace were not successful.

A significant step toward unifying measures was the legal description of instruments, containers, weights and scales. It was first made in the metrology legislation of 1620. In that year, viceroy the Marqués de Gradalcázar passed a decree establishing a repository of metrological implements in Mexico City's archive. [Stampa, p. 7.] The 1620 law set forth the rules for the general circulation and use of twelve "standards," mandated appropriate seals, and required periodic inspections for their accuracy. Exact copies of these measuring standards, maintained in Mexico City, had to be made by officials who came from the outer provinces, towns and mines. These replicas were inspected and sealed for use in their jurisdictions.

Two distinct offices were in charge of sealing and maintaining these "standards" and are mentioned in the 1620 ordinance. [Stampa, ibid.] Both the fiel contraste and fiel marcador are described as controlling offices that were in charge of weights, scales and marks and similar "sealers" of the vara and other measures. Areas of jurisdiction for the two were not well defined.

Added much later to the 1620 assemblage of standards was another important measuring tool introduced under the viceroyship of Juan de Acuóa. This was a bronze cup with the engraving "1724-25" on its outer surface. Its capacity was exactly 2 1 / 2cuartillos and fractional "cups" were manufactured over the years for wine, a very important traded commodity. A tin cuartillo, stamped with Mexico City's emblem and "99" (most likely for the year 1799), and also maintained in Mexico City’s archive, was used exclusively for olive oil, another widely traded item. [Stampa, p. 14.] Other standards for weights and measures established by the 1620 law were continually replicated, calibrated and sealed. The 1620 law was confirmed in 1667, 1687, 1720, and in 1801, and dealt out punishment for anyone who broke seals or otherwise attempted to defraud the public. Taxes, fees and periodic inspections were imposed in the later versions of the law, but the measures themselves remained virtually the same for nearly two hundred years.

For the frontier regions away from the heart of Mexico City, there was little or no metrology enforcement. During mission times, in 1775, at San Carlos de Borromeo in Monterey, Alta California, Father Junípero Serra complained of a discrepancy in the amount of grain he had ordered and received from San Blas, Mexico. The fanega/almud ratio was in question. When he received only 9 1/2 to 10 almudes to the fanega instead of the usual 12, Fr. Serra wrote a letter to officials in San Blas urging that standards be adopted for both the 1/4 and 1/2 fanegas and the 1/4 and 1/2 almudes, and that the government place seals on these as proof of their legality. Bowman states that "no reference has ever been found before 1844, as to why the capacity of the provincial fanega ever strayed beyond the 12 almudes, nor why no full fanega measure was ever suggested by Serra or ordered by any government." [Bowman, p. 319.]

In provincial California, a consistent and reliable fanega standard came about in the late Mexican period, when a decree was passed on June 25, 1844 by the Los Angeles diputación (pueblo council). A standard within its jurisdiction was established "and presumably to be enforced in all pueblos and in all parts of the province." The half or media fanega standard was firmly established in the Southwest (California), when a carefully designed container was drafted and recorded in linear dedo dimensions. Multiplied by two, it became the full fanega capacity of 1.6406 bushels or just a little over four percent larger than the 1.575 bushels mandated in the measure established in 1620. [Bowman, p. 317.] This proximateness of measurement was not always achieved in colonial times.

There were many important variations to fundamental measurements from sixteenth century Spain through to the Mexican-U.S. wars in the mid-1800s, but two measurements varied greatly over these three centuries and substantially affected commerce.

First, the vara from the 1589 Vara de Burgos (also called vara de Castilla) initially measured 32.90957 inches (later verified as 0.8359 meter) went through a series of twenty-plus definitions in the provinces of Spain and Mexico, and became 32.99206 inches during Alta California's Mission Period. U.S. Army Engineers who went into Mexico in 1846, reported in 1850 of using the Spanish/Texas vara of 33-1/3 inches. In 1851 the new surveyor general for California wrote to Washington suggesting the use of the 33 inch vara. From 1855 onward, corrections were made to bring the measurement to 33.372 inches with many variances having been noted along the way. [Bowman, pp. 327-34.]

Second, the fanega, which measured 1.575 bushels during the Burgos vara era, became 2.576 bushels in the late Mexican Period, and shrank to the 1.6406 bushels standard agreed upon in California in 1844. There were a dozen or so fanega measures that gained prominence throughout the kingdom of Spain, the empire and republic of Mexico, and in the U.S. state of California. The variations of the fanega were primarily the result of the strength of the guilds that insisted upon maintaining their own measuring standards. Their pertinacity had a profound effect on commerce during all of colonization.

VOLUME MEASUREMENTS:

Volumetric measurements in colonial times were of three types: dry, liquid and arid. The Spanish used the words dry and arid to make a distinction in non-liquid capacities. The term "arid" was used for grains (for example, maíz y trigo), the adjective indicating degrees of dryness caused by weather and climate that could be expected to affect this type of measurement.

Dry volume measurements were associated with conforming materials, such as sugar, spices, flour, etc. Dimensions were based initially on (and divisors of) the fundamental linear length, the Burgos vara of 1589. This was called the "old" vara or commonly "Solomon's pace." [Stampa, p. 10.] The official Spanish measurement, a scribed metal yardstick, arrived in the New World in 1721 and in Alta California in 1803. Descriptions for Spanish and English dry measure volumes were similar. Linear measures were simply cubed. For instance, the inch cubed, foot cubed, etc. had similar Spanish descriptions, though different values, in the cúbica pulgada, cúbico pie , etc. Other useful dry measurements at the time were the cúbica vara, cúbica brazada (eight cubic varas) and cúbico palmo (major). Theoretically, all the linear measurements found in Table 1A-B of Part I: Linear Measurements could be cubed but only the few presented here were found to be of practical value.

Table 1A shows the most commonly used Spanish/Mexican dry measures compared to popular (but different) U.S. dry capacities. Table 1B shows useful, although not extremely large or apothecary size, U.S. dry measures. The table may be used for a quick conversion between the measures.

Liquid volume capacities had at least eleven units of measurement. Two, the pipa and barril, had several different values assigned. Liquid measures had the same problems of accuracy as did weights (Part IV: Weight Measurements). The greater the value of a unit, the less accurate the measurement became. The situation peculiar to liquid measures was that the fundamental unit of measurement, the cuartillo, and its divisor, the cántara (1:32), could be assigned different values depending on whether water, wine or olive oil was being measured. Table 2A identifies the relationship between the eleven common Spanish/Mexican liquid capacities and their equivalents in (U.S.) cubic inches and gallons, and in (metric) liters. Table 2B shows useful, although not extremely large or apothecary size, U.S. liquid measures. The table may be used for a quick conversion between the measures.

Arid volumes had at least seven units of measurement. Two of these, the carga and fanega , and one other by association, the almud/fanega ratio (12:1), had, some believe, the misfortune of having identical names as those used for areas (Part II) and weights (Part IV). The naming convention, however, brought about a sense of continuity by association across the measurement spectrum. Using corn as an example, we see that the fanega used as a weight, a fanega de maíz (pound), could be contained in the volume fanega de maíz (bushel), that covered an area called the fanega de sembradura de maíz (acre), when it was sown, grown and gathered,.

Table 3 shows the relationship between seven common and popular Spanish/Mexican arid measurements of capacity and their equivalents in U.S. cubic inches, cubic feet, and dry bushels and in liters. Also shown are a number of fanega capacity values that have been used over the centuries.

SUMMARY:

Over the three centuries of Spanish and Mexican colonial expansion, numerous ordinances were attempted, through decrees and laws, to bring about unanimity in the use of weights and measurements (i.e. invoking a metrology system). To some degree it was successful in reducing the anarchy in the market place, but throughout the waning years, including especially the Mission Period, all standards were plagued by a lack of simplicity. The authorities trying to enforce these decreed standards were unable to simplify weights and measures, having various divisors and multiples that resulted in the most illogical structure. Examples included lengths (such as vara sticks) with divisions of varying thirds, unequal fourths and twelfths, fluid containers whose sizes were different depending on whether water, wine or olive oil was being bought or sold, arid measures divided into halves, thirds and fourths, and names for measurements that were adopted to mean several different types of units (weight, volume and area).

The most uniformity for any Spanish/Mexican measurements came in definitions for volumes and capacities. Dry measures all had an integer multiple of the fundamental cúbica vara, though not with much logic. Liquid measures similarly had four multiples of the fundamental unit, the cuartillo (not oil), and arid measurements were all equal divisors or multiples of themselves with its basic unit the fanega. Hence, out of chaos came a glimmer of orderliness, most specifically for volumes and capacities.