Cartas, información e instrucciones : la gestión de rentas y asientos por hombres de negocios portugueses en la Corona de Castilla (siglo XVII)

This article aims to study the role played by letters as essential tools for the management of business during the Early Modern Period. Letters allowed both to receive and to circulate information regarding the economic, political and diplomatic factors having influence on the success, or failure, of commercial and financial activities. By analyzing the letters sent to Francisco Lopes Capadoce, a Portuguese New Christian businessman, this article seeks to assess the utility of such letters in overseeing the financial contract signed by Capadoce in 1652 with the Castilian Royal Treasure: the tax farm monopoly over the salt mines of inland Andalusia, which included an asiento for providing 40.000 escudos to the Spanish Low Countries