It is important when studying the process of these reforms, particularly the economic reforms, that one pays close attention to where the money being generated is going. Much of it went to the creole elites in the cities, and to bureaucratic elites, and to the Spanish treasure in the Americas. Wealth being generated was not being redistributed to lower classes. This coupled with a general increase in regulations and obligations, especially for the indigenous, contributed to a societal foundation that was untenable for the plebeians of colonial Spanish-American society.