Between empires: notes on borderland and smuggling of enslaved people in the 18th century Colonia del Sacramento

Abstract

In the geographical and historical region of Rio de la Plata, characterized as a borderland space, the illegal trade of enslaved people took place widely in the Early Modern World. We intend to analyse the relationship between Colonia del Sacramento, a Portuguese trading post in the region, with the Plata borderland and with the empires that disputed it, the Portuguese and the Spanish, through the smuggling committed there in the 18th century. We will try to discuss how illegal trade operated, with Colonia del Sacramento as a point of interconnection of commercial relations between the two empires. Our purpose is to understand smuggling and its impacts on the region, showing how the illicit trade was part of the daily life of that borderland and how it connected the people who lived there to commercial circuits on a global scale.