The commercial boom experienced by cotton during the early decades of the 18th century prompted many of the Zoque, Mixe, and Nahua towns inhabiting the colonial provinces of the Sotavento coast to specialize in producing this fiber—perhaps more accurately, they revived a crop cultivated in the region since pre-Hispanic times. While cattle raising, along with ixtle and cacao, were the goods that stimulated the integration of southern Veracruz into the New Spanish trade networks from the late 16th century, the economic importance of cotton from 1710—during a favorable period of demographic recovery in the native republics—decisively shaped the social and economic history of the region and its connections with other parts of the empire.
In this paper, I aim to reconstruct the political, social, and economic processes experienced by the native republics in their efforts to ensure their survival and defend their autonomy, while also exploring the mechanisms through which the production of Indian and mulatto populations participated in the trade networks of the time. I hope that this analytical approach will contribute to contemporary historiographical debates on issues such as the historical agency of so-called “subaltern groups”; the norms and agreements governing access to natural resources; the interplay of scales in historical research; and the persistence of colonial narratives in accounts of the past.

The Tehuantepec region was considered strategic since the 16th century. In the Geographic Relations of 1580, it was described as “one of the main borders of this New Spain because it is a seaport, and the passageway to the provinces of Guatemala and Peru, and the province of Chiapa and Soconusco.” It was located in the viceroyalty of New Spain, bishopric of Oaxaca.Five ethnic groups lived there in different ecosystems: Mixes, Ikoots (Huaves), Chontales, Zoques and Zapotecs. Several products were destined to the market and circulated in the obligatory circuits (the repartimiento system) and freely also. Specially, I will pay attention to the Chontal circuits, coastal towns. From various sources spanning the entire 18th century (reports, letters, complaints, sales tax.) I seek to show that despite being marginal towns, they also participated in the world economy. This work also aims to reflect on the history that is crafted from a local and regional perspective, with full awareness that the microhistory must be inserted into global processes. Ultimately, there have been several proposals to reconcile the global and the local, highlighting that of “Glocalisation”.

By the end of the 16th century, cacao had become popular among the Spanish sector in New Spain, especially after sugar was added to it. Meanwhile, the indigenous people maintained it as part of their diet within their subsistence economy. The growing demand for the product could not be satisfied by domestic production, so regions like Soconusco began sending cacao to the New Spanish market, and later Caracas and Guayaquil would do the same, both of which had maritime access to the Atlantic and Pacific. Thus, the cacao from Caracas was of better quality and therefore more expensive, while the Guayaquil cacao was more bitter and cheaper. In this context, the Antequera society, from the late 17th century to the first decade of the 19th century, became a significant center for cacao consumption. This proposal aims to analyze cacao consumption in Antequera society based on the coexistence of local production and inter-viceroyalty trade relations.

From the early years of Spanish colonization in the Americas, cochineal dye, along with precious metals, became one of the main export products to European markets. As one of the few products whose production depended entirely on indigenous knowledge, cochineal was quickly valued in the major European textile production centers for its unprecedented ability to dye fabrics a deep red, especially from the second half of the 16th century onward. Regional historiography suggests that the growing international demand caused the Puebla-Tlaxcala area, the main dye-producing center at the time, to fail to meet the needs of global trade. This was due to multiple circumstances inherent to the colonial system, such as economic coercion and the land dispossession imposed by European colonizers. This insufficiency led to a gradual diversification of production centers, with a notable shift toward centralization in the neighboring territory of Oaxaca during the first half of the 17th century. However, to this day, there remains a significant question about the reasons that, on one hand, facilitated the increase and expansion of production in Oaxaca, and, on the other hand, the consequences that the lack of production during this particular period of reorientation had on both local and international trade. During the early years of the 17th century, the significant decline in cochineal imports in Seville—at a time when the profitability of the dye trade seemed to be stagnating to the benefit of the royal treasury—raised alarms in the government in Madrid. This led to a series of investigations to clarify the reasons behind the reduction in production, which was affecting fiscal revenues on both sides of the Atlantic. Through a detailed reading of sources generated during this process on both sides of the ocean, this study reveals the details of this investigation and uncovers the multiple factors related to the places, forms of production, commercialization, and re-exportation of cochineal in local and international markets. It also suggests new hypotheses regarding the reasons that favored the concentration of production in Oaxaca from a perspective that intertwines both regional and global analysis.

Throughout the Early Modern or "colonial" period, the West Indies maintained connections with the Philippine Islands. However, there was a particular juncture when the relationship and interest of Spanish America in the Far East reached an intensity that would not be seen again until the early 19th century. This essay identifies and analyzes the main variables that fostered the West Indies' particular interest in strengthening trans-Pacific ties with the Philippines, China, Japan, and India between the last quarter of the 16th century and the first decade of the 17th century. The paper aims to demonstrate that the reorientation of Spanish America toward engaging with another key hub of early globalization occurred not only in material terms—through networks and agency—but also in discursive terms, as reflected in letters and reports by agents located in Mexico, Guatemala, Panama, and Peru. All evidence suggests that this shift in focus by the West Indies towards the East challenged the pillars that upheld the Atlantic-centered rationale for their connection with Spain.

Iberian expansion in America significantly developed the wealth of Philip IV's most outstanding Portuguese bankers. Trade and networking with other merchants and members of the Spanish administration were crucial factors in this process. Considering the activities of some of the great businessmen of the Spanish Monarchy in the first half of the 17th century helps to illustrate this. This paper intends to shed light on this topic by investigating the American connections of three Portuguese businessmen and the role these relationships played in their international economic activities. The first is Jorge de Paz Silveira, the Spanish Crown's most outstanding asentista (royal banker) in the 1640s. Finally, we will consider the case of Alfonso and Gaspar Rodríguez Pasariño, Portuguese brothers who lived in Seville and founded one of the most active trading companies in the Atlantic of that period. This study is based on different archival sources: correspondence between those men and their agents in Europe and America, financial records of the Spanish Monarchy, and Inquisitorial documentation.

This paper discusses how Dutch networks contributed to the construction of the Spanish maritime empire in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. During this period, the conflict between Spain and the Dutch Republic (the Eighty Years' War) led to the development of Spanish policies aimed at controlling—and eventually stopping—trade and migration from the Republic. However, it was precisely during this time that trade and migration from the Dutch Republic increased. This paper aims to explain why and how this was possible. The paper takes a twofold approach: on the one hand, it focuses on the group of traders who built economic networks between Spain, northern Europe, and the Americas from the second half of the sixteenth century onward. On the other hand, it concentrates on a group often overlooked by historians: foreign seamen who actively participated in both private and royal fleets, connecting the Spanish Monarchy with its overseas possessions in the Americas and the Philippines.

The paper investigates the strategies employed by Genoese investors and brokers to participate in American trade during the second half of the eighteenth century. While historians have thoroughly examined the investments of Genoese merchant-bankers within the Spanish monarchy in the 16th and 17th centuries, as well as the survival of the Genoese expatriate community in key centers of the Spanish trade, the connections they forged in the Indies and the mechanisms used to navigate such disparate markets remain underexplored. This study seeks to reconstruct these dynamics by analyzing the merchant correspondence of prominent investors from the Genoese Republic along with notarial sources. The objective is to illuminate the strategies employed by this often-overlooked minority group to cope with increasing competition, emphasizing not only the role of immigrant agents overseas, but also the importance of collaborations and kinship alliances established with the economic and political élitein the Indies, especially in Peru, New Spain, Cuba, and the Rio de la Plata.