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This special issue investigates how in the times of war, political turmoil, and disruption of commercial practices during the Age of Revolutions two centuries ago, merchants appear as demiurges of a new order. This is part of a polycentric reading of epochal transformations that does not deny the primacy of politics and military power in establishing relations of force, but which underline the complex negotiations at their base. The collection of essays looks at the profound global consequences of the fall of the Spanish American empire, particularly as they related to the decline of mercantilism and the reconfiguration of both Atlantic and inter-Pacific commerce. A crucial element in this transformation was the war economy, which had implications not only in Spanish America, but in the whole of the Hispanic world and beyond. Global merchants or businessmen —foreigners and Hispanic— strategically located in the Hispanic World, whose networks and affairs linked Europe, Asia and the Americas, worked within the vacuum created by the crisis of the Spanish monarchy in what was a fluid and foundational moment. The essays investigate how the Napoleonic Wars and the Wars of Independence against Spain accelerated the emergence of new actors, practices, rules and commercial circuits, by analyzing the personal and business networks that built, redefined and renegotiated the role of Hispanic America in the global economy. This prosopography of merchants thus shows trajectories through which, despite infinite difficulties, global and transregional merchants appear as one of the maieutic forces in the birth of the modern world.

Early modern connections between the Pacific shores of the Spanish Empire have been assessed in previous studies and yet, studies on the subsequent developments during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries are scant. This particularly applies to the consequences of the commercial developments at the end of the Manila Galleon and the collapse of the Spanish Empire in America. Through the analysis of the professional networks of Francisco Xavier de Ezpeleta, and Juan Nepomuceno Machado, which stretched from Asia to Mexico at the time, this paper proposes some preliminary conclusions about trans-Pacific links. It focuses on the study of networks and connections, and builds upon archival sources — mostly from the Jardine Matheson Archive, in Cambridge. In the transition from the eighteenth to the nineteenth centuries, actors who made up Hispanic trading networks in what remained of the crumbling Spanish Empire, reorganised to benefit from opportunities as mercantilist limitations came to an end. In so doing, by the 1820s, Hispanic traders allied with the forebears of the British firm of Jardine, Matheson & Co., and controlled the resulting networks. This paper points to Hispanic trans-Pacific connections during the development of European private trade between East Asia and the Mexican Pacific. Ties between British and Hispanic merchants are key for the analysis of the opium trade and Western imperialism in East Asia, and the development of British commercial hegemony in Latin America in the nineteenth century.

En este texto analizamos la presencia española en el comercio cantonés y, por extensión, de Asia oriental, una presencia no tan singular, heredera de actividades previas y en interacción con individuos, redes y corporaciones de otras nacionalidades. Identifica sus vínculos con el imperio español –con la plata, y con el crédito y productos filipinos–, además del protagonismo de individuos –predominantemente vascos–, con sus redes en el Índico y el Pacífico, así como destaca el papel de la desconocida Compañía de Filipinas. Asimismo, señala el protagonismo de la economía filipina en Asia, enfatizando su conexión con el negocio del opio y el comercio cantonés, fruto de las iniciativas criollas filipinas tras el fin del Galeón de Manila. Detallando intereses conjuntos de españoles y británicos –principalmente escoceses–, además, la tesis apunta hacia las recientes redefiniciones del “Canton system”, que ponen de relieve el predominio de la colaboración, más que de la confrontación, en su desarrollo. This text analyses the Spanish presence in Cantonese trade and, by extension, in East Asia. It was not such an exceptional presence and was the result of previous activities and interaction with individuals, networks and corporations of other nationalities. It identifies links with the Spanish empire (with silver, Philippine credit and products), in addition to the leading role of certain individuals (mainly Basques) with their networks in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It also highlights the role of the unknown Royal Philippine Company. Likewise, it spotlights the leading role of the Philippine economy in Asia, emphasising its connection with the opium business and Cantonese trade, as a result of Philippine Creole initiatives following the end of the Manila Galleon. Detailing common Spanish and British (mainly Scottish) interests, the article also makes reference to recent redefinitions of the “Canton System”, which highlight the predominance of collaboration, rather than confrontation, during its development.