The Temptations of Trade: Britain, Spain, and the Struggle for Empire

The development of mercantile and personal relationships in the context of the centuries-long imperial rivalry between Spain and Britain

The British and the Spanish had long been in conflict, often clashing over politics, trade, and religion. But in the early decades of the eighteenth century, these empires signed an asiento agreement granting the British South Sea Company a monopoly on the slave trade in the Spanish Atlantic, opening up a world of uneasy collaboration. British agents of the...