PhD thesis defence by Pablo Cañón García
During the Union of the Crowns of Portugal and Castile (1580–1640), commerce across the Iberian Atlantic intensified within a political structure that formally preserved the autonomy of both kingdoms while generating new forms of interaction between their institutions and economic actors.
This study examines how merchants and their associates operated within this composite imperial framework and analyses the ways in which their commercial ties adapted to shifting jurisdictions, wartime disruptions, and competing regulatory regimes. By following individuals engaged in trade between Brazil, West Central Africa, Spanish America, northern Europe, and Iberian ports, the research reconstructs how personal partnerships, credit arrangements, and cross-regional intermediaries sustained commercial activity across vast distances.
My analysis focuses on the evolution of the institutional and legal environments in which traders operated. It assesses the practices of bodies such as the Casa de Contratación, the Consulado de Comerciantes, the Consejo de Indias, and their Portuguese counterparts, and shows how their policies intersected with the interests of merchants seeking to navigate prohibitions, embargoes, and jurisdictional overlaps. Particular attention is paid to how individuals used dispersed collaborators to manage risk, defend their claims before multiple authorities, and move goods and information between circuits officially kept separate. By foregrounding commercial contracts, litigation, and administrative investigations rather than inquisitorial trials, the study offers a revised picture of early modern Iberian governance. It argues that the functioning of the Iberian Atlantic relied less on rigid central control than on continuous negotiation between merchants and institutions operating within a legally plural and polycentric imperial order.
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