Oceanic Commerce and Platine Merchants, 1796-1806: The Challenge of War

The creation of the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata in 1776 by Charles III of Spain and his Edict of Free Commerce two years later brought unprecedented commercial prosperity to the port cities of Buenos Aires and Montevideo. Unlimited trade was now allowed between this region of South America and Spain. Exports—mainly silver from Alto Perú and pastoral products from the pampas—flowed in ever greater volume to the Iberian Peninsula. In return, merchants of the estuary received from Spanish commercial houses European manufactures and luxury items. This trade which spanned the South Atlantic depended upon a complex web of credit and merchant associations between the Old World and the New, and also upon the unobstructed traffic of Spain's merchant marine. In the 1780s and early 1790s with the Empire at peace Platine commerce contributed to both government revenues and the growth of a dynamic immigrant merchant community recently arrived from northern Spain. By 1794 the booming trade of the new viceroyalty justified the creation of the Real Consulado de Buenos Aires, essentially an official merchants guild to regulate the business affairs of this region.