Beyond illegal, illicit, or contraband. Mapping the social life and impacts of Asian marginalia commodities in the viceroyalty of Peru throughout the eighteenth century (1700-1785).

This research project will explore the illegal and informal flow of Asia commodities into the viceroyalty of Peru throughout the 18th century, with particular emphasis on neglected products due to their marginal roles such as medicines, plants, spices, religious paraphernalia; and daily life items. Via qualitative and quantitative inquiry in Spanish and Latin American historical archives, I seek to shed light on the illicit trade networks in Asian products and the role performed by involved actors; but also, mapping the path followed by these commodities and examine their impact on the major cities of the viceroyalty of Peru (e.g., Lima, Trujillo, Huancavelica, and Potosi). Drawing on primary historical sources will allow delving into the different ramifications of informal networks that fed the arrival of Asian merchandise to Peru’s viceroyalty and examine the triggering effects of their circulation in the principal Peruvian colonial urban centres. The Spanish crown prohibited trade between the Philippines and Peru from the beginning of the Manila galleon. Although legally inconceivable, illicit trade networks nurtured this business. This illegitimate commerce increased since the last decades of the seventeenth century, especially in the early eighteenth century. Factors like the undertaking of the direct trade route between Lima, Manila, and Canton (1698–1725) and the re-exports of surplus Asian merchandise by New Spain merchants permitted such a rise. Facts such as the appearance of new suppliers’ lines of commodities (e.g., commerce interlope français); the public outcry over the contribution of viceroy Marquis of Castelldosrius on illegal trade networks; and the creation of French-Peruvian companies, with members of the tribunal of Lima as their principal partners, make the eighteenth century worthy analysing.  Nevertheless, how to trace commodities that circulated outside official records? What could help follow the life stories of Asian goods in Peruvian territory? This project will investigate public and private historical documents of actors related to the traffic of Asia merchandise and concentrate on items whose usefulness responded to the private sphere, such as health, religious devotion, or dietary habits, aspects that could reveal patterns of acculturation. The objective of focusing on items neglected by studies on illegal trade across the Pacific seeks to highlight impacts that other Asian merchandise than silks left in the roots of the colonial Peruvian society. By exploring the multiple veins of the illicit trade in Asian marginalia commodities in colonial Peru, I aim to: (a) to account for the flow of Asian articles illicitly smuggled into Peru; (b) expand understanding on the role of actors involved in illicit trade networks along with the trans-Pacific commerce; (c) to identify patterns of acculturation in colonial Peruvian societies triggered by the circulation of Asian products. This project will simultaneously explore (a) the supra-regional networks that supplied the commodities and (b) micro-histories around the flow of knowledge and the migration of skilled personnel through illegal trans-Pacific trade. Research questions will focus on the degree of complexity and connectivity of illicit trade networks between Asia and Spanish America and the socio-cultural impacts of the flow of commodities in Peruvian colonial society.