For all the passing mentions of its importance in colonial historiography, contraband trade has been remarkably little studied. In recent years, however, several historians have started to fill this void. The latest book discussing the subject focuses on coastal New Granada. In The Political Economy of Smuggling, Lance Grahn uses 740 case reports of illicit trade to reconstruct the dynamics of New Granada’s “informal” economy and its links to the official economy.

Grahn argues that in the first half of the eighteenth century New Granada was one of the main smuggling areas in Spanish America. Contraband trade was so widespread in New Granada that attempts to control it were mostly in vain and only resulted in depleting the provincial and royal treasuries. In Riohacha, the money spent on combating illicit trade almost equaled treasury revenue, and in New Granada as a whole the expense of curbing illicit trade was 6.6 times as high as income derived from seized contraband. The authorities did not succeed in enlisting the support of the citizenry in this battle; indeed, many an official became implicated in contraband trade.

The pervasiveness of smuggling obviously worried the crown, inducing the king to create the viceroyalty of New Granada in 1719, in a move to improve Spanish governance and check illegal commerce. This measure proved a fiasco. The inaugural viceroy, Jorge Villalonga, was soon co-opted by the local elites and became deeply involved in contraband activity himself.

Smuggling was not the prerogative of a small elite. Parts of New Granada were serviced so poorly from Cádiz that numerous residents were forced to participate in unofficial transactions. At one point, the governor of Riohacha observed that its residents (presumably Spanish and creole) were lacking in clothes and other everyday necessities. Still, although contraband trade crossed many social lines, the common experience of defying metropolitan rules was no guarantee of social cohesion. At least in Cartagena, officials usually targeted nonelite groups whenever they decided to show their loyalty to the crown and carry out its instructions, if only for the sake of appearance, by confiscating contraband and punishing its traffickers.

In Riohacha province, where the Spanish presence was weak at best, smuggling was allowed to develop almost unchecked. Lucrative transactions with foreigners helped the unsubdued Guajira Indians, who constituted the vast majority of the local population, to sustain their struggle against Spanish arms. Just how lucrative remains to be seen. One public official, quoted by Grahn, claimed that the goods smuggled into the province around 1740 were worth 3 million pesos; this estimate seems to be too high, and it certainly does not square with the data available on the commerce of Curasao, the main trading partner of the Guajirans.

Another point concerns the Guajirans’ role in long-distance trade. The commodities obtained from Jamaica and Curaçao were apparently re-exported to markets as far away as Antioquia, Bogotá, Popayán, and Quito. Such connections are mentioned once or twice, but given their significance a more thorough examination would have been desirable.

These are small reservations about a carefully crafted and important book that should attract the attention of colonial historians as well as students of today’s informal economies.