Slavery and Emancipation in Argentina

The argument that neutral trade served as “as a preservative of the Spanish Empire” (13) would benefit from more engagement with scholars who have shown that the policy also fostered rebellion. For instance, Cristina Soriano’s recent book Tides of Revolution (2018) convincingly shows how subversion grew in colonial Venezuela, due in part to revolutionary ideas and printed materials that arrived on foreign merchant ships. This book would benefit from greater engagement with those factors, as neutral trade appears to have both spread revolutionary ideas and mitigated revolutionary energy.