Counter-Contraband in Spanish America Handicaps of the Governors in the Indies
Royal officials of the Indies found the contraband trade one of the most critical and debilitating problems in their administration of Spanish America. Contraband existed throughout the colonial period, despite occasional strenuous efforts to stamp it out. Various ideas have been advanced to explain the failure of Spanish counter-contraband in America, and these largely reflect on the quality of Spanish administration of the Indies. The implication is that governors and royal officials were generally guilty of corruption, of passive or active connivance in the contraband trade, or, at the very least, of incompetence or inefficiency in preventing it.