Islanders and Empire examines the role smuggling played in the cultural, economic, and socio-political transformation of Hispaniola from the late sixteenth to seventeenth centuries. With a rare focus on local peoples and communities, the book analyzes how residents of Hispaniola actively negotiated and transformed the meaning and reach of imperial bureaucracies and institutions for their own benefit. By co-opting the governing and judicial powers of local and imperial institutions on the island, residents could take advantage of, and even dominate, the contraband trade that reached the island's shores. In doing so, they altered the course of the European inter-imperial struggles in the Caribbean by limiting, redirecting, or suppressing the Spanish crown's policies, thus taking control of their destinies and that of their neighbors in Hispaniola, other Spanish Caribbean territories, and the Spanish empire in the region.
En las primeras décadas del siglo XVII, los importantes cambios socioeconómicos ocurridos en La Española produjeron mudanzas sustanciales en las relaciones raciales entre los habitantes blancos y los de ascendencia africana, tanto esclavos como libres. La élite española en la isla comenzó a asignarles nuevas responsabilidades a los trabajadores esclavizados, incluyendo su uso en conflictos contra otros miembros de las élites locales, ataques violentos e intentos de asesinato. Por su parte, los afrodescendientes libres intentaron sacar provecho de sus puntuales colaboraciones con las élites para hacer prosperar sus propios intereses personales y comunitarios. No obstante, estos hombres y mujeres se enfrentaron a reacciones feroces y a menudo violentas por parte de la población blanca si de alguna manera desafiaban su posición subordinada en la sociedad colonial.
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