Assembling an Imperial Machine: Spanish Commercial Reform in the Age of Enlightenment

During the eighteenth century, Spanish statesmen pursued a set of ambitious imperial reforms that thoroughly remade conceptualizations of empire.They compared well-ordered empires to harmonious machines and devised a comprehensive plan to liberalize and integrate the imperial economy.The main initiative to emerge from this economic plan was a commercial policy that contemporaries called comercio libre, which entailed replacing the traditional fleets and galleons with a new system of free trade within the empire.The men who designed this new imperial vision became convinced that the pursuit of markets, rather than military power alone, was the key to succeeding in a modern commercial society.Unlike their European counterparts, who remained keenly interested in international trade, Spanish ministers focused on integrating Spain's vast imperial economy.In their minds, the Hispanic world could become an integrated and self-sufficient microcosm of the global economy, which would enable the