Los balleneros anglo-estadunidenses y la cuestión de la “extranjerización” del comercio peruano a fines de la época colonial, 1790-1820

Abstract

Most historians agree that the end of the Spanish commercial monopoly on the west coast of the Pacific Ocean was the result of imperial reforms in trade. From our perspective, this explanation is insufficient since it does not take into account the international treaties signed by the crown through which gave rights of navigation to ships of other nations in Spanish territorial waters. In this paper we propose that the Spanish monopoly in the Pacific was undermined by the massive intrusion of Anglo-American whalers who arrived covered by the fishing treaties of 1790 and 1795. By combining fishing with smuggling, the whalers drove, perhaps unintentionally, the collapse of systems of control of foreign commerce. The opening of the whaling traffic played, therefore, a significant role in dismantling the Spanish trade monopoly in the South American Pacific waters.