Transnational Aspects of the Flemish-Dutch Trade in Europe and the Spanish World

Abstract

One of the most well-known aspects of the foreign merchants in Early Modern Spain was their leading role as actors and factors in the development of the Spanish foreign trade. However, it has not been sufficiently described the mechanisms that determined the inclusion of these merchants in the Spanish economy and society by taking into account some important questions regarding their behavior as homo economicus. In this paper there will be a historical-sociological analysis of some elements of cooperation and competition that developed in the heart of the Flemish and Dutch communities in Cadiz during the Eighteenth Century, in relation to their commercial and financial activities. These commercial agents, in addition to their social and economic integration in Cadiz through family ties, developed certain mechanisms that explain both the considerable reach of the network as well as the impact of their economic activities in a socio-geographical space that extended beyond borders, connecting Atlantic and global markets.