Popular and prevalent: Asian trade goods in northern New Spain, 1590–1850

Abstract

Much previous scholarship has assumed that Pacific trade goods were generally restricted to the urban centers of colonial Latin America and had little influence on the culture of interior provinces. Documentary and archeological records from remote areas of northern New Spain indicate otherwise and may serve as an example of the range of Asian trade goods elsewhere in colonial Latin America. This essay focuses upon Parral and New Mexico, showing that Asian goods-especially porcelain and textiles-reached some of the most remote areas of the viceroyalty of New Spain. Throughout the colonial era, the desire to establish and maintain a sophisticated lifestyle on the periphery seems to have been operative, with imported Asian goods as signifiers of status and prestige. Although fewer imported Asian goods may have been available in the remote northern regions than in urban areas, archeological and documentary evidence indicates their quality was equal to that of the metropoles, suggesting that daily life on the northern frontier was not as poor and isolated as previously assumed, but rather, actively participated in the international trade of the times.