![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Historians are source driven understanding their sources of information explains their interpretations. 3 Contraband trade becomes more than breaking the law indeed, how historians understand this phenomenon depends on their geo-political ideas, as does their selection of sources for such a study. When smuggling takes place in the Northern Mexican borderlands, United States historians view this as a form of weakness and a legitimation of Spain's loss of political control over this area. 2 However, whenever smuggling deals with "the other," the story is quite different. That smuggling at the center of Bostonian merchants' complaints, was not contradictory to the ideal of "liberty". The idea that the Boston Tea Party was an act of liberation against British oppression is deeply ingrained in United States history. The case of the United States combining smuggling with national heroism is instructive. Their understanding of illegal trade has changed over time, and many historians' views of colonial society in general, and smuggling in particular, is closely related to how Brazilians consider themselves.īrazil is not the only country where illegal trade was equated to national identity. 1 This problem with sources notwithstanding, historians have debated the importance of contraband trade. The reason for this is partly related to the supposed lack of documentation about this issue. No historian of colonial Brazil has devoted a book solely to the topic of contraband trade yet. Smuggling is a difficult topic for Brazilian historians. Sources and historiography: conceptualizations of contraband trade in colonial Brazil ![]()
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