The smugglers' world: illicit trade and Atlantic communities in eighteenth-century Venezuela

Prologue

Introduction : community from criminality

Old habits : commercial neglect and peripheral innovation in early Venezuela

Socialized into smuggling : the consumer culture of the black market

New cures : the Caracas Company, the crown, and commercial control

Networking statelessness in a bordered world : foreign smugglers

The societal ties of smuggling : Venezuelan merchants

"Men of good will who will harm no one" : Venezuelan officials

Contrabandists or cargo? : People of color, smuggling, and the illicit slave trade

The political power of covert commerce : the rebellion of Juan Francisco de León, 1749-1751

Conclusion : altered states.