A KINGDOM OF FLOATING MARKETS

Abstract

The article studies the importance of river trade flows and inland port services in the Viceroyaltyof the New Kingdom of Granada (present-day Colombia, Ecuador, and Panama)during the late colonial period. By measuring the market size and structure of Mompox, oneof the region’s largest inland ports, the study provides materials to examine the extent ofmarket widening and deepening in Caribbean New Granada. Based upon a broad set of taxrecords, the paper contends, first, that Mompox’s population and the provisioning of thevessels that docked in the port promoted consumption linkages that intertwined a far-flungset of supply nodes along the waterways of the viceroyalty. Second, the paper argues thatriver traffic propelled the clusterization of a wide array of economic activities that had furthermultiplier effects on the region’s economy. Finally, the article uses unexplored pricedata to provide some tentative hypotheses on the mechanisms through which export-ledgrowth encouraged interregional river trade on the eve of colonial collapse.