ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the various ways that imperial competition influenced the development of Spanish and Portuguese America in the long eighteenth century. The eighteenth century began with the outbreak of the War of the Spanish Succession, whose impacts were long-lasting, both on the equilibrium between the European nations, especially the Iberian ones, and on colonial conquests. The result of the War of the Spanish Succession was that Bourbon monarchs sat on the thrones on either side of the Pyrenees. As Spanish America become more prosperous and its population expanded, demand for European goods was high and contraband traders were all too happy to meet that demand. France’s interest in the northern bank of the Amazon escalated after 1663, when the French Equinoctial Company was created, with the aim of encouraging the occupation of the Guiana region under its flag. The peace terms that ended the War of the Spanish Succession were negotiated at the Congress of Utrecht.
