Biography
Dr. Carrasco-González has over thirty years of professional experience teaching Early Modern History at University of Cádiz (Spain) and she has researched on issues related to Spanish colonial trade, the financial instruments and the commercial agents associated with that traffic. Main topics of her research are:
- The financial instruments of trade during 17th and 18th centuries, and particularly commercial companies, loans at risk and marine insurance.
- The Spanish and foreign commercial agents settled in Spain at 18th century. She has focused the research on their economic activities, the evolution of their heritage and their insertion in international maritime traffic networks.
- The Atlantic maritime traffic at 1790-1815, especially the traffic developed between Spain and the most relevant US Atlantic ports. She recently enjoyed a fellowship in the Early American Economy and Society Program, organized by the Library Company of Philadelphia and the Historical Society of Pennsylvania and a fellowship at John Carter Brown Library in Providence.
Research
This project intends to complete the vision of the maritime traffic of the United States with Spain between 1790 and 1815: the movement of ships, the merchandise being exchanged and the agents that made it possible. It would be the culmination of the investigation that began in 2016 by adding the ports of Louisiana to the cast of US ports that traded with Spain until 1804. My interest goes beyond the simple exchange of ships and merchandise.
In this case, Louisina's special situation, having been Spanish territory, makes it a privileged observatory to analyze two very different business models. American historians have been interested in exchanges with Europe during the Napoleonic wars (Gordon Wood, 2009 Joyce Appleby 1982 George Taylor Douglas 1964 C. North 1961 James Fichter 2010) but only occasionally the different European spaces have been specifically valued (Marzagalli 2011 and McCusker 2010, Moreira 2019). Here it is proposed to provide an overview of the US interest in supply trade with Spain and simultaneously its performance as an intermediary in trade with the Spanish colonies, when the war prevented direct trade .
I will also deepen the way in which business with Spain was articulated, who were the shippers in the ports of Louisiana, who were the surcharges, the types from existing business companies and partners and how commerce was financed from there.
The documentary sources come from the Custom House and existing private correspondence in addition to the logbook, crew list, etc., and of course the very rich information provided by the notarial documentation during the Spanish period. Documents keep at New Orleans Notarial Archives, Louisiana State Museum and the Historic New Orleans Collection will be the main source of my research.