Trade and Markets: Hapsburg New Spain
The commerce of New Spain articulated several vibrant economies that spread the influence of the viceroyalty literally around the world. There was nothing like the complex system of trade and markets that characterized colonial Mexico in any other part of the Indies. The silver, dyes, sugar, hides and cacao that New Spain's traders shipped across the Atlantic contributed to the longevity of Spain's empire, the first European settlement empire in the modern era. Silverstuffed galleons sent to Manila fostered manufacturing and trade in East Asia. Foreign trade also brought prosperity to a small minority of New Spain's residents, employment and social mobility to more. Yet, exports were only the bestknown facet of Hapsburg New Spain's commerce. A diverse domestic trade also testified to the viceroyalty's wealth. This domestic trade included silver, of course, but cattle, mules and sheep, tallow, and hides flowed from the north also. They were exchanged for sugar, cotton, tobacco, as well as wheat and flour, cacao and honey, pottery and furniture, cotton and woolen fabrics from the center and south.

Puebla's ceramics and Nuevo León's wool met in the markets of the capital. Mexico City joined a north-south highway, the camino real de la tierra adentro, with an east-west highway, the camino de los arrieros, which ran from Veracruz through Mexico City and then southwest to Acapulco. The southern leg of the camino real had already reached Guatemala City in the 1550s. As more mines were discovered, the northern leg was continually extended. It eventually reached Santa Fe and Nuevo Laredo. The capital was the linchpin, "the belly of this kingdom," the largest market in the northern hemisphere. On a smaller scale, however, and assisted by credit from Mexico City, Zacatecas, Guadalajara, Oaxaca, and Puebla were the "capitals" of their own regional trading circuits.