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   xi Acknowledgments I would not have written this book were it not for kind words spoken by the late eighteenth-century specialist Antony Higgins at the Carolina Conference at Chapel Hill in the spring of 2001. Although I hardly knew Tony, I greatly admired his work. I regret very much that we did not talk more about this project then and that now we never will. A mere chapter of my two-volume dissertation (1994) was devoted to Alonso Carrió’s exposé, but the imprint of my graduate studies and of my dissertation committee on this study is clearly visible: Cedomil Goic and Charles Fraker will readily recognize this influence. My general thinking about the eighteenth century has changed since that time, thanks to not only my colleagues in the American Society for Eighteenth Century Studies (ASECS) who teach and research the viceregal period but also to a number of graduate students at the University of Virginia, the University of Rhode Island, and the University of Massachusetts who have taken my courses in Charlottesville and Salamanca. I owe a great deal to members of the Iberoamerican Society, an ASECS affiliate, and to Karen Stolley , Pedro Lasarte, Rolena Adorno, Raquel Chang-Rodríguez, Margaret Ewalt, L. Elena Delgado, Raúl Marrero-Fente, Maureen Ahern, Ralph Bauer, and Mariselle Meléndez. A large chunk of this study was inspired by my conversations at the John Carter Brown Library with James Muldoon, whose generosity of intellect and spirit I can never repay. Other colleagues in history (Joan Bristol, Karen Racine, Lance Grahn) aided me in ways that they have probably forgotten. Colleagues at the University of Virginia, such as Richard Handler, Alison Weber, David Gies, David Haberly and Michael Gerli, each contributed to this book in different ways. I am grateful to friends and loved ones who kept me going with their love, music, color, and company: Letizia Modena, Teresa Sanhueza, María Carrión, Regina Rush, Adina Galan and Donald Breen, Elizabeth Giráldez, Diane Mulroney and Brad Ellis, and Raina O’Neal. Generous financial and logistical support for this study was provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities; the John Carter Brown Library and the John Hay Library at Brown University; the Interlibrary Loan Office, the dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, the vice president for Research and Graduate Studies, and Special Collections at the University of Virginia; and Special Collections at the Johns Hopkins University Milton S. Eisenhower Library. I am espe- xii   Hierarchy, Commerce, and Fraud in Bourbon Spanish America cially grateful to the directors, curators, librarians, and support staff at the Milton S. Eisenhower Library and at the John Carter Brown Library for their professionalism and kindness. Both of these institutions also gave their kind permission when I asked to include in this study reproductions of maps and illustrations from their holdings. I am indebted to Joan Vidal for her fine copyediting, and to Andix Indexing Associates for producing the index. Finally, I thank everyone at Vanderbilt University Press who has had a hand in this project. I am eternally grateful to my superb editor, Betsy Phillips, who had confidence in this book when my own teetered. Sue Havlish and Dariel Mayer were helpful beyond belief. Anonymous readers generously offered a wealth of feedback that has made this a better book. All opinions herein and any errors that remain are my own. Translations, too, are mine unless otherwise indicated. ...

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