Mercados en asedio: El comercio transfronterizo en el norte central de México (1821–1848) by Ignacio del Río (review)

Ignacio del Río’s Mercados en asedio (Market’s Under Siege) examines the role of transborder trade between North-Central Mexico and the United States between 1821 and 1848. Mexican consumers in the borderlands became exposed to expanding US markets in the years following Mexican Independence. While many consumers enjoyed the benefits that access to US-made goods offered, del Río argues that US trade effectively placed developing Mexican markets under siege. Distant from production centers in central Mexico, Mexican border states came to trade more with the United States than with domestic markets, thereby orienting northern Mexico commercially with the United States prior to the region’s formal conquest in 1848.

Del Río divides his book into seven chapters. After examining the colonial era precedents of US and Mexican trade in the opening chapter, del Río delves into the heart of his study considering issues such as the opening of the Santa Fe Trail, US diplomacy regarding trans-border trade, and concludes with a chapter on the US–Mexican War’s impact on commerce between both nations. The book’s chapters are generally balanced and flow together nicely making Mercados en asedio worth reading in its entirety.

Then as today, smuggling played a major role in trade along the US–Mexico borderlands, and del Río rightly devotes a chapter of his book to illicit flows. While few things other than silver were prohibited for export by Mexican law, both the United States and Mexico depended on trade taxes for state and national revenue, and these trade taxes in turn prompted smuggling through tariff evasion. Rather than focus on the mechanics of smuggling or its significance to consumers on the borderlands, del Río explores the consequences of illicit trade on Mexican domestic industries. Tariffs, although intended to protect domestic industry, failed to do so in the midst of inadequate Mexican customs enforcement and the sheer popularity of US goods among Mexican consumers. The flood of well-made and affordable foreign products undermined incipient Mexican industry, particularly in textiles, and contributed to long-standing dependence on imports and underdevelopment of domestic production in Mexico.

Mercados en asedio is deeply in-tune with the scholarship on nineteenth-century Mexican economic and US–Mexico borderlands history, with standard texts such as those by Richard Salvucci and David J. Weber routinely referenced. These references, however, make the omission of Andrés Reséndez’s Changing National Identities at the Frontier (2005) curious. Although not as focused on identity as Reséndez, del Río’s work parallels Reséndez’s examination of trade between the United States and Mexico in the first half of the nineteenth century, particularly in regard to the role of the Santa Fe Trail, and Mercados en asedio should be in conversation with Reséndez’s earlier work. Despite this oversight, del Río’s book stands on its own as a significant work on Mexico’s frontier economy.

It is often said that the US flag follows American trade. Del Río’s book offers a compelling examination of unfolding economic imperialism preceding literal colonization and conquest. Moreover, del Río’s history helps place underdevelopment in the Mexican borderlands in context as a consequence of disparities between neighboring competing markets. Well researched in archival sources, the book further illuminates the peripheries of Mexican economic histories, which focus on the Mexico City core. Several maps provide readers with images of important cities and trade routes considered in the text and are helpful especially for those unfamiliar with the region. Informative and interesting, Mercados en asedio should not be passed up by scholars interested in the economic history of the US–Mexico borderlands.