The Temptations of Trade reveals the opportunities and tensions of doing business in regions far from strict imperial control, where the actions of individuals could both connect empires and drive them to war.

The British and the Spanish had long been in conflict, often clashing over politics, trade, and religion. But in the early decades of the eighteenth century, these empires signed an asiento agreement granting the British South Sea Company a monopoly on the slave trade in the Spanish Atlantic,...