Free Trade in the Spanish Empire

Free trade was not really free trade the way we mean it to day. This is all still rooted in mercantiles theories of a closed imperial trading system. The crown itself had a monopoly on all tobacco trade, from the prices paid to farmers to the prices charged to consumers. But though this was not ideal, it did do a much better job rationally allicating economic resources. It cut mightily into the contraband trade, which had always made a fortune and avoided a fortune in spanish taxes by filling the inevitable gaps in the old closed off system.