Spain, during its long rule in Latin America, cast itself as the compulsory go-between for the rest of Europe. From the sixteenth century into the nineteenth, whatever travelled the route linking Europe to Spanish America — merchandise, news, ideas — was supposed to move through the crown, or so Spain maintained.

That arrangement did not survive the opening decades of the nineteenth century. Napoleon's invasion left the Spanish monarchy badly weakened, and the wars of independence followed directly from that loss of authority. The countries that emerged from Spanish rule then built their own connections with Europe, setting the terms themselves and making plain which European nations they preferred.