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This chapter focuses on opposition to the French regime, starting with the most widespread forms of disorder (smuggling, contraband and banditry) which as in much of the rest of Napoleonic Europe were direct consequences of the emperor's incessant wars; the commercial recession in the Mediterranean that dated back to the start of the revolutionary wars; and the attempts to enforce the Continental Blockade. It examines the many faces of brigandage, highlighting the ways in which powerful landowners used brigandage as a source of profit but also to protect their own interests. This was clearly understood by General Charles Antoine Manhès in 1810-11, whose savage repression of brigandage during that time was directed primarily against the brigands' powerful accomplices, which explains why his measures attracted unusual notoriety and protest.

This brief epilogue examines the image of the fugitive slave and the utility of the fugitive slave issue. Usually depicted as a solitary traveler with a bundle, like Bunyan's pilgrim, even though many escapes in this area were of multiple fugitives. This image was less threatening than immediate emancipation and potential large scale migrations of African Americans before or during the war, when it was part of the contrabands issue. The fugitive slave issue gave border antislavery activists a practical way to resist slavery without necessarily having to take a stand on immediate abolition or emancipation. So it was a useful concept, but one that did not necessarily automatically carry with it ideas of full equality and equal rights.

Union operations along the southern coast in 1861 created opportunities for hundreds of slaves to seek freedom either on Union ships or in areas occupied by Union forces. When General Thomas W. Sherman's men occupied Port Royal, South Carolina, in November 1861, Hilton Head Island and Beaufort became refuges for hundreds of contrabands, who joined the thousands of slaves abandoned at Port Royal and the nearby Sea Islands by their white owners. Now, in effect, free, these former slaves soon became the responsibility of the government. Sherman's quartermasters also needed laborers to build roads, erect warehouses and other buildings, and construct defenses. To shelter and provide for these former slaves, Sherman ordered temporary “contraband camps” set up at Beaufort and on Hilton Head for those now employed as laborers for the Union, and he assigned responsibility for them to the chief quartermaster, Captain Rufus Saxton.

Chapter 1 analyzes the social and economic significance of the century-long colonial Portuguese presence in the Rio de la Plata region materialized in the Portuguese settlement of Colonia do Sacramento. I argue that, although illegal, the interaction between Spanish and Portuguese subjects was part of daily life in the region. This chapter suggests the strength and longevity of networks of family, trade, and religion that crossed imperial borders in Rio de la Plata. I emphasize the mutual dependence of Spanish and Portuguese subjects on trans-imperial trade networks, as well as the involvement of powerful mercantile and political groups in these networks.

In 1777, the Spaniards conquered the Portuguese town of Colonia do Sacramento. The end of the Portuguese colonial project in the region did not mean that Portuguese subjects departed from Rio de la Plata. Chapter 2 analyzes the relocation of Portuguese subjects to Spanish domains and the reorientation of their networks in the region. Luso-Brazilians maintained a strong demographic presence in the Banda Oriental and in Montevideo after 1777. This chapter argues that Montevideo became the center of social and commercial networks that were previously located in Colonia do Sacramento.

Chapter 3 examines the significance of trans-imperial networks of trade connecting Rio de la Plata to Rio de Janeiro after the fall of Sacramento. Networks of trade between Portuguese and Spanish subjects in the South Atlantic were crucial in allowing the flow of goods, people, and information between Rio de la Plata and the metropolitan ports from 1778 to 1810, especially during times of war between Spain and Britain. This chapter argues that trans-imperial networks allowed for a significant level of cooperation between colonial subjects as well as a high degree of autonomy in relation to the Iberian metropoles.

The late eighteenth century brought a series of important changes to the Rio de la Plata region. The expulsion of the Portuguese from Colonia, the creation of the vice-royalty of Rio de la Plata, and free trade changed the balance of power in the region. During this process, Montevideo became the mandatory port of call for ships leaving and entering the estuary, the only port authorized for disembarking slaves and the main port for Atlantic trade. Montevideo also became the seat for authorities in charge of repressing contraband. The elites of Montevideo used their control over trans-imperial interactions to expand their influence over the border areas with Luso-America and over territories that was previously under the administration of Buenos Aires.

With the crisis of legitimacy triggered by Napoleon’s invasion of the Iberian peninsula in 1808, different political projects emerged in the colonies. Chapter 7 provides a close analysis of commercial and political processes in the Rio de la Plata between 1810 and 1822 to illuminate the relationship between trans-imperial trade, sovereignty, and monarchism. Monarchism was intimately associated with the maintenance of trans-imperial networks of trade as well as the maintenance of the political and economic order of the colonial period. Monarchism represented the continuity of the old regime's legal principles, provided safety and stability for trans-imperial trade, and above all, prevented the economic, political, and social changes proposed by revolutionary projects.

The merchant ship Vigilancia was sunk without warning on March 16, 1917, while bound for Britain with a cargo containing contraband of war. Most of the seamen escaped with their lives, but fifteen drowned, including six American citizens. Although this was not the first ship sunk under the German policy of unrestricted submarine warfare, it was the first which clearly violated the American view of international law, and the first under that policy in which American citizens had been killed. Although the loss of life was light, the cumulative effect of three ship losses on the same weekend convinced Wilson's cabinet to recommend war. The failure of historians to focus on these precipitating events was partly due to Wilson's own decision to choose more idealistic grounds when asking Congress to declare war.

Chapter 3 focuses on the contraband trade between Mississippians and the Union army from 1862–1865 and the effect that it had on conceptions of national loyalty. Initially, the Confederate government banned the trade of contraband items such as cotton, tobacco, clothing, and guns with the North. Confederates claimed that the trade stifled southern economic independence. Yet, when key southern commercial cities like Memphis and Vicksburg fell to the Union, Mississippians immediately exchanged goods at Union lines for manufactured articles and raw commodities. Confederates debated amongst themselves over whether the trade was treasonous and to be squelched, or whether it could be beneficial by supplying Mississippians with needed goods. Far from simply denoting treason or loyalty, the contraband trade demonstrated how multiple allegiances informed Mississippians’ behavior, and it also revealed a crucial thread of continuity during the Civil War through the maintaining of established market ties between North and South.

The capture of the 1628 flota underlined the need to fortify and populate Matanzas harbor as a guarantee against an attack on Havana by a force landing there. Furthermore, contraband flourished throughout the unguarded shoreline. After several false starts, the job of colonizing and fortifying the harbor fell on Captain-General Severino de Manzaneda, who settled the new town with 30 families from the Canaries in 1693. Manzaneda, a gifted executive, examined the proposed site personally and forced major revisions of the original plans for the settlement based on his observations, notably the location of the fort, which he named after his own patron saint.

There has been no full-length treatment of the relationship between the Union Navy and African Americans, especially contrabands, although historians of the Civil War occasionally mention the contribution of free blacks and fugitive slaves to the North and South Atlantic Blockading Squadrons' war effort. This book describes the often mutually beneficial relationship between the officers and men of both blockading squadrons and the men and women they assisted to freedom or gathered into contraband colonies. They left behind few letters and journals describing their journeys to freedom and their wartime experiences because most African American slaves and many free blacks were not permitted by law to learn to read or write. To uncover their contributions to the Potomac Flotilla and to the North and South Atlantic Blockading Squadrons during the war, historians and scholars must rely on official Union Navy and Union Army reports and the letters and diaries of white Americans who lived during that period.

The Navy Department initially pursued a tentative policy toward fugitives, one based on humanitarian grounds and on the department's suspicions that the Confederacy had been employing blacks in its war effort against the Union. Prior to Navy Secretary Gideon Welles's authorization to enlist African American contrabands, free blacks or foreign nationals of color had been allowed to enlist in the navy and had served with the same pay, privileges, and opportunities for promotion as white sailors. However, Welles had changed this policy, issuing a circular amending and expanding the navy's policy toward contraband sailors. By the end of the first year of the Civil War, the Navy Department had established a policy of welcoming fugitive blacks, both slave and free, on board Union blockading ships.

The growing number of contrabands presented Union officials with a difficult challenge. Able-bodied male contrabands were often enlisted as crew on navy ships or worked for wages as stevedores, mule drivers, servants, or military laborers. Initially, however, the army and navy had less use for women, children, and elderly runaways. Union naval commanders also sent dozens of contrabands to Union military posts or navy yards to be employed as laborers. Contrabands with specific skills, such as machinists, caulkers, carpenters, and mechanics, readily found work in Union Navy machine shops and repair facilities. Initially, the principal contribution of refugee slaves to the Union war effort was their labor. Although most contrabands did not work directly on Union Navy projects, their work at wharves unloading supplies, clearing rebel areas for entrenchments along rivers and creeks, and building gun emplacements and other defenses at vital points along waterways benefited Union gunboats and other vessels.

Similar in many respects to the law of maritime blockade, the law of contraband provides naval forces with the legal right to interdict neutral vessels carrying prohibited goods to enemy ports during periods of armed conflict. Because the two types of interdiction share a number of charateristics, the law of contraband and the law of blockade are often mistakenly thought of as being identical. This chapter provides an overview of the development of the law of contraband, tracing it from its early roots through to modern times. Importantly, this chapter describes the types of contraband found under the law, and demonstrates the primary characteristics that set the law of contraband apart from the law of maritime blockade.

This chapter explores conflicts between urban dwellers and the state and its officials over fiscal matters. These conflicts developed as a result of the different perspectives on urban society that had emerged in the urban public and within the apparatus of state. The conflicts escalated when in the aftermath of the extremely costly Seven Years's War (1757–63) Frederick II decided to increase certain indirect taxes that were levied only in the towns. For this purpose he created a new excise administration, the Régie, that was lead by French administrators. The objective was to raise more revenue and to create protective tariffs to shield domestic industries from foreign competition. This increased the fiscal burden on urban dwellers but above all it interfered with their freedom to consume and produce goods. This interference of the state with individual autonomy was resented by many urban dwellers and led to various forms of resistance that ranged from petitions, to criticism in the public sphere, contraband and use of violence. As a result of the mounting pressure of the Prussian public the new tax administration was eventually dissolved and the new excise tariffs were abolished after the death of Frederick II by his successors Frederick William II.

When the convict code collapsed, prison gangs, such as the Aryan Brotherhood, Mexican Mafia, and Nuestra Familia, rose to fill the gap and to provide governance and to promote exchange of contraband in the underground economy. Gangs create order in the inmate social system. This chapter examines the history of prison gangs in California. It then critiques past explanations of gang formation, including explanations that appeal to culture, racism, the importation theory, and judicial interventions.

Prison gangs operate in a community responsibility system, where all members are responsible for the actions of any member. Each gang is responsible for its own member. In a setting of impersonal exchange not characterized by trusting individuals, this provides the assurance that underlies a flourishing market in drugs, alcohol, tobacco, sex, and other contraband. Gangs adjudicate social conflicts and provide alternative dispute resolution services. They have an incentive to keep the peace so that they can continue to earn profits by selling contraband. Prison gangs go so far as to write down detailed guidelines on the appropriate behavior of inmates.

After the Civil War, blackface minstrels found in religion a steady stream of subject matter tailor-made for comedic treatment. This chapter examines three songs that nicely illustrate the postwar phenomenon of religious parody in its infancy and its evolution toward slave-themed entertainment: “Carry the News! We Are All Surrounded” (1870), “Rock’a My Soul” (1871), and “Contraband Children” (1872). Performed initially by whites in blackface, these songs replicate the musical style of black folk spirituals in their parody of a camp meeting. The story of “Carry the News” in particular shows how blackface entertainers were already drawing on musical styles and themes loosely related to those of spirituals, and how the public easily confused newly created popular songs with traditional folk songs. When the vogue of jubilee singing began to spread a few years later, minstrelsy was primed for a convergence and eventual merger with jubilee song. As black minstrel entertainers multiplied, white minstrels increasingly found that they had to cede their plantation-themed material to them.