This article considers how and why the Naval Department of San Blas, beyond its maritime purposes, also functioned as a commercial port in western New Spain and became a hub as maritime shifts took place in the Pacific World. For a better understanding of San Blas’s significance, and above all its function as a maritime hub, it is necessary to analyze how trade networks developed at San Blas, ultimately forcing the Naval Department to also serve as a commercial port. In the context of the period’s eighteenth-century mercantile transformation, population growth and economic change swept the territory of New Spain. These transformations were part of the politicization of the Pacific coast and the need to protect Spain’s lucrative transpacific routes.
