Bahía Honda and the Vidal Conspiracy: Indigenous Law, Trade, and Revolutionary Rumor in the Eighteenth-Century Southern Caribbean

This article uses the so-called Vidal conspiracy of 1784 as an entry point into the geopolitical importance of the Guajira Peninsula in the Southern Caribbean during the Age of Revolutions. Although much of Vidal’s claim—that a coalition of Creole rebels and Indigenous chiefs was waiting to receive British arms at Bahía Honda to pursue independence from Spain—was fabricated, Spanish officials treated it as a real threat. Vidal’s scheme was rooted in the reality of Guajiro control of ports, ongoing conflicts with Spaniards, and dense transimperial trade and information networks connecting the peninsula to the Dutch, British, and French Caribbean. Drawing on Spanish and British records, newspapers, and ethnographic studies, this article demonstrates how Guajiro law and port sovereignty influenced Spanish policies and interimperial relations between 1769 and 1785.