Consequently, during this colonial period, the Spanish Americans had no opportunity to develop a representative and self-sustaining body politic, which, in the course of time, might by peaceful means have altered this theory and corrected the evils of such a system—as was the case in Brazil, where the Portuguese King in person resided in the country for several years (during the period of Napoleon’s Peninsula invasion) and in that way became familiar with local conditions and the needs of his people. He, on his return to Portugal, opened the Brazilian ports to the commerce of the world and created Brazil a vassal kingdom, with a form of government almost wholly autonomous. In contrast with this, no Spaniard (and certainly no foreign trader) was allowed to freight ships for the colonies, or to buy a pound of goods anywhere else, without obtaining special permission and paying well for the privilege. Cadiz was the only port in Europe from which ships were permitted to sail for America, and the whole trade was farmed out to a ring of Cadiz merchants. Every port in Spanish South America was closed to transatlantic traffic except Nombre de Dios on the Caribbean side of the Isthmus of Panamá, near the present city of Colon. Not a merchant ship could enter Buenos Aires, Valparaiso, Callao or Guayaquil. Imports from Spain must first go to the Isthmus, there be disembarked and transported over the Andean passes and the Bolivian plateaux on the backs of llamas, and finally be carried down over the Argentina pampas to Buenos Aires, or along the arid coast to the Peruvian and Chilean settlements. Under such conditions in the southern provinces European manufactures, agricultural and mining implements, and other essentials for a people’s advancement were to be had only at fabulous prices.