This article explain why the habitants of Eastern border in New Spain did not choose the armed struggle as their main strategy to confront the colonial power. It suggests that the habitants of the four provinces took advantage of living in a borderland region to smuggle and establish illegal trade networks with different Indian nations and Americans from Louisiana and other provinces. By smuggling, northeasterners sought to evade New Spain's trade restrictions. It also describes the routes, participants, and functioning of this illegal trade.