With this issue, The Americas inaugurates a new section, In Dialogue, dedicated to fostering scholarly exchange through the publication of clusters of articles that speak directly to one another. This format is designed as a space between a traditional special issue and the standard publication of individual research articles. By presenting paired or grouped pieces that clearly intersect, we hope to highlight conversations already emerging across historical fields, disciplines, geographies, and methodological approaches.

The premise of In Dialogue is straightforward: When articles reveal overlapping questions, complementary findings, shared bodies of archival materials, or productive points of tension, they may be published together as a cluster. Prior to publication, authors will have the opportunity to read one another’s work. While there is no expectation of formal responses, this process invites scholars to draw out points of connection (whether through acknowledging shared evidence, building on one another’s arguments, or noting divergence), either in the body of the text or simply in footnotes. Authors may also choose not to engage further. By offering this flexible model, the journal seeks to create a format that reflects the increasingly collaborative and interdisciplinary character of scholarship today, while still preserving the rigor and independence of the peer review process. Articles selected to appear In Dialogue may arise from author proposals or from the editorial board’s recognition of affinities among independently submitted manuscripts.

This inaugural In Dialogue brings together an article by Alex Borucki and José Belmonte Postigo and an article by Fidel Tavárez. Both contributions examine the late eighteenth-century reforms to the Spanish slave trade, situating them within broader frameworks of commercial liberalization and imperial political economy. Borucki and Belmonte demonstrate how deregulation of the slave trade formed part of a larger process of commercial reform, linking debates about enslaved labor to questions of contraband, fiscal revenue, and the balance of power between peninsular and colonial merchants. Tavárez, in turn, foregrounds the agency of colonial elites in articulating proposals for deregulation, tracing how actors in the Americas engaged with and shaped the reformist spirit of the empire.

Taken together, these pieces show that, while the decrees liberalizing the slave trade ultimately emanated from the imperial center, their intellectual and political roots were deeply entangled with colonial initiatives. Borucki and Belmonte situate the 1789 liberalization within a continuum of commercial experiments, while Tavárez underscores how colonial proposals themselves pushed the metropole to consider new paths. Both essays emphasize the interplay of local and imperial visions, as well as the contradictions between mercantilist protectionism and the demands of colonial economic growth.

By publishing them in dialogue, we underscore how these contributions enrich one another. Their juxtaposition demonstrates how reforms not only were imposed from above but were also negotiated, anticipated, and contested from below. We hope this first In Dialogue exemplifies the possibilities of this new format, providing readers with a richer and more textured understanding of the dynamics of reform, slave trade, and empire.