Founded in 1680 by the Portuguese Manoel Lobo, Colonia occupied a strategic position and its importance was as a source of contraband, undercutting Spain's jealously defended mercantile trade monopoly. British goods made their way from Colonia into Buenos Aires and the interior through surreptitious exchange with the Portuguese in the Parana delta; for this reason, Spanish forces intermittently besieged Portugal's riverside outpost for decades.
