At the beginning of the 18th century, most of the territory north of Mexico that today comprises the American Southwest was, like California, part of the Spanish empire. With the winning of Mexican independence from Spain in 1821, the Spanish laws excluding foreign merchants from the province of New Mexico were swept away and Americans were free to enter the Santa Fe trade. The following year Missourian William Becknell pioneered the Santa Fe trail by taking a pack train of goods the 900 miles from Independence, Missouri to Santa Fe and Taos, and disposing of them at a handsome profit. His success encouraged imitators and when wagons replaced horses and pack mules in 1825, the volume of trade expanded rapidly. Each year until 1844, when Mexico closed Santa Fe to Americans, traders from Missouri arrived to exchange cloth, furniture, china, cutlery, tobacco and spices for silver, blankets, mules, horses and furs. but business was conducted at a price. Under the Mexican system of local government, authority was concentrated in the alcalde, an official possessing sweeping powers all too often used for personal enrichment. Traders refusing to offer bribes or pay arbitrary taxes and fees could find themselves imprisoned and their goods confiscated.