 In the first half of the seventeenth century, cities such as Córdoba, Orizaba, and Xalapa were formed or expanded to protect the trade route between Mexico City and the port of Veracruz.During this time, the Spanish and mixed-race population increased as the purely indigenous population continued to fall to a fraction of pre-Conquest levels (due now to mixing, rather than disease).Almost all trade in and out of New Spain had to be with Spain except for some limited trade authorized with England and other Spanish colonies.