Trade And Trust In The Eighteenth Century Atlantic World

Fruitfully combining approaches from economic history and the cultural history of commerce, this book examines the role of interpersonal trust in underpinning trade, amid the challenges and uncertainties of the eighteenth-century Atlantic. It focuses on the nature of mercantile activity in two parts of Spain: Cadiz in the south, and its trade with Spain's American empire; and Bilbao in the north, and its trade with western and northern Europe. In particular, it explores the processes of trade, trading networks and communications, seeking to understand merchant behaviour, especially the choices made by individuals when conducting business - and specifically with whom they chose to deal. Drawing from a broad range of Spanish, Peruvian and British archival sources, the book reveals merchants' experiences of trusting their agents and correspondents, and shows how different factors, from distance to legal frameworks and ethnicity, affected their ability to rely on their contacts. Xabier Lamikiz is Associate Professor of Economic History at the University of the Basque Country. .

This book stresses the role of lesser traders, including women, in the distribution of goods around the Atlantic world 1760-1810. Networks of people, credit and goods bound the British-Atlantic trading community together despite the many crises of this period.

In 1780 Richard Sheridan noted that merchants worked 'merely for money'. However, rather than being a criticism, this was recognition of the important commercial role that merchants played in the British empire at this time. Of course, merchants desired and often made profits, but they were strictly bound by commonly-understood socio-cultural norms which formed a private-order institution of a robust business culture. In order to elucidate this business culture, this book examines the themes of risk, trust, reputation, obligation, networks and crises to demonstrate how contemporary merchants perceived and dealt with one another and managed their businesses. Merchants were able to take risks and build trust, but concerns about reputation and fulfilling obligations constrained economic opportunism. By relating these themes to an array of primary sources from ports around the British-Atlantic world, this book provides a more nuanced understanding of business culture during this period. A theme which runs throughout the book is the mercantile community as a whole and its relationship with the state. This was an important element in the British business culture of this period, although this relationship came under stress towards the end of period, forming a crisis in itself. This book argues that the business culture of the British-Atlantic mercantile community not only facilitated the conduct of day-to-day business, but also helped it to cope with short-term crises and long-term changes. This facilitated the success of the British-Atlantic economy even within the context of changing geo-politics and an under-institutionalised environment. Not working 'merely for money' was a successful business model.

This book covers the evolution of royal policy in Spanish America as eighteenth-century Spain modernized its empire and transformed itself into a power of the first order. Tracing the interplay between war and reform, the analysis confronts the diverse realities of the Spanish Atlantic world, which stretched from the northern Mexican borderlands to Argentina and Chile. Unlike earlier studies on eighteenth-century Spain, this work incorporates the early Bourbon experience into the narrative and integrates the impressive reemergence of the Royal Armada into a fuller picture of administrative, commercial, fiscal, ecclesiastical, and military change.

This book offers a selection of papers by Olaf U. Janzen concerning the maritime history of eighteenth-century Newfoundland, reprinted from various publications and assembled here in chronological order. It explores themes of imperial dominance expressed by both the British and French empires in the struggle for sovereignty that ensconced the two nations. The Newfoundland fishery in the wake of the Treaty of Utrecht was also source of tension between British and French fishermen due to the fishery’s lucrative status. In attempt to integrate Newfoundland’s maritime history into the wider context of the North Atlantic world it examines the struggles of France as their maritime trade went into decline; the dominance of the British Royal Navy on the Atlantic Ocean; the struggle of indigenous Canadians to migrate to Newfoundland; and the efforts of America during the War of Independence to target the fishery when vulnerable. It consists of an introduction, twelve chapters exploring pertinent themes, and an appendix containing reprinted oil paintings of British artist Francis Holman depicting a naval engagement of 7-8 July 1777 involving numerous vessels.

This collection of essays explores the inter-imperial connections between British, Spanish, Dutch, and French Caribbean colonies, and the 'Old World' countries which founded them. Grounded in primary archival research, the thirteen contributors focus on the ways that participants in the Atlantic World economy transcended imperial boundaries.

Edges of Transatlantic Commerce in the Long Eighteenth Century examines and challenges the boundaries of the Atlantic in the eighteenth century, with a particular focus on commerce. Commerce as a keyword encompasses a wide range of documented and undocumented encounters that invoke topics such as shared or conflicting ideas of value, affective experiences of the emerging global system, and development of national economies, as well as their opponents. By investigating what gets exchanged, created, or obscured on the peripheries of transatlantic commercial relations and geography in the eighteenth century, the chapters in this collection reimagine the edge as a liminal space with a potential for an alternative historical and aesthetic knowledge. To ground this inquiry in a more material dimension, the chapters engage specifically with what is being exchanged, sold, or communicated across the Atlantic by exploring ideas that are being shaped, concealed, undermined, or exploited through intricate exchanges. With its contributions from multiple contexts and disciplinary perspectives, Edges of Transatlantic Commerce offers insights into relatively neglected aspects of the transatlantic world to cultivate the value that the edges allow us to conceive.

This book offers the first detailed examination for many years of the transatlantic trade and shipping of Bristol during the eighteenth century. It compares the performance of Bristol as a port during this period with the growth of other out ports, especially Liverpool and Glasgow. Dr Morgan's analysis shows that the absolute growth of Bristol's Atlantic trade between 1700 and 1800 was concomitant with the relative decline of Bristol as a port; the main reasons for this decline were the lack of improvement to port facilities, increasing specialisation among the Bristol merchant community, the impact of war on trade, and the superior business acumen in the tobacco and slave trades manifested by Glasgow and Liverpool merchants respectively. Bristol and the Atlantic Trade is based on a great variety of primary sources in the British Isles, the USA, the West Indies, Australia and continental Europe.